Free WINDHEALER by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

liked to be called by titles anyway. What is important is he be allowed to rejoin the living. Haven't you punished him enough?"
    Appolyon did not want to appear weak, even before the Healer. He lifted his pig-like nose. "If you wish, he may be allowed to live with the others."
    "In du Mer's hut. With du Mer and the other men."
    Appolyon ground his teeth. "He must be called 'Traitor.' Is that clear?"
    "I will not accept that."
    Appolyon's jowls quivered with outrage. "How dare you!"
    Xander pointed at the document. " That gives me the right to dare!"
    Knowing he was defeated, the fat man turned his head. "No idle conversations. Understood?"
    "We'll see."
    "No idle conversations!" Appolyon shouted as Xander slammed the door behind him.
    Xander's angry footsteps took him rapidly across the compound. He swept his furious gaze over the cage where Conar had slept for five years and shouted at a nearby inmate to tear the gods-be-damned thing apart. "Now!" He wasn't surprised when two men rushed to do as he demanded.
    Roget met him at the doorway of the medical hut. "Well?"
    Xander slipped past du Mer and stalked to the cot where Conar lay, his body as still as death. Xander looked into the blank eyes that stared back at him without seeing. He placed a soft, gentle kiss on the cool, clean brow. When he raised his head, he glanced at Roget. "You can take him into the hut with you."
    "He barely knows he's alive, Hesar."
    "Conar has locked himself away where he can't be hurt, du Mer. He's gone deep inside himself. It's a defense mechanism, and he may never come back to us."
    "Then, what do we do?"
    Xander touched Conar's face. "Show him he is loved."
    * * *
    Love? Had he heard the word?
    There was no word "love" in his world. There was only hate and pain.
    Had there ever been such a word in his world?
    He thought there might have been once. There was a vague longing in his soul that he could no longer name. That might have been love.
    There was a fragment of hope in him that such a thing existed, but even hope was rapidly disintegrating and, with it, that long-forgotten emotion.
    If there had ever been love, it was now gone. It was buried so deep inside him that only his battered soul, if he still possessed a soul, knew where it lay hidden. It had been secreted away to a place where no one could see it, touch it, despoil it or take it away. Ever again.
    Was it love that had kept him alive all these years? he wondered. Was it that shining light that came in the quiet hours when sleep refused to come, when his body hurt and his heart ached so unbearably and his soul longed for surcease?
    Maybe it had been love at the first that kept him sane. Maybe it had kept him from dying despite the many times he had wanted to surrender. Maybe it was still in that secret place and all he needed to do was to dredge it up and hold it in order for it to exist.
    But what was it he wanted to bring back into his life? What was the memory that had kept him alive?
    Somehow he thought the memory was long and black and flowing. Perhaps it was even green and sparkling. Or was it ivory and coral, rose-tinted and soft?
    No, he told himself, a partial memory flooding his aching heart. It had been rich and fragrant…like lavender. The scent filled his senses. He began to cry.
    He felt hands on him, stroking, calming, wiping away his tears. He felt tender emotion springing forth from the faces hovering over him. He felt more alone now than ever because he knew the comforting wouldn't last. It never did. It was only there when he was ill. When he was better, it vanished, along with his identity, and he was even more bereft with its passing.
    He closed his senses to the world. Shut his ears to his whimpering cries. He didn't want to see the loving faces, for they could not be there. Hern and Thom and Storm and Jah-Ma-El and Roget. They were not in his nightmare world. He was in it alone.
    * * *
    "What is he saying?" Jah-Ma-El asked.
    Roget's face turned white.
    "I want