Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 (9 page)

“On the day they buried my mother, Giles Sorn sent a messenger to Ciona. The man said my father

wanted me with him. At first I was overcome with happiness, thinking that, at last, someone wanted me,

that I was going to fit somewhere.” He drew in a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. “That

was the first day I heard the words: ‘mistress’ and ‘half-brother'. I didn't know what they meant, but one

of the cooks enlightened me."

“That must have come as quite a shock."

“I don't think I really understood the significance of it until the man tried to kill me on the way.” He

hitched up his cords and sat down beside Weir although he didn't look at Saur as he continued his story.

“We stopped by a stream to water the horses. He asked me if I knew how to swim. I didn't even know

what the word meant."

Weir thought he knew what was coming. “He tried to drown you."

Syn-Jern nodded.

“And you did to him what you did to Patrick this morning."

Kasella had come at him, a smile on his face. They'd wrestled, Kasella had come out on top, as he

usually did. Syn-Jern had been pinned firmly to the ground, squirming beneath Patrick's lighter

weight. They'd both been laughing then, but the laughter soon turned to abject terror for Patrick.

“I didn't know what I'd done,” Syn-Jern explained, seeing the messenger writhing on the ground, his

eyes bulging from his head, his fingers clawing at a throat closing. “All I could remember doing was

struggling in the water, trying to breath, going under time and time again as the bastard pushed me down

into the stream. Sometimes I wake up at night and I can still feel that water clogging my nostrils, flowing

down my throat."

Patrick won the second toss. The men gathered around the training yard had cheered, taunted

Syn-Jern, spurring him on with their good-natured insults. He flew through the air, landing with a

gasp on the hard ground, and Patrick howled with laughter.

“If you could see your face, Sorn!” he chuckled, slapping his knees.

He sprang up, plowing into Patrick's belly, sending the Ionarian crashing to the ground; he'd flipped him

over, dragging one of Kasella's arms up his back, pinning his right shoulder to the dirt.

"If you could see your face, Kasella!” he taunted in Patrick's ear before being bucked off a wildly

lurching Ionarian.

Syn-Jern closed his eyes. The image of what had happened long ago was blending with what had

occurred only that morning. Even though the outcomes had been vastly different, the same raw,

overwhelming power had been behind both events.

“One moment he was holding me under, the next there was blood everywhere, bubbling in the water,

washing up over the banks of the stream. The man was gasping for breath, digging at his throat, and then

he just simply ceased to be."

They'd struggled with one another for over an hour, the men clapping, cheering, and calling out

ribald comments to them. Syn-Jern won two tosses, Patrick three out of the five, coming up the

winner. Things were going fine until Patrick forgot.

“How'd you get out of the water?"

“The water wasn't deep, only a foot maybe. After I'd seen what I'd done, I staggered out of the stream.

I ran until I could run no further and then I just collapsed. A farmer found me and took me back to Tern

Keep."

"What you need is a good drenching, Sorn!” Patrick shouted. Everyone was in such a good

mood, no one really noticed the instant pallor come over Syn-Jern's face nor the wildness enter

into his eyes.

"Throw him in the pond, Kasella!"
one of the men shouted.
"Wet him down!"

“What happened when you got back to Tern Keep?"

Syn-Jern shook his head. “I don't remember. I didn't want to remember. They kept asking me about the

man I had left with. They wanted to know where he was, why I had been found alone on the road to

Boreas. I couldn't tell them because I guess I'd blocked what I'd done out of my mind."

They struggled, Syn-Jern protesting in a strident, terrified voice no one could hear over the

laughter as Patrick picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. He pummeled the Ionarian's

back as Kasella ran toward the pond, intent on tossing Syn-Jern in.

“They never found him?"

Syn-Jern shook his head. “There was nothing left to find. I totally destroyed him with that godawful

power."

"Patrick, don't!"
he screamed, struggling wildly then.

"You stink, Sorn,” Paddy taunted. He ran toward the water, Syn-Jern jiggling painfully up and

down on Kasella's shoulder. “You need a bath, boy!"

“Who took care of you when you got back to Ciona?” Weir asked. He watched as Syn-Jern ran a

shaky hand through the thick gold of his hair.

“Someone sent a message to my father."

Syn-Jern drew his knees up and circled them within the perimeter of his arms. Not because he was cold,

but to keep them from trembling as his arms and hands were doing at that moment. He had come so

close to killing Patrick Kasella that morning. So very close.

Too close.

“He came himself to get me. It was the first time I had ever seen him and I was more than a little afraid

of him. He was so big and ugly and he looked at me with such hatred. I remember him bending over me,

looking me up and down, and saying: ‘You aren't much, are you, boy?’ He didn't touch me; he never did,

although once he broke my nose. That day, he had one of his bodyguards bring me along behind him.

We rode to Boreas that evening and I was given a room at one of the inns while my father visited with the

Prince. The next morning we rode to Holy Dale, my mother's ancestral home. My grandmother was

staying with friends in Chale. No one told her I was being brought to Holy Dale. She thought I was in a

boarding school in Ionary, so she left before I could even meet her.” He looked away. “I did meet my

stepmother and stepbrother though."

“The meeting must not have been all that pleasant."

Syn-Jern let out a snort of disdain. “You might say that. My stepmother called me into her solar and

made it quite clear to me that I wasn't wanted. She reminded me I was only there at her sufferance and if

I didn't ‘tow the line', she'd see to it I was sent to the orphanage in Oceania."

“It wasn't bad at all,” Weir told him. “The Sisters were very kind and loving."

“Anything would have been better than what I was forced to endure, Saur."

“Was life worse there in Virago than it had been for you at Ciona?"

His life had been a living hell at Holy Dale Keep. As bad as things had been for him in Ciona, they were

ten times worse under the care of his father and stepmother. He had felt his first real pain at Holy Dale.

“What of your grandmother? She didn't notice you were being misused?” Weir inquired.

Syn-Jern shook his head. “She thought I was at school. Whenever she sent word she was returning to

Holy Dale, I was shipped back to Tern Keep. I was twenty-one the first time I met her.” His voice

lowered. “And that was at my trial."

“If life was so bad for you, why didn't you run away?” Weir asked.

“I didn't dare. I remember rebelling only once.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “I couldn't sit down

for three days when my father's man got through with me. My rump looked like raw meat and felt

worse.” He looked at Weir. “Alicia and Trace got to watch what Higgins did to me. It wasn't just the

humiliation of having my britches pulled down and my ass whipped that hurt so much. It was their

laughter while he was doing it. That and Alicia promising me more of the same if I so much as dared to

disobey her again."

“What the hell had you done to warrant such a whipping?"

That slow, self-deprecating smile returned. “I had refused to drown the kittens she ordered me to kill.”

The smile slid away. “I couldn't kill the kittens, but I could kill humans without a qualm. I've killed four

people, Saur."

“Is that what sent you to the Labyrinth? Another killing like that first one?” Weir asked, his eyes

searching Syn-Jern's.

“Not exactly although that was self-defense, as well. I can't prove it, but I believe my brother was the

one who set the bastard on me. His name was Otis Playe and he was a mean son of a bitch. Something

happened just before the killing, something I'd rather not go into, and Trace had been involved with that.

I think he hired the man who tried to kill me."

“But you got to him first,” Weir said.

“Aye."

“How did it happen?"

Syn-Jern let out a long breath. “I was at Holy Dale. Even though I was treated like shit there, I grew to

love that land as I'd never loved Tern Keep. I thought of it as my own since I believed I would inherit it

one day from my maternal grandmother. It was going to be my home forever.” A dark look crossed

Sorn's handsome face. “And it would have been if the Tribunal had not confiscated it. I should have

known I'd never own Holy Dale."

“I know the feeling. Go on."

The Viragonian shook himself. “I felt strange right after supper and, looking back on it now, I think Otis

must have put something in my wine. He was one of the stewards at the manse. At any rate, I went up to

my room to go to bed, to sleep off the illness. There was a steaming tub of bath water sitting in the middle

of the room. I remember thinking that odd for I hadn't asked for one, and didn't use it. Instead, I lay

down, sick as a damned dog, my head spinning like a top, and the next thing I know, I'm in the tub,

staring up through water at a man trying to drown me."

“You killed him."

“Eventually. It took awhile, but I finally managed to fight back. When I finally came to myself, the man

was lying on the floor by the tub.” Syn-Jern frowned. “I'd strangled him."

“Are you sure you did it?” Weir asked.

“When Trace and his companion opened the door, my hands were still around the man's neck.” A short

laugh of contempt came from Syn-Jern's lips.

“With witnesses to prove it, eh?"

“Aye,” came the bitter reply. “Convenient, huh?"

“Did your brother testify against you?"

“He didn't. He had his companion do it.” Syn-Jern leaned back on the rock. “He wanted to inherit the

title and the lands. He had a very good incentive for doing so.” His eyes gleamed with bitterness. “He

wanted me hanged for the murder, even had his witness testify I'd made threats against the man

beforehand. What he didn't count on was my grandmother coming home in the middle of the trial."

“That must have put a kink in his chain,” Weir chuckled.

“It did. Grandmere took one look at me in the tribunal hall that day and started shouting at the top of her

lungs in Viragonian, which I didn't speak. I remember thinking: here is one more woman who hates me. I

was backing away from her, but she reached out, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to her. She was

looking at my neck and I thought: the woman is measuring me for a gods-be-damned noose.” He shook

his head. “I underestimated her. She insisted the Chief Tribunalist have me examined. There were bruises

all over my neck and chest where the man had held me under the water. There were scratches down my

hands and arms. It was obvious we'd been fighting. I had no reason to kill him, but he'd made the mistake

of telling one of the cook's helpers that he'd like to see me dead. He was the one who had the water

drawn up. It came out at the trial that I bathed in the morning, not in the evening so there would have

been no reason for me to have asked for the water to be drawn.” He lifted one shoulder with disdain.

“Ergo, a lighter sentence of manslaughter instead of out and out murder."

“It's a wonder you didn't destroy him like you did the first man who tried to kill you.” Weir shivered.

“Like you almost did Paddy this morning."

* * * *

They were almost to the water when the true panic had set in, when the terrible darkness had spread

over Syn-Jern Sorn and he had dredged up from the pit of him the monster he had tried to keep at bay

since he was eighteen years old.

“Kasella!” he thundered. His body jerked so violently his own teeth clicked together sharply as he flew

off Patrick's shoulder.

Shocked eyes, gaping mouths, stilled breaths greeted his action. Men backed away from him, horror

stamped on their pale features. Patrick was stunned; he couldn't move, couldn't speak. He simply stared

at the man before him, rocked to the very foundations of his beliefs.

“My god!” Patrick whispered, staring up at Syn-Jern Sorn. “Oh, my god!"

Men stumbled away; their hands busy making the sign against what they were seeing. Some stopped

dead in their tracks, full realization of what they were witnessing making them unaware of anything save

the apparition before their disbelieving eyes.

“I told you not to do it, Kasella!” he bellowed. “Now, you'll see! Now, you'll pay!"

He was hovering above the ground, his feet a good two feet off the grass. His eyes were dark as sin, a

blue-black that was deeper than the farthest pit of hell. The look on his face was evil, malevolent, and the

voice that had issued from the drawn back lips was deeper than Syn-Jern Sorn's own soft Viragonian

brogue; it was a voice from the Abyss.

“I will destroy you, Kasella!” it hissed.

Patrick backed away, too, just as the others had, but he had gone no more than two steps when he was