WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (33 page)

The light grew dimmer.

"Please, don't," he begged Whoever might take pity on him. "Don't take away the light."

The light grew dimmer still.

His heart began to race. His breathing became labored, sweat began to drip slowly down his face as fear set in. He could see well enough except for the mist swirling around the outer perimeters of his vision, but the room had become so dark, so filled with shadows and the walls seemed to be closing in on him. He felt a trill of terror forming along his nerve endings and he wasn't altogether sure a scream wasn't trying to make its way out of his mouth. The old memories, the exacting fear of closed-in places loomed out of the past to grip him.

"Please?" he whispered. "Don't do this to me."

The room's light began to fade even more until there was no light but that which was coming from the open doorway a few feet from where he stood.

He blinked, shook his head to clear it of the mist that was encroaching on him. But the mist remained and the room began to dim even more.

"No," he whispered, beginning to realize what was happening. Beginning to understand that his greatest fear was about to become a reality. "No." He put his hands out, striving to hold onto to what light remained.

The heavy sound of boot heels echoed to him from beyond the fading rectangle of light before him. He could hear a querulous voice snapping orders. They were coming for him and he had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Could see no where to hide. Stumbling away from the door, he felt a vicious jolt of agony rip through his right hip and he doubled over against it, crying out like an injured animal as the pain became a spiral of radiating intensity.

"What is he doing up?' he heard a feminine voice asking before hands took hold of his arms and helped to support him. The grip wasn't rough, but it was firm.

Conar looked up, squinting against the fading light at the doorway. He could just make out the silhouette of a woman standing there, her arms akimbo, before the light went completely out of his world. It took him a moment to realize that he couldn't see. That the light that had been playing with him since he had awakened, since he had first became ill with the disease violating his central being, was gone forever. He stood there, feeling the men gently pulling him back toward the pallet and didn't resist them. He kept blinking against the absence of light, kept hoping a single spark would ignite to brighten his world again. But no such spark struck and the darkness became a shroud of cloying betrayal that settled heavily around him.

"Chaim," the woman snapped, "put him back down on the pallet. I don't have all day."

He turned his head toward the sound of her voice, coming out of the darkness at him. He shook his head, wanting to see her, instinctively realizing that it was this woman who had had him brought here. But he couldn't see her. He could see nothing. Nothing at all.

When that full realization hit him, he became a cornered animal, lashing out against his tormentor. "No!" he screamed, jerking against the strong arms which held him. "No!"

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Chaim was stunned by the vehemence of the reaction as he and Kanan tried to put the Serenian back to bed. The bucking, twisting, cursing entity they held was almost more than the two of them could restrain.

"What's wrong with him?" Kanan asked, looking toward their mistress. He helped Chaim manhandle their ward down on the pallet and knelt there, keeping the man from struggling to his freedom.

"It's the tenerse," their mistress said. "He's probably having a reaction to it. Sometimes it causes hallucinations." She went to her knees on the floor beside the pallet, well away from the struggling man intent on getting up. "How much did you give him?"

"The vial was nearly full, milady," Chaim answered, looking up at her. "I gave him all of it." As the words left his mouth, Chaim was stunned by the ferocity with which his mistress lashed out at him, slapping him so hard across his rugged face that he lost his grip on the Outlander and tumbled back to land on his backside. He stared at her, putting up a hand to rub at his stinging cheek, oblivious to the trouble Kanan was having restraining the Serenian.

"Idiot!" she yelled. "Why did you give him the entire vial? You could have killed him!"

"You didn't say not to," Chaim defended himself, putting up a hasty hand to ward off another savage blow. "You said to keep him from escaping."

"I didn't tell you to kill the bastard, though, did I?" she screeched.

"I didn't know the potion was dangerous," Chaim tried to reason with her. "It took us three days to get him here. It's not as if I gave it to him all at once!"

Kanan grunted with pain as a heavy hand caught him in the shoulder, staggering him.

"Chaim!" he exclaimed through clenched teeth. "Can you help me here?"

Conar could hear them talking, but his terror had escalated to such a point that he was convulsing with it. A cold, cold chill had pierced his very soul and he knew he might well be locked in this blackness forever.

"Help me," he begged, snatching his hand away to reach out to the woman who he sensed was angry at the men for having given him so much of the tenerse. "Please, help me." Someone caught his hand and he realized it was one of the men for the grip was powerful. "Please!"

"You'll get no help from me, McGregor!" she spat at him. "You're alive. Count your blessings!"

"I can't see," he whispered.

"It'll pass," she snarled at him.

"Please," he pleased with her. "You don't understand. The tenerse ...."

"Shut up!" she ordered him.

Chaim flinched as his mistress threw a length of shackle at him. He caught it, wincing as the heavy ankle iron clipped his shin.

"Make sure he doesn't get up again, Chaim," she ordered. "I don't want him wandering around."

"My god," Conar moaned, feeling the iron against his ankle. "Don't chain me! I can't stand that!"

"You've stood it before, Infidel dog," she reminded it. "Jaleel made sure of that!"

Her voice, a voice he did not recognize, was bitter and hard, completely without pity, but he knew this woman just the same. "Sybelle?" he asked, holding his breath for her answer.

"I thought you would remember me eventually, McGregor," she spat at him. "For what little good it will do you. Sajin may have been taken in by you, but I can assure you I will not be."

"Why?" he asked, no longer struggling against the leg iron being snapped into place around Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 148

his flesh. "Why are you doing this? Sajin and I are friends. What have I done to you to deserve this?"

"You need to ask?" she hissed at him. "After killing my lover?"

He felt her coming toward him, but the cruel, brutal grip of her fingers as she grasped his chin and anchored his head so that she could snarl into his face, was a complete surprise.

"Consider yourself lucky that I do not have done to you what you did to Jaborn, you filthy bastard! It will be enough for you to know you will never leave this place again so long as you live!"

He stared sightlessly upward, wishing he could see the enraged face that belonged to the savage voice. Her fingers were hurting him, but he didn't answer her. Didn't try to pull away from her fierce grip. He let her hold his face and then he heard a faint snicker of contempt.

"You really can't see, can you, McGregor?' she asked, her cultured, sultry voice filled with amusement.

"No," he answered, feeling truly helpless for the first time since waking in this alien place.

She must have been staring at him, fanning her free hand before his eyes for he could feel the air moving across his face. She said nothing, just regarded him, then slowly released her hold on his chin.

"A most fitting punishment for a man blind to everything around him save his own lust, don't you agree, McGregor?" she taunted, laughter in her rich voice.

"He really can't see, milady?" Chaim asked. He looked down at the man he held and felt a great pity welling up inside him. Had he caused this? Surely not. The potion his mistress had given him to administer to this man would soon wear off and the Serenian prince's sight would return.

"No," Sybelle answered. "He can't see." She stood up, dusting off her smudged skirt for the floor of this room in her keep had not been cleaned in years. "I don't know how long his blindness will last, but ...."

"If it is revenge you wanted against me, Lady," Conar interrupted her, "you have it. There was nothing you could have done to me as bad as what you have inadvertently set in motion."

"Oh, be quiet, McGregor!" she ordered him. "The drug will wear off and you will be able to see again."

"No," he said softly. "Not ever again, I won't."

Sybelle's brows drew together, for the Serenian's words had a ring of quiet desperation about them. He was being too calm by far under the circumstances, too accepting now of his sightlessness whereas before, when he'd realized he could not see, he had lashed out with fierce denial. Worry began to nibble at her.

"You have had tenerse before?" she asked, squatting down beside him. She was not pleased when he laughed quietly, in such a way that told her he had found her question hopelessly silly.

"More times than I can count, milady," he told her. Then his voice became brittle, defeated.

"Enough times for it to have already caused me damage."

"How so?" she asked, annoyed at his vague response.

"Ask your brother," he said and would answer no more of her questions though she threatened him.

Sybelle stood up, angry that she could not get him to say more. She turned to Chaim and demanded he saddle her horse and elect a traveling guard to escort her to Abbadon.

"On your life, Kanan," she told Chaim's friend, "he had better be here when I get back!"

"Where can I go?" Conar mocked her. He laughed and the sound was filled with self-Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 149

contempt. "How can I go, Lady?"

Sybelle cursed beneath her breath and stalked out of the room, her fists clenched at her side.

Chaim watched his mistress ride off into the desert less than half an hour later. The dust from the flying hooves of her mount flew back to sting his face. Shaking his head at Sybelle Bath-Alkazar's folly, he went back into the keep and closed the thick iron door. The sound of the heavy portal locking behind him, made the hairs stand up on Chaim's arms.

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"Conar is no longer in charge here, Sybelle. I am," Sajin told his sister. "My Serenian friend will not be coming back."

"Where did he go?" Sybelle questioned her brother.

Sajin shook his head. "He told me not to come looking for him for no one would answer my questions. I did and he was right: none of the places where I stopped would admit to knowing anything of his whereabouts." He plowed a tired hand through his crop of thick black curls. "I should have known he'd do something like this when he became so ill."

"Ill?" Sybelle asked. Her lovely brows came together. "Ill from what?"

"A reaction from a drug."

"I remember the physician at St. Steffensburg giving him tenerse for his headaches."

Sybelle took a sip of chilled coconut milk. "Did that cause his illness?"

"Apparently," Sajin began to explain, "he was given large doses of that potentially lethal drug for quite some time without ever knowing it. Starting back when he was in his early twenties.

Rupine says his body can not absorb tenerse. It has stayed in his body, wrecking havoc with his nervous system all these years, causing problems even he wasn't aware of until his stroke."

"Stroke?" Sybelle gasped, coming to her feet, splashing her drink over her hand. "When was this?"

"A few months back. Before we went to the Outer Kingdom to take Catherine back. He was very ill and even then was having problems with his sight." He smiled grimly at her. "Why the concern for a man you don't even like, Sybelle?"

The nomad's sister scowled. "I may not care for the man, Sajin, but I don't wish him to be incapacitated."

"If what Conar believed would happen, has, he's lost his sight now and that is why he left Abbadon."

Sajin's sister slowly sat down, her mouth working but no sound coming out. She placed the nearly-empty chalice of chilled coconut milk on the table beside. "You mean his vision was fading?" she asked, fearful of her brother's answer.

Sajin nodded. "A little each day I think although the man wouldn't admit to it. He was terrified of losing his sight, but do you think he'd say so? Hell, no! He acted as though nothing was happening to him." The Kensetti cursed viciously. "How do you help a man like that, Sybelle?"

Horror had set in upon Sybelle. She sat there, staring fixedly at her brother who was unaware of her silence and her sudden pallor.

"That's why he sent Catherine away," she heard Sajin telling her. "It wasn't that he didn't think he could protect her. At least not when he was healthy. But he knew something was wrong with him. Probably had known it for a good long time although he had no idea what was causing his problems. He didn't want to burden her with having to take care of him, having to baby-sit a cripple. He knew eventually he might even become paralyzed, unable to walk. He didn't want to put that kind of grief on Catherine." He glanced at his sister. "As though any of that would have mattered to Cat."

"Paralyzed," Sybelle whispered, horrified at the notion. Her fingers clutched at the arms of her chair, her nails digging half-moon indentations in the fabric.

"Raphaella warned us that might well happen to him if he was ever given any more of that Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 151