WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (50 page)

MacCorkingdale thought over the man's proposition very carefully, weighed the chances of failure, the possible repercussions that might be created because of it, then decided there were none Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 222

for the Brotherhood. He and his followers had everything to gain and nothing to lose if McGregor should die at the hands of a man who had once been his friend.

"All right, Wynth," MacCorkingdale finally answered. "I will get you to the Inner Kingdom."

They gathered in the summoning chamber, their voices lifted in incantation. The sacrifice lay gasping out his last breath, blood flowing copiously from the grievous wound which had disemboweled him, the blood of the black goat hanging overhead mixing with the human blood to form a noxious smell that was like perfume to the men assembled in the black room with its scarlet-red pentagram.

"Come, Master," Robert MacCorkingdale crooned to the massing presence looming over Its followers. "Come and grant us Your help to finally destroy our enemy, Conar McGregor!"

Raphian, the Bringer of Storms, the Destroyer of Souls, cackled and hissed as It took shape at the south end of the summoning chamber. Its odorous smell was overpowering and more vile than anything between heaven and the Abyss, and Its forked tongue dripped specks of acid on the stone floor. Blood-red eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the chamber and in those eyes was the rekindled light of battle.

"Where is he?"
the entity spat, Its huge triangular head bobbing over the respectfully assembled sorcerers.

"In the Midworld, Oh, Noxious One," MacCorkingdale complimented the demon. "Where he is powerless against you."

A hiss, what those gathered took for pleasure, slithered from the maw of the entity, but in actuality it was a hiss of great annoyance for Raphian had no powers in the land of the Prophetess.

But It did not tell Its followers so.

"You have a warrior to champion me?"
He asked.

"We do," MacCorkingdale confirmed. "One of McGregor's friends. He will do the deed."

The demon licked Its thick, obscene lips. If the young brattling from Oceania could accomplish what Tohre and MacCorkingdale had not been able to do, to rid the Black Way of Conar McGregor once and for all, it would be worth anything to the Nightwinds.

"What do you need of me?"

"Your help in transporting Wynth to the Midworld, Oh Detestable of Detestables!"

MacCorkingdale answered.

Raphian hissed. Such would not be easy, but it could be done. It waved Its long neck about the room, Its scarlet eyes impaling those gathered, then grinned. The grin was the most awful thing any of the men had ever seen.

"I will make it so!"

Chand Wynth had to cover his mouth with his hand as he listened to the men talking so they would not hear his giggle. No one knew he was on the ship, hiding where no one would ever think to look for him. What a coup, he thought as the voices faded away. To be on the very ship that was carrying the men of the Wind Force to Conar McGregor!

Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 223

Chapter Fourteen

The nightmare had started long, long ago.

In a hard wooden bunk, aboard the Boreas Queen.

It had nearly destroyed him once.

Now, it was back.

Or at least a crazed version of it was back.

He lay in her bed, sweat pouring from his pores like water. His lips moved in silent plea.

His eyes moved rapidly beneath blue-tinted lids. His hands clutched the headboard rails and pulled at them as though his wrists were tied and he were striving to get free. He lay rigidly on the damp sheets, his legs thrown out wide, but now and then he would writhe as though some monstrous evil was being done to him. An occasional moan left his trembling mouth and sounded so pitiful, so immensely hopeless, it was all the woman who lay beside him could do not to cry.

"McGregor," she whispered, trying to waken him gently, to bring him from the nightmare that hurt him so. "McGregor, wake up. You are dreaming."

The snakes were back, wrapped around his wrists and ankles, biting into his flesh, sinking their fangs so deep he could hear the bone grating. The gargoyle loomed over his head, peering down at him, laughing at him, taunting him, hissing its evil in his ear. It was dark, darker than any moonless night, darker than any nether region of the Abyss. And it was cold. So cold he shivered, his teeth clicking together against the chill and the fear that was roiling inside him and building with every fevered breath he took.

"McGregor," he heard the gargoyle hiss at him and he cringed against that hated voice, that loathsome touch that reached out with wickedly-sharp talons to rake his bare chest and draw blood.

He didn't want to see them—these fiends intent on driving him over the edge and into the waiting arms of insanity. He didn't care to look upon the faces of his enemies and see the gloating glee in their savage eyes. It was bad enough that their hands were on his flesh, pinching, scratching, gouging. Caressing.

"McGregor!"

He could feel them shaking him, pummeling him, drawing their evil hands over his flesh, lingering on him, touching him. Soiling him. He felt dirty. Unclean. Beyond redemption and their oily voices and slimy hands were contaminating him to the point of destruction.

He didn't want to see them. He didn't want to open his eyes and look into the eyes of the demons who had vowed to destroy him. Whose lusts had been slackened on his body with hands and fists and other touches even more vile and vulgar. No, he didn't want to see them.

"McGregor! Damn it! Wake up!"

His face stung with the hit and he whimpered, wishing they'd leave him alone. Let him sink into a hole somewhere and hide from their rapt attention. Slink away from their hands and mouths and organs. He tried to draw his limbs toward him, to protect himself from their vicious attention, but he couldn't move. The snakes were holding him still, keeping him from escaping.

He didn't want to see them, but his eyes seemed to open of their own accord and he stared in abject horror at the fiends who held him captive.

Raja was holding his left hand, grinning down at him as she wet her slick red lips.

Raphaella was at his left ankle, pressing her weight against his leg.

Sadie held his right ankle and was digging her old woman's nails into his flesh, puncturing Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 224

it and laughing at the pain in his eyes.

Rachel sat beside him, her strong hands wrapped around his right arm, pinning it easily to the bed.

"You have an uncommon knack for getting yourself into trouble, milord."

He craned his head back, expecting to see Tolkan Coure sitting there, holding him, but it was not Tolkan's pretty green eyes that looked down at him with such mockery. It was Liza. His beautiful, lost Liza who smiled sweetly at him and clucked her tongue.

"When will you learn, milord?"

He wanted to speak to her, to tell her how much he had missed her, but his words were drowned out by the laughter around him as every woman he had ever lain down with rushed toward the bed, their eager faces devouring him, pressing forward to better see.

"McGregor!" they screamed at him—Gezelle, Amber-lea, Myra, the mothers of all his children, the women he had taken without care to their feelings. The women he had scornfully dismissed when their usefulness was done.

"When we're through with you, McGregor," he heard Raja whisper to him above the din of womanly laughter, "no woman will ever want you again. You won't even be a man when we're through with you."

Hands clutched at him, picked him up, held his manhood loosely, and he lifted his head, staring down at the woman kneeling on the bed between his spread thighs:

Sybelle.

And in her hands was a carving blade.

"McGregor!"

He woke with a choking gasp, panting for breath, his eyes wild, his body covered with sweat. He was trembling so violently his teeth were clattering and he felt the warm trickle of urine pooling beneath his rump.

"It was a dream!" Sybelle told him, reaching out to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" he screamed, jerking away from her. He plastered himself against the headboard, staring at her as though she were a vision dredged up from the deepest pit. His knees came up and he clutched them, drawing in on himself in a protective reaction that was childlike and pitiable. His stare was crazed and the smell of intense fear drifted from him in waves.

"It was just a dream," she repeated.

"No," he whispered. The dream had been as real as the ones he had had nightly in Chrystallus. And just as terrifying. It had emasculated him then and, at that moment, he had been emasculated again as surely as though she had plied the blade across his flesh.

Sybelle turned away from him and lit the lamp. When she looked back, he was watching her like a hawk, his body tense and untouchable. There was sweat all over his face and chest, running down his cheeks and throat. He was breathing heavily as though he had run a great distance to escape the demon of his nightmare. She could see the vein throbbing in the side of his neck and the sight aroused her.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked, wetting her lips.

"No!" he spat, scrambling off the bed to get away from those slick, wet lips. He jerked on his breeches, snatched his shirt from the footboard and yanked it on, tearing it at the shoulder as he thrust his arms into the sleeves.

"You don't have to leave," Sybelle said quietly. She threw the covers back to get out of the bed.

"Stay away from me!" he ordered her. He hurried to the door, threw it open with a bang Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 225

and left the room. She could hear him crashing down the hall like a wild boar. She heard his door slam shut and knew he had locked it against her wishes. She should have had the lock removed.

"What did you dream, McGregor?" she asked aloud, wondering at the fear she had seen blazing back at her from those pale blue orbs. There had been true horror stamped on his handsome face, twisting it into a mask of hopelessness. Whatever it had been, it had driven him away.

The ride, she thought as she lay back down and tucked the covers around her waist, had gone well that morning. He had enjoyed it for they hadn't fought. He had bathed beneath the waterfall and laughed when she had pushed him under the thundering cascade. He had tugged on her leg, sweeping it out from beneath her, and she had fallen beside him, sputtering with mock rage when she popped back to the surface. He had even smiled at her, then. The first time in days that she had seen that glorious smile. They had spent a day of truce, laughing and speaking of nothing more controversial than the merits of red wine versus white. And the ride back had been just as enjoyable. When she had asked, not demanded he join her in bed that night, he had not refused.

Nor had he seemed thrilled by the prospect. But that he hadn't protested, his mouth turning mulish as it usually did, had encouraged her and she had been as gentle, and allowed him to be as gentle with her, as she knew how to be. The evening had been pleasant and she had rejoiced in the thrill of his magnificent body, now toned and as powerful as it had ever been. He had held his tongue, and temper, and he had pleasured her as she had hoped he might.

Then the nightmare had come to claim him and he had fled from her.

"What did you dream?" she whispered.

She intended to find out.

Conar dropped to the stone floor in the garden and brought his hands up to cover his face.

He was still gasping for breath, still so terrified he thought his heart would burst out of his chest.

He could hear it pumping wildly against his ribcage. The shudders which had wracked his body had been reduced to an occasional hitching jerk, but he couldn't keep his knees pressed tightly together as he knelt there on the cold floor.

"Oh, god, why?" he sobbed, reliving the nightmare that had been brought up out of the very essence of him.

Once, there had been Tolkan and Appolyon and Timothy Kullen and Lydon Drake and

Galen with Kaileel Tohre wielding the blade. They had reduced him to a quivering mass. A shameless husk of a man. No more able to perform like a man than any other eunuch in the courts of the Inner Kingdom. They had lopped that part of him away that had been the root of his manhood and had planted in him the fear. Fear of worthlessness. Fear of being unable to control his own life and destiny. Fear of being left forever at their mercy, unable to defend himself. No longer a man, but an empty vessel, drained of its worth and essence.

"Shit!" he spat, pounding his fist against his knee.

He couldn't take these nightmares again. It didn't matter that the cast of characters had changed. The intent was the same. The meaning was the same. The nightmare, that of being emasculated, made unworthy, hung over him like a noose.

Then suddenly his fury, leaping up to push back the nightmare, erupted with such violence, such overwhelming power, that he had managed to reduce his bedchamber to rubble before he became aware that he was smashing glass, ripping material, splintering furniture and slashing and reducing the priceless paintings and tapestries to nothing more than torn fragments. When he came to himself, when he realized what he had done, he stood amid the carnage and stared, bewildered, Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 226

numb, panting from having wreaked such devastating havoc. He looked around him and began to cry.

Conar was beyond anger. Beyond pain. Beyond rational thought. He had plunged himself into a realm of total insanity. Even the pounding at the door, the anxious shouts, the thud of an ax against the heavy, locked portal barely registered in his mind. He could only turn and stare at the source of the noise, neither understanding it, nor realizing he was standing at the center of the vortex. And when the blade of the ax broke through the wood, when the door was flung back fiercely against the bedchamber wall and six men rushed inside to confront the battle they thought was being waged inside his room, he could only gaze back at them with dazed indifference.