WindDeceiver (30 page)

He was dreaming, he thought.

He had to be.

There were people all around him, looking at him, reaching out to touch him.

He struggled to wake up for he didn’t like the feel of their hands on him, but his lids would not open. He tried to move away from the touches that pressed against his limbs, but he found he could not move. He wanted to speak, but could not seem to bring words from his throat.

Fear gripped him in a steel-like hand and squeezed. He was vulnerable to whoever, or whatever, was lurking about him and he was afraid they would crush him beneath the weight of their hold on him.

“McGregor,” he heard a deep, soft voice call his name.

He tried once more to pry his eyelids open but they would not budge. He shrank away from the hands on his face, smelling the faint tang of lamp oil on the cool fingers which grazed his lids.

The fingers lingered for a moment and then withdrew, allowing him the ability to open his eyes and look up into the faces surrounding him.

They were watching him struggle against the ropes which bound him hand and foot to a thick marble slab. He lifted his head and looked down the length of him, shocked to find himself naked and helpless before these people. He

Fought the restraints, hurting himself, until one of them put a calming hand on his bare chest.

“It will do you no good to struggle, my son,” the man said. “Your time has come.”

Somehow he knew they wanted his mind. They wanted his body. They wanted his very soul. He knew if he but looked away from them, they would snatch his breath away and drag him down into the Abyss to shut him away from the life forever.

“Do not be afraid, my son,” the man told him. The calm voice was hypnotic, seductive, and it invaded his mind like wisps of incense. A gentle hand was placed on his forehead and he began to lose consciousness.

He fought against the restraints, felt the blood welling up on his ankles and wrists. He was weakening, losing touch with the there and then. A part of him realized it was useless to jerk against the thick hemp around his extremities, but he had to try. He could not let them have him.

“You have always belonged with us, McGregor,” another of them said. “We have come to claim you.”

Blood dripped down the backs of his hands, slick and sticky, and oozed into his palms. His thrashings only made the hemp gouge more deeply into the flesh of his wrists, but he would not give in to the pain. He would not stop trying to get away.

“He fears us,” a sad voice said.

“There is nothing to fear, McGregor,” another answered.

He was caught fast, his body lashed down, his soul caged.

He began to cry.

“Do not weep, my son. All will be as it should be.”

They had stripped away his clothing, leaving him naked and defenseless before them. They had touched him, caressed him, stroked his shrinking flesh, lifted him and placed him on this altar.

WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 140

Now their hands were on him again, holding him down, while above him the Chief Priest raised the dagger.

Conar stared up at the shiny point positioned above him. He recognized his own dagger, the one Belial had taken from him. “You are going to kill me?”

“You have left us no choice, McGregor,” the Chief Priest told him. “We have done what we could to bring you into the Brotherhood.” The old man shook his head sadly. “But you have blocked us at every turn. You can not be persuaded to take the necessary steps to become One with Us. You can not be corrupted. You can not be altered. You could not be neutralized. Nothing has worked with you, McGregor. Death is the only way We can destroy the powers you wield.”

“It was not a solution we arrived at easily, McGregor,” another of them said. “You were a Chosen and to destroy one of Our own is most unpleasant, but We will have to do so in order to survive.”

“If We allowed you to carry on this ridiculous war with Us, you might one day find a way to annihilate the Brotherhood,” the Chief Priest said.

“And that,” said another, “We will never allow.”

The blade’s point caught a spark of light, arcing the beam across the ceiling, then the dagger began its descent toward his naked chest.

“Noooo!” Conar screamed, feeling the blade bite deep, slicing through flesh and grating off bone and cartilage as it struck his hammering heart and sank to the hilt into the muscle, splitting it.

“You are One with Us,” the Chief Priest intoned. “You belong to Us.”

Blood bubbled from his lips and dribbled down his chin. The pain in his chest was excruciating, an agony like nothing he had ever known. He could feel his soul being drawn up from his body, turning black and seared around the edges like a paper thrust into a blazing fire.

“You belong to Us,” they all said in unison.

“I belong to You,” he whispered, his voice slurred, his expression dazed as his life blood was pumped from his dying heart.

From somewhere far, far away from him, he heard other words: softer words, gentler words, words that were like a balm to him. He strove to hear those words, to make them out, to grasp their meaning for they were beautiful words and the voice which spoke them was the sweetest voice he had ever heard.

“Ignore Him!” the Chief Priest shouted, his grating voice shrill as he twisted the dagger in Conar’s chest.

Pain engulfed him, horrible, wrenching pain, but the agony was slowly dissolving in his chest as the sweet words came closer, became more distinct.

“Ignore

him!”

He could no longer feel the pain. There was nothing but a soft, warm lassitude flowing through him and he wondered if, at last, after all this time and all this pain, he had finally reached Death’s threshold and could enter that region of eternal darkness to rest.

“
McGregor
! You are ours!”

The harsh voices were fading and that sweet, sweet melodic sound of beautiful, calming words were washing over him, cleansing him, repairing his soul, pumping his life blood back into his damaged heart and sealing up the tear in his chest.

He looked up into the most wonderful face he had ever seen. There was the kindest smile, the most understanding expression he could ever remember seeing. There was gentleness: infinite and unreserved, in the warm brown eyes of the man gazing down on him. And when that man WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 141

reached out to touch him, Conar thought he would explode with love. The touch was forgiving and understanding and healing all in one.

“When you are ready,” the man told him, “I will be waiting for you, Conar. Come to me and I will give you what you seek. I am always with you.”

He came awake with a start, pulling on the chains which held him, forgetting they were there. His heart was hammering in his chest, his breath coming in great gasps.

He could still see those soft brown eyes, melancholy at times, forgiving at others. The gentle face had been filled with love and compassion and mercy. There had been solace in the man’s look and the promise of hope.

He looked down at his chest, but in the darkness he could not see the wound he was sure was there.

“You saved me, didn’t you?” he said aloud, wondering who the man was.

A part of him was still filled with fear. That sixth sense that had not worked since he had come to Rysalia was tingling, trying to tell him something. He thought he understood that warning and began to realize that he was in a place even more hellish that he had originally thought. The thought crossed his mind that this could be one of the Gateways, but he dismissed it, thinking only his part of the world had been so cursed by the Domination.

Yet for all the unease in his body, he felt a kind of inner peace that he hoped would sustain him during what was to come.

And he knew he had that mysterious man with the sad brown eyes to thank.

Catherine hurled the vase of flowers across the room and screamed her fury at the man who had dared to bring them. Had she not been tied by her ankle to the bed post, she would have gone for the bastard’s eyes.

“Get out of here!” she yelled, stretching out her hand to try and grab something else to throw at Jaleel’s messenger. As her hand closed around unlit oil lamp, she saw the poor fellow’s eyes go wide and watched him scuttle out of her aim, fumbling with the door as he tried to leave.

Conar’s wife slammed the lamp against the closing door, laughing triumphantly when the glass shattered and the oil ran down the heavy oak paneling. She was about to curse the hapless fellow who was on the other side of the door when she became aware of a presence in the room with her.

Spinning around, ready to do battle with whoever had dared to sneak up on her, she stared at the handsome young man sitting calmly on her settee.

“Hello, Catherine,” he said.

“Who are you?” she snarled, wishing she had something else to throw.

“Jaleel’s younger brother,” the man answered. “Kalli.”

“How did you get in here?” she demanded, seeing no way he could have save through the door she had attacked.

Kalli lifted one brow, but did not answer her. “Has my brother allowed you to see Conar McGregor?”

The high color left Catherine’s cheeks. “He’s here?”

“Have you not sensed him, yet?” Kalli countered.

Catherine’s face changed subtly, but her words were as cold as the snows of her Uralap Mountains. “And just how am I suppose to do that?” she bit out.

Jaleel’s brother smiled as though they shared a great secret. “I will be willing to wager Jaleel does not know you have magical powers, Catherine,” he said, clasping his hands and bracing WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 142

his neck as he leaned back on the settee. “I would imagine Sybelle has not had a chance to tell him you do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Catherine spat.

“Oh, but you do,” Kalli laughed. “In McGregor’s homeland, as in your own, men and women both share such wondrous powers, but here in Rysalia, in the whole of the Inner Kingdom emirates actually, only the female of our race has such abilities.”

“How nice for them,” Catherine sneered.

“Yes, it is,” Kalli agreed. “Especially when only such as they can enter the gates of Abbadon undetected.”

“Or get out?” Catherine shot back.

“Well,” Kalli said, shrugging, “getting out is a lot harder than getting in, I’m told. Jaleel has several sorceresses who reside here in the fortress. He employs their services on occasion.” He cocked his head to one side. “You will be the first of his wives to have that power, though.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I am already wed, as you no doubt know, and even if I weren’t, I’d rather die than be joined to that vile whoreson you call brother!”

“Strange that you should say that since Joanna, Jaleel’s first wife?, is lying on her death bed even as we speak.” Kalli’s grin was merry. “I never liked the bitch so I’m not all that concerned that my brother is making way for you to be his primary spouse.”

A shudder of fear ran down Catherine’s spine. “Why are you telling me this?”

Kalli stood up and stretched. “To warn you, Catherine. For whatever his reasons, Jaleel has decided to court you. Most likely to annoy McGregor and hurt the poor man even more than is the plan.”

“Hurt him?” Catherine whispered. She tried to go to Kalli, but the thin chain around her leg would not allow it. She cursed at the thing, then turned her gaze back to Kalli. “What are they doing to my husband?”

“Nothing yet,” Kalli answered. “But come tomorrow morn, your lover’s punishment will begin.”

“Punishment for what?” Catherine shouted. “He’s done nothing to you people! He’s done nothing to Jaborn!”

“Unfortunately, Jaleel doesn’t see it that way,” Kalli answered. He looked down at the chain. “You can break that, you know.” He turned a twinkling grin to her. “All you need do is try.” Walking to the wall, reaching up to tug at the sconce there, he turned back and fixed Catherine with a look that was no longer filled with humor. “Don’t let him know just how capable you are, Catherine. Jaleel is quite mad.”

She watched a portion of the wall slide inward. Kalli bowed to her, then stepped through the opening and disappeared as the wall slide silently back into place.

“You don’t like your brother much, do you, Kalli?” she mumbled. Her gaze lowered to the chain around her ankle. She stared at it for a moment and then the band simply parted and the chain fell away.

Catherine

smiled.

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Conar looked up as the door to his cell was unlocked and pushed open. He had been listening to the sounds echoing down the stone corridor and had known it was a woman’s light footfalls. He was surprised to see no guard accompanying her.

“Aren’t they afraid I’ll attack you, Mam’selle?” he quipped, pulling on his manacles.

The woman smiled at him. “I think not, milord,” she answered. She stooped down beside the heavy door and lifted a tray of food. Entering the cell, she came to him and knelt down, placing the tray beside him.

He glanced at the bowls on the tray and unconsciously licked his lips. His gaze lifted to her pretty face. “What? No fetid water and moldy bread?”

Her giggle was sweet. “If that is what you would prefer, I can--“

“That’s quite all right,” he interrupted, looking down at the soup, bread, and salad greens.

“I’ll force myself to eat this.”

She shook her head at him. “You are wicked, milord.”

Lifting the goblet on the tray, she held it to his lips. He was just as surprised to taste wine on his tongue as he had been that she had been allowed in here without chaperone. The wine was no ordinary vintage, either; it was of excellent stock.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that you can unchain me so I can feed myself, is there?”