WindDeceiver (29 page)

“What do you suggest, Asher?” Rupine asked. “You’ve been inside that place a few times.”

Chase’s ear pricked up and he turned his immediate attention to Asher. “How long ago were you in there?”

Asher shrugged. “Two, maybe three years ago.”

“He went there to get his sister,” Rupine said quietly.

“Is there something we should know about that situation, Asher?” Yuri demanded.

The Kensetti got up and put another piece of wood on the fire. “Rachel and the Prince are friends. I don’t think it goes beyond that.”

“But you don’t know for certain,” Chase wanted qualified.

“No, but I do know if she can help Khamsin, she will,” Asher told them.

Meggie’s intent stare turned to Asher. “How so, lad?”

“Because she’s in love with him, that’s why,” Rupine answered for Asher.

Sabrina met Meggie’s look and nodded slowly. The older woman said no more.

“Do you think she’ll have some influence on Jaborn?” Chase asked.

“Maybe,” Asher answered. “Maybe not.” He looked at Montyne. “It depends on why Jaborn wants Khamsin.”

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“Jaborn holds Conar responsible for his woman’s death,” Yuri spat. “As if Conar had anything to do with such a vile thing.”

Asher’s head came up. “The Princess Cyle? The one forced to marry Khamsin’s brother?”

“Aye,” Chase said. “I met the woman, though, and I’ll tell you, now. She didn’t seem all that upset about marrying Galen to me. As a matter of fact, she seemed rather happy.”

“There was talk of that here,” Sabrina joined in. “But I don’t think Jaborn would have given much credence to the rumor.” She wiggled her bare toes to the heat. “He didn’t want to think anyone could hold her love but him.”

A niggle of concern nudged Chase. “How would he react to finding out your sister loves Conar, Asher?”

Asher buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know. He could ignore it or he could make Khamsin pay for having been the one to steal Rachel’s affections. Who knows?”

“What worries me,” Meggie said, fusing her gaze with Yuri’s, “is that that Jaborn bastard took Conar’s men for a reason.”

“Sure,” Yuri answered. “To get Conar in his hands!”

Meggie shook her head. “No, lad. There’s more to it than that.”

Chase, having known the old woman a long time, could tell something was bothering her.

“What are you afraid of, Meg?” he asked.

“You were there that day at the battlements, weren’t you, Chaseton?” she asked, searching his face. “The day that goddawful old witch accused him of being the cause her daughter died?”

Chase nodded. “I was there.”

“Do you remember how the lad took that piece of foolishness?” she asked, her bottom lip quivering.

“Aye,” Chase agreed. He remembered that day all too well. It was only a few days after Amber-lea had been buried and Conar, still grieving for Liza, had been at the lowest ebb of his life.

Sadie MacCorkingdale’s spite had driven him over the brink of sanity and nearly broken him on the rocks of the North Boreal Sea.

“What happened?” Sabrina asked.

Chase took her hand in his. “He tried to kill himself. If Meg hadn’t been there, he would have for sure. We sure as hell couldn’t control him that day.”

“Conar blames himself every time someone he loves dies,” Yuri injected.

“The lad takes responsibility for it,” Meggie corrected. “There’s a difference, Yuri.” At the furious glare from the Outer Kingdom warrior, Meggie nodded. “He knows many of them have died because of him. His mama. His daughter. His other children.”

“My brother,” Balizar said as he quietly entered the camp. Everyone looked up at him with shock, never having heard his approach. He grinned with apology and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Shalu’s with me.”

“Amber-lea didn’t die because of him!” Yuri snapped.

“She gave birth to his son and hemorrhaged to death, Andreanova,” Shalu growled as he stomped into the circle of light, then sat down with a grunt. “He believes if he’d never laid hands to her, she’d still be alive.”

“And then there’s Liza,” Chase said quietly. “She died because she was his woman.”

“You can call it coincidence,” Meggie remarked, “Most would. But the plain truth of the matter is there’s been a lot of people murdered in Conar McGregor’s name.”

“So, what are you saying, old woman?” Yuri shouted, coming to his feet. “Are you blaming him like that vicious old witch at Boreas did?”

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“No, lad,” Meggie answered. “I’m just trying to tell you why I think that Jaborn bastard took Conar’s men.”

Chase turned his head and stared at Shalu. The Necroman was staring moodily into the flames, his big black fists clenched on his rigid thigh. “Do you think they’ll harm the others, Shalu?” Chase asked, fearful of the dark man’s answer.

Shalu, who had been beside himself at learning Conar had been kidnapped, had ridden hard to get back to the encampment; but the closer he had come to the fiery glow on the horizon, the more he slowed his steed. He knew Conar would not be there, was, indeed, in the hands of a man who was conceivably a deadlier enemy than Kaileel Tohre had ever been, and he was truly afraid for the first time in his sixty-seven years. Not just for Conar, but for the others, as well. One in particular who had become the Necroman’s best friend.

“Shalu?” Chase pressed.

“We know now it was Jaborn’s men who attacked Conar and the others at Rommitrich Point,” Shalu pointed out. “That it was Jaborn who was not only responsible for Rayle Loure’s death but Nadia’s, as well.” He lifted his head and turned to lock his desperate gaze with Chase’s.

“That it was Jaborn who was almost the death of Teal du Mer and who was--“ He held his hand up and closed his thumb and index fingers almost together. “--this close to abducting Liza that time at Boreas.” He lowered his hand. “All that done to hurt Conar.” He searched Chase’s face. “Aye, my old friend. I think they’ll kill his men, one by one, and make him watch.”

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They had dragged him down several flights of stairs, kicking and cursing, lashing out with all his futile strength, and had thrown him into a large cell barren of furnishings. His wrist chain had been looped to a thick pin in the wall above his head and his legs spread, the iron bands on his ankles slipped into hooks on the cold, damp floor. The wall behind him was frigid and wet and vile-smelling and reminded him vividly of the dungeon in Oceania where Liza’s parents had had him incarcerated once.

“I want to see my men!” he had snarled from between clenched teeth, but his guards had only laughed at his request. They had slammed shut the cell door, leaving only a thin strip of light from the torches in the hallway outside to filter through the bars set high in the door. Their footsteps faded away and the far off sound of another door closing shut out all the sound around him save for the distant plink of water.

Tears welled in his stricken eyes. He hated being caged like this. It brought back too many memories of other times when he had been lashed down, unable to move, helpless and hopeless and miserable, at the mercy of others. Shaken, nearly out of his mind with grief and guilt, he thought of Rachel and he hung his head, his breath catching with sobs.

Rachel. Dear, sweet, brave Rachel. Her death added one more burden of guilt on his already burgeoning soul. He thought of her with an unbearable sense of loss. It was almost like losing Liza all over again and knowing he was the cause of still one more woman dying because she had cared for him.

“Alel, why?” he sobbed, unable to understand why his god was continuing to punish him.

He pulled savagely on the chains over his head and howled with his despair. He was beyond caring what they did to him. Rachel’s death had opened up the still-oozing wound of his grief over losing Liza and all he could think of was that he would do whatever had to be done in order to survive so he could avenge her murder. He knew he would have to fight whatever force it was that controlled his destiny, a force he no longer understood.

The faces of his dead drifted slowly past his anguished eyes: his mother and father; his children; his mistresses; Hern, Storm, Rayle, Brelan. Even Galen’s sad face skipped lightly across his vision then disappeared into the nether regions of his being where those he had loved were kept.

“You have to fight,” he heard a voice saying. “You are a strong man, Conar McGregor.

They will not break you unless you allow it.”

He knew without a doubt that whatever was going to happen to him, whatever punishment Jaleel Jaborn had planned for him, was not going to be pleasant or easy. From some deep inner wisdom he understood that what would happen to him here in this hellish place would be the most difficult challenge of his life.

“Help me, Liza,” he pleaded. “Help me survive this.”

He laid his head back against the damp wall and stared up at the darkness beyond him.

There was no light, no soughing of wind, nothing to let him know his god had heard, and acknowledged, his cry for help. He strained to see into that vast darkness, to glimpse some ray of hope stepping down to him from the vault of heaven.

But there was nothing.

Idly he wondered if Alel held any sway at all here in this fiendish country. If his god existed among the brutes of Rysalia.

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Just when he had learned to play the game, They had changed the rules on him.

Again.

He didn’t know how to react to that. The gods had never been consistent with him except in their inconsistency.

He closed his eyes and sighed, wondering how his men, his son, was. He had been furious with Shalu when he had learned Wyn was one of the men who had come to Rysalia to find him.

“He’s his father’s son!” the Necroman had sniffed. “Who can control one such as that?”

Just knowing his son, his child, his firstborn, was within Jaborn’s reach, put sheer terror in Conar’s aching heart and brought a groan of desolate pain to his lips. Knowing Wyn was here, in this wretched donjon, maybe even chained as his father was, put a hatred so intense in Conar McGregor’s soul, he opened his mouth and cursed the god who had allowed such a thing to come to pass.

“I hate you!” he yelled. “Do you hear me, Alel! I hate you!” He jerked against his restraints. “Never again will I trust you.”

There was no bolt from the sky to strike him dead. There was no howl of wind, no chill, no rumble of thunder. There was only the steady far off drip of water and the occasional squeak of a rat.

With his mind churning with turmoil and chaos, he squeezed his lids so tightly shut he could see light squiggles. “I hate you,” he whispered.

Only silence and darkness answered his curse.

“Are you feeling better?” Guil asked, changing the cool rag on his friend’s throat.

“Stop hovering over me, Gehdrin!” Jaleel snapped.

“He could have killed you,” Guil pouted, moving to sit down in the chair beside Jaborn’s bed. “You are a lucky man, my friend.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it!” Jaleel growled, flinging the wet cloth from him. He sat up in the bed and glared at the far wall. “McGregor must be destroyed!” he hissed. “I will see that he is!”

“Death destroys quite nicely,” Guil answered.

“Yes, but death is only a beginning, you know that, Guil!” Jaborn sneered. “Even if his afterlife is one of hell-fire and torment, he will continue. I want his mind destroyed! I want his very soul shattered! I want there to be nothing left of him when he reaches his final reward!”

“From the reaction I saw this morning,” Guil replied, “I would venture to say you are on the right track with him.”

Jaborn’s face turned cold as stone. “By the time I am finished with him, Gehdrin, he won’t even know what hit him.”

“He’s been imprisoned before,” Guil reminded him. “He has tasted the sting of the lash.

He will fight to keep himself from being destroyed.”

“I told you it wasn’t physical pain I intend to give him, Gehdrin!” Jaborn bellowed. “Do you not listen to anything I say?”

“He is an unyielding man, Jaleel. He will make you kill him before he will allow you to break him.”

Jaborn turned his head and fixed his old friend with a steady look. “Once he has been isolated and we have him alone, completely alone, without benefit of friends and loved ones, without help of any kind, with nowhere to turn and no one to turn to, we will have him at the proper level of helplessness. It will be then that I will take from him everything he has ever WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 138

believed in and ever held dear. When all that has been accomplished, I will destroy his mind as he destroyed my precious Cyle!”

Guil shivered. Looking into Jaborn’s wild stare, that cold and inhuman stare that held not eve a flicker of mercy, he almost found himself pitying McGregor. Jaborn’s brutal need, his dark, insatiable bloodlust to cripple the Serenian, to corrupt and pervert and crush the man, was something Guil had never been able to understand. Nor did he think he wanted to. Sometimes Jaleel frightened him with his talk of vengeance against the Outlander. Sometimes he wondered if his friend was not just a little bit mad, bordering on insanity in his preoccupation with punishing a man who had had nothing at all to do with Cyle’s death.

“I will destroy his mind,” he heard Jaleel whispering. “I will destroy his mind.”

“And your own as well,” Guil thought to himself.

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