WINDDREAMER (9 page)

Sadie MacCorkingdale glared across the room at the two people laughing softly over some private joke. The old cook's face turned malicious, filled with enough venom to slay an entire regiment of men. Snorting when a lingering kiss became the punchline to the joke, Sadie turned and found herself confronting Regan's cold stare.

"What you want, boy?" she snapped, stirring a pot of bubbling oatmeal.

Looking past her, Regan saw his father and the Queen--he would think of Liza in no other way--staring foolishly into each other's eyes, oblivious to anyone else in the kitchen. With a bony hand, Sadie shook him. He glared at her with such hate, the woman jerked back her hand.

She looked at Conar and the lady, then returned her gaze to Regan. "You don't care much for the way things have happened, either, do you, boy?" she whispered.

"Do you?"

"Nay, I do not." She crooked her finger at him. "Let me show you something, child."

She pulled him into the storage room. When she bent over him, her foul breath made his upper lip raise in disgust.

"There are methods," she slyly whispered, "to alleviate your dislike of the way things are. He don't have no business taking away Legion's woman." Her cracking voice turned hard. "He ought to be made to leave her alone. Don't you agree, boy?"

Regan stared up at her, unsure of her motives and not quite trusting her sanity. He shrugged. "Conar does what he wants. Can't anybody do anything about it."

The hag straightened. "I wouldn't say that. There's ways to make the lady hate him--she'll run as fast as she can away from his lechery."

"Elizabeth loves him," Regan said peevishly. He turned his back on the woman. "Can't anybody ever change that."

"I can."

Regan shook his head. If there was anything in his life of which he was certain, it was the Queen's foolish love for Conar. To be rid of the hag's silliness, Regan exited the storage room.

"What are you doing, boy?"

Regan's jaw clenched. "About to break my fast, Father." Sadie's claw-like hands tightened on his shoulders. He shrugged away the vile hands and turned his attention to the Queen. His insides did a funny little flip when she smiled at him. "May I eat here, or am I to take my meals in the servant's quarters?"

Liza touched Conar's hand, then stood, pulling back her chair. "Come sit with your father, Regan. I have work to do and he doesn't."

The last thing Regan wanted to do was take his meal with Conar. But he shrugged, walked sullenly to the table, and sat down. Sadie plopped a bowl of oatmeal before him.

"Do you really like that stuff?" Conar asked, conspiratorially leaning toward his son.

Regan glared at him and moved away. "I would not have asked for it if I did not."

Conar watched him ladle spoon after spoon of sugar into the lumpy, gray gruel. He cocked a brow when Regan shoveled a glob into his mouth. Regan knew his flickering eyelids gave him away--he didn't really care as much for the mess as he had pretended.

"You can have eggs and toast, if you like," Conar said. "Bacon or ham steak, too."

"This is fine," Regan snapped.

"You finished with your plate?" Sadie grumbled, pointing at Conar's half-eaten food.

"I'd like some milk, if that's not too much of a bother."

The old woman chuckled. "Oh, milk is it you want?" She smiled. "Then milk it is you'll have." She hobbled off to the storage room.

Regan wondered at the look on the hag's face and contemplated their recent conversation.

"Are you all packed for your trip?" Conar asked, bringing Regan's thoughts back to the present.

"My exile, you mean," Regan snarled, poking another glob of oatmeal into his mouth, chewing it with difficulty.

"It isn't exile. I'm sending you where you'll be safe once I begin my battle with Tohre."

"Then why aren't you sending away Corbin, too?"

"I am."

Regan paused with his spoon at his mouth. "With me?"

Conar shook his head. "He's going somewhere else."

"Where?"

"You don't need to know."

A furious stab of betrayal shot through Regan's body. With a loud plop, his spoon dropped into the bowl. "You don't trust me."

"That's
precisely
the reason," Conar answered, looking around as Sadie waddled into the room with a tall glass of milk. "Did you have to milk the cow to get that?"

Sadie smiled. "I had to have time to put in the poison, didn't I?"

Regan started, looking at the glass in the woman's hand. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, he watched his father bring the glass to his lips. "Don't--"

Conar laughed. "She's just joking." He drained the glass in three long gulps.

His heart thundering in his chest, Regan gazed at the hag's satisfied face. A part of him wanted to tell his father about her earlier words, while another part waited anxiously to see what the milk would do.

"That was good poison," Conar said, handing the glass to Sadie. "Fix me another of your potions, witch, and I'll take it with me." He winked at the woman and stood, looking back at Regan. "I wouldn't feel at home if I didn't get my morning ration of Sadie MacCorkingdale and her insults." When the cook returned, she handed him a second glass.

"Is this one poisoned, too?"

The woman's smile brought goosebumps to Regan's arms. "I put in even more, Your Nubs. You should start to feel it soon enough."

Conar downed the milk and licked the white mustache from his upper lip. He gave the glass to Sadie, took two steps--then went rigid.

Regan stood, fear making his heart thump so wildly he could hear it.

Shaking his head, Conar put a trembling hand to his brow.

Sadie cackled. "Feeling all right, Your Nubs?"

Conar turned, vicious fury on his face. He pointed a finger at Regan. "Get your damned bags packed and quit your sullenness. You're going to Chrystallus tomorrow morn on the tide." He swung his hot glare to Sadie. "I've told you before that if you don't stop insulting me, I'll have you locked out of this keep."

"Do it," Sadie cooed. "See if I care."

With a growl of rage, Conar spun on his heel and stomped from the room, leaving behind him a cackling woman and a terrified boy.

Regan looked at her with horror.

"Ain't no poison I gave His Nubs, boy." Sadie laughed, drying tears of enjoyment from her rheumy eyes. "Just an instant reminder of what a bastard he truly is! Gets his dander up, it does!"

"Tenerse," Regan whispered. He understood the properties of many potions. Tenerse was one of the most potent. "You gave him tenerse?"

"Don't know what it's called, but it sure does set him off!" She hooted with laughter and went to her stove, mumbling happily.

Shocked, Regan sat at the table and pushed away the bowl of horrible goop. "He'll go looking for the Queen. Tenerse mixed with milk makes men do sinful things to women."

Sadie sniffed. "Nothing new where he is concerned. Every women he's ever touched has known the sinfulness of him."

Regan stared at the doorway into the keep proper. His was not the only hatred for Conar inside Boreas. He looked around at the old cook as she hobbled to the table. "Why don't you like him?"

She eased her bones into the chair and ladled a large spoon of sugar into her oatmeal. "I have my reasons. Reasons that don't concern you, boy. Let's just say he deserves it and let it go at that."

"But you'd never kill him?"

Sadie snorted. "Killing that son-of-a-bitch would be too quick and too easy for him. I like seeing him suffer." She dropped in another spoonful of sugar. "I like seeing what his natural anger does to the people around here!"

"What if he were to die? What would happen to the Queen?"

"Well, he
died
once before, and she survived." She stirred the sugar in her bowl, then lifted a spoonful of gruel to her lips, lowered it a fraction, and looked Regan in the eye. "I reckon she'd go on like she did then." She smiled. "Maybe Legion would take her back." The smile widened. "If not, maybe Brelan or that good-looking Prince Chase."

"But you wouldn't mourn him?"

"Me? Not in a million years!" She crammed the oatmeal in her mouth and spoke, toothlessly, around the glob. "Not for all the tea in Chrystallus!"

"Me, neither."

"Well, I'd say you got your reasons for hating the bastard, too."

"You think so?"

Sadie nodded. "Look how he treats you, boy! Here he is sending you off to that cold country, cutting you off from your family." She looked at him with pity. "He don't no more care for you than he does that rat skittering about in the corner over there." Her next words hardened his anger. "You're like that little rat, you know? If he were to see it, he'd rid the keep of it. That's how he sees you. Just a little pest to be got rid of."

Regan lowered his eyes, fearful of the woman seeing the deadly intent lurking there. Silently, he stood and made his way to the door.

"Don't let him smother you, boy!" Sadie called. "He will if he gets the chance."

"No, he won't...I'll smother him first."

Somewhere near the false dawn, Conar awakened, knowing, instinctively feeling, that he wasn't alone in the room.

He turned his head, strained his vision, willing his sixth sense to penetrate the dark corners. His eyelids felt heavy, scratchy, and he closed them. Sighing, he turned his cheek into the pillow and tried to get back to sleep.

It wasn't easy.

He'd gotten into nasty arguments during the day with both Brelan and Roget, then had snapped at several of his men, who left in a rage over his accusations of incompetence. He'd encountered surly looks from at least three servants on the receiving end of some of his barbs, and their mumbled replies to his questions had set his teeth on edge. He'd even engaged in a shouting match with Grice over so stupid a matter as the way a portrait had been hung in the gallery.

He'd lain awake most of the night, trying to fathom the reason he had been in a foul mood. Thinking back on it, he deduced it was having to deal with Regan at breakfast. Having to send the boy away weighed heavily on his conscience. That could have caused his jitters. But also having Liza so near and yet so far away didn't help his frame of mind. Merely thinking about her had roused him, so he'd sent word to her that when she returned to the keep to keep out of his way. He explained why, and when the messenger came back with a note from her telling him to "take a cold shower," he had almost sought her out. But better judgment had prevailed and--much to his surprise--his overpowering passion left him suddenly in the midst of an argument with Teal.

Sighing again, he lifted his head, punched the pillow, and turned over. He came down hard on the pillow, an exhalation of annoyance issuing from his clenched teeth.

Yes, he knew what was wrong with him. He was horny. He ached for the woman across the hall. Wanted desperately to go to her, to lay with her, make love with her.

"It would not be right," Occultus had reminded him.

Conar turned onto his back, put his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.

What little sleep he had gotten had done him little good. He felt edgy, his nerves fraying. And his manhood throbbed. He tried to ignore it and found he had no willpower. He was so aroused, he ached, and thoughts of Liza kept intruding. He had to dig his nails into his palms to help alleviate the itch in his groin.

"I can't wait until Friday," he remembered Liza whispering as they parted at their doors that evening.

He groaned, thinking what Friday would bring, and wishing it was not Thursday morn.

A board creaked, a rafter groaned, wood popped in the grate. Off in the distance, a horse nickered--high-pitched, unearthly. Conar wondered at its strangeness. The sound seemed almost like a warning. Tensing, he felt a trickling of unease along his spine.

He turned his head toward the window--

And gasped. "What are you doing in here, Regan?"

The boy stood like a marble statue, blazing hatred back at him, hatred so hot it nearly sparkled in the moonlit room.

"Regan? What's wrong?"

Slowly, the boy raised his right hand above his head.

Conar's eyes flared, recognizing one of his own daggers in Regan's upraised fist. The dagger Conar thought he had lost. The curved, serrated crystal blade looked wicked in the child's grasp.

"What are you doing?" Conar whispered, his gaze lowering from the dagger to the child's face. For one frozen moment, they looked at one another--the father who ached for the loss of innocence in a child of his loins; the son with death written on his solemn young face.

Though something in the child's expression warned Conar he was about to strike, he never tried to stop him. Not even as the dagger began its downward curve toward his naked chest. Not even as the blade descended, biting deep into the hollow between his collarbone and shoulder did Conar attempt to deflect the blow.

He could only stare, confused and grief stricken, as the child grunted with the effort and pulled the blade free. He marveled at the boy's strength and purpose. In the back of his mind, he heard a sultry voice speaking to him and tried to distinguish the words, but Regan raised his hand again and the blade stabbed toward Conar.

Once more the tempered crystal dug into him. This time along his left rib cage, glancing off bone, leaving a wicked gash to pulse blood onto the white satin sheets.

Conar put up a trembling hand to halt the dagger's upward pull, for it had buried itself in the mattress beneath him. Snarling in fury, Regan reclaimed the blade. Conar gasped in pain when the edge pulled across his palm, leaving a gaping wound and blood dripping down his fingers.

"Regan?" he groaned. "Why?"

Again, the husky voice cooed to him, and he tried hard to make out the words. But in a flash of agony, the dagger buried itself to the hilt in Conar's side.

Moaning, Conar tried to roll away. The dagger pulled sideways across his side, opening a long cut before the child yanked it free.

"
Die!
"

The word seemed to pour from Regan's very soul.

Conar knew he wouldn't be able to deflect the next strike as it came toward his exposed back. In his heart, he knew Regan would make it the killing blow. He gripped the bloody sheet under him and tried to drag himself across the bed.

Once more the voice whispered to him and he felt himself slipping over the edge of consciousness. The mattress dipped under his son's small weight, and a battle cry shot from Regan's lips. Conar looked over his shoulder to see Regan kneeling on the bed, arms raised, both hands gripping the bloody dagger. He looked away, unable to endure the horrific sight.

He barely heard the boy's frantic scream of frustration as Occultus grabbed him and jerked the dagger from his fist.

He barely heard the shouts of men, Liza's scream of terror, as people gathered around and tried to assess the damage.

He barely felt the hands turning him over or heard the gasps of shock at all the blood.

What he experienced at last was the familiar, sultry voice speaking to him as though time hadn't moved forward.

In his fading light, he saw the woman's long black hair, flowing in the garden's breeze. Saw the lightly falling snow, felt the icy cold on his bare feet. He saw Raphaella's green eyes, blazing with sensual purpose as she cooed to him in her silken, husky voice.

Her words came clearly...
"Flesh of my flesh,
Blood of my blood,
Thrice the blow will come.
Torn the flesh,
Shed the blood,
Beware the source..."

Conar's eyes rolled back in his head as he whispered to those around him..."My son."

He wheeled his big, black, war stallion and trotted to where she stood. Before she realized what he was about, he bent low in the saddle, grabbed her around her waist, and swung her up before him.

Laughing at her protesting shriek, he kicked the sleek steed into a gallop, and stifled her protests with a firm, unrelenting squeeze around her body. He dragged against him. Her long ebony hair billowed in the wind, teasing his cheeks and curling around his forearms as he held the reins. He felt the soft curve of her bottom, resting along the hard cords of his muscled thighs.

In the rushing wind, he caught the sweet, familiar scent of lavender wafting from her. He breathed deeply. No longer was he aware of the stallion between his thighs or the wind rushing against his face as they flew over the desert sand. No blue sky beamed down from above; no sound of pounding hoofs came from his destrier. All sight and sound, smell and feel, was of the woman he held so tightly against him.

Then the image changed.

He no longer galloped across the hot sand, but found himself buried beneath it. He strained to look up through the rose-colored, suffocating sand surrounding him, but only a faint speck of light shone through the pebbly surface. He felt air being forced from him, and gasped in the scalding, grainy substance that did nothing to inflate his straining lungs. He coughed, gagged, clawed at the confining barrier.

To his horror, he discovered not the hot desert sand under which he had lain, but rough pine wood, scraping his palms, embedding itself under his furiously scratching fingernails. His hands encountered metal, first in one corner, then another, a third, a fourth. Stale air flowed through what appeared to be thin metal pipes, set in the corners of the wooden box.

In the back of his mind he knew plenty of air remained, that he could breathe easier if he'd only stop gasping, stop scratching so frantically at the wood. But the thought of being shut away, being forced into solitude, loneliness, helplessness, hopelessness, made him throw back his head as far as the tight structure would allow and scream. It became an inhuman bellow of despair and frustration, the ageless battle cry of a primeval warrior who has come to realize the fight had been futile, the battle lost.

With a suddenness that shook him to the core, he spiraled out of the box and found himself alone in the heat of an alien landscape. Black columns of smoke rose above high bluffs of dark crimson sand. He put up his hands to cover his ears and discovered his palms bloody, his wrists heavily shackled with thick, black bands. He tried to shake them off, but the manacles expanded, covered his arms from wrist to elbow.

He had never felt such loneliness. Here in the Void he was totally alone. Totally defenseless. There was no sound, no sensations of smell or touch. Cocooned in the vast belly of some timeless, ageless being, he felt the life being sucked from him. Fang-like pinpricks that caused him enormous agony. All he could do was think.

And those thoughts of wanting, of needing, of desiring, of being, of remembering hurt him, for they were something that he understood did not exist within the Void.

"When you enter the Void," he heard his enemy taunt, "the Void enters you!"

He knew Death stalked him, even though he could not smell Its violating stench.

Over and over in his imprisoned mind, he spoke her name, whispered it, caressed it. He struggled hard to conjure in his sightless, limited brain, his imprisoned body and his loneliness, her face and her body and her smile, but most of all, most importantly of all, her love.

Straining with all his might against the insidiously creeping darkness that suddenly began to invade his mind, he realized that even his thoughts were being sucked from him. And he knew when the blackness finally crept over him, when it seeped into his mind, when it filled his body and tainted his soul with poison, he would be forever lost in the Void.

"Liza..."

If he lost contact with her, even through thought and memory of which he was now only capable, he would be finished, deprived of existence except as a shadow in a world filled with shadows. He would endure an unspeakable hell for all eternity, knowing beyond any doubt that even without sight and sound and feel and touch, memory and thought, he would still be alive in his own mind with an intolerable loneliness--his own private hell.

If he allowed the darkness to conquer him, to settle the plains of his existence and take up residence in his mind, he would forfeit all that he had ever been.

"
Liza
..."

Struggling to keep the creeping, insidious blackness at bay, he forced his lips to move, to speak, to call out. No sound came from him, but he knew his lips moved, knew somewhere beyond the Void, she would hear--

"
L
...
i
...
z
...
a
...
!
"