WINDWEEPER (16 page)

"They are not!" Chand nearly shouted. He gathered the boy in his arms. "We will not allow it! By the gods, I promise you that!"

Grice laid a hand on Wyn's shoulder. "They can do no more than exile him, Wyn." He caught Chand's look of worry, then shook his head to let his brother know Conar's son had no business knowing otherwise.

* * *

"Are you sure you can locate this tunnel again?" King Gerren asked Brelan.

"I know I can. If you'd like, I'll find Legion and tell him how to go about locating it and opening the secret door." He stood, but his father's words stopped him.

"Tell me. I'll go myself."

Brelan Saur's mouth dropped open. "You can't be serious, Papa!"

"I'm well enough to make the trek, if that's what concerns you, Brelan. Legion is with Liza. I will not take any chances that she might hear…" He paused, swallowing. "Cayn has given her something to keep her unaware of those pitifully hideous screams coming from the Tribunal Hall." At the memory of hearing them, the King shuddered. They could not have come from his son, but whoever's agony had produced them, the man deserved an easy death.

"Let someone else go. Teal, Hern, Sentian. Anyone, but you. You're still too weak and you don't need to see what they may have done to him."

"They've done nothing to him!"

Brelan sighed. "Papa, if you are going to that place, you had best prepare—"

"I didn't hear you include yourself in those names, Brelan," his father said. "Why is that?"

"You know why!"

"Can't you put aside your war with Conar long enough to help him?" He stared hard at the set, closed face glaring back at him. "I don't understand you, Brelan, but then again, I never have. But you don't have to worry. I will go to my son."

"Papa…" There was pleading in Saur's voice.

"It is my place. If they have, indeed, harmed him in any way, they will deal with me!"

* * *

He was trying desperately to swim up out of the fiery depths into which he had fallen. Every movement sent fresh agony ripping through his battered body, and he groaned. From somewhere far away he could hear his name being repeated, but it took too much effort to free his mind from the pitch-black pit in which he lay. He tried to open one eye, but it felt as though there were red-hot needles sticking into it and even that faint movement brought more pain.

His name was being called louder, and whoever was violently shaking him had no concern for his suffering. His mind screamed for them to stop, but his jaw felt broken, unhinged, useless, and he could make no sound except for the soft grunt that accompanied every wheezing breath. There was more than one broken rib to make every intake of air pure agony.

With superhuman strength, he managed to push back the enveloping darkness surrounding him. Just the act of prying open his swollen eyes brought intense pain to his face and he wondered if his left cheekbone was still intact. He tried to focus and caught the image of an angry face. He could not adjust his hazy vision and the mirage kept jerking, blurring, skipping out of sight. With a heavy groan, he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

"You will have to do something about his face," Galen said. "If we present him before the Tribunal in such a condition, there will be problems."

Kaileel pushed himself up from the huddled mass at his feet and turned a haughty stare to Galen McGregor. "When I present him at trail, there will hardly be a mark on him." He looked at the face that had been all but destroyed by Tymothy Kullen's fists. "Until then, he will suffer."

* * *

He was dreaming.

There was a bright green meadow full of red-topped clover and swaying daisies on long graceful stalks. Yellow and red fields of carpet spread out as far as he could see over gentle hills and soft hollows. A cool mountain stream trickled past stately willows and majestic oaks, their delicate gray beards of moss dragging the ground. Overhead, in a tall sycamore, a sky-blue bird threw back its dainty head and sang a love song to the day. Fleecy white wisps of cloud dotted the horizon and the sun hovered warm and sweet in the spring heavens. The ripe smell of earth and riverbed, clover and jasmine and honeysuckle filled the air, and a fresh, light breeze ruffled his hair as he walked beside the slim woman.

Her long black hair waved in the wind, billowed out behind her like gossamer tendrils of fine spun silk. Her bright yellow gown swirled about her graceful legs and blew over his buff-covered breeches. Liza's smile was radiant, as radiant as the day, and her step was light and sure.

Taking his hand, she raced him to the top of a slight rise and together they looked at the breath-taking beauty of the ocean as it lay from mountain to keep. Behind them was a long stretch of peaceful green earth, trickling silver water and fields of wild flowers. Above, the sun showered down peace and tranquillity, harmony and love.

"Papa! Mama!"

They both turned, smiling.

With the bright wash of day behind her, her flaxen hair streaming, the little girl came skipping toward them from out of the cool shadows of the nearby forest. Her little gown was an exact replica of her mother's, and her hair was held back with soft amber ribbons that blew out from like dancing butterflies flitting about the meadow. She called to them again and raised her arms, holding them out to her father.

Going down on one knee, he opened his arms as she ran into them. He felt his wife's loving hand on his shoulder and slowly turned his head to look up at Liza. Her face was filled with love and peace; her mouth was touched with the most gentle and sweetest smile he had ever seen.

He kissed the top of his little girl's head, hugging her to him as she settled in his arms. He inhaled the clean scent of her bright blond hair and sighed with the happiness he was feeling deep in his heart.

He felt her move against him and pulled back from her. The little head lifted; the small round face looked up at him; the pretty little mouth smiled.

And the smile on his own handsome face died a horrible death.

It was not the dear, sweet innocent face of his lost daughter that gazed back at him. It was the distorted death mask of his murdered baby girl.

The face of his child dissolved before his eyes; the skin sloughed from her skull, peeled away from the arms that were clasped around his neck. He watched as the pretty green eyes caved in, as gristle and marrow vanished. He felt the body crumbling to dust in his arms and the overpowering stench of grave-rot and putrefaction filled the air.

He gazed with horror at the yellow dress and threw it away from him with a shriek of disgust. The entire creation was covered with maggots.

He watched the wind catch the decaying dust of his child, swirl it around him and carry it away on the sudden blast of frigid air now surrounding him. The smell of brimstone overpowered him and he turned to his wife.

But she, too, was gone.

In her place stood a monster with long, taloned nails tipped in vermilion. A malevolent sneer of satisfaction was carved into the skull-like face. The thin lips lifted; the pale blue eyes, burning with hate and vengeance, bore into his soul like the thrust of a branding iron.

"All gone, my Prince," the monster hissed. "All gone."

His mindless screaming filled the cell in which he lay.

Brelan watched his father close the hidden door. All light faded from beneath the threshold as the King moved deeper into the tunnel leading from the stables to the punishment cells. He leaned his forehead against the cold stone walls of the old passageway and closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure he had done the right thing in allowing his father to go to Conar. Brelan knew what the man would find. A tremor ran down his spine and he pushed away from the wall.

"There's nothing you'll be able to do, Papa. Nothing at all."

He thrust his hands into his pockets, stared at the hidden doorway, and called himself the coward Legion had named him. Part of him wanted to flee, to get as far from Boreas Keep as he could; another part wanted to be with his father, to lend the support he had earlier refused. He was torn by needs he didn't understand, bombarded with emotions he couldn't believe he was feeling.

What did it matter if Conar had been tortured? His body broken and scarred? So what if the man's screams had become hoarse and weak over the last two days? How did it concern him?

"He's your brother," came the answer, wafting down the chill corridors to seep into his heart and freeze his soul. "He's your flesh and blood."

Brelan shook his head. "Only by a quirk of fate. Only because of one man's lust."

"Not so," the wind whispered. "By the grace of the gods are you kin."

He brought his hands from his pockets and jammed them against his ears to shut out the sound of her lovely voice.

"
Go away, Raphaella!"

"Your conscience pricks you, Lord Saur," came the gentle rebuke. "I but remind you that you have one."

He turned from side to side, searching for the way out.

There was none.

He was trapped in his own private hell, and that hell was Conar McGregor's suffering.

* * *

He could smell his own filth. He tried to concentrate on filling his lungs as seldom as possible, for his ribcage ached, shooting fiery stabs of pure agony through his sides and back. His head throbbed with a blinding pain above his right eye and he knew he had a concussion. Not that he could see any reason why that should matter. He was a dead man, anyway.

He'd never live to see his trail.

He still hadn't signed Tohre's confession and he had no intention of doing so. They would have to kill him and he knew they were very close to doing so. Kill him and then make it look as though he had committed suicide. Idly, he wondered how they would explain away his shattered face and broken body.

They could drop you down a shaft, he thought. A squeak, something like a laugh, came from the bloody lips and he winced. He'd already been dropped down a shaft. Or so it felt.

Something scuttled over his bare feet. He flinched. Sharp nails dug into his flesh as the furry creature ran over him. The smell had no doubt attracted the rodent from its hole. It wouldn't be long before the creature decided to take a nip out of him, to see how he tasted. He had two such injuries already on his ankles.

He tried to sit up straighter, but he gasped in pain and stopped, his fingertips crying out with agony as the straw pressed into the ravaged tips where nails had once grown. It was better to leave the rat alone, he thought with a grimace.

He bowed his head. The dirty blond hair was matted with filth, caked with blood. It had the worse smell of all clinging to it and every breath brought him a whiff of such nauseating strength he had to swallow down his gorge. He tried to think, but his mind labored on the worst torture they had administered and he was soul-sick, if not body-hurt, by it.

"Sweet, holy Alel," he whimpered and the memory came prodding back to him like the thrust of a branding iron.

His left arm stung just above the elbow as though a million bees had decided to feast on his lacerated flesh. Knowing why he hurt there brought another moan to his lips. Nothing had hurt him as much as that last bit of viciousness. They had tortured him with every conceivable instrument, and still he had kept as quiet as he could. An occasional moan had escaped him up until then; a pitiful whimper had issued from his tightly compressed lips; but he had not screamed. Not until the last pain had been administered.

"I will teach you, Conar," Kaileel had shouted as that final, devastating torture was being prepared. "I will show you who you truly belong to!"

It had been close to midnight when Kaileel had him dragged from his cell and brought once more to the interrogation chamber. Kaileel had waited until the two guards shoved Conar into a chair before a writing desk and had tied his left arm to the chair, leaving his right arm free.

Placing the document in front of Conar, Kaileel extended a quill to one of the guards. The guard picked up Conar's right arm and slammed his hand on the desk while the other placed the quill in Conar's clenched fist and held his hand around Conar's so the quill could not be dropped.

"Sign, Conar," Kaileel ordered.

Conar glanced at the blur of parchment, but could not make out the writing. All sight was gone from one eye, partially blocked from the other.

"I said sign it, Conar. I am tired of playing games!"

With what was left of his draining strength, Conar deliberately brought his thumb up and over the quill and crushed it. A guard grabbed a handful of his hair, dragging back his head. His moan seemed to please his tormentor. The other guard pulled Conar's right arm behind his back and jammed it as high as he could. He didn't moan that time; he let out a cry of pain.

Kaileel clapped his hands. The Chief Inquisitor came forward, holding a pair of tin snips.

"You aren't ready to sign?" Kaileel taunted. "That's perfectly all right. You will."

Conar could barely see the Chief Inquisitor. He caught only a dull gleam of metal and had a brief vision of sharp edges. He had no conception of what Kaileel was about to do until a guard anchored his bound arm close to the chair arm.

"I will teach you, Conar! I will show you who you really belong to!"

Not until the realization of what was about to happen came to him did he scream. Not until they grasped his arm to cut away the marriage band. He screamed mindlessly, howling his pain even before the snips had touched him. Not even the godawful pain of the needles hurt as badly as the removal of his last link to the woman he loved.

"Now, my Beloved," Kaileel sneered. "Now, you will wear my symbol of Joining!"

He wasn't prepared for the agony that shot through his entire body as something was wrapped around his upper arm where his marriage band had rested for more than three years. Something so hot he heard his skin sizzle, smelled his flesh burning, circled his arm in a grip like molten lava. He screamed so hard he felt something tear in his throat.

He jerked his head from the grip on his hair, felt his scalp rip, but was able to see a glowing iron clamp being removed from his arm. In that split second of consciousness he recognized the curved instrument as being the same one the smithy used when forging iron shot. It had clasped entirely around his arm and, once removed, had left a three-inch band of burned flesh that would scar him forever.

As Conar slipped into darkness, he heard Kaileel's sneer. "My Joining band, Conar!" Kaileel laughed. He pointed to the burned flesh. "With my initials carved into your flesh!"

Aye, that was a torture that hurt him far worse than anything else they had done, or could do, to him.

A sound beyond the dark recesses of his cell brought him fully aware, tore his mind from his pain. He couldn't see, couldn't even hear all that well anymore, couldn't even move his head, but he knew someone was furtively making their way to him. He heard stone scraping against stone, felt a sudden blast of frigid, sweet air blowing over him. He heard his name, and he stopped breathing.

"Conar?"

Hearing his father's voice brought tears to Conar's eyes. He thanked whatever god still cared for him that his father had not died of his wounds. As quickly as his happiness came, it died, for he did not want his father to see him as he was.

He sat huddled with cold and hunger and thirst. His bare chest was slick from the wet of the stone wall, his vomit, blood and drool. He stank of his bodily fluids, reeked of filth from the cell. His rump was soaked with urine and he was, he knew, beyond recognizing anymore. He thought if he were very, very still, very, very quiet, he would not be found.

"Conar?" the King called.

But he hadn't counted on the rat taking that precise moment to venture a nibble on his bare foot. He yelped with surprise and despair and knew his father heard him.

* * *

"Conar?" Gerren asked, hearing the muffled whimper, the scrape of metal striking the stone floor and the clink of iron. He hurried to the place from where the sound had come, found an iron door, tried to push open the heavily barred grating and found it locked.

"Conar? Is that you?"

Another muffled groan came from within the dark cell.

The King had already found the other six men alive. Barely. This had to be Conar's cell. He held up the lantern, tried to see through the grating, but the criss-crossed pattern was too close. All he could see was a darker mass against the blackness. He held the lantern higher, spied the loop of keys on the wall beside the door and began fitting the long spikes into the locks to find the right one.

"Papa, no."

Gerren yanked on the door as a key turned the lock. "I'm here, son."

"Don't come in." Conar knew he had to make a supreme sacrifice to enunciate each word in order to be understood.

"Don't be ridiculous," Gerren snapped. He hurried inside. "I'm not afraid of this place." A dim, yellow-white glow from his lantern washed the cell.

At first all he saw were the chains, latched onto dirty ankles and limp wrists that lay beside legs stretched out in filthy tatters of corduroy. His gaze traveled up the torn, splattered breeches to his son's bare chest. Gerren sucked in his breath.

Deep red blotches ran rampant over Conar's shoulders and chest. Dried, caked blood, black in the light, smeared the bruised flesh. The bent head with its lank, oily hair was lowered, turned into the shadows along the wall so that the face could not be seen.

"Son?"

There was a slight shake, a weak negation, of the bent head. "Go away, Papa." There were tears and shame in the voice. "I don't want you to see me like this."

Pain filled Gerren's heart. He hunkered down, reached out a shaking hand to cup his son's chin, but Conar flinched, burying his face deeper against the stone wall.

"Please, Papa…"

Gerren swallowed, but gently turned the battered, destroyed face toward him.

Neither Conar nor his father allowed any emotion to show on their rigid features; not Conar's shame at having his father be a witness to the brutality he had suffered, nor Gerren's guilt at having been the cause of it. Gerren's lips quivered, but Conar couldn't see the grief and shock that followed.

"They had no right to do this," Gerren whispered. His entire body trembled with fury. How dare they do this to his child?

Conar eased his throbbing face away from his father's light touch.

Gerren pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the bloody drool coming from his son's torn mouth, the drip of moisture from his battered nose.

"They had no right, Conar," he repeated. "You are royalty."

Conar tried to focus what little vision he had left on his father's face. "Not anymore," he wheezed through broken teeth and cracked lips.

His father flinched, the truth cutting him to the quick. He was responsible for what they had done. Tears formed and he made a gasping, choking sound as his shoulders began to shake.

Conar wanted to bring his manacled hands up to his face, but couldn't. Shame overpowered him. He desperately wanted to drop through the cell into the burning pits of hell and be consumed. He wanted to flee from the intensity of his father's pain, for he could feel it to his soul and knew he was the cause of it.

"Don't, Papa. Not your fault." He heard his father's pitiful, wrenching denial and wanted to take the man's mind from it. "Liza?"

Gerren heard the pleading in Conar's voice and knew his pain was causing Conar hurt. He forced his voice steady and lifted his chin, although tears fell heedlessly down his weathered cheeks. "She's well. They won't let her see you."

"Good," was the brief, heart-felt reply.

Conar pictured his wife. His heart wanted to break. He ached to have her comfort him, ease his pain, hold him in her arms one more time, but knew it would not happen, that he might never see her again.

"It was Brelan who told me about the secret tunnel." The King looked around, wondering what Conar had felt seeing this as a child. No wonder the boy was immune to normal emotions. Seeing such filth and human despair had to be telling on a young boy. "We will be there for you."

Conar didn't want his family at his trial, but he knew he couldn't stop them. He nodded.

"I will testify on your behalf."

He nodded again. It wouldn't make any difference.

Gerren put his hand on Conar's limp fingers. "They will no doubt exile you."

"I know."

"But Liza will go with you." He squeezed Conar's hand for comfort, unaware the action brought agony.

Conar knew better, but he whispered, "I would like that, Papa."

"It won't be long now. This will be be over and you and Liza can be together like before."

Never again, Conar thought with utter agony. Never again.

Tears blinded Gerren, scalding his cheeks. His son's face was blurring, the distortions running together, blending. For a second he had seen the handsome face it had once been before being beaten so savagely and expertly into the twisted lump of flesh. The King hung his head and sobs through tore his body.

"Don't cry, Papa." Conar's voice was slurred, thick. "Not for me."

"Then, for who, if not you?" Gerren sank to his knees, gathered the boy in his arms, and held him. "I have done this to you! Me! Me and me, alone!"

Conar was so very, very cold. He heard his teeth chattering. He couldn't stop the tremor that shot through him and felt his father's arms tighten before giving way.