WINDWEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "What better revenge than enjoying the same bed in which to take his brother's woman?" Her voice was thick with disgust. "She wanted another room, but he would not allow it."

  "The son-of-a-bitch wants everything that ever belonged to Conar! Maybe he would like the same kind of death!"

  "Come inside, Lord Brelan," she advised. "You will get sick out here."

  "I don't give a damn!"

  "But she will."

  Brelan stood where he was, gazing up at the window. When the light was finally bright over the garden and people began to mill about inside the keep, Gezelle firmly took his arm and ushered him toward the garden door.

  * * *

  Kaileel Tohre sat at his desk, his fingers laced together under his chin. He stared into the distance beyond his chambers, seeing a land of dry, cracked earth. Waterless; windless; vacant; unbearably hot. Tumbling bushes rolled over a sandscape of blistering heat and came to rest along tall sculptures of bleak rock.

  Venomous life crawled and slithered along the surface of the miles and miles of shimmering sand, hiding away along the tall rocks, sinking into hidden holes and trapdoors to spring forth and kill and maim and destroy. Overhead, vultures circled, swooping down on innocent prey, clutching and rending with their sharp talons, shredding with vicious beaks. A dry, hot smell of death lingered over the land.

  Opening his fingers, Kaileel rubbed at his tired eyes, plowed the long, sharp nails through his blond hair. He perspired as though he had just trekked across that arid wasteland. His flesh felt hot, blinded by the brilliance of the sun's harsh light. His mouth was dry and his tongue thick.

  "I will not cry for you," he said, lips trembling. He pressed a hand over his mouth, speaking through his fingers. "I will not cry for you ever again!"

  But he knew he would. Just as he had cried many times over the years because the boy had not returned his affections.

  From the moment he first saw Conar McGregor, he had loved the boy. Even as an infant lying in his bassinet, the promise of the power within that small body was evident. The child's aura resonated with immense potential and that potential could be molded in either light or dark hues. It was up to the one who was the strongest teacher to cast the spirit of the infant.

  Legend had foretold the coming of the Chosen One, the Dark Overlord, and one look at the slumbering babe had made it all so clear to Kaileel: he must be the boy's teacher, his instructor in the ways of the Dark Ones, his guide on the Lefthand Pathway.

  Biding time was hard. He stood aside as the child's useless mother had tried to instill the precepts of good within that promising young body. Her meddling had signed her death warrant.

  "Why couldn't you love me, my prince?" Kaileel whispered. "Why did you turn away?"

  Aye, he had been harsh with the boy at the Abbey. It was the way of the Brotherhood. The pain, the mental torture, the physical and spiritual degradation had to occur for the dark powers to come to the forefront, to overshadow the goodness that was inherent at the child's birth.

  "I did everything for you. I gave you every opportunity to come to me, return my favor, and what did you do, Conar?" The priest sobbed. "You threw it back in my face! Scorned my love. Despised the hand that tried to lift you above the mundane!"

  Kaileel got up and walked to the window overlooking the Punishment Yard. He stared at the whipping post, seeing his beloved Conar lashed to the upright, blood streaming down his torn back.

  "Do you think I wanted that to happen, Beloved? If you had come to me, shown me even a small measure of affection, I would have spared you the agony."

  A portion of Kaileel's mind knew that was a lie. He had physically enjoyed watching Conar suffer. All hope of the boy ever returning his love had fled by then, to be replaced with a vicious need to hurt Conar. He had wanted to scourge the stubborn refusal to love him in return from Conar's heart. Instead, he had broken the spirit and the young man's heart and knew beyond any doubt that all chance of Conar ever coming to him was gone.

  But that did not stop Kaileel Tohre from loving Conar McGregor.

  Or mourning him.

  * * *

  The two Temple guards stationed outside Tohre's door were startled by the wails coming from within the office. The sound of furniture and glass breaking galvanized them into action.

  When they opened the door, they were stunned to see the priest standing in the center of the room, rending his garments and gouging long bloody furrows into his arms and chest.

  Shocked, they watched Tohre pull viciously at his hair, tugging handfuls from his scalp.

  "Conar!" he screamed as though in agony, then dropped to the floor in a heap. "Beloved," Tohre whimpered. "My beloved."

  The guards looked at one another and closed the door, shutting out the sight of the priest curled in a fetal position, his thumb in his mouth like an infant.

  * * *

  "Galen!" she screamed. "Wake up! Wake up!"

  He jerked awake, staring wildly, his breath heaving. He buried his face against her chest. "I dreamed about him, Liza," he whispered as though he were afraid to be heard.

  She stiffened. She did not like having him plastered to her, but she could feel the wild thump of his heart against her ribcage and knew he was experiencing sheer terror. Sweat soaked his body. She didn't have to ask of whom he'd dreamed. They had been through this before. His dreams had come more frequently just as hers had begun fading.

  "I saw him so clearly!"

  "And was he in pain, Galen?" In his dreams, Conar was always in pain.

  He raised his head. When his eyes met hers, they were stark in his pale face. "I am as much to blame as Kaileel for what happened to my brother."

  Liza wanted to spit in his face. Every night for the last trimester of her pregnancy, Galen had been having these nightmares. It was sometimes nearly an hour before he came back to himself. Tonight, she sensed, would be no different.

  "He was in such pain, Liza. Such terrible pain!"

  Her nerves stretched as fine as a gossamer web of silk. "He doesn't feel anything anymore, Galen. He's beyond feeling anything, anymore."

  He misunderstood her words. "Maybe you're right."

  Liza bit into her lip. "Stop talking about it." She shoved him away and flung back the covers.

  "Liza, please! You have to listen!"

  "You listen to me!" She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her robe hard enough to tear open the seams. "Stop doing this. Do you hear? No more, Galen! I mean it!"

  "I didn't know he had tried to protect me at the Abbey." Galen's eyes searched the coverlet as though he were scanning a roadmap. "If I had known, I could have warned him about what the Brotherhood had planned. He could have been safe on Montyne Cay. He—"

  She covered her ears with her hands. "Stop doing this!"

  Galen jumped from the bed and ran to her. "I did love him. By the gods, I still love him!"

  She screamed as loud as she could, and kept screaming until Brelan and Hern burst into the room and pushed Galen away from her.

  "What happened?" Hern snarled as he pinned the young Prince against the fireplace.

  Galen shrugged. He had been trying to quiet her.

  Brelan shook her. "Elizabeth? Elizabeth? Stop it!" He shook her again, mindful of her advancing pregnancy. "Stop it!"

  "Prick!" Hern snarled, grabbing Galen by the collar of his nightshirt. "What did you do?"

  Brelan managed to pull Liza's hands from her ears, caught sight of her strained face just as her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed against him. "Get Cayn!" he bellowed, lifting her into his arms and hurrying her to the bed.

  Hern ran from the room, his voice shaking the windowpanes as he bellowed for the healer.

  Galen couldn't seem to move. He stared at Brelan as the man rubbed Liza's hands.

  "Pray she'll be all right," Brelan sneered, glaring at Galen. "Or you won't live 'til morning."

  "I don't know what I did," Galen whispered.

  A muscle bunched in
Brelan's cheek. "Find another room to sleep in!"

  Galen nodded as Cayn rushed through the door and shouted for the men to leave. Galen was the first to do so. He took the stairs to the lower level and disappeared.

  * * *

  Galen awakened from a dream too terrible to remember, but it left him with a sense of such helplessness and hopelessness that he was physically ill. His entire body burned as though he had walked through fire. Drenched in his sour sweat, he sat up in the bed he had used as a youth. He hadn't slept with Liza since the night she had almost miscarried. Her room—Conar's old room—was down the hall, and he often went there to speak with her during the day, spending time with her since she had been confined to her bed until the babe was born.

  "I can't go on like this," he whispered to himself. "I can't."

  The room was stifling with heat, although the fire had died in the grate. The air was thick, humid, pressing down on him. Sweat rolled down his sides, into his eyes, over his upper lip. He could barely move, for his body was sore beyond belief and tired beyond words.

  He lay down and buried his face in the relative cool of his pillow, clutching it to him as though he were close to drowning. With a suddenness that nearly drove him insane with fear, something hot and searing fell across his shoulders and back. He gasped with the terrible pain of it.

  He bolted upright, pushing his burning back against the headboard, his arms thrown over his face. He could feel sticky moisture running down his back, his sides, pooling beneath his rump.

  "Kill me," he said. "Go ahead and kill me this time."

  Something moved. A dark shadow against the lighter darkness of the far corner. Slowly he stared into the vacant room as though the hounds of hell were snarling after him.

  "I want to die. Alel, please let me die."

  Then it was there. That dark shadow. It wavered for just a moment outside his line of vision. When he turned his head to look, he saw blue eyes peering back at him from the darkness.

  "Let me die," the shadow whispered. "I can take no more."

  Galen opened his mouth and screamed.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  Captain Holm van de Lar watched the tall man as he spent his gold freely, unflinchingly, unwisely. The good sea captain sat with his booted feet propped up on a table, silently toasting the vast amount of ale the tall, dark-haired man was consuming.

  A slight smile lingered on Holm's sea-weathered face. In the space of two hours, the dark man's five companions had either drank themselves into stupors, or else were asleep beneath the table at which the tall man sat drinking, his brown eyes staring into his ale cup. The man didn't seem to notice he had been left alone to drink, a task he seemed to be relishing with no great enjoyment.

  Sensing himself being stared at, the tall man turned and glowered at Holm, but Holm simply raised his tankard and took a leisurely drink, all the while staring at the man who had developed a fierce scowl on his handsome face. Another hour passed. Holm continued to watch the man swilling ale as though there was no tomorrow. He smiled as the man turned to glare.

  "Quit it."

  "Quit what?" Holm replied in a friendly tone.

  "Staring."

  "I wasn't staring at you, my friend, but rather admiring the ease with which you are consuming your ale." Holm sat down his tankard. "I don't believe I have ever seen your equal, Milord. I meant no offense." He nodded at the man's snoring companions. "I would be numbered among them if I were to try matching you drink for drink."

  Looking at his friends, the man grinned, his lopsided smile endearing. "Not an upright bunch, are we?"

  "Only you could be classified as such, Milord."

  "None of us are sober," the man quipped. He pushed a drunk off his table, his dark eyes following the man's roll to the floor. "Nighty-night, Heil!" he whispered. He looked at Holm and wagged his brows. "Never could hold his liquor."

  "How about you, Milord? Have you had your fill or may I buy you another?"

  The man turned a suspicious frown to the captain. "Why would you want to?"

  "I admire your talent." Holm shrugged his broad shoulders in the black tunic of his service uniform. "And I find it intolerable drinking alone, don't you?"

  Getting unsteadily to his feet, the man grabbed up his empty tankard and walked with exaggerated precision to the captain's table. He gingerly seated himself, watching as Holm adjusted his massive body to his chair.

  "How long have you been ashore?" the man asked, trying to focus on Holm's wide face. The man was dwarfing the rail back chair, sitting in such a way it was hard to believe the spindly thing could hold his bulk. "How much do you weigh, anyway?"

  Holm chuckled, motioning for the tavern wench to bring another round. "I just returned from a lengthy journey around the cape, and I don't weigh enough to shatter this little chair, Milord, so don't worry."

  "Wasn't in the least damn bit worried." The man brought up and frowned. He turned it upside down and shook it. "Fool thing's got a hole in it."

  "You got a hollow leg, is all," the tavern wench accused as she sat another tankard. "I don't know where you put it."

  The man chuckled. "Many a lass has asked herself that same question when I screwed her!"

  She snorted. "Full of yourself, aren't you, Milord?"

  His grin turned vicious. "Do you want to be full of me?"

  "For thirty gold pieces, I just might."

  He choked, spewed ale on the table, and turned a stunned face to her. "I've never paid for it in my life!"

  Her saucy lips twitched. "Just drink up, Milord. If you can hold anymore!"

  He glared at her. "I'll piss it out. What are you worried about?"

  She put a work-reddened hand on her more-than-ample hips. "Don't make no nevermind to me, so long's you don't piss on my floor!"

  Seeing the man fumbling with the buttons on his breeches, Holm tapped the man on the shoulder. "I captained the Serenian Star her last time out," he said to get the man's attention.

  Something in the dark way the captain spoke made the man look at his new companion. He took his hands from his buttons, glanced at the serving wench with a look of disdain that warned her he'd mess her floor if she bothered him again, then turned his close scrutiny to Holm.

  "I usually don't captain that hell-ship. I am registered for the Boreas Queen."

  "Cargo ship," the man said, nodding. "I know her." He took up his tankard, started to drink, then stopped. Locking his gaze with Holm's, he sat forward. "The Serenian Star, you say?"

  "Aye."

  "That's the ship that took the coffins to sea. Do you know who I am?"

  "You're Lord Brelan Saur, one of the King's sons." Holm brought the cup to his lips, peering at Saur over the rim. "Prince Conar's sworn enemy, I'm told." He took a swig of the buttered ale.

  Brelan squinted. "And who are you?"

  "You don't remember me, do you, Lord Brelan? I used to captain the Windswept. I took you and the little princes sailing many a time. You learned to rig a sail on a trip up to Virago…?"

  A glimmer of a smile touched Brelan's lips. "Was that the time I pushed Coni overboard and he nearly froze to death before you got him back on board?"

  Holm locked his gaze with Brelan's. "It was."

  "By the gods but it was cold up there in the North Boreal." Brelan chuckled. He noticed Holm's expressionless face. "You whipped my ass that day."

  "I did."

  "I deserved it."

  "You did."

  Saur drained his tankard and sat back in the chair. "You were rather fond of him, weren't you?" He caught the tavern wench's eye and pointed to his empty mug.

  Holm leaned his elbows on the table. "I greatly admired and respected your brother. The only reason I took out the Serenian Star, the reason I swapped my good lady-ship for another, is so I could be the one to lay His Grace to rest. He loved the sea." His face softened. "He will be missed."

  "Not by everyone."

  "I have heard there are those
who are glad the young prince is gone. Are you one of them?" Holm held Brelan's stare.

  "I didn't want the man dead."

  "Just out of your life, eh?"

  Brelan looked into his mug. "Something like that." He didn't even look at the girl as she sat another tankard before him.

  Captain van de Lar drained his mug. He leaned back in the chair and folded his arms over his chest, his gaze intent on Brelan. "I have a question. One I hope you can answer…a real puzzler."

  Brelan ground his teeth. "I have no desire to discuss Conar, if that's what you have in mind. Let him rest in peace."

  "Is that what you want for him? Peace?"

  "Don't you think he deserves it after what the Tribunal put him through?"

  "Do you?"

  Saur glowered. "I said I don't want to discuss him!"

  "Let's talk about the edict under which I set sail, then." Holm cocked his head to one side. "An edict that made no sense to me."

  "What edict?" Brelan had difficulty focusing on the man's unfriendly face.

  "The edict that was to be opened only after we reached the harbor at Haelstrom Point."

  "You were to drop the coffins into the sea near Virago. What of it?" Brelan blinked to try to clear his vision.

  "Well, now, you see, that's what everybody thinks, Lord Brelan. We were told to drop them coffins at the reef near the entrance to the Viragonian harbor, so the whirlpool there could suck them into the ocean's depths. That was how my orders read when I sailed from this very harbor."

  "So?"

  "But before that, I was to open a special edict that came from High Priest Kaileel Tohre. Once you clear Haelstrom Point, you have to sail through a narrow channel to reach the Viragonian harbor at Baybridge. Once there, a tug has to turn you about so you'll be heading back down the channel and out to the Boreal Sea. That special edict of Tohre's was to be opened only after I was in the channel, beyond the lock, sitting there at the Haelstrom Point lighthouse buoy. Once you reach that point, there ain't no turning back 'til the tug takes you. You can't back out of that channel, and until the lock opens, you can't head on up the channel. You see what I'm saying?"