WINDHEALER (39 page)

"Which way do you see yourself, Pearl? Male or female?"

Pearl giggled. "I always wind up on the bottom, so to speak. Does that answer your question?"

Conar blushed, a smile of discomfort on his face. "I guess it does."

Pearl touched his knee. "Let me tell you about men like me. What is different and unique is often looked upon with fear and suspicion. Until you know firsthand the qualities of that strangeness, you tend to shun it; you tend to distance yourself for fear some of the strangeness will rub off. You fear it might harm you. It is an inbred reflex for any animal to mistrust those who are unlike themselves. It is easier to ridicule those who do not conform or to ignore them than it is to try to see similarities that might well exist.

"In the animal world, when a new and strange beast comes lurking about, the other animals sniff and stare. They watch with wary eyes until he either proves he is as strong, or stronger, as cunning, or more so, than they, or that he is weak and vulnerable to attack. If he turns and fights, most of the time the other animals will scatter if they think he might come out the winner. But if he turns a gentle, what they consider
weak,
side to them, they go straight for his throat. Not unlike the human race that also preys upon those unable to protect themselves, who want only to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.

"What crime is it when love is what generates the difference in us? You see no harm in it when it is between a man and woman, for that is the way you have been taught and that is the way of your normal inclinations. But is there such a terrible evil when two men, or two women, love one another, and the natural expression of that love is sexual intercourse? Who does it hurt? You? Anyone? Are you forced to take part? Forced to watch? Love is a wonderful emotion. It should never be tainted by what people think of the lovers.

"Look at your son and Shalu's daughter. There are those who would say their keeping company is wrong. Are they hurting anyone? Are they trying to make others do the same? Those two are falling in love. What harm are they doing to you and me? As long as they do no harm to their fellow man, why should harm befall them because the gods have let them fall in love? Why torment them for loving, or punish them for your failings and inadequacies? Why make them the butt of your viciousness simply because they dare to be different? Will it not be hard enough for them to have their lives held up to the scrutiny of people who do not know them, nor
want
to know them, just because they are not of the same race?" Pearl's eyes softened. "Or the same sex? Love is precious. It should be treated so."

"But there are those who use their strangeness to hurt others," Conar said quietly.

"You have only the knowledge that the Domination showed you. True, they hurt others, and they hurt themselves. But that is part and parcel of their sect, not a true indication of their nature. They are not rational. They are not sane. They aren't even normal. They don't use their sex drives with one another as a love outlet; they use is as a weapon, a device for punishment, for control, for torture. They manipulate with it, they degrade and humiliate with it. They use it to take away self-esteem, courage, peace of mind. They twist the act of love into something vile and vicious and evil. Their brand of sexual pleasure is sadomasochistic, for they as much enjoy the pain as they do inflicting it. That isn't love, the special bond between two people who have found one another."

Pearl walked to the doorway, looked out at the softly falling rain. "Sure, there are those among my kind who do not want a commitment to love. They don't want attachments. Just like those among your kind who are promiscuous, looking for pleasure, a night's release. But isn't that often true of relationships between men and women? You don't necessarily have to love someone to be attracted to them, desire them, want them. As long as you do no harm to another, what harm is there in wanting that moment of pleasure?"

Conar smiled. "When I was younger, that was the way I rationalized all my affairs."

"Conar's Law…if it itched, scratch it! And if it ached, soothe it!" Pearl laughed. "I've heard all about your exploits, my Princeling!"

"From who?"

Pearl batted his lashes. "
I'll
never tell!"

"Coron, no doubt," Conar grumbled. "I've seen you talking."

Pearl giggled. "He's
almost
as cute as you."

"His
wife
is a jealous little viper."

"He thinks so, too! There was a time when my joking about one of your kin in such a way would have enraged you."

"I know your tricks, Pearl Allegria."

"We're not so different, you and I, are we?"

"Probably not."

"You have no idea how good it is for me to be able to touch you and not have you cringe. How wonderful it is that I can take you in my arms and comfort you and know you are not feeling anything but the great affection I have. That I am able to show you the friendship and admiration any of your men can show you and not have you stiffen. I am secure in who I am and who I will be tomorrow, in who you are and who you will be tomorrow. And I know when you leave here this afternoon you will understand that you are the same man who was sent to the Labyrinth and that in no way have you been changed."

"If Occultus does nothing else for me save having given me the honor of knowing you, I will still count myself a lucky man."

"No, sweet Prince, it is I who am the lucky one. I have the honor of knowing that you understand and accept me for who and what I am. Such things are few and far between for a man such as I."

"You are one of my men," Conar said. "You won't be treated any differently."

Conar had already completed his training with the others, but this last teacher was proving to be more strict and uncompromising that all the rest—Shalu included—put together. From the first day of training with this man, Conar had gone from being curious to resolved, to annoyed to obstinate to furious. His emotions regarding his instructor were on a seesaw of rage alternating between the desire to kill the man or to kill himself and be done with it.

On the first day, Conar had arrived at a lonely span of beach to find the same little Chrystallusian man who had first welcomed him to these shores. The man was sitting cross-legged on the warm sand, facing one of several cliffs. He didn't speak, but pointed a bony finger at the rock formation.

When Conar looked at the cliff, standing about twenty feet tall, he saw a rope dangling from the top. He was just minimally curious at why it was necessary for this man to see if he could climb the cliff. But calmly, and perhaps too confidently, he began to ascend.

Climbing the rope was harder than he had first thought. Only one third of the way up, his hands were on fire, despite his heavy calluses. He could feel the sting of the hemp cutting into his flesh and his shoulders felt like they were being pulled from their sockets. But with the resolve of his pride, he ground his teeth and made it to the top, panting and grunting once he achieved his goal.

He peered over the edge.

A face like one of Holm's monkeys stared back at him from the sand. The Chrystallusian still sat where Conar had left him. There were a few streaks of white amid the black in the man's hair, but Conar couldn't determine his age. The eyes seemed older than the wrinkled face and they were blatant with disgust.

"So, what now?" Conar called, miffed that the man appeared out of sorts. He frowned with annoyance when the monkey man, as Conar had nicknamed him, raised a thumb, turned it downward, indicating that his pupil was to descend the cliff.

The going down wasn't nearly as bad as the going up, but Conar's hands burned from the coarse rope and his shoulders aching from the pull. He brought his cupped palms to his mouth and blew into them as he drew near the small man. He thought he would explode when the monkey man jerked his thumb upward.

Conar's mouth dropped open. "You've got to be kidding!" A look of obstinacy settled on Conar's face as the thumb jerked viciously upward once more.

From experience with his teachers, Conar knew better than to argue. Muttering obscenities, he stomped to the rope and began to lever himself up once more. He clenched his jaw to the pain in his hands, but managed to gain the top, taking longer than the first time to get there. He didn't bother to ask what he was to do, but climbed back down again, wincing as new blisters burst and bled, making the rope slick with blood. Not bothering to walk to the man, he stood, rope in hand, anger on his face and turned around to stare at the monkey man. He wasn't surprised when the thumb jerked upward and the monkey man's black eyes regarded him with placid indifference.

"
Shit!"
He grasped the rope and dug one booted foot into a crack in the cliff. He would be damned it he would let the bastard get the best of him. He'd been tortured by the best, had known pain far greater. Although his face was set in surly lines of contempt, his brain screamed with pain. He strained up the rope and stood, hands on his hips, blood staining the fabric of his breeches, staring out toward the mountain range, his back to the beach. He took deep, calming breaths, his mouth set and hard. Once he was able to regain composure, he looked down at the beach.

The monkey man was gone.

Livid with outrage and furious with the fates that were playing him for a fool, Conar cursed the monkey man, all his ancestors, all his animals, and anything else that might even be remotely connected to him.

The next morning, his hands hurt him so much he could barely shave. He had wound strips of ointment-coated linen around his palms and there was a light pinkish, yellowish fluid already coming through the fabric as he crimped his fingers as tightly as he could in order to hold his razor.

"You're to go to the beach again today," Brelan told him, sticking his head in Conar's room.

"For what?"

"Same beach, same instructor." He closed the door with a snap.

Conar gawked at the closed door. "Damned if I will!"

But here he was. Same beach, same monkey man, higher cliff.

He held out his bandaged hands. "See this?"

The thumb jerked upward.

"I can barely move them!"

The thumb jerked upward twice more.

Three times up, three times down. Conar's hands looked like raw meat. He had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out that night when Se Huan bathed and re-bandaged them with a foul-smelling, stinging concoction that made Conar leak in his breeches when it was applied.

"That hurts worse than the rope burns!" he screeched, but she only looked blandly at him.

In the days that followed, six in all, he climbed progressively higher and higher cliffs until he could scale an eighty-foot rock face with ease. His hands had callused over, although they still hurt so badly it brought tears to his eyes when he gripped the rope each morning.

On the seventh morning, the man was sitting at the foot of the first cliff. Puzzled, Conar nevertheless shrugged his broad shoulders and walked there.

There was no rope.

Dropping his head to his chest, he sighed. "I suppose I'm to climb all these cliffs now
without
the rope?" When there was no answer—the man had yet to speak even one word to Conar in all the time he had been
instructing
him—he dug his hands into whatever purchasing point he could find and laboriously scaled the cliff. Going up was a hell of a lot easier than coming down. He nearly fell twice, losing his footing more times than he could count. He scraped his shins, tore a hole in his breeches, and gouged hands that began bleeding again. When he finally put his booted feet on the beach, he didn't bother to ask for instructions, he just started to climb the same cliff again. Up three times, down three times as he had every day prior to that.

"Next," a gruff, clipped voice snapped.

Turning to face the monkey man, Conar could only stare. He felt as though he would drop in his tracks and it wasn't even eight in the morning yet.

"You want me to climb each of these damned cliffs today?"

With an angry shake of his head, the man spat: "One day, two cliff."

"Two day, four cliff, huh?" Conar snarled.

"We see if little bird make up two cliff. If satisfactory to teacher, maybe two cliff more tomorrow." The monkey man leveled that same inscrutable stare at Conar. "If not, same two cliff."

"If satisfactory to the teacher…" Conar murmured as he stalked to the next cliff. Looking up at the thirty-five-foot rock face, he mentally groaned. More of the man's antecedents joined in the virulent curses Conar had reserved for him and his family.

What followed was ten more days of exasperating attempts to please the man. The third and fourth cliffs took eight days to master to the teacher's satisfaction. With scraped elbows, broken fingernails, bruised shins, knees and forearms, ruined breeches and boots, Conar managed on the eighth day to ascend the fourth cliff for the third time.

The monkey man was gone, a sign the work was at least acceptable. If the monkey man had still been sitting there, Conar would know the same two cliffs would be scaled the next day and the next and the next until he was content that Conar could do it well enough to suit.

Unfortunately for Conar, the ninth and tenth days were horrible experiences. The fifth formidable cliff proved to be the worst. He had gotten only ten feet up its face when the rock he was holding let loose. He lost his grip and fell, gouging a long furrow in his right forearm as he tumbled downward. He landed in a crumpled heap at the base of the cliff and lay there gasping, for the air had been knocked out of his lungs.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up into the monkey man's face.

"Not good," came the gruff remark before the man ambled off.

"N…not g…good?" Conar gasped. "Not…
good
?" He glared at the man's retreating back. He had never felt such fury. "Go…to hell you…little son of a…bitch!"

The next day found him stony-eyed and sullen as he crossed the span of beach before the monkey man and started up the cliff. No matter how hard he strove to gain the cliff in the time he knew he was expected, he fell short of the mark by at least twenty minutes. He would gaze across at the sixth cliff, easier in his estimation, and blow out hot breaths between gnashing teeth.

By the end of the tenth day, he was ripe for a fight. His frustration at having been constantly sneered at by the monkey man as he descended the cliff for the last time that day was enough to make him clench his fists and stomp away before he could be told to ascend once more. He half-expected to be called back, but only sly, contemptuous laughter followed, making his ears burn.

As luck would have it, he encountered Brelan and Roget as he tramped back to the palace. Their good-natured remarks made him even madder, for he felt they were laughing at him, too.

He turned an enraged face to them. "The two of
you
can go to hell, too! And take that fucking little ape with you!"

Turning to one another with confusion, both men decided to see what could have caused Conar to be so out of sorts, so they followed him to the beach the next day. It was a good thing Conar didn't know they were watching from the safety of the first cliff, because both had scaled it, without a rope, with ease, in half the time Conar had taken on his first try
with
the rope.

The monkey man was sitting at the base of the fifth cliff and calmly watching Conar approach. Both Brelan and Roget felt him scrutinizing them, yet he didn't turn his head to acknowledge their presence. Even from the distance at which they sat, they saw one dark slash of a brow go up as Conar came to stand over the man. To his credit, the man didn't even flinch when Conar began his angry shouting.

"I will not climb that damned cliff again!" He stood with his hands on his hips and glowered. "Do you hear? If you want me to climb that last cliff I will, but I won't climb that son-of-a-bitch there!" He jerked his thumb toward the fifth cliff.

For what seemed like hours, the man stared up at Conar with indifference. No words were spoken from the tight, uncompromising lips. None were needed. The displeasure and cool assessment was written plainly on the pinched face. Finally, one thin hand raised in the air and the thumb came up.

"I won't do it," Conar whispered, squinting.

The thumb jerked toward the cliff.

"No!" Conar screeched. "I will not do it!"

The thumb jerked. Viciously, insistently.

In a quiet, carefully controlled and modified voice, soft and deadly, Conar leaned over the man. "I said no."

The thumb jerked once more.

"I told you, no!"

One moment Conar was bending over the man, and the next, he was lying a good six feet away, flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. The man hovered above him, then bent with his face close to Conar's and placed a wickedly jabbing thumb painfully into Conar's midsection.

"Little shit has
big
mouth. If little shit's effort was as big as his mouth, he could have climbed six cliff in one day!" The thumb pressed harder, making Conar groan. "Something little shit
will
do before I through with him is learn he does not say
no
to teacher!"

Conar lay gasping, his midsection on fire as the hard finger jabbed into it. The bastard couldn't weigh more than seventy pounds soaking wet, yet here he was keeping a man almost three times that weight down on the ground with a single scrawny thumb. And he had tossed Conar about like a straw in the wind. "How the hell did you do that?"

The man twisted his thumb. Conar thought he would faint from the pain. But then the thumb withdrew. The man straightened, crossed his thin arms over his chest, and stared at his pupil.

"If little shitbird want to know, he climb cliff to satisfaction of teacher.
Then,
he might be taught." The monkey man sat on the beach and crossed his legs. "Teacher make no guarantee." The thumb went once more into the air.

Conar struggled to his knees, wavering, holding his stomach. In the distance he heard the roll of thunder. He saw towering gray clouds scudding low overhead. "It's going to rain," he said sullenly, rubbing his belly.

"Rain. Shine. Cliff still be there."

"Aye and they'll be slick with rain, too! I could break my damned neck!"

The monkey man made a rude sound. "Little shitbird think war fought only in sunshine?"

Knowing it was useless to argue, Conar started to climb. Something caught his attention and he turned toward the first cliff. Seeing his brother and du Mer, knowing they had witnessed his humiliation a few moments earlier, he clenched his teeth together. With every rock he grasped, he visualized the monkey man's neck in his hands.

Perhaps it was the anger or the shame at being humbled, or merely the fact that he didn't relish being caught on this seventy-foot cliff in the coming rain. Whatever it was, he made it to the apex of the cliff in well under the required time. He turned a triumphant smile down at the man just as the first drop of hard, stinging rain struck his head.

The monkey man was gone. So were Roget and Brelan.

Throwing back his head, Conar howled to the sky. He had never been so angry or frustrated. He stood on the cliff, getting soaked, barely flinching as lightning began to crackle around him. His hair was plastered to his forehead in lank strips. It was in a near rage that he descended the cliff, started to walk away, looked up at the cliff's forbidding face, and began to climb again.

Three times up, three times down.

The little man watched from a section of overhang not more than fifteen feet away. The rain obscured most of the rock face from view, but he could see enough to know the boy was making the climb again. A gentle, proud smile puckered his thin lips. He nodded as Conar descended a second time and then automatically began another ascent, although now the rain was so hard it had to be painful in the boy's face. His third ascent was faster and done with much more finesse and expertise.