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WINDHEALER
By
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
© copyright October 2006 Charlotte Boyett-Compo Cover art by Kat Richards, © copyright October 2006 ISBN 1-58608-978-1 New Concepts Publishing Lake Park, GA 31636 www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Though his children be many, the sword is their destiny. His offspring shall not be filled with bread. He lies down a rich man, one last time; he opens his eyes and nothing remains to him. Terrors rush upon him by day; at night the tempest carries him off. The storm wind seizes him and he disappears; it sweeps him out of his place.
JOB 27: 14, 19-21
PROLOGUE
Long after a devastating world war destroyed life as it was known and leveled nearly all structures and destroyed roadways and rail lines, there arose from the ashes two groups of men who had battled against one another so bitterly only a few thousand survivors were left on the entire planet.
One group was a tightly knit band of men and women who took the name Windwarriors and they strove to bring back justice and right to the world. The other group--the one that started the war in the first place--was the Brotherhood of the Domination, a sect of magician-priests who had learned to harness the greatest evil of all: that of the god Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls, the Ultimate Wickedness. Continuing their battle with one another until nearly all of mankind had been decimated, the two factions finally came to the realization there would be no one left to rule the planet and thus engineered an uneasy peace between them. Over the intervening centuries after the smoke and flames of the Burning War had settled that fragile, uneasy peace was once again being tested.
In the powerful country of Serenia, the young man destined to be the greatest warrior ever born, a future savior of not only his own people but those from many nations as well, grew up as the heir to that kingdom, a prince much loved by his people. The young man was so favored, so respected he was given the gift of great love by the gods and goddesses. That love was so overpowering, so strong it survived overwhelming attacks on him wrought by the Brotherhood who were determined to have dominion over the entire world once and for all. His Joining in marriage to the Princess of Oceania was celebrated in every country but it was feared and hated by the Brotherhood who knew great power was within the hands of the woman known as the Windkeeper.
Because he would not bow down to the priests, would not take upon himself the mantle of their exacting evil, the young warrior was arrested, sentenced for punishment and after his torture was completed, declared dead by his enemies. Sealed in a coffin, he was taken out to sea as his people--and his devastated young wife--mourned. In his name, a new war started between good and evil. But evil triumphed over the good that-without a strong leader to hold them together--crumbled to its feet.
Countries fell during a bitter war between good and evil; brave warriors were slain; women and children were enslaved; princes were captured and sent to the vilest penal colony ever conceived by the man of mind. The land was thrust into turmoil and the countries were soon run by corrupt priests who had the power of the greatest evil in the universe at their command. Murderous troops sworn to uphold the most terrible, restrictive laws to ever be meted out to a people patrolled the land, swords ready to kill on a whim. Puppet rulers were set upon thrones as figureheads to appease an enslaved and terrified populace. Those who dared defy the priestly regime were squashed into obedience, slain outright, or sent to loathsome prisons, never to be seen again.
Those were dark days under the yoke of the Brotherhood. The one man who could have led the people to victory over the Brotherhood of the Domination had been taken from them, his memory slowly leaching from the minds of those who would gladly have followed him even unto death had they been given the chance. His sacred marriage to his wife annulled. Those of his men, his friends, his fellow royal sons whom he had loved had been stripped of all they owned because they had been loyal to the Prince of the Wind, Conar McGregor. They, too, had been cast into the seemingly depthless environs of the Labyrinth Penal Colony.
Among those who had plotted for the downfall of this great warrior was a High Priest named Kaileel Tohre, whose unnatural obsession with the young prince had set about the ruin of many a kingdom and the imprisonment of its rulers. Tohre now ruled the Kingdom of Serenia with an iron hand and a brutal foot pressed hard upon the necks of its token monarchs. Yet savage memories, gripping nightmares tore at the priest for the wicked things he had done to the young prince. He, too, mourned the loss of the young prince in his own vile way.
Queen Anya Elizabeth McGregor had been forcibly taken from the arms of the man she loved and given to his twin, a pawn of Tohre’s. When that man had been assassinated for daring to stand up to the Brotherhood, she had been handed into the keeping of her first husband’s half-brother, Legion A’Lex, now King of Serenia, in a move meant to placate the people. With her own brothers incarcerated in the penal colony at Tyber’s Isle, many of the warriors and princes she had grown to care for so deeply locked in that savage place as well, she and Legion send Brelan Saur, another half-brother to the Prince of the Wind, to bring their loved ones home. The future of mankind lies in the sword hand of Saur.
Sailing toward Tyber’s Isle with the two youngest surviving royal princes of Serenia and a handful of stalwart supporters, Saur now faces the greatest challenge of his life and a fate he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams …
PART ONE
Chapter One
The beating in the Tribunal courtyard had left Conar McGregor’s back numb to the vicious lashings of the guard’s whips. The punishment meted out to him in the Labyrinth Penal Colony had severed the nerve endings under his flesh. He resided in a portion of hell few men ever knew existed and from which even fewer man had ever returned.
Pain had become a way of life. Mental anguish was his constant companion.
“You are nothing here!” he had been told. “You are a prisoner of the Tribunal! Nothing more!”
The only safe haven in his dark-stained world was sleep. Only there could he find any semblance of peace, and that only briefly, for his rest was often interrupted by demons and dreams and memories that tormented him--that left him even more alone in his despair.
“You are a dead man!” The words had come at him time and time again. “A dead man!”
“I am Conar McGregor!” he had screamed at them with mindless fury. “I am alive!”
That had been in the beginning. Over the next year, he learned to swallow his pride, to stamp it down, to make it silently through each verbal and physical abuse with a dogged determination to survive. He endured the cruelty and barbarism with the calm acceptance that this was now the way it would be. He took what they gave him and no longer tried to defend himself.
Before long, his pride vanished.
Now he simply existed.
As each new month passed, as his self-esteem dissolved, he delved deeper into his own private world, tucking his tail between his legs as he tried to bury himself within the confines of his own mind.
“You are nothing!” they kept reminding him until he believed it himself.
Now, after six years of captivity, he crawled, slunk like the wounded animal they had molded, into a psychological hole he dug for himself: an insulated haven where the world with all its pain and humiliation could be held at bay. He retreated into a place of his own making, a world where there was still love and laughter, if only in his memories.
“You are nothing!”
But he knew better. He might not be the man he once had been, might not be a man at all anymore, but he was alive.
He did exist.
His loneliness told him that.
His memories told him that.
* * * *
Xander Hesar, the Labyrinth’s imprisoned Healer, despised Lydon Drake. The man was a killer, a rapist, and could be as mean as a rabid dog. Whenever Drake came into the Healer’s hut, Hesar had the wild urge to stick a scalpel between the burly man’s ribs.
It would be a blessing for Conar McGregor if Drake simply vanished one long, hot night, while in the compound.
Jah-Ma-El, Conar’s half-brother, and Roget du Mer had managed to garner quite a few men still loyal to the royal house of McGregor. Most of the men were political prisoners, much as du Mer had been. No matter how vile the crimes of the others who swore fealty to the young Serenian Prince, there was still a spark of patriotism in their blood, some vestige of pride and loyalty to their homeland, some small bit of allegiance to the ruling family. These men formed a loose phalanx of secret security around Conar as best they could, running interference with the other prisoners--beleaguering the guards who took such satisfaction in tormenting the Prince and hindered the guard’s efforts.
But there were still those who hated Conar McGregor.
Hated him and wanted to either kill or seriously maim him. Some of them had been put in the colony by the King, Conar’s father, but there were about ten or so who had been remanded to the colony through the diligent efforts of Conar, himself.
Lydon Drake was just such a man.
Had Captain Holm van de Lar been there, he could have told Conar, could have reminded him who the burly man was; what he had done to Holm’s little girl; could have warned the young man to keep as far away from Lydon Drake as possible.
Staring down at Conar as the young man lay lost in the throes of a violent fever, Lydon Drake’s face held not even a flicker of emotion, no semblance of mercy.
“How long is he going to be in here this time?”
The Healer shook his head. “I can’t answer that, Drake. If you hadn’t nearly worked him to death last night, he might not be here at all!”
“Just get the bastard back on his feet!” he stormed and turned to leave.
“You stay out of here,” the Healer warned the guard and didn’t flinch as Drake turned around to stare at him. “Leave him alone, Drake. I mean it, or I’ll report you. If anything happens to him while he’s here, I’ll know who did it.”
Lydon’s massive hands curled into fists. He would have liked nothing better than to ram his meaty paws into the Healer’s refined face. He knew the Healer didn’t trust him. “Don’t you be making no threats to me!” Lydon warned.
“Don’t come back in here,” the Healer replied.
Lydon glared from the Healer to the patient. He had a need so great inside his gut he could feel it boiling. His was a brooding need, a dark, insatiable bloodlust, a hunger to corrupt, to pervert, to totally destroy the young man lying unconscious in the medical hut. The aching urge inside him to cripple Conar McGregor was growing stronger by the day.
“Get out of here!” the Healer snarled, seeing the emotion and recognizing it for what it was. “Else I’ll have a talk with the Commandant about you!”
A snort of fury blew from Drake’s nose and he spun around, slamming the medical hut door shut behind him. The force of the slam made the walls tremble and the Healer ground his teeth with hate. “Worthless piece of cow dung!” he snapped.
He walked to the cot where Conar lay and looked down at him. His face filled with concern. “You’re really sick this time, aren’t you, son?” he asked in a soft, worried voice. He bent over his patient and put a hand on the young man’s flushed cheek. The fever was raging and sweat dripped slowly down Conar’s cheeks and neck. The Healer pushed aside a lank lock of dirty blond hair and shook his head.
“Look what they’ve done to you, boy,” he mumbled, scanning the still face.
Conar McGregor had been considered one of the handsomest men of his day. His boyish round face with the deeply cleft chin and thick tawny lashes over startlingly blue eyes had made the hearts of many a maid flutter with lust. Long golden lashes fanned the red-tinted cheeks, hid the blue of those eyes. The stillness of his face hid the dimple that always appeared in his right cheek when he laughed or smiled.
“Not that I’ve ever seen you smile,” the Healer said sadly as he smoothed back Conar’s limp hair, “but I know that dimple’s there.”
The door opened and the Healer turned, snatching his hand back from his patient’s face. An audible sigh of relief came when he recognized Jah-Ma-El, the young man’s brother.
“How is he?” the visitor asked.
“He’s much worse this time, Jah-Ma-El,” the Healer told him.
Jah-Ma-El nodded. “Do you want me to stay with him awhile?”
“No,” came the quick reply. “They’d get suspicious.”
Jah-Ma-El nodded again, loathe to leave, wanting desperately to stay. To help. He looked up at the Healer. “You will call me if he should get worse?”
The Healer let out a long breath. “I promise you I will, Jah-Ma-El.”
One last look at his little brother and Jah-Ma-El opened the door to leave. He stopped and looked back at the Healer. “Two of his men were brought in this morning.”
“I know.”
“That makes nine in all here 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,” Jah-Ma-El told the man.
“Lydon?”
“Him, too,” Jah-Ma-El answered and left.
Going to the window of the hut, the Healer looked out over the courtyard. He scanned the yard and nodded to himself as he saw several men watching the hut. Men who could be trusted with Conar McGregor’s precious life.
A loud rumble of thunder shook the hut and the Healer glanced up through the panes at the darkening sky. He frowned. Another storm was heading their way. Another week of rain. 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 down and turned his gaze back to his patient. His heart was filled with fear for the young man and it showed on his weathered face.
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 a tall man. 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, he had learned the healing arts from the man who had been the caretaker of the inmates’ health when Xander arrived. 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 Xander Hesar.
“And I will keep you alive, son,” he whispered to his patient. “I swear on your mother’s grave, I will keep you alive!”
If it had not been for him, Xander thought with a dismay that filled him with terror, Conar might not have survived his first week in the Labyrinth.
There were some men here, Lydon Drake chiefly among them, who posed a deadly threat to Conar’s life. It was these men with their dark, hate-filled eyes who planned the murder of the young man 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. If the men had gotten to him, Conar would be dead. As it was, Xander had informed the Commandant and the plot had been foiled.
“The last thing I need,” the Commandant had snarled to Xander, “is Conar McGregor to die while 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 Lydon Drake is never left alone with him. That bastard means to see the Prince dead,” the Healer had warned.
“Traitor!” the Commandant corrected. “He is no longer a prince, Hesar.” The beady eyes had 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 young man. No brutality that might cost Conar McGregor 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 the man suffered. Such men numbered few in the camp, and for that, Xander was thankful to the gods.
Conar moaned, his lids fluttered and a hard chill shook his body. He tossed his head on the bare pillow and the lank blond hair fell into his face.
Xander got up and dipped a rag in the water basin beside Conar’s cot. He wrung out the excess and then folded the rag to lay it 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,” Xander promised him. “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 him 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, lifting the sagging head carefully so the young man could drink. He allowed Conar only a small amount before laying his head back on the sweat-drenched pillow.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, son,” Xander replied.
Long into the night, as the thunder rumbled heavily overhead, shaking the ground and timbers about him, Xander watched his patient sleeping fitfully. Lightning crashed, shrieking across the heavens, rain poured in a deluge of battering intensity and 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.
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