WINDDREAMER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "Then, it's all settled."

  "How much?" Meggie asked, opening her reticule.

  Grinning, Sern laid a dirty hand on Meggie's. If it offended him when she snatched away her hand, he didn't show it. His face filled with a gentle rebuke. "There's no charge, Madame Ruck." He scraped back his chair and stood, bowing slightly. "Consider it my contribution to His Grace's peace of mind."

  * * * *

  Two days later, Sadie MacCorkingdale slipped the small blue jar of Meggie Ruck's arthritis cream into the pocket of her apron. Slyly grinning with glee, she walked out of the pantry and the kitchen door. No one had seen her and no one would know to where that precious cream had disappeared. She crossed the courtyard and headed for the servant's quarters.

  She couldn't wait to apply the cream that would help rid her of the terrible, crippling pain.

  Sadie sat on her cot, uncorked the jar, and sniffed, smiling at the pleasant aroma of wintergreen that wafted under her nostrils. Digging her index and third finger into the cream, she scooped out a large dollop and kneaded it into the back of her left hand. The cream felt cool, soothing, and smelled pleasant. She spread it over her skin, dragging it through her fingers, then dug up more for her right hand. Rubbing the cream into her flesh, she felt the tingling, then the numbness. The absence of almost constant arthritic agony made her sigh with pleasure.

  "I can't feel it no more." She giggled, thinking of how Meggie wouldn't have the cream to use that night. "You can just suffer, Meggie Ruck!"

  * * * *

  At ten of the clock the next morning, when Sadie did not show up for work, a servant went to her room in search of her. After knocking several times, the servant finally opened the door and found Sadie, eyes glazed in death, staring at the ceiling.

  "The gods be good to you, Sadie MacCorkingdale," the servant said, although she didn't think that would be the case.

  * * * *

  Sern passed Meggie on the streets at suppertime that evening. He paused at a vendor's stall shuttered for the night, casting her a sidelong glance as she pretended to adjust the fringe of her shawl.

  "I hear there was a death in the keep this morn, Madame Ruck," the nomad commented.

  "Aye, there was, I'm told." She glanced at him and grinned. "By her own hand she tried to poison my dear boy's mind, so by her own hand, she poisoned her own." Her mirthless laugh sounded chilling. "The difference being, you see, is that poison took not only her mind, but her treacherous life, as well!"

  * * * *

  When he heard the news of Sadie's death, Conar felt another part of his life slipping away from his grip.

  "It was old age," Cayn said. "Mixed with what may have been more than a dollop of guilt for having nearly caused your death."

  But Conar knew better. Sadie had felt no guilt over causing him pain and trouble. If anything, she might have gloated herself to death. Despite all she had done, and tried to do to him, he mourned her passing. He'd known her all his life. For as long as he could remember, she had fed him, had always been there. Even their arguments he had enjoyed, for the most part, never realizing her true and vitriolic anger. With her passing, another shadow of his past faded away.

  "She's to be buried here," he ordered, astonishing those who heard him. "This was her home. Make sure she has a fine marker."

  "You're being a hell of a lot kinder to the bitch than she deserved," Jah-Ma-El protested.

  "She felt she had reason to hate me. Maybe she did. I should have stopped what I knew was happening."

  "You were sixteen!" Legion grumbled. "If it was Teal who..."

  But Conar turned away. No one had seen Teal. He had simply vanished from the keep. Nor had he returned to his home to gather his belongings. It was as though he had cut all ties to Boreas and the man who had suffered there. "Just let it go, Legion. Time has a way of seeing the right to things."

  "He won't be welcome in this keep when he finally returns," Marsh snarled. "We've known all along there was a traitor in our midst--"

  Conar rounded on him. "You don't know it's du Mer, do you? It could be anyone." He leveled his gaze at Marsh's set face. "Even you."

  Marsh sputtered his outrage. "I would never betray you!"

  "You turned on him once," Sentian reminded the ex-Elite.

  Conar left them in the solarium, arguing, making accusations against one another. He slipped to his room and shut the door, barring it to anyone who happened by. The Outer Kingdom warriors would see he remained undisturbed.

  Beside his bed, he slid to his knees, prayer beads in hand, and began the runes for the dead for Sadie MacCorkingdale's soul.

  Chapter 25

  * * *

  "You're still determined to go to Diabolusia?" Legion gasped.

  Conar nodded, sighing with exasperation at the men who sat in the garden, arguing with him. "I'm fine."

  "You call trying to fly off the damned barbican 'fine'?" Grice snarled.

  Conar turned to his ex brother-in-law. "I'll not try that again." He lowered his head. "I was under a great deal of strain. But that was three months ago and I'm perfectly at peace with myself now."

  "The hell you are!" Chase spat. "You still don't sleep through the entire night. And what little you eat isn't enough to keep Tyne Brell alive!"

  Tyne agreed. "I eat more on a bad day than you have all week!"

  "I just don't need a whole lot to eat. Can't you see that?"

  "What I see is a man refusing to accept what's happened," Shalu shot back. "You're in no condition to go traipsing off to Diabolusia or anywhere else, for that matter."

  "Shalu's right," Rylan commented. "Why don't you wait a while longer? Send word to your brothers down there if you want, but stay here until you're back on your feet."

  Conar flung out an annoyed hand. "And just when will that be, Hesar? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?"

  "However long it takes," Chase answered.

  Conar shook his head. "I can't stay here. I have to get away!"

  "You can't run from your problems, Milord," Bent warned. "They go where you go."

  "I'm not trying to run away from my problems! I just want to get away from Serenia for a while before you wind up committing me to Bailswith!"

  "That might happen yet!" Legion met Conar's angry glare with a blank look. "Running off to Diabolusia isn't the act of a sane man."

  Conar sat on the edge of the fountain next to Roget du Mer and gazed at the thorn bush beside the seagate. The bush had once been alive with sputtering new growth, but now, it lay withered and brown. He looked at the rose bush across the garden and found it, too, shriveled on the vine, its leaves lying scattered about the grass. Never would the rose bloom again, and the thorn bush was as alone as it had always been.

  "Conar?" Legion asked gently. "What's wrong?"

  Conar came out of his self-induced trance and turned to Legion. He saw the concern on his brother's face and tried to smile to reassure him he was, indeed, all right. But he still couldn't seem to smile any more than he could cry. "It's hard for me, Legion. You all mean well, coming to me with your problems and such, but you don't know what that's doing to me. I feel so lost here. I can't make any decisions now."

  "You don't have to," Shalu snapped. "I've told these fools to leave you the hell alone."

  "I'm already alone."

  "Alone in that way, you are not," Grice assured him. "There isn't a man here who would not gladly stay by your side, if you but asked him. Night and day, if it was required of him."

  "I can't ask you men to give up anymore of your lives for me than you already have. You've been more than loyal to a man who, in the beginning, wasn't even sure he could lead you. I've kept you from your homes far too long." He ran a tired hand over his face.

  "And there isn't a one among us who would've had it any other way," Rylan said. "We've stayed with you because we wanted to, not because you asked or led us to believe you needed us. We did so because we love you."

  "And because we needed you," Chase
put in.

  Conar saw his men smiling gently, looking at him with love, respect, and devotion--all the emotions they had ever had for him. "I thank you. But from now on, my journey must be made only by me. Where I go, you can not follow."

  "I can," Chase said.

  "So can I," Jah-Ma-El vowed.

  "Do any of you know where it is I intend to go?" Conar asked.

  Chase laughed. "What the hell difference does it make? Each of us has been to hell and back more than a few times. What's one more time?"

  Conar turned to Shalu. "You have a wife and family that needs you."

  Shalu shrugged his wide shoulders. "I do what I must do." His eyes warmed. "What I want to do, bratling."

  "I have no family to go back to," Chase said.

  "But you have a country that will need someone to govern it," Conar countered.

  Chase grinned. "It's lasted this long without me. It can last a few more months. If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon go with you to Diabolusia as try to follow you unobserved." He cocked a tawny brow. "Either way, I plan on going." A wicked smile lit the Ionarian's face.

  "As was I," Roget piped up. "You may not want us, but I'm afraid you're going to be stuck with us."

  "And you'll need us at your back," Grice said.

  "He has men at back," Yuri quipped, stunning the men who didn't even know he was in the garden.

  Conar met Yuri's dark gaze and nodded. "Looks like we'll have a circus traveling with us, Andreanova."

  Yuri snorted. "Not necessary we do."

  "If you had it in your mind to leave us behind," Roget spoke from his place beside Tyne, "don't bother. Whether we ride with you or behind you, we'll be going to Diabolusia."

  All heads nodded in accord.

  "See?" Roget asked smugly.

  "A wise man knows when he's outnumbered," Legion prodded. "And I always considered you a reasonably wise man."

  Conar's brow shot upward. "Since when?"

  "Roget is saying what all of us feel," Sentian chimed in.

  "And there's no need to be thanking us for all we've done through the years," Bent said. "It was our duty to you and to the lady."

  "And our honor," Thom added.

  "As well as our pleasure," Storm put in.

  "And our misfortune," Marsh said gloomily.

  Everyone laughed. Everyone except Conar.

  His heart filled with immense pride. These were all good men, loyal men, men who had fought long and hard beside him under what sometimes seemed like overwhelming odds to get to this point. They were men who had lost families, countries, names. They had been imprisoned and tortured, deprived of simple humanity, because they had remained loyal to their beliefs and were his friends. These were honorable men.

  "And we are your men," Shalu said, as if reading his thoughts.

  "As we are your sons," a small voice called.

  Conar turned toward the garden door and found Corbin. Beside him stood Regan, looking ill at ease and out of place. Just inside the door, Gezelle held Little Brelan.

  "Did you hear me, Papa?" Corbin asked. "Your sons will be waiting for you to return. Do what you have to do, but hurry home. We need to be a family again."

  Conar couldn't find his voice. He gazed out over the people who loved him and felt the hitch in his throat that should have signaled the onrush of tears. As it was, all it did was hurt him.

  "Damned right," Jah-Ma-El muttered. He walked to Conar and put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll all hurry back. We each have better things to do with the rest of our lives than chase after some of our absent McGregor offshoots!"

  Conar drew in a deep breath. "Then get your things ready. We leave first thing in the morning."

  * * * *

  Yuri faded into the shadows of the garden. He silently made his way to one of his fellow Outer Kingdom warriors and spoke in their native tongue. "Get his horse ready, Boris. He will want to leave within the hour."

  "But he just told them--"

  "He has no intention of letting them go with us, fool!" Yuri spat. "Do as you are told. Within the hour we ride!"

  * * * *

  Meggie rapped on Conar's door and heard his reluctant answer. When she entered, she saw him stuffing his valise with wadded up clothing. Her brows lifted. "By the time you get to where you're going, them shirts'll be as wrinkled as my old puss!" she grumbled, nudging him aside. She turned the valise upside down and shook the contents onto the bed. Neatly folding his clothing, she ignored his grunt of annoyance. "Just where is it you're going, anyway?"

  "To Diabolu--"

  "No, you ain't." She cast him a sidelong glance that found him staring at her with innocence. "You've got no more mind to go to that heathen place than I do. Where is it you're really going?"

  Conar sighed. "You won't tell my brothers?"

  "No." She rolled a pair of socks into a ball, then stuffed it into the valise.

  "Yuri's taking me to his homeland for a while." He cleared his throat. His face twisted with hurt. "I really have to get away, Meg."

  "I can understand that, lad." Her face softened. "They're all handling you too gentle-like, ain't they, baby?"

  What passed for a smile touched his mouth. "I'm not an invalid, yet."

  Meggie sniffed and went back to her packing. "And damned well not likely to be, if I know you!"

  He removed from her hands the pair of breeches she was about to fold and turned her to him, drawing her into his arms. He put his chin on the top of her head. "I love you, Meggie June Ruck."

  "I know you do, son," she said, putting her arms around his waist. She inhaled the rich, cinnamon smell of this beloved young man. His strong arms quivered with emotion, and she felt his heart thump madly in his chest. She thought perhaps he needed to cry, but somehow he just couldn't seem to do it. Her heart ached for him, and she squeezed him harder. "Your Meggie loves you just as much as you love her."

  "I'll send word when I reach the Outer Kingdom, Meggie," he promised, kissing the top of her snow-white hair. "Don't you be worrying about me, all right?"

  She sniffed, pretending offense rather than emotion. Easing away from him, she put her crippled hands on his lean waist, letting her head fall back so she could look into his dear face. "And you telling me not to is supposed to make me not do it?" She shook her head. "Sometimes I think that Healer dropped you on your head when he birthed you."

  ----

  Conar laughed, not really meaning to, not even knowing he was going to, but her words, once more and unrelentingly, echoed those his father had often sighed in exasperation to him. He pulled her to him and lifted her from the ground, her little "put me down!" making his laughter boom forth again.

  "Oh, Meg!" he said, putting her on her feet. "You do me a world of good, lady."

  "Never you mind trying to butter me up," she snapped. "I expect a letter from you every week. I won't be telling nobody where you are unless I miss hearing from you!"

  With his hands on her bowed shoulders, his eyes fused with hers, he smiled the first genuine smile he had let touch his lips in nearly four months. He held up his right hand. "On my love for you, I swear I'll write every week." His face turned serious. "Without fail."

  Meggie's eyes narrowed. "And if I don't hear from you?"

  He sobered. "Then you'll know something's happened to me and you can send in the cavalry."

  "And the infantry! And the warships! And the entire might of the damned Wind Force!" Meggie shook a finger at him. "Don't you be forgetting. You hear? I mean just what I say, lad. I'll have 'em all out looking for your ass!"

  "Watch your mouth," he rebuked, grinning.

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  It wasn't difficult for Yuri and his men to leave the keep unnoticed. After all, they'd been getting in and out of Boreas Keep undetected for nearly six years. Getting Conar McGregor out of the keep was like taking candy from an infant.

  A beached rowboat waited on the other side of the oval-shaped group of rocks that h
id the Grotto's entrance from prying eyes. It took the six men only an hour, each rowing ten minutes at a time, to reach the next town to the south, and fifteen minutes longer to purchase horses for their ride to Ciona. One hour after that, they were hellbent for leather to the oceanside town from which they would depart for the Outer Kingdom.

  * * * *

  Legion A'Lex threw his goblet as hard as he could across the room. It struck the edge of the sideboard and took a nice-sized chunk out of the mahogany. "He what?" Legion roared, his face hot with fury.

  Roget cast an uneasy glance at Shalu. "There was a ship waiting in the harbor at Ciona."

  Legion roared one expletive after another, sending fruit, silverware, dishes, and candelabrum toward the sideboard's defenseless bulk. "I'll kill him! I'll strangle the little son-of-a-bitch!"

  Shalu rolled his eyes to the heavens. "The question is...what do we do now?" The Necroman didn't flinch when Legion threw him an enraged glare. "To my recollection, there is no one within a thousand miles who can negotiate the waters into the Outer Kingdom."

  Holm shook his head. "And even if someone had the sea charts to that godforsaken place, I don't know of one man--and that includes me--who would be allowed access to any of those harbors."

  "Then what the hell do we do?" Legion roared. "Sit here with our thumbs up our asses while he gallivants to gods-only-know where? How the hell do we know those sons-of-bitches won't slit his gullet and toss him overboard?"

  Chase smiled. "I don't think they will, Legion."

  Legion squinted at the man. "But you don't know for sure!"

  "Aye, but I do, and so do you. Those men would rather die than let something happen to Coni. They'll guard him with their last breaths." He cocked his head. "Why are you so worried? Conar will be back when he comes to grips with everything. It may take a while, but he will be back."

  "When he's damned good and ready," Cayn said, "and not a minute before that."