WINDHEALER (22 page)

She watched him. His eyes were closed, his face oozing with sweat. His hands were clenched in his lap and his head was slightly cocked to one side as though he was listening to a distant voice instructing him. She swept her gaze over the room. She was tired, exhausted; conjuring had a way of draining her both physically as well as mentally.

"It'll be all right, now," he whispered, not opening his eyes. "The charm worked."

She ignored him. She was taking in every detail of the room, from the blood-red walls to the midnight floor with its red pentagram and runic writings to the black marble altar to the dead goat suspended over the slab.

She shuddered, imagining the horror of lying beneath the gaping wound of the animal's throat as blood dripped, congealing on your flesh. "Did he fight you when you brought him to a place like this?"

Kaileel Tohre looked at the woman across the Conjuring Chamber. He stared into her face, a face he hated, but he was too drained to argue with the bitch. "He wasn't able to."

"Why?" Her voice was sharp, filled with disgust.

"He had been given a drug to make him immobile."

"So, he was unable to stop you from doing evil things to him. You brought him here and he was laid on that altar—"

"Not this altar."

"On
an
altar, and what? Was he bound?"

"Aye."

"Was he aware of what was happening?"

"He was aware."

Her teeth came together with a click. She stared at her longtime enemy, at his averted face, and wished with all her heart she had a dagger with which to slay him.

Kaileel felt her thoughts. There was a hint of a smile on his skeletal face. "You can't kill me, woman. I have your son."

Liza took a step forward, her fingers curving into claws, reminded that it was Conar's son, too, this man had hidden away in the secrecy of some Wind Temple.

Tohre sighed and stood. His muscles ached. The conjuring had taken more out of him this time than he could ever remember. His head ached and he had some difficulty seeing the woman. He held up his hand. "We have saved him…your…brother. You and I will live to fight another day, but I am not up to arguing now. I call a truce until we are both strong enough to spar once more."

"My son…"

"Is safe for the time being." He glanced at her. "But he belongs to me, now, as his father belongs to me."

She glowered at the man, hating him with every fiber of her being. She took another step toward him and stopped. "Hear me well. You might have destroyed Corbin's father with your unholy love, but you will
not
destroy the son."

"I have no intention of destroying Corbin. He will be a great leader one day, have power Conar McGregor never dreamed of having."

"Or wanted!"

Tohre nodded. "True, but if he had, he might well be with you still."

Liza drew in a slow, calming breath. "No," she said, her face hard and filled with hatred. "You meant to kill him and you did. He would not go to his knees to you, would not do your bidding, so you destroyed him. You tortured him and you killed him because your love was spurned." Her chin raised. "Because he wanted no part of you or what you offered, your jealousy took him away from the both of us, and one day, you will pay for that mistake!"

"You don't know—"

"I know you for what you are. A man obsessed with power, with having all those around you bend to your will." She took still another step closer. "But Conar wouldn't bend, would he? He wouldn't bend and he wouldn't break, so you simply decided to crush him." She forced herself to put a hand on the Arch-Prelate's shoulder, although the contact made her sick to her stomach.

He looked at her, saw her face bright with the light of triumph.

"But you know something, Tohre?" she asked, her voice calm, infinitely sweet. "In killing him, you assured him immortality, for his people will never forget him, and they will never stop hating you for what you did to him. And one day," she said, her voice going low and silky, "there will come a warrior who will make you pay for what you did. He will reach out with steel-mailed fists and crush you as you crushed Conar McGregor! There will be a war the likes of which this land has never known."

"When that day comes," he hissed, shrugging aside her hand, "I will win!"

Liza's smile was lethal, her laugh rich and throaty, filled with contempt. "Never!" she whispered. "Never!"

"Hold up that damned light, Tarnes!" Holm snarled as he tried to decipher Brelan's rambling scrawl on the makeshift map. In the dim torchlight, the captain could see little inside the narrow walls of the bluff. He had been coughing and sneezing since they had left the sulfurous lava bed over which they had carefully crossed the natural arched stone bridge.

Dyllon McGregor leaned over his shoulder. "I never could read Bre's scribbling, either."

Coron also peered over Holm's shoulder. "Looks like that way," he pointed to a dark tunnel, "leads to some kind of underground lake." He tried to focus on the wild handwriting. "Unless I miss my guess, this passageway leads around the lake and comes out near what looks to be a forest."

"There ain't no forests on Tyber's Isle," Tarnes snorted.

"Well, that looks like trees!" Coron defended, pointing at the map.

"A garden, maybe?" Wyn asked, looking at his uncles.

"Possibly." Coron took the map and studied it. "Looks like corn stalks."

Tarnes walked carefully toward the passageway the map had marked as an alternative route into the penal colony. He held his torch high and inspected the footing, the walls. "We ain't going to find it standing here jawing!" He started into the passage.

Holm shouldered Dyllon to one side. He plowed into Tarnes' back. "Get the hell out of my way!" Holm snatched the torch.

"Watch out for them beasties Lord Saur warned you be lurking about in these caverns!"

Holm turned, a hint of worry on his weathered features, but then he recognized the shot as ill-concealed petulance. "Remind me to demote you to cabin boy when we return to the Queen!"

For more than an hour, the men followed the tunnel deeper into the craggy cavern. They heard the faint rumble of water splashing against stone and knew they were near the underground lake. The going was rough, the pathway so narrow only one man at a time could walk it, but the darkness around them was getting lighter and the air fresher.

"Captain, didn't you say Brelan told you there was a shaft of some sort a few feet from where the hidden opening would be?" Belvoir asked, walking behind Coron.

"Aye. He said we'd see it before we reached the shamrock stone." Holm wished he'd asked Saur to be more explicit. All he could remember the boy saying was that if you pushed on the second stone, the hidden passage would open.

"Does that look like it might be a hole of some sort—up there?" Belvoir inquired.

"Lower them torches!" Holm ordered. The men put the torches to the floor, while Holm squinted. "I think that's it. Just ahead."

They walked about fifty feet and stopped, gazing at a small hole high above in the bluff.

"Now where the hell is that shamrock stone?" Holm asked, holding the torch about him and realizing they had come to a dead end.

"What's a shamrock stone?" Wyn asked. When everyone turned to Holm instead of answering, Wyn saw the captain's face turn red in the torchlight.

"Well," Holm procrastinated, "he said I'd know it when I saw it." He looked away sheepishly. "I didn't ask him to describe the thing."

"If he said to press the second stone," Belvoir said, running his hand along the outcropping of rocks, "then there must be a first stone and maybe a few more." Belvoir began to push against each stone he saw.

Holm sighed. There must be well over a hundred stones jutting out from the wall. He leaned against the far section. His old body wasn't accustomed to this long trek from the desert, through caverns and such. He rested his arm on a triangular section of stones to his right and realized the three made what could well be a good stanchion for his torch. He shoved the rushes through the wedge between the first and second stone, then gasped as something behind him moved.

"That's it!" Wyn said, hearing a low rumble.

A white blur of light shone from about three feet above the captain's head to within a foot of the cavern's floor. Fresh air poured in and with it, the smell of rotting vegetation, damp earth and manure.

Holm saw the crack in the rock face. He wedged his hand into the slit, widening the opening. Cautiously, he stood in the lighted crack and peered out.

"What do you see?" Coron asked, his hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Corn." Holm poked his head around the crack. The opening was, indeed, to one side of a garden with head-high corn and tomato plants. "And not a damned soul."

"Do you hear anything?" Dyllon asked.

"Nary a sound. Eerie feeling, it is."

"Well," Dyllon said, "someone's got to go out there."

"Me," Mister Tarnes said, hitching up his breeches.

"
You?"
Holm gasped.

"Of course!" the old salt said. "We can't let Belvoir go out there. He looks like a warrior. You can't, Cap'n, cause you might be recognized. If we lose one of His Graces, or the Prince's son, it'd be hell to pay."

Holm stared at the wizened little man. "And if we lose you, it ain't no big deal!"

"Who'd sail the ship?" The old sailor scrambled into the garden and disappeared among the high corn stalks as if on a leisurely stroll, hands thrust into his pockets and shoulders hunched.

"Wyn," Dyllon commanded, "go back to the last man in line and tell him to alert the others we left on the other side of the lava pit. Tell him to make sure the others are quiet when they join us, but to have weapons ready."

* * *

"Who the hell are you?" Shalu demanded, grabbing the back of the little man's shirt and dragging him off the ground.

Gilbert Tarnes had never seen a Necroman, a remarkable lack of accomplishment for such a well-traveled sailing man. Looking up into the furious dark face, the gleaming features intent on doing him bodily harm, did not help the bladder problem Mister Tarnes had developed in his golden years. His mouth dropped open, the plug of tobacco popping out like a cork out of a warm bottle of shaken wine. He choked, coughed and stared.

Shalu glared. "I've never seen you before! Where'd you come from?"

"My guess is the good ship
Boreas Queen,
Shalu. Please put the man down, you've made him mess his pants." Roget was leaning against the Commandant's porch.

Shalu growled. "Are you from the ship?"

Mister Tarnes couldn't find his voice, the first time such a thing had ever happened. What manner of man, or beast, he wondered with fear, was this dark one? His long white hair, braided like a woman's, and his sharp, gleaming teeth, too much like a were-tiger's fangs, did more to unsettle Tarnes than did the bulging muscles and wide expanse of solid-looking chest.

Roget settled the question in the sailor's befuddled mind. "He's from Necroman. Be careful of him. His bite is much worse than his bark."

Shalu didn't help by growling menacingly as he let go of the man's shirtfront and dropped him. "Heed his warning, sailor!"

"You are from the ship?" Roget asked.

"One of 'em," Tarnes replied.

"There's more than one?"

"Aye." Tarnes licked his lips. "Who might ye be and how do you know of the ship?"

Roget folded his arms over his chest. "I might be the King of Serenia." He chuckled. "But I'm not." He shot out one big, callused hand. "I'm Roget du Mer. Brelan told us you were coming."

"You the Duke's son?" Tarnes asked, putting out a hesitant hand to shake the one offered. He winced at the man's strength. "Young Tealson's brother?"

"Aye, and you must be Mister Tarnes."

"How'd you guess?"

"Bre said to look for either a man who looked like he could break stones with his face, or a little man who could skinny up a palm tree and look right at home."

Tarnes sniffed, highly offended. "For your information, I don't skinny up no trees, palm or otherwise."

Roget grinned. "I think he meant you could blend in with your surroundings. Where's the Captain?"

"In the bluff with the others." Tarnes looked around. "Where is everybody?"

"In their huts. We have control of the colony."

The sailor began to relax. "And Lord Saur?"

"With the Healer. You said there's another ship?"

"We come across the prison ship
Vortex.
Put their crew to the ship's longboats and brought that black hellship with us. Cap'n thought we might be in need of it."

"How many men did you bring?"

Tarnes scratched his head. "About fifty. His Grace sent the boy back to get the others."

"His Grace?" Roget asked, a look of confusion on his face.

"Of course, His Grace. Both of 'em, to be precise. The Princes Coron and Dyllon. They come to take Lord Saur and that little weasely fellow—what's his name, Jah-Ma-El?—back home!" He sniffed, raising his chin. "And the rest of you, too, o'course."

"I knew they were alive! But here with you?"

"Them and the boy."

"What boy?" Shalu asked.

"Wyn. He be with us, too."

"Who is he?" Shalu demanded.

Tarnes rolled his eyes. "Prince Conar's oldest. Don't you know nothin'?"

Roget turned his head to the command quarters and a slow smile stretched his lips. "One of Prince Conar's son is here?"

"O'course. Think you one of the lad's bantlings wouldn't want to be in on saving his uncles?" Tarnes snorted, adjusting the front of his shirt now that he was sure the dark man was relatively safe, or could be handled by du Mer. "Be it safe for them to come out?"

"Aye, go get your men, Mister Tarnes."

Shalu watched the man saunter away as though he had all the time in the world.

"I think I'll see to it that none of the men here speaks to the ship's crew just yet," Shalu commented, his face split with a wide grin. "Sort of warn them. What do you think?"

Roget nodded. "A wise idea, King Shalu."

* * *

Xander looked up as Brelan left his hut. He met the eyes of Prince Rylan Hesar and smiled. "I was hoping we'd get to talk one day."

"We're overdue," Rylan drawled as he limped into the room.

"How's your foot?"

"It won't ever be the same, but it doesn't bother me all that much." Rylan sat in the chair beside the operating cot. "So?"

Xander laid down his instrument bag and sat on the cot. "What do you want to know?"

"Hesar."

Xander nodded. "That's my name."

"That's the name of the royal family of Virago. Are you aware of that?"

"Are you aware that was my home?"

Rylan inclined his head. "So, I've been told. I've also been told we're kin. Distant relatives, perhaps?"

"I was born at Holy Dale, Rylan. My family still owns land in the valley."

Rylan gaped. "Holy Dale is the keep where my father was born. We own Holy Dale."

"I know."

"But you said—"

"Don't you think I look something like your father, Ry?"

Rylan shook his head. "You don't have the Hesar coloring."

"True, but we are close kin, you and I." His face beamed. "And Paegan."

Rylan frowned. There was no one left of his family. His parents and eldest brother were dead. His mother's people had long since died out; his father's only brother had been hanged by the Serenian Tribunal more than twenty years earlier. Was there family he had never known existed? "Are you one of my father's brothers?" Rylan asked, thinking maybe his parents had lied when he had asked if the Hesar men were as randy as the McGregors.

"Aye." Xander smiled. "My first name isn't Xander, though." He stood and faced the boy. "That was your grandmother's maiden name, remember?"

Rylan's frown deepened. He thought of his grandmother and wondered why his grandfather would have insulted her by giving his bastard son her name.

"I hope Paegan isn't as dense as you, son," Xander sighed.

Rylan glared at the Healer. "I'm not dense!"

"Then, think about who I could be! If your grandfather didn't sire any bastard sons, what would that make me if I were your father's brother?"

"My uncle, of course, but—"

"I'm Ciernan Hesar."

The young Viragonian Prince came slowly to his feet. "You can't be. Uncle Ciernan was killed before I was born. He was—"

"Hanged? Just like Conar McGregor was beaten to death?" The Healer nodded. "Ciernan Hesar was
hanged
at Derry-Byrne and shipped, in his sealed coffin, out to sea. His coffin, just like Conar's, was transported here. I got in the Tribunal's way just like Conar did."

"Does Conar know who you are?" Rylan asked, his voice hushed.

"No, and I don't want him to. I thought he might one day look at me and guess, but…" Xander shook his head.

"Why don't you want him to know?" Rylan wanted to put his arms around the older man, but he was glued to where he stood.

"Why would I want to hurt him?" He put his hands on Rylan's shoulders. "Gerren McGregor was his father. If Conar should find out I am alive, that his mother's marriage to his father was illegal, he would be hurt, and I will cause him no more pain."

Rylan understood. Conar's mother, Moira, had been married long before she had met King Gerren of Serenia. She, like Elizabeth McGregor, believed her beloved husband dead, so both had remarried. Moira marrying a man who was a distant cousin of her first husband—Conar's maternal grandmother had been wed to Syn-Jorn Hesar—Rylan's uncle and the great-great grandson of the Outlaw, Syn-Jorn Sern. What irony that both Xander and Conar should wind up in the sandy bowels of the Labyrinth, both prisoners because of who they were.

"Moira was my heart, my joy in life," Xander said, looking at a sight he alone could see. "I could not care for her as I had intended, but I
could
care for her son. Just having him near was to be with her once more." He turned to go.

"No!" Rylan pulled his uncle into his arms. "I've found you and I'll not let you get away so easily!" He couldn't wait to tell his brother that they had one more relative left on the earth.