Conar nodded, willing breath into his collapsing lungs.

Jones stepped out of the way, laughing as Conar nearly ran from the room, heading blindly down the dark tunnel. Jones held the torch high inside the room. He had found the weakness the Commandant had been searching for, the one thing to bring Conar to his knees!

Appolyon beamed as he listened to Jones. The angry gleam in the pig-like eyes had become a spark of mirth. The thick rubbery lips stretched into a smile of pure satisfaction, and he snapped the riding crop he often carried against his desk. "Your information is well worth the bottle of wine you requested, Jones."

Lydon Drake leaned against the wall, his smile as evil as the Commandant's as Jones left with the bottle. "You want me to bring him in, now?" Lydon asked.

"Maybe tomorrow. Give him a chance to think about how close he came."

By the time Brelan and the others were deep in the mine shafts of the central bluff the next day, a trio of men were removing the bottles of wine from the cellar. Lydon had been sent to keep watch on Conar, working in the vegetable garden behind the barracks. It was close to noon when he stopped Conar from his hoeing.

"Saur said for you to get cleaned up," Lydon snarled, carefully eyeing his target as Conar straightened and looked his way.

Sweat dripped down Conar's face and upper body; grime caked his bare feet. He glanced toward the showers and almost sighed. A bath would be almost as good as a swim in the chill waters of Lake Myria right about then. He looked at Lydon, saw the man ignoring him, and wondered why Brelan would dare stop him from working in the middle of the day.

"Then what?" he called to Drake.

It was a mark of how things had progressed, or deteriorated, as the Commandant saw it, that Conar would even open his mouth to speak. That he dared to question was remarkable and showed the courage that was returning. Lydon glared, hoping his hatred showed.

"How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to know? Just do it and then report to the Commandant!"

Conar was keenly aware of the guard watching as he went to the showers, but the water would feel so wonderful, so cooling, he put Lydon's gaze from his mind. He walked behind the waist-high part.i.tion and stepped out of his breeches, laid them over the stall and stepped under the large casks. He pulled on a handle and nearly groaned with ecstasy as the water cascaded over him. Despite his pleasure, he kept a wary eye on Lydon. Every instinct screamed to be careful. He lathered his body, his hair, then ducked under the stream to rinse away the suds.

Gravel crunching behind him startled Conar. He spun around to see Lydon.

"Put these on." Lydon smirked, threw a relatively clean pair of white cotton breeches over the bath stall.

Conar pushed up and secured the lever, backing to the far side of the stall. He grabbed for his dirty breeches instead of the clean ones, but as his fingers closed over the material, the breeches were s.n.a.t.c.hed away. He looked around and saw Lawson Jones grinning.

"These smell to high heaven." Jones chuckled. "You got clean clothes. Put 'em on."

Conar couldn't help but shudder at the way the men were looking at him. Jones might not have been among the men who had trapped him inside the equipment shed, but he had made his feelings clear the day before. He couldn't reach for the clean pants fast enough, stepping into them without drying himself.

Lydon grinned. "Don't he look good enough to eat, Jones?"

A warning went off in Conar's head. He looked about the compound. Several guards were milling about, each staring at him with tight smiles of pure evil on their faces.

Lydon grinned from ear to ear. "The Commandant wants to see you, pretty boy."

Mentally calculating how long it would take him to get away from the showers and to the mine entrance, Conar counted the guards standing between him and safety. Five.

"I think the Commandant wants a private chat with you. Better not keep him waiting."

He edged away from the showers, backing up toward the equipment shed, realizing where he was heading and panicked. He'd die before he allowed them to take him in there again.

"You look a little green, boy," one guard called out.

Conar became aware that the men were steadily circling him, blocking his escape, but the way to the mine entrance was clear.

With a quick breath, he dodged to his left, saw men taking that course, then sprinted to the right. A man hurried to intercept him. Conar ran up the steps of the medical hut, shot pell-mell across the porch and lunged at the side railing, catapulting himself off the porch and onto the ground. He broke into a hard run across the compound, vaguely aware of the shouts and the sound of running feet. His mind was on the mine, on the welcoming adit calling out to him.

"Hendricks!" Lydon shouted.

Something sharp struck Conar's back. He started zig-zagging across the hot sand, his bare feet digging furrows. Only twenty feet from the mine, he felt himself losing balance. He knew a moment of sheer panic as he realized one of the guards had thrown a bola that entangled itself around his lower legs, wrapping a thin band of rawhide around his knees, hobbling him. He hit the ground with a heavy thud. Lights danced along his peripheral vision as the breath was knocked out of him. He flinched as sand flew in his face when the guards reached him.

They dragged him off the ground even as he bucked against their hold, struggling to free his arms, but the men were strong. Pure animal rage tore from his throat.

"Hold the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Lydon shouted as he came running up.

They took him into the mine, turned left toward the far reaches, and Conar knew where he was being taken. He fought as hard as he could, stumbling, pulling against them, but they carried him deeper and deeper into the mine.

"No!"he bellowed, realizing too late that Brelan and the others were too deep in the mine's midsection and he was being taken in the opposite direction.

Appolyon was waiting at the wine cellar. The heavy riding crop in his hand tapped out a fierce rhythm against the gaping portal. Torch lights in wall brackets overhead made the grin on his pudgy face look demonic. His jowls wobbled with glee when he saw Conar's terrified face.

"Didn't he want to join us, Mr. Drake?"

"Don't think he likes tight little places."

Appolyon nodded to the guards. They forced Conar to his knees, their strong, hard hands on his shoulders.

"Is that so?" Appolyon asked. "Do you have a fear of closed in places, son?"

Conar clenched his teeth to still his trembling lips. Past the bulk of the Commandant, he saw the gaping maw of the

wine cellar and his blood raced ice-cold through his veins.

"Are you afraid of this little room?" the Commandant inquired in a gentle tone. He used the handle of his riding crop to lift Conar's chin. He stared into a face filled with fear and smiled. "Have we finally found your weakness?"

Conar jerked away his chin. "Go to h.e.l.l," he hissed.

Surprise stretched over the fat face, then turned to mirth. The man clucked his tongue. "My, my, my! Have you learned nothing from your time with us? Maybe I haven't been as diligent with you as I thought." With a meaty hand, Appolyon dragged up Conar's reluctant face.

"What the h.e.l.l do you want?" Conar snarled, his cheeks tightly compressed between the man's fingers.

"Your total cooperation!"

"To do what?"

"I want you."

Stark terror shot through Conar. He well remembered the man's hands on him when he had first come to the Labyrinth. Having Appolyon touch him again would send him over the edge.

"You can want with one hand and-"

Appolyon pressed his cheeks together so tightly Conar tasted blood. "I can see I shall have to teach you a little humility."

With a strength he didn't know he possessed, Conar wrenched his face free of the man's hold. "There's nothing you could teach me, pig!"

If there was one thing Appolyon was rabid about, it was any insult that called him "fat." He reacted with the kind of retaliation he was best at-viciousness. With astonishing speed, he brought up the riding crop up, lashing Conar across the bridge of his nose from cheek to cheek.

Conar couldn't stop his shriek of agony. He had to bite his tongue to hold back any other sounds, not wanting to give the dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.d the satisfaction of hearing him whimper. Not even when another lash caught him across the chin and throat. He managed to tuck down his chin; the riding crop stung him from left temple to right cheek. The riding crop landed on Conar's bare shoulders, bent head, but still he wouldn't open his mouth, just clenched his fists until the knuckles were white.

Appolyon, angrier than ever that his abuse produced no screams, threw away the riding crop and lunged forward, grabbed a handful of Conar's hair. He arched back Conar's head. His eyes glinted with ecstasy as he saw the criss-crossed markings, red and livid, beading blood, on the handsome face.

"You have two choices. You can come back to my quarters, and youknow what will be expected of you; or you can spend the night in this room." He smiled as Conar's eyes widened in fear.

Conar knew if they put him in that room with its enclosing walls he would never live to get out. Already, fear gripped his guts so hard he felt his bladder loosening. With a hindsight, he knew he should have mentioned to Brelan, anyone, what had happened the day before with Jones.

"What's it to be?" Appolyon snarled. "Me or the room?"

Perhaps it was a greater terror that Appolyon offered, or else he had simply reached the end of what mortal strength he had left. Whatever the case, his pride, or what was left of it, returned. "I'd rather spend the rest of my life in there than have you touch me."

Appolyon stood up, thinking an hour's stay in the room, maybe less, would break the boy's spirit. He was sure of it. He looked at the bleeding face. "When you come to me, and you will, I will make you pay dearly for this trouble."

Conar could only stare at the hated face. He felt the stinging pain, felt blood oozing across his cheeks and temple, but didn't say a word as Appolyon motioned for the guards to pick him up.

"Let him see what his stubbornness brings him."

Conar couldn't help but recoil as they pushed him toward the room. Panic rose in his mind like the sludge rose in the ditches during the torrential rains. Panting and terrified, trying not to show it, his entire body began trembling. He struggled against the hands, more from instinct than any idea he'd get free.

"I'll have Lydon return in two hours. By then, you'll be ready to do anything I want!" The Commandant laughed, his hollow mirth echoing as he walked away.

I won't live that long, Conar thought.

Two guards picked up Conar's feet to swing him off the floor. He fought them with all his strength, but it wouldn't be enough; they knew it and he knew it. They carried him into the room, his back arching, his legs jerking. He cursed them, screamed at the top of his lungs. They dropped him and scurried out of the room.

"You'd have been better off giving in," Lydon said. "He's going to have your a.s.s anyway!"

Conar scrambled to his knees as the door began to close. He rushed forward, pushing against the door with all his might. He slammed his shoulder into the wooden planking, once, twice, three times and heard the men cursing as they strained to close it. With a lunge, he slammed into the door, but more men pushed from the other side, closing it.

"No!"he bellowed, pounding. "No!"

It wasn't a scream of pain or even terror. It was a howl of unG.o.dly frustration. It rose out of the depths of a man who had finally been pushed beyond the limits of endurance. It was a bellow of insane rage, a scream of unrelenting hate, and it echoed off the rock walls and down the tunnels. Unbridled fury took over in Conar's mind. In his rage, he was blinded to his surroundings. All thought was of the many torments he had undergone in the years of his captivity. The degradation, the humiliation, the beatings and worse. They flashed through his seething mind like uncoiling serpents, struck at his manhood with vicious fangs that tore apart his fear and injected him with a strength of will that had long ago been lost. He cursed the men who had brought him to this low point in his life, slammed his open palms against the door with a resentment that brought tears of fury and frustration to his eyes.

"Let us know when you're ready to be a good boy!" Lydon called.

"f.u.c.k you!"Conar screamed, pummeling the door with his fists until the flesh was b.l.o.o.d.y.

"Don't let the boogie-man get you!"

Conar yelled, pounded, then listened. No sound. No movement. No light. Nothing.

"Brelan! he yelled. "Shalu! Roget!"

He became aware of the silence.

"Sentian! Jah-Ma-El!"

He became aware of the darkness.

"Grice! Chase!"

He became aware of the closeness.

"Xander!"

Frustration became worry.

"Storm!"

Worry became alarm.

"Don't leave me in here!"

Alarm became fear.

"Open the G.o.ds-be-d.a.m.ned door!"

Fear became terror.

"Brelannn!"

He plastered his back to the door, his eyes wide with horror and full realization of the position he was in. Locked in. In the dark. In the silence. In the confining closeness.

Without a single person who would come to his aid.

The dark seemed to reach out to him with the scabrous fingers of the dead. A horrible, suffocating death was rising, calling his name, coming for him out of the black depths of the grave. He could smell the damp earth, could feel the wetness beneath his toes. He had no place to hide. No place to run.

No way out.

Wildly, he stumbled from one wall to the other, pushing, shoving, using his waning strength and sanity to try to force open the door. He fell, his body hitting the ground hard. He doubled over, his knees drawn up to his chest, his head tucked down to his bent knees, his body shuddering with great racking spasms of terror.

"Brelan! Help me!"His shout reverberated through the room.

Nothing could have stopped the hideous scream that tore from his throat as something scurried across his face. He jerked upright, convulsively wiping his hands down his face. Something ran across his shoulders, down his arm, and he swatted at it. He felt some vile thing squish and smear beneath his hands, and he opened his mouth and howled.

Terror became true horror.

One horrible, terrified shriek after another and he felt himself tumbling into the mindless, endless, black void, spiraling into jabbering oblivion. His throat began to close. His lungs burned as he struggled for air. He scrambled across the floor, slithering on his belly, until he reached the door. Feverishly he clawed, wildly gouging the panel with his fingernails as he had done the whipping post at Boreas Keep so long ago. Like then, long slivers of wood embedded themselves under his nails; the nails pulled back, ripped off.

Sparks of red light flew in front of his eyes. He gasped. Wheezed. Convulsed with his need to draw in life-giving air. The blackness grew darker, closing in around him, pressing its cloying weight upon his body like a ma.s.sive stone.