WINDKEEPER (14 page)

"Come and play!" she called to the heavens, her voice tight. "Come and play with us, Raphian!"

With a suddenness that caused Conar to gasp, something emerged from the fire of the brazier. Rising high above the smoking coals burdened with their deadly instruments of torture, a shape shot toward the ceiling. It pulsed a sickening blood color and settled, spreading along the rafters as it covered the entire ceiling. It bubbled and hissed and moved in waves as it ran along the ceiling.

Its odor was worse than anything imaginable and it slid down the stone walls in a thick, primordial ooze, dropping to the stone floor to run among the rushes. The smell of rotting and burned flesh filled the air; the ripe and noxious stench of brimstone blended with it. Within the smoky red haze, darting, darker crimson shapes began to leap apart from the blood-mass. Mounds of distorted and bloated shapes sprang from the ceiling and plopped to the floor with a sickening thud. Sharp, distinct faces formed on the mounds and became fat, wiggling, hairless bodies. Triangular faces, whiskered faces, with sharp, snapping fangs that ground with an eagerness to tear and chew.

"Sweet Alel," Conar breathed as one red, gelatinous lump skidded across the ledge close to his bare feet. He turned nervous eyes to Liza. "Uh…Liza?"

"Don’t go near him!" she screeched to the gathering red shapes, her eyes defiant as she turned to face the brazier. The cat-like beings around her purred, then growled, then hissed.

Conar swallowed hard. Gone was the arousal of a moment before; gone was any thought beyond the fear that was insidiously creeping down his spine. Liza’s face could be seen for only a fraction of a second as the cyclonic band of color around her whirled and parted.

Liza directed her full attention to the forces gathering around Conar McGregor. She had become One with the Dark Forces. She had become One with the NightWind. She was primed to do battle with Evil.

Her arms crossed in front of her—once, twice, three times. With the third crossing, her arms jerked far apart, her voice shrieked to the heavens. She spoke the incantation for the third time and the hem of her gown billowed in the rush of a great, keening wind that swept around her with all the violence of a hurricane. The whirling band surrounding her began to fling away in chunks of sparkling bursts of light.

"Go!" she shouted above the rising wind. "Go and protect your master!"

It was hard for him to look away from the awful glory of her beautiful face. Her flesh glowed like the brilliance of the moon and her hair framed her face in such an enticing way, he once more felt the strain in his manhood. But he tore his attention from her, following the chunks of light that had spiraled from her gown. The cat-like beings as they formed, claws extended, teeth bared in a hissing protest, long tails swishing with annoyance, spitting their own defiance to the red shapes changing among the rushes were a wondrous sight to behold.

A savage, chirping cacophony rose in the air as the red shapes began to take their own form. Bloated bodies with small, round heads; whiskered noses that twitched; little mouths that gaped open to show row after row of pointed teeth; long, sharp claws on short, squat legs; hairless tail whipping about with deadly purpose: the creatures looked like giant rats.

Conar eyed the rat-creatures with revulsion. He smelled the rancid odor of their breath and bodies as they neared. He inhaled the rat smell that was so easily recognized. Their sharp fangs snapped at him, their beady, sly eyes following his attempts to get free of his chains. He tried to twist out of their way to avoid contact with them as they slithered over the stone ledge and moved stealthily toward him. They were now close enough for him to see the deadly gleam in their piercing eyes and hear the click of their fangs.

"Damn it, Liza! Do something!"

The vile things were almost upon him. He turned his head, searching for the beings that Liza had called forth. He could see the flashes of light below the stone ledge, hovering, pulsing, and waiting to attack.

"Liza!" He found her eyes boring into his. "Do something, woman! Don’t just stand there!" His wrists were beginning to bleed profusely from the effort to pull his hands free of the manacles. "Liza!"

Her voice, soft as a falling leaf, was a whisper of sound in his ear. "Command them, Conar." It seemed as though her words were inside his head. "They are yours to command. Use your power to command them."

"What the hell are you talking about, woman?" he screamed. He jerked on his bonds. "I have no magic!" He felt one rat-creature thump wildly against him and he shrieked.

"Command them, Conar!"

"I can’t!" He was glaring at her, and as a result, did not see the being that flung itself at him, burying its wickedly long fangs into the tender flesh of his thigh. He yelped as much in disgust as in actual pain.

"Get away from him!" Liza shrieked.

With unrestrained fury, Liza looked to her own minions, giving them free rein, and the cat-like beings shredded the fire-pit monsters; crunching fiery red necks with strong black jaws full of vengeance and hate.

A terrible din rose above the dungeon walls as the heat from the fiery pit of the Abyss began to abate. The stench to dissipate. Thin wisps of smoke drifted about the room in cool currents of shifting air and the light from the brazier grew dimmer and dimmer.

Conar gawked at Liza, her face gleaming so proudly and defiantly in the face of her enemy’s defeat. Her eyes were wide and glazed, staring with rapture as the demons she controlled devoured those that had come to harm him. Her long black hair was being whipped into frothy ebony foam about her head. The silver-shot gown was plastered to her body so tightly she might well have been naked.

He shuddered. His flesh had turned cold despite the heat still issuing from the brazier. He knew her for what she was and that knowledge terrified him.

She was a wild creature of the dark protecting what was hers, and somehow, he understood that, to her, he had become a possession worthy of protection. He belonged to her in a way he never would to any other woman. A bond had been formed; a chain attached to his soul this very night. Her words to the cat-beings, fading away on a long purr, removed any doubt in Conar McGregor’s mind that he was, indeed always would be, hers.

Liza threw back her head and sent an ear-splitting war cry into the night.

"He is mine! I will protect this man with all that I am and all that I ever will be! By the Grace of the Great Lady, you shall never have him!"

Her shout rang through the stone walls and wound itself into the heavens and down into the deepest pits of the Abyss.

"The Domination is, and always will be, defeated by the Daughterhood of the Multitude!"

"Sweet, merciful, Alel," Conar whispered. "What have I allowed to begin?"

This was no mortal woman. He had worried that he could not let her go when their journey was done; could not give her up when he was forced to wed the Princess Anya. Now, his fear was that
she
would not let him go; that
she
would hold him in bondage to her forever.

What have you wrought, Conar? What terrible bargain have you made this time, you foolish, arrogant man? He shook his head, his soul quivering inside him. He had bargained with a demoness, his pride told him, and now he must suffer the consequences.

"They would have dragged you down to the Abyss if I had not stopped them, Conar. They would have eaten you alive."

He opened his eyes and stared at her. He knew full well what she had done. He was no novice to the world of evil. And he fully understood now the significance of the storm that had been brewing about Norus Keep when they had arrived that evening. He knew now what it was that he interrupted, now that it was over. Now that he was beyond helping himself out of this mess.

"I might have been caused great pain, Mam’selle, but they don’t want me dead."

"You think not?"

He shook his head, lowering the golden mass of thick hair over his forehead, obscuring his face as his chin sagged to his chest. He was suddenly very tired.

"They wanted my soul, Liza. They were sent to ravage my very soul. I thought Galen brought me here. He is bent on wrestling the crown from me. It wouldn’t have been terribly hard for any of his ill-begotten sorcerers to torture me into renouncing the throne." He raised his head and looked at her. "Galen wants my birthright; the Domination wants me."

"As long as I draw breath, Milord, they will never have you."

"I’m not so sure anymore."

"We will fight them, Conar! We will fight them together and win."

"How, Liza? How do you propose we do that?"

"You could have stopped them alone tonight, Conar. You have the power within you to command the forces of the night. You know you do. Why do you deny it?"

He fiercely shook his head. "I want no part of that kind of power. It destroys you."

She pursed her lips. "There are all kinds of power, Milord. Good, as well as evil. How you wield that power is up to you."

Not the insight he possessed as a child, nor the magic he used as he grew older, nor the power he understood he could now wield, would sway him. He had seen evil up close, had felt it touch him, had lived with it. He knew intimately what certain kinds of power could do to you. He feared it; loathed it; shunned it. He wanted no part in anything that dealt with the supernatural.

"You fear you will ally yourself with the Domination if you give rein to your power?"

No, he didn’t fear joining the Domination. Nothing this side of the Abyss could make him do that. He had been exposed to their brand of mysticism and all-pervasive black magic in his early childhood. The men of the secret society had crippled him in ways he couldn’t even admit to himself. His fear was not of becoming one of those men; it was in becoming something others would shun as most people did the magic-sayers.

"I want no part of it, do you hear me?" He pulled on his chains, mindless of the thin, steady flow of his own blood down his upraised arms.

"You aren’t ready to accept what is, Milord," she said sadly. "You cannot change your nature by denying it. I’m tired. We will discuss it again someday, you and I. For now, you won’t remember the events of this night anyway."

"I’m not likely to forget anything that happened here this night!" he spat, wishing with all his being that he could chain Galen here in his place. He watched as she walked slowly toward him and realized her face was pale. "Are you all right?" he asked, alarmed.

She smiled, her eyes warm and filled with what he realized, with shock, was love. "I draw my energy from my destiny. When you are in harm’s way, so, too, am I." She picked up the hem of her gown as she stepped onto the stone ledge. "To fight that kind of evil is to know real fatigue." She laughed.

He flinched as she unhooked one of his manacles from the upright, freeing his wrist.

"Galen will pay for his part in this," he snarled as his right wrist came free and he gazed down at the torn flesh. "I’ll never forgive him."

"But you will, Conar. When the consequences of this night have real meaning for you, you will." Her voice was growing weaker.

Conar reached out for her as she slumped, picking her up gently in his arms, cradling her against his chest. Her eyelids were closing in slumber and she nestled closer to him, bringing her arms around his neck.

"Thank you," he whispered to her sleeping face and lowered his head to place a soft, feather-gentle kiss on her forehead. He carried her up the stairs, vowing to her silent form once more that he would not forget what had occurred that night.

King Gerren Yuri McGregor of Serenia, the father of Conar and Galen, was a robust man with the passion and stamina of a man half his age. He had sired many illegitimate sons on the more than willing servants and free women of his homeland; and although he had sired no daughters, a failing he bitterly regretted, he was keenly proud of most of his offspring.

His wife, Queen Moira Marie Hesar, had given him four sons: one for each Zone, he joked; but his mistresses had given him nearly two dozen healthy and vigorous ones. Only one such offspring did not bear the unmistakable stamp of the McGregor line.

That man was Conar’s second eldest brother, Jah-Ma-El.

No one ever referred to the man as King Gerren’s son, for that man refused to claim his father. Neither did they refer to him as Prince Galen’s brother, nor Prince Coron’s, nor Prince Dyllon’s. And the rest of the illegitimate sons allowed no one to call him their brother, either. If he was spoken of at all, he was simply referred to as Prince Conar’s bastard brother. The reason for this was simple: Conar, and Conar alone, claimed the man as kin.

But once, long ago, he had nearly cost Conar his life…

* * *

It was in the Monastery of the Domination, shortly before Jah-Ma-El’s twelfth birthday, that he met the boy he was told to call the Chosen.

Coming into the sacristy late one afternoon, Jah-Ma-El happened upon a small blond-haired child who sat huddled in a corner of the room, his eyes red from crying. His thin little arms were clasped tightly around stick-legs and the boy was trembling violently beneath the coarse wool of his brown robe. A vivid streak of bright red was stamped on the boy’s left cheek and Jah-Ma-El knew from personal experience such a mark could only have been caused by a man’s large hand.

A great pity welled up inside Jah-Ma-El. He had seen other such boys about the Abbey, some, like this one, bravely trying to show courage they did not feel. Most had eyes that were dull and lifeless, accepting of their plight, oblivious to those around them, their pain turned inward; but none had the snapping fire in them that was evident in this little boy’s tear-stained face.

"Are you all right?" Jah-Ma-El whispered, looking about to see if any adults were close.

"He slapped me," the boy said through teeth clenched.

Jah-Ma-El shrugged. "It happens to all of us," he said gently.

A brief flicker of resentment flitted across the boy’s face. "I’ve never been hit before."