WINDHEALER (20 page)

In the depths of a mining shaft, the walls had been shored up with heavy timber brought in especially for the purpose of building a wine cellar. It was dry and cool enough this far inside the bluff for wine to be stored with good effect. The room was perhaps three feet by seven and, along one wall, a heavy row of steel racks had been installed for the Commandant's personal supply of expensive and vintage wines that were shipped to him once a year. The only illumination came from a torch held up by whoever visited the room.

Conar's taut spine tingled as he walked behind Lawson Jones as the guard led the way. He could almost feel eyes watching him from the darkness beyond the glow of the carried light. He could almost feel hands touching him, grabbing him, pulling him down. He shook himself, cast off his fear, and lifted his chin. As terrified as he was of what happened to him by men like Lawson Jones and Lydon Drake, he forced himself to walk down the wide tunnel and into a narrower passageway that led past the work area of the prisoners. He heard hammering in the distance and felt reassured that if he were to shout someone would hear.

He had never once been inside the bluffs except when he had come into the Labyrinth, and then he had been enclosed in a coffin. He willed away that image of suffocating confinement and stared at Jones' back. His hands were sweating, his mouth dry, and his breathing shallow. He was acutely uncomfortable when Jones stopped and told him to go ahead of him.

"Why?" he asked, suspicions raised.

"The door be there!" Jones said, lifting the light.

Conar saw a heavy-looking wooden door looming out of the darkness. He swallowed his fear and stepped around the man. The hair along his neck stood up as he headed for the door in the hollowed-out section of rock face. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Jones' arm brushed past him to unhinge the heavy padlock.

"Commandant don't take no chances of the inmates pilfering his stock," Jones grumbled.

Or the guards, either, Conar thought wryly.

Jones unsnapped the padlock and pulled on the heavy iron ring. Conar closed his eyes, almost groaning as the door came open on rusted hinges squealing in protest. The sound was too much like the keening of a dying man. The musty smell of dirt and dried-out wood assailed his nostrils.

Jones' inpatient voice startled him. "What the hell are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Get your ass in there and be quick about it. I ain't got all day to babysit!"

Something dark and evil stirred in Conar. His stomach felt as though it would lose its contents. The room was confining, constricting, imprisoning, dark and waiting for him. Sweat popped out on his upper lip; his breath came in short, squeezing bursts; his heart tripped madly.

"What the hell ails you?" Jones roared as he shoved Conar into the room.

He came up hard against the steel rack, his backbone striking one jutting corner with enough force to make him grunt. He turned wild eyes to the man blocking his escape. His breath hitched from his throat in terrified gasps, and although he tried to calm himself, not to show his great terror, his entire body quivered.

Jones watched him, enjoying whatever it was that scared the prisoner. He thought he knew and grinned. "You asking for it, or what?" He took a step forward, gauged the boy's weakness, and wet his lips. "If you want it, pretty boy, I'll give it to you." He lowered his free hand to his crotch and rubbed the rising bulge.

Conar jerked, seeing a terror greater than the one he was already experiencing. He spun around, not even looking at what he touched, just grabbing three bottles at random and gathering them close to his chest, holding them as though his life depended on it. He started out of the room, but Jones stepped closer. With a whimper of dread, of building terror on the verge of turning him to a shivering lump of screaming insanity, Conar stopped,

A gleam of understanding lit Jones' moon-face as Conar glistened with sweat. He was an acute judge of men's weaknesses, having made it a point to learn the weak points of those whose failures could benefit him. He looked at the trembling man and he grinned. "You want out of here, real bad, don't you?"

Conar nodded, willing breath into his collapsing lungs.

Jones stepped out of the way, laughing as Conar nearly ran from the room, heading blindly down the dark tunnel. Jones held the torch high inside the room. He had found the weakness the Commandant had been searching for, the one thing to bring Conar to his knees!

* * *

Appolyon beamed as he listened to Jones. The angry gleam in the pig-like eyes had become a spark of mirth. The thick rubbery lips stretched into a smile of pure satisfaction, and he snapped the riding crop he often carried against his desk. "Your information is well worth the bottle of wine you requested, Jones."

Lydon Drake leaned against the wall, his smile as evil as the Commandant's as Jones left with the bottle. "You want me to bring him in, now?" Lydon asked.

"Maybe tomorrow. Give him a chance to think about how close he came."

* * *

By the time Brelan and the others were deep in the mine shafts of the central bluff the next day, a trio of men were removing the bottles of wine from the cellar. Lydon had been sent to keep watch on Conar, working in the vegetable garden behind the barracks. It was close to noon when he stopped Conar from his hoeing.

"Saur said for you to get cleaned up," Lydon snarled, carefully eyeing his target as Conar straightened and looked his way.

Sweat dripped down Conar's face and upper body; grime caked his bare feet. He glanced toward the showers and almost sighed. A bath would be almost as good as a swim in the chill waters of Lake Myria right about then. He looked at Lydon, saw the man ignoring him, and wondered why Brelan would dare stop him from working in the middle of the day.

"Then what?" he called to Drake.

It was a mark of how things had progressed, or deteriorated, as the Commandant saw it, that Conar would even open his mouth to speak. That he dared to question was remarkable and showed the courage that was returning. Lydon glared, hoping his hatred showed.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? Just do it and then report to the Commandant!"

Conar was keenly aware of the guard watching as he went to the showers, but the water would feel so wonderful, so cooling, he put Lydon's gaze from his mind. He walked behind the waist-high partition and stepped out of his breeches, laid them over the stall and stepped under the large casks. He pulled on a handle and nearly groaned with ecstasy as the water cascaded over him. Despite his pleasure, he kept a wary eye on Lydon. Every instinct screamed to be careful. He lathered his body, his hair, then ducked under the stream to rinse away the suds.

Gravel crunching behind him startled Conar. He spun around to see Lydon.

"Put these on." Lydon smirked, threw a relatively clean pair of white cotton breeches over the bath stall.

Conar pushed up and secured the lever, backing to the far side of the stall. He grabbed for his dirty breeches instead of the clean ones, but as his fingers closed over the material, the breeches were snatched away. He looked around and saw Lawson Jones grinning.

"These smell to high heaven." Jones chuckled. "You got clean clothes. Put 'em on."

Conar couldn't help but shudder at the way the men were looking at him. Jones might not have been among the men who had trapped him inside the equipment shed, but he had made his feelings clear the day before. He couldn't reach for the clean pants fast enough, stepping into them without drying himself.

Lydon grinned. "Don't he look good enough to eat, Jones?"

A warning went off in Conar's head. He looked about the compound. Several guards were milling about, each staring at him with tight smiles of pure evil on their faces.

Lydon grinned from ear to ear. "The Commandant wants to see you, pretty boy."

Mentally calculating how long it would take him to get away from the showers and to the mine entrance, Conar counted the guards standing between him and safety. Five.

"I think the Commandant wants a private chat with you. Better not keep him waiting."

He edged away from the showers, backing up toward the equipment shed, realizing where he was heading and panicked. He'd die before he allowed them to take him in there again.

"You look a little green, boy," one guard called out.

Conar became aware that the men were steadily circling him, blocking his escape, but the way to the mine entrance was clear.

With a quick breath, he dodged to his left, saw men taking that course, then sprinted to the right. A man hurried to intercept him. Conar ran up the steps of the medical hut, shot pell-mell across the porch and lunged at the side railing, catapulting himself off the porch and onto the ground. He broke into a hard run across the compound, vaguely aware of the shouts and the sound of running feet. His mind was on the mine, on the welcoming adit calling out to him.

"Hendricks!" Lydon shouted.

Something sharp struck Conar's back. He started zig-zagging across the hot sand, his bare feet digging furrows. Only twenty feet from the mine, he felt himself losing balance. He knew a moment of sheer panic as he realized one of the guards had thrown a bola that entangled itself around his lower legs, wrapping a thin band of rawhide around his knees, hobbling him. He hit the ground with a heavy thud. Lights danced along his peripheral vision as the breath was knocked out of him. He flinched as sand flew in his face when the guards reached him.

They dragged him off the ground even as he bucked against their hold, struggling to free his arms, but the men were strong. Pure animal rage tore from his throat.

"Hold the little bastard!" Lydon shouted as he came running up.

They took him into the mine, turned left toward the far reaches, and Conar knew where he was being taken. He fought as hard as he could, stumbling, pulling against them, but they carried him deeper and deeper into the mine.

"
No!"
he bellowed, realizing too late that Brelan and the others were too deep in the mine's midsection and he was being taken in the opposite direction.

Appolyon was waiting at the wine cellar. The heavy riding crop in his hand tapped out a fierce rhythm against the gaping portal. Torch lights in wall brackets overhead made the grin on his pudgy face look demonic. His jowls wobbled with glee when he saw Conar's terrified face.

"Didn't he want to join us, Mr. Drake?"

"Don't think he likes tight little places."

Appolyon nodded to the guards. They forced Conar to his knees, their strong, hard hands on his shoulders.

"Is that so?" Appolyon asked. "Do you have a fear of closed in places, son?"

Conar clenched his teeth to still his trembling lips. Past the bulk of the Commandant, he saw the gaping maw of the wine cellar and his blood raced ice-cold through his veins.

"Are you afraid of this little room?" the Commandant inquired in a gentle tone. He used the handle of his riding crop to lift Conar's chin. He stared into a face filled with fear and smiled. "Have we finally found your weakness?"

Conar jerked away his chin. "Go to hell," he hissed.

Surprise stretched over the fat face, then turned to mirth. The man clucked his tongue. "My, my, my! Have you learned nothing from your time with us? Maybe I haven't been as diligent with you as I thought." With a meaty hand, Appolyon dragged up Conar's reluctant face.

"What the hell do you want?" Conar snarled, his cheeks tightly compressed between the man's fingers.

"Your total cooperation!"

"To do what?"

"I want you."

Stark terror shot through Conar. He well remembered the man's hands on him when he had first come to the Labyrinth. Having Appolyon touch him again would send him over the edge.

"You can want with one hand and—"

Appolyon pressed his cheeks together so tightly Conar tasted blood. "I can see I shall have to teach you a little humility."

With a strength he didn't know he possessed, Conar wrenched his face free of the man's hold. "There's nothing you could teach me, pig!"

If there was one thing Appolyon was rabid about, it was any insult that called him "fat." He reacted with the kind of retaliation he was best at—viciousness. With astonishing speed, he brought up the riding crop up, lashing Conar across the bridge of his nose from cheek to cheek.

Conar couldn't stop his shriek of agony. He had to bite his tongue to hold back any other sounds, not wanting to give the dirty bastard the satisfaction of hearing him whimper. Not even when another lash caught him across the chin and throat. He managed to tuck down his chin; the riding crop stung him from left temple to right cheek. The riding crop landed on Conar's bare shoulders, bent head, but still he wouldn't open his mouth, just clenched his fists until the knuckles were white.

Appolyon, angrier than ever that his abuse produced no screams, threw away the riding crop and lunged forward, grabbed a handful of Conar's hair. He arched back Conar's head. His eyes glinted with ecstasy as he saw the criss-crossed markings, red and livid, beading blood, on the handsome face.

"You have two choices. You can come back to my quarters, and you
know
what will be expected of you; or you can spend the night in this room." He smiled as Conar's eyes widened in fear.

Conar knew if they put him in that room with its enclosing walls he would never live to get out. Already, fear gripped his guts so hard he felt his bladder loosening. With a hindsight, he knew he should have mentioned to Brelan, anyone, what had happened the day before with Jones.

"What's it to be?" Appolyon snarled. "Me or the room?"

Perhaps it was a greater terror that Appolyon offered, or else he had simply reached the end of what mortal strength he had left. Whatever the case, his pride, or what was left of it, returned. "I'd rather spend the rest of my life in there than have you touch me."

Appolyon stood up, thinking an hour's stay in the room, maybe less, would break the boy's spirit. He was sure of it. He looked at the bleeding face. "When you come to me, and you will, I will make you pay dearly for this trouble."