WINDWEEPER (5 page)

"
You belong to Us
," a voice spoke inside his head and he wasn't sure if the voice was male or female. He reached out to grasp the rail before him, his nails digging into the soft, varnished wood. One moment he could smell the sweet, tender aroma of lavender, the next, his nostrils were assaulted with the stench of sulfur.

"
Come to Us, Conar!"

That voice had been identifiable. It was the drooling hiss of the Storm God, Raphian.

Conar shook his head, felt nausea gallop up his throat, and leaned over the rail to vomit into the heaving sea. He frowned at the sight of the water speeding away below him. It glowed a sickly green just beneath the sea's surface and the color was so intense, it hurt his eyes, made his head hurt even worse. He could have sworn he had seen his mother's face, Medea's, Raphaella's, and Meggie Ruck's—whose presence there made no sense to him—in the glowing water before another wave of sickness claimed him and he relieved himself of the burning bile.

Liza felt the ship surge upward once, twice, and she grabbed at the railing. They were now in the outer reaches of the storm spiraling toward them. A sudden, quiet, deadly calm entered her body and she felt the throbbing presence of her familiar stoking the fires of their combined power—hers and Conar's.

"So there you are, Vanion," she crooned. She had not felt its presence since Kaileel Tohre abducted her. She knew the familiar—a spry little old woman whose age was centuries full—had been sent back to her by the Multitude. "Teach me the spell to invoke the familiar the Sisterhood has given him. Let me hear it."

Her body was buffeted by a sudden hard wind and she could hear a voice inside her head, warning her not to interfere. She raised her head and glared at the black clouds whirling by overhead. Again the voice spoke and said vulgar, horrible things to her. Its insidious utterance draped over her like the slide of slime in a privy. It smelled of offal and clung to her psyche, made her feel unclean, turning her thoughts evil and vicious and vulgar.

"I am not one of Yours!" she shouted in the face of the now-howling wind. "I am of the Daughterhood. You have no power over me! Be gone, demon! Leave this man alone!"

Conar screamed in pain at his wife's words. His entire body felt hot and his belly cramped with an agony that made him grab his gut as he fell onto his side on the lurching deck. He was unaware of the few men climbing the shrouds to furl the sails, their ears plugged with scraps of fabric. He didn't hear their loud, frightened voices, their running feet on the decks. He didn't see his wife as she knelt down beside him, unable to touch him for fear she would contaminate the process of his changing.

That he was changing, his body shedding what vestiges of evil had been instilled within it, was evident, in the way he trembled and shook, in the way his eyes glazed with ungodly pain, in the way his hands clutched at his own flesh.

"Fight, beloved," Liza told him. "You can win!"

He looked into Liza's face. He heard someone whispering softly to him, in his ear, but Liza's lips were still. He strained hard to hear. It was not one voice, but two, that spoke.

"Fight, Conar," the first one crooned and he thought the warm, sultry voice sounded familiar. The image of a beautiful, desirable woman flashed across his mind. A woman he had kissed long ago and had feared greatly.

"Fight," another voice urged him. "You can win, my son."

He knew that voice!

He swung his aching, throbbing head in the direction of the heaving waters. "Mama?" he managed to croak before another violent pain stabbed him, making him groan and sink to his knees.

"
You have no mother, fool!"
a sharp, gruff voice shattered over the Prince. "
You have only me!"

"Fight, Conar!" Liza screamed over the keening wind and siren song.

Conar looked at Liza and wished with all his being she would take him in her arms. He thought the pain might stop then. Looking at her, he was shocked. Her body was surrounded with a pale blue glow that seemed to be spreading outward, straining to reach him. Glancing at his body, he was amazed to see his flesh haloed with a dark scarlet aura pulled back from the encroaching blue glow heading his way. His flesh was white, he realized with horror; his skin glittering stark white as freshly driven snow and he knew Liza spoke true. The Ancients were a part of him, as well.

"
We are your Voice
," a blend of male and female spoke to him. "
We are called Seawind, and We are yours! Hear us, Prince of the Wind! Never shall the demons hold you to Them ever again!"

"
He is my chosen
!" Raphian brayed, shouting down the others. "
I own him!"

Conar shook as the cacophony of voices came and he looked on with fascination as the colors from his body and Liza's merged, the White flooding out to take the Blue, to overrun the Red. As the three colors blended, he had only a glimpse of a deep lavender aura surrounding him before he felt an agonizing jolt swirling through him.

He almost passed out as it shot through his body, winding into every passage, every organ, every pore. With a snap of fire running all along and throughout his body, he felt, rather than saw, the colored glow turn a deeper shade until his body took on a purple tint so deep it was almost black. His body tensed, grew rigid, his eyes rolling back in his head from the furnace-like blast of heat pulsing through him.

"
No, Conar McGregor!
" the gruff, booming thunder shook the decks. "
Come to us
!" But the dark, forbidding voice was weaker, unsure. "
Let us show you what can be yours!"

"
Protect him, Daughter!"
Conar heard his mother urgently order.

Conar saw his wife kneel beside him, felt her gathering him into her arms, taking his body against hers as the ship bumped them together in the swelling of the sea. Her aura darkened as their bodies touched.

Conar turned his head away from her, away from the pale lavender haze of her aura that shifted with his every movement. He longed to go to the voice hissing in his ear, promising the unseen, unfelt delights of countless female bodies. He ached to give himself up to the lure that shook his body with sexual arousal.

Liza went rigid with fury. Her arms tightened around him. "Go back to Your hell, you venomous spawn of the Abyss. He is mine! You will never have him!" She turned her face from the sudden blast of noxious air that washed over her. "I am the only woman he needs!"

"
You'll not keep him, slut
!" the voice told her. "
He is ours! His flesh is our flesh!"

She felt Conar trying to pull away and a sharp chill began along the edges of their combined contact. She pressed her body closer to his.

"Feel me, Conar!" she commanded. "Feel the warm flesh of your woman! I am all the sexual pleasure you need. Feel my passion, Beloved. Feel my love surrounding you."

Conar jerked in her arms. The look of pleading on her face hurt his heart. He could feel the softness of his wife's flesh, could smell the sweet fragrance of lavender.

"
No!
" Raphian screamed over booming thunder. The Storm God's attention was on the dark purple aura surrounding Conar as the glow altered, grew dimmer until it would at last become the soft lavender that now formed over the woman. He shot out his evil and touched Conar McGregor with the one punishment designed to bring the man back to Him.

Conar yelped as the cold, hard shaft of Raphian's demand impaled his soul. A quiver of loathing went through him as Liza kissed his lips. He tried to pull away from her.

"I love you, Conar!" she cried, tears streaming down her ashen cheeks. "Stay with me! Stay with me, Beloved!"

"
Let him go, bitch
!" Raphian ordered, furious that the glow around Conar was now almost lavender, signifying defeat. He howled with rage as He was expelled from the vulnerable flesh he had invaded.

"Go to hell!" she shouted back and fumbled for Conar's hand. She placed his fingers to her breast, molding them around the softness. "I am flesh and blood, Conar. I am mortal. I am real!"

Conar felt a heady sense of immense power shoot through him. As she gripped his hand, he knew the absolute endowment of the mystical knowledge that had lain dormant within him all those years, and knew, beyond a doubt, that he had held those powers in check since birth and beyond. His head cleared. His pain fled. His body swelled with love. He turned to his woman, a wavering smile on his cold lips.

"Aye!" she cried with happiness. "Aye, Conar, aye!"

He felt at long last the Omnipotence of a God-Chosen WindWarrior filling the sails of his soul and knew he could soar with the eagles in the sky if he wished. So great was the power flooding through him, he knew he could fade from where he lay and blend into the very keep at Boreas if that was what was needed. He pushed away the impaling thrust of Raphian's call.

"It is called teleporting, Milord." Liza laughed, seeing the amazement of his ability reflected in his eyes. "It was how I could hide from you when I wanted!"

Conar heard his men's anxious voices. He saw them scurrying about to make the ship ready to ride out the storm. The knowledge that his power was even greater than expected suddenly thrilled him to his very core. "I can fight him, now, Liza!" he shouted over the keening wind. "I can fight Tohre!"

"Aye, my love." Her fingers gripped his. "And you will!"

He brought her fingers to his lips and placed a fierce kiss on her knuckles. "One, Elizabeth!" he said through clenched teeth. "You and I: We are One!"

The air turned sharp as ice around them, the stench of brimstone inundated the frigid air with its foul smell, yet underneath the cloying sulfur aroma lay the sweet scent of lavender. A stealthy silver, phosphorescent fog spread toward the ship from the port side.

Liza shivered from the cold blast of foul wind buffeting them as Conar gained his feet and stood braced against the heaving deck. His blond hair whipped about his head and he turned a grim face to her.

"It is in our destinies, Beloved," she yelled. "We make our stand, together, here and now."

Conar gripped her hand and turned to face the black boiling rumble of clouds filling the heavens. The dark cloud shimmered with red streaks like the fine capillaries in his flesh. "Come at me, you bastard," he growled. "Come at me and see what we have for You!"

Streams of red fire shot toward the ship's deck from the black cloud hovering so close to his head Conar could reach into it. The cloud was alive with the determination to destroy the ship and all within, for the fireballs landed on deck, scorching everything, catching the wood on fire.

A heavy blast of sulfur swept over the deck. A thick coating of pale yellow dust settled around Conar and Liza's feet. Sharp crackles of lightning singed the sky. Zigzagging ever closer to the vessel, the bolts hissed into the straining waves, lit the storm-darkened sky. The two lovers were illuminated in the flare of the electric flashes. They stood like roadblocks in the storm's way.

"
Give yourself up to the storm, McGregor, and I will let the woman live,
" the booming voice thundered. "
Give yourself to us and the others on this ship will be saved, else I will turn it into floating cinders!"

The siren song rose in a crescendo, vibrating the air, turning the sea to a solid sheet of silver fog. From the corner of the prince's eye, he saw the fog rise from the depths of the waters in ever-increasing height, lap at the ship's sides, crest on the heaving waves, then begin to seep slowly over the ship's rail. It flowed onto the deck, spreading along the wood, running through the thick yellow dust, pushing it aside as it floated toward Conar and Liza. It swirled upon the deck, circling Conar's ankles, flowed around the hatchways, lapped at the spars and ran into the belly of the ship, seeping silently, steadily, through the hatchway to the deck below.

With it came the scent of lavender, growing heavy, blocking out the stench of hell-stone. With it came the soft tinkling of tiny silver bells and the seductive laughter of the goddesses who protected the ship and all those within her.

An angry blast slammed from the boiling mass of clouds; falling missiles rained upon the sails and spars. Hail as big as Conar's fist struck the deck and tumbled about the ship's wake, plopping into the waves with dull thuds.

"Conar!" Liza breathed with fear, for the hail struck with enough force to crack away part of the railing near her. She jerked back her hand.

Conar turned, furious to see the falling balls of ice. He watched in horror as the crow's nest and its sailor got struck with a heavy barrage. The young man tried to shield himself, then screamed in agony as he fell backward, landing on the deck with a meaty thud, his head at a sharp angle to his body.

"Damn You!" the Serenian Prince shouted to the snapping fire and ice pelting his ship.

"
Damn you!
" the gruff voice of Conar's mortal enemy thundered back.

"Beloved!" Liza screamed, sensing his fury. "Think not of anything but turning the mist around us warmer. Think of melting the ice rain!" Her hand jerked within his, effectively gaining his full attention.

Conar glared with hatred as another sailor ran for cover, falling prey to the sharp, lethal ice that struck with deafening thuds against the deck. Looking at his wife, the screams of the dying sailor echoing through him, Conar squinted. "I will not let this happen!"

"Then, stop it, Beloved!"

Gathering his fury into one tangible line of thought, Conar willed the pulsating mist around his legs to gather the heat of his anger into itself. He felt a sharp impact on his left shoulder and flinched as a hailstone bounced off him.

Pulling his wife with him as he bent to scoop up the frozen mass, he took it in his right hand, closed his fingers around the white-ice pain of it, thrust his fist toward the heavens, then squeezed as hard as he could.

With his full attention on the ice, it instantly began to melt in his hand. He used his power to conjure warm winds and warmer seas. He felt the water running down his arm, the painful freezing of his flesh beginning to lessen. He felt warmth around his ankles where the silver, sparkling fog had once been chill and alien. He felt the mist heating, absorbing his red-hot fury, turning the air around him as warm as an early spring day. The perfume of lavender grew so intense it made him giddy.