WINDHEALER (2 page)

"How is he?" the young man's brother asked.

"Much worse this time."

Jah-Ma-El nodded. "Do you want me to stay with him awhile?"

"They'd get suspicious."

Jah-Ma-El nodded again, wanting desperately to stay, to help. "You will call me if he should get worse?"

The Healer let out a long breath. "I promise."

One last look at his little brother and Jah-Ma-El opened the door to leave. He looked back at the Healer. "Two of his men were brought in this morning."

"I know."

"That makes nine in all from the Elite."

"We'll need them all to protect him, Jah-Ma-El."

Jah-Ma-El cringed. "I saw Lydon in here."

"He's been warned. There won't be a repetition of what happened last night." The Healer's face was set and hard.

"He's being watched."

"Lydon?"

"Him, too," Jah-Ma-El answered and left.

Going to the window, the Healer looked over the courtyard. He nodded to himself as he saw several men watching the hut. Men who could be trusted with Conar's precious life.

A loud rumble of thunder shook the hut. The Healer glanced up at the darkening sky. He frowned. Another storm. Another week of rains. He stepped back from the window as a flare of sharp lightning lit the sky beyond the tallest bluff.

"All the hell we need," he grumbled as he returned to his desk. He sat and returned his gaze to his patient, his heart filling with fear for the young man.

Healer Xander Hesar had been born and raised in Virago. He was related to Prince Rylan and Prince Paegan of that windswept country. His hair, although heavily streaked with silver, was a pale amber color and his gray-blue eyes were a perfect foil for the ruddiness of his complexion. He was not tall, only five-foot-ten, but he carried himself well, for he had been a refined gentleman before his transportation to the Labyrinth twenty-six years earlier. A prisoner at that time, Xander had learned the healing arts from the former caretaker of the inmates' health. It was a profession he loved and took great pains to improve. Keeping a man alive, even in such an evil place, meant much to him.

"And I will keep you alive, son," he whispered. "I swear on your mother's grave, I will keep you alive!"

If it had not been for him, Xander thought with dismay, Conar might not have survived his first week in the Labyrinth. There were some men here, Lydon Drake chiefly, who posed a deadly threat to Conar, had planned his murder while he was still in the Commandant's Interrogation facility. Xander had been warned by one of the guards who overheard the plot, and Conar was watched closely by both Shalu and Roget du Mer. Xander had informed the Commandant and the plot had been foiled.

"The last thing I need," the Commandant had snarled, "is Conar McGregor to die under my care!" The fat man turned a heavily scowling face to the Healer. "Tohre would have my head!"

"Then you had better make sure Drake is never left alone with him. That bastard means to see the Prince dead."

"Traitor!" the Commandant corrected. "He is no longer a prince." The beady eyes narrowed with malice. "But then again, neither are you!"

So the guards had been given strict instructions that nothing lethal was to ever happen to the Conar. No brutality that might cost him his life. No prolonged abuse that might render him crippled. The guards kept him as safe as their own petty torments would allow, while those who hated the Prince took what vicarious pleasure they could in the numerous beatings and abuses he suffered. Such men numbered few in the camp, and for that, Xander was thankful.

Conar moaned. His lids fluttered and a hard chill shook his body. He tossed his head on the bare pillow and the lank hair fell into his face.

Xander got up and dipped a rag in the water basin. He set the rag on Conar's brow. His gaze fell on the intersecting scars that deeply marked the young man's left cheek.

There were other scars on the once-handsome face. Razor nicks, scratches from brambles, the slash of a signet ring across a nose that had been broken many times, the remains of a cut caused from a lash across his right cheek by the Commandant's riding crop. There were other scars and marks on the young man's body, as well. The massive destruction of his back, the brand of traitor on his right shoulder, Kaileel Tohre's brand around Conar's left arm, the dual burns in both palms, the vicious symbol of the Maze tattooed on his left wrist. Such carnage on one body was almost too inhuman to contemplate.

"They'll pay, son. One day, they'll pay for every hurt you've ever suffered."

Conar groaned, opened his eyes and stared up at his companion. The blue eyes were glazed with fever, blank, devoid of life. The handsome face with its myriad wounds was pathetic to see as some horrid emotion crossed the features.

"Water…?"

Xander nodded, automatically looking around even though he knew there were no others in the room with them. He poured a tumbler of tepid water and brought it to Conar's lips, carefully lifting the sagging head so he could drink. He allowed Conar only a small amount before laying his head on the sweat-drenched pillow.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, son."

Long into the night, as thunder rumbled heavily overhead, shaking the ground and timbers about him, Xander watched his patient fitfully sleeping. Lightning crashed, shrieking across the heavens; rain poured in a deluge of battering intensity; the air turned thick with an alien cold. He drew the covers up over Conar's naked chest, settled himself in his chair, and slept.

Thom Loure's big, rubbery face wrinkled with confusion. His high, wide, hairless forehead scrunched down over his beak-like nose. He cocked his head and rubbed a thick hand over his baldpate. "Do we know that man?" he asked Storm Jale. When Jale didn't answer, Thom dug his sharp elbow into the skinny man's side.

Storm shoved away the offending elbow. "How the hell should I know?"

The two former members of Conar McGregor's Elite guard hunkered beside the malodorous pit that served as a privy for the penal colony. They had arrived on Tyber's Isle that morning, but had already lost much of their bravura.

Thom again ran his manacled hand over his head. "Don't he look familiar?"

Storm glanced at the tall man standing stoop-shouldered beside him. "How can I tell with all that hair?"

"Here, you two!" one of the guards shouted. "Into the Indoctrination Hut!"

"Just do what they say," Jale advised as he headed in the direction the guard pointed.

Looking over his shoulder as he entered the Indoctrination Hut, Thom shook his head. "I
know
that man," he mumbled as the door closed behind him.

* * *

King Shalu Taborn grinned nastily. He had seen the lumbering ox looking at him, trying to place him. He grinned at Roget du Mer. "I once had a talk with those men." With a meaty thud, he pounded his right fist into the palm of his left hand. "I'm looking forward to speaking to them again."

Roget shook his head. "That's the least of our concerns now."

"Maybe the least for you, du Mer; but the foremost of mine." The darkman chuckled.

Roget pitied Storm Jale and Thom Loure.

Two hours later, while Thom and Storm were picking their battered bodies up from the ground, Shalu was being remanded to the Commandant's hut for having started a fight with the new arrivals. Roget sat with Jah-Ma-El outside their hut under the overhang of thatch, watching the rain splattering the compound yard.

"He just had to do it," Roget snapped.

"They're the ones what caught him in Necroman," Jah-Ma-El reminded his friend.

"That doesn't excuse him. Appolyon will have him whipped." Roget let out an angry breath. "We need to stick together. I've got to tell them about Coni—"

"Hush!" Jah-Ma-El glanced at a nearby guard, relieved to see the man wasn't listening them.

"Doesn't look like they're going to whip the darkie." Jah-Ma-El jerked his chin toward the Commandant's hut where Shalu was just appearing on the porch.

Roget squinted through the rain. Shalu had a set, mulish look on his face and, even from the distance at which Roget viewed him, his eyes blazed with fury.

"What the hell's happening, now?" du Mer asked.

Jah-Ma-El shook his head. Whatever it was, it was about to cause trouble, for word was spreading among the inmates; men were appearing in doorways and stepping outside under the wide overhangs.

A lanky guard walked rapidly toward them, glanced at Roget as he passed, and mumbled, "The sludge ditch is overflowing."

"So?" Roget snapped, then stilled, his gaze going to Shalu.

"Oh, hell," Jah-Ma-El groaned.

Now, men walked out in the rain. Their backs were to Roget and Jah-Ma-El, but the two could feel the excitement in the air, the expectation. Few men liked the Necroman; many actively despised the black man. Whatever caused trouble for him was eagerly regarded as excellent entertainment.

"I don't know what we'll be able to do, but let's go," Roget sighed, coming to his feet.

It rarely rained at the Labyrinth, but when it did, nature shrieked on gusty winds and stabbed lightning while thunder shook the ground with an angry cadence. And as this dark-passion world would have it, it was the only time when there was complete, constant night, lasting from the time the first angry lightning flare streaked to the ground until the last rumble of thunder rolled from the heavens and the last drop of rain fell.

Cold, buffeting winds pierced the tattered clothing of the inmates, tried to put out the oil torchlights high above the compound. Rainwater gushed in torrents and the loose sand became a quagmire, washing away the older huts and often damaging the newer ones with large hailstones.

Tonight, it seemed as though the entire world would be washed away. Just as Roget and Jah-Ma-El joined the crowd of onlookers near the Commandant's porch, the sky opened up with an onslaught of rain that battered the men with fury.

Already wide streams of water flowed through the yard, pooling around doorways and porches. The ground shook with each successive rumble and the sky turned white-hot with the flash of lightning. A sharp, ear-splitting crack could be heard now and again, and the men, although curious about what was happening, turned nervous expectation to the deadly skies.

The communal privy ran behind the huts and barracks and into the lake. It was from this ditch that garbage and all manner of filth was washed away from the compound.

As the rains increased, continuing on into what was now the sixth hour of non-stop torrential downpour, the ditch began to overflow. Rocks that formed a barrier had been washed loose and fallen into the stream. With any kind of clog interrupting the flow, the contents in the noxious depths would begin to spill over the banks, leaving clumps of offal and decayed matter scattered about. The health problems would be horrendous, but the stench was bound to be even worse.

Not quite a week before, in preparation for the heavy rains predicted to fall, Conar had been forced to dig an auxiliary trench alongside the sludge ditch, but that section wasn't finished. He labored that week digging the trench parallel to the main ditch while the guards took every opportunity they could to relieve themselves while Conar was working. He had been splattered with some of the terrible flotsam, had gagged at the smell of it on him as he labored in the hot sun.

"They're going to make Shalu unclog the trench," one of the inmates muttered to Roget.

"What about the Traitor?" one of the others asked. "Why isn't he out here doing his job?"

"Because the man's sick, fool!" Jah-Ma-El snarled, shoving the speaker.

Roget spoke quietly to Jah-Ma-El, cautioning him to silence. He pushed aside one of the inmates blocking his view. King Shalu Taborn was hustled into the courtyard. Men moved aside as the guards, each holding a thick black arm, escorted him to the ditch. They pointed out what he was to do and he flatly refused, his deep bass voice thundering above the crash of the stabbing lightning.

"
Go to hell!"

They began to strike him repeatedly, cursing and threatening, but the Necroman held fast to his resolve. One guard knocked him to his knees, no easy feat since the black man was large and muscular.

The deep brown eyes and haughty features looked up at the man with ill-concealed contempt, flared with red points of hatred, but he shook his head. "
No!"

A vicious kick to the small of his back doubled the man over, but he raised himself up and folded his massive arms over his thick chest.

"What'll we do?" Jah-Ma-El asked, his voice tight with fear.

"What can we do?" Roget knew he and Jah-Ma-El couldn't do it alone and they were only two of five men there who would even try.

"We can't just let them kill him!" Jah-Ma-El started forward, but Roget stopped him.

"Wait! Let me think!" du Mer ordered.

* * *

Conar had been drifting in and out of consciousness for five hours. His fever was a tight band squeezing him in a fury of aching pain in his joints and violent cramps in his abdomen. Sweat rolled over his weak body, draining him, making him sick with the smell and feel of it. Weak convulsions still shook his pathetically drained body. Now, as the fever began to subside, he lay awake, but exhausted, striving hard to throw off the remnants of the illness.

He had been dreaming. His mind had drifted far afield of the red-hot pit in which he dwelt, bringing him to a green-growing place where flowers bloomed and birds sang, where silvery water trickled over crystal riverbeds beside lush, clover-strewn berms of rich earth. Where cool golden sunlight dappled the water of soft blue ponds, and where moss-covered rocks beckoned a person to sit and stay awhile. Where crisp white snow fell on majestic mountain peaks and tall scented pines and firs lent a regal smell to the air. He could smell the pine tar, the clover, the hint of honeysuckle and jasmine, and the intoxicating aroma of lavender…

That smell had brought him back to consciousness, his heart thudding wildly in his heaving chest. He gasped for air, shut his eyes to the darting memories that loomed up to hurt him. He was helpless and vulnerable to the memories his mind tortured him with. He was as susceptible to the torment as he was the lash.

He couldn't think of that smell, he told himself. He must not. He would not. It hurt him far too much, far too deeply. He had tried to force that memory deep down inside him. So far down the guards could never reach it and take it away. He wanted it to stay buried. Out of reach, out of his tormented soul. It would remain locked against this awful world in which he survived a waking death.

Weak as he was, and trembling from the effort, he managed to sit up. He looked at the Healer as he slept, snoring lightly on a cot nearby. The man was good to him. As good as the Commandant would allow. It was a comfort Conar cherished.

A loud shout caught his attention. He turned his head toward the open doorway. He heard angry voices, meaty thuds. From somewhere deep inside him came the overpowering desire to stop whatever was taking place, no matter how ill he was. Strong emotion shot through him; he heard it calling to him and knew he was the only one who could help. He felt compelled to be in that courtyard, to make right whatever was wrong.

He took a steadying breath and swung his legs off the cot, nearly passing out as his head spiraled with a throbbing pain. He made himself stand on unsteady feet, his hand gripping the cot's frame in order to stay erect. Leaning heavily on the edge until he could still the spinning fury in his head, he straightened, grimacing at the terrible weakness in his limbs. He stood for as long as he dared, until he was certain he wouldn't fall, and then, clutching the wall for support, his fingers splayed out over the rough wood slabs, he stumbled to the open doorway where rain cascaded in.

He squinted into the almost total darkness and could see the flaring pinpoints of overhead torchlight. Men had gathered around the sludge ditch and his blood ran cold. He knew what must have happened.

There was no hesitation on his part. There was no turning back. What had to be done, had to be done by him. Taking a deep, wavering breath, he ventured into the deluge and was immediately soaked. His filthy breeches hung on him in baggy tatters, dark-stained with his body fluids and just as malodorous. He stumbled over the sucking, greedy mud, his eyes filling with rain, blinding him, stinging. He lowered his head and trudged forward, skirting the deeper puddles where he knew he would sink knee-deep into the earth.

He tripped over something and went sprawling, landing with a splash of thick ooze. His face skidded into the slickness, plugging his nostrils and right ear and nearly choking him as it filled his olfactory senses with the cloying smell of wet sand and urine. He managed to pull his head clear, shake it despite the godawful agony it brought him, and then struggle to his knees, his hands buried.

Angry shouts turned vicious, lethal. He raised his head and listened. Something stirred inside his soul, something he hadn't felt in a long, long time, and he gained vigor from it, took courage from it. He gathered all his waning strength to heave himself unsteadily from the ground.

He stood, wove like a drunkard as he waited to be sure he wouldn't fall, then started forward.

So intent were the others on what was happening to the Necroman, the inmates and guards didn't notice Conar until he was almost to the ditch. He eased through their neck-craning ranks with the invisibility his presence at the Labyrinth had acquired for him. He slipped, unnoticed, unfelt, between the men, never touching them, never speaking, never looking at them, and made his way to the rock barrier near where Shalu knelt. When he was at last noticed, shocked gasps turned to incredulous silence and the prisoners began to back away from him in waves.

The Necroman was still on his knees, his brawny neck exposed as two guards held back his head. The Commandant stood over him, a thin-blade dagger paused at the corner of one cinnamon-colored ear. Together, they looked as though they were posing for some gruesome portrait in a mad artist's gallery.

Lightning flashed; rain gushed down in a solid sheet of ice-cold fury as thunder seemed to shake the very world. Another flash of lightning forked viciously across the heavens, arced out in several places at once, backlighting the scene with an eerie glow that turned those gathered to ghost-white figures.

King Shalu Taborn went still as death as he saw the young man. Taking in Conar's appearance, the Necroman could see into the very soul of the man staggering toward him. He let his troubled gaze settle on the wounded, fever-ridden face, willed that face to look up, those heralded blue eyes to fuse with his own. "Look at me!" Shalu silently commanded. "Look at me!"

Conar heard the command deep in his soul, recognized it for what it was, shook his head against the call.

"Do it!" came the call once more.

Slowly, he lifted his head, looked hesitantly to the Necroman, held the gaze only a fraction of a second and then looked away.

Shalu wanted to scream with fury. How long had it been since the boy had been allowed to look anyone in the eye? A year? Two? Looking at the beaten-down sag of those once-proud shoulders set the Necroman's teeth on edge. He remembered another time, another rainy day, when this boy had done him a great kindness, had shown him unstinting respect. "Look at me," came the silent call again, soft, filled with emotion.

Conar lifted his head once more; their gazes locked.

The Necroman didn't speak; he knew there was no need for words between them. But for the first time in his life, he lowered his own eyes to another man. Unselfish courage was something the Necroman understood and he recognized it in Conar.