The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  Wil merely blinked, watched Brayden take the keys from inside Locke’s desk then make his way down the narrow room. Wil knew he was supposed to follow, but his feet suddenly felt like they’d taken root in the floor. Brayden didn’t rush him, just stood there, one hand resting on the door’s lock, eyebrows slightly raised expectantly, but the overall stance was one of patience. Wil looked down into his cup, took a long, deep breath then gulped what was left, slid the cup onto the sideboard behind him and followed.

  He waited for Brayden to turn the key, swing the door open, before Wil peered up, caught Brayden’s gaze and held it. “Don’t leave me in there alone,” he repeated. Brayden’s face didn’t give anything away; he merely nodded confirmation. Wil wiped his sweaty palm on his trousers and stepped across the threshold, Brayden a looming and, surprisingly, comforting presence at his back.

  The prisoner was staring at them, that little smirk twitching at his mouth, but his eyes betrayed alert trepidation and his posture distinct unease. Which was also comforting, Wil reflected darkly. There was no chair this time—he seemed to vaguely recall having hurled it at the other one earlier as he was being chased down the length of the office—just the little cot Wil had woken up in this morning, the bucket that had not yet been emptied of his morning piss, and the basin that he’d used to wash away the blood. The man sat cross-legged on the cot, dried blood turning to rusty brown on his chin, dark hair askew and stuck to his brow with a thin film of nervous sweat. He was still shackled, both hands behind his back. Wil thought without sympathy that his arms must be really hurting by now. The thickening rope of bruises about the man’s neck probably should not have made Wil want to smile smugly, but it did. Though, he doubted a smile would’ve come now, anyway.

  “This is Constable Brayden,” Wil said evenly, and with a calm he didn’t feel. “You can answer his questions on your own, or I can make you answer them. The choice is yours. Make it now. You won’t get another chance.”

  The man’s eyes darted from one of them to the other, locked onto Wil, narrowed. “You can’t,” he said, but the confidence behind the smirk faltered.

  Wil merely looked up at Brayden, raised his eyebrows, questioning.

  “What are you going to do?” Brayden asked, doubt and caution coloring his tone.

  Wil shrugged, tried to make it look indifferent, but couldn’t quite find the courage to pull it off. “We’ll both find out, I think,” was all he said.

  A long, deep breath pushed away some of the jitters. He squared his shoulders, told himself it hadn’t killed him before, told himself it would get them out of here that much quicker… made himself believe it. Then he turned, locked his gaze to the prisoner’s.

  The man was already watching him, wary now, unconsciously pushing back into the wall as Wil came closer, slid a knee up onto the cot, and leaned over him. He tilted himself down, so close he could smell the fear pulsating from the man’s skin, took his head between his hands.

  The man tried to wrest himself away, jerked his head. “What—?”

  “You made your choice,” Wil murmured to him, soft and strangely distant, tipped closer. “This is what you want now.”

  Reached out. Let it in.

  It was different than the last time, sharper and more primitive, the sensations deeper, leaching through mind and body both, instead of one and then the other. Wil flinched back a little, hissed as a bright-white blade of throbbing want laced through him, so hot and alive he nearly swayed. A grinding wave of nausea washed up his throat, gripped his gut, and he clenched his teeth tight.

  “It’s working,” he managed, a little choked and unsteady, so he didn’t know if Brayden heard him, but it didn’t really matter.

  He didn’t even need to reach this time, grope about to find the threads—they were right there, right within his grasp, and all he had to do was open himself wide, take hold. The craving was almost all-encompassing, strangling him. Vertigo clenched him in a tight fist, rocking him, and he gasped, sagged just a little.

  “Too much,” he whispered, or thought he did. “Shitshitshit, it’s too much and right there.” It was like he was touching bolts of emotion, streaks of cognizance, colors ripping through him in the shapes of thoughts. He was too open, too deep, and it was all winding into the crevices, pushing him out. A strangled little whimper spattered up his throat and he clenched his teeth, shook his head. “Too much.” A wheeze this time, breathless and strained.

  The man was too strong, that’s what it was, and the only reason Wil had got as far as this was because he’d taken him by surprise. He hadn’t had a chance to build a guard against it—hadn’t known he should. Wil might have laughed—the irony just wouldn’t stop coming—but he couldn’t spare the energy or the concentration. The man was insane, a zealot in the worst sense, he wanted too profoundly, and now that Wil had it in his hands, he didn’t know if he could take it all in. Hot, spangling pressure built at the backs of his eyes, tears crowding, gathering like sparks of Self and leaking away. He was going to drown inside his own soul.

  Then a wide, heavy hand was on his shoulder, holding him up. He gathered his will in his heart like he gathered threads in his hands—pushed.

  The sick ease of the give was at once enthralling and revolting. The sense of alienness, of other, inside his own skin sapped him. He pulled himself back, shifting aside and letting himself slump. There was a storm inside him, muted and thick and viscous. He throttled the nausea, pushed away all but the most basic attention to the physical and kept his concentration on controlling the blitz. He blinked around, found himself sitting on the mattress, his knee touching the man’s thigh, and he jerked himself farther away. Brayden’s hand was still on his shoulder; somehow, Wil didn’t mind.

  “Ask him what you want,” he said hoarsely. He shot a glance at the prisoner, staring at Wil now with rapt hunger, and couldn’t help the mild shiver that slipped over his skin. “He wants to answer now.”

  Brayden was still for a long moment before his hand fell away from Wil’s shoulder. He stepped to the side, crouched in front of the cot, looked from Wil, to the prisoner, and back to Wil again. His expression was intensely interested but also deeply troubled.

  “What did you do?” he asked quietly.

  Wil only shook his head, breathed a hollow little snort. “I don’t really know,” he answered dully, rubbed at his brow then shot a quick glance back to the man still staring at him, vacantly ravenous. Wil’s lip curled back and a slight shudder rippled down his spine. “But getting in was easier this time.” Holding on and then getting out again was going to be the hard part.

  Brayden narrowed his eyes at that, but didn’t pursue it. “Can you keep him like that for a while?”

  Wil shrugged a little, still trying to control the shaking, and looked broodingly at the man. “I don’t know.” He peered over at Brayden, noted the frown and shook his head. “I really don’t,” he told him. “I don’t even know how… I mean, I’ve no idea—”

  “Never mind,” Brayden cut in. “We’ll just have to be quick. Let’s get this done.”

  Bless the man and his stiff practicality. Wil tried his legs, found they wouldn’t hold him yet, so he shuffled himself as far to the edge of the cot and away from the man as he could get. The nausea was still churning, and his head was beginning to pound, but he kept his grip steady, kept pushing.

  “Tell me your name,” Brayden said.

  The man’s eyes never left Wil, but he snarled a little, as though Brayden were some kind of annoyance he couldn’t be bothered to swat away. Brayden stared at him for a moment, thoughtful, then he turned to Wil, lifted his eyebrows.

  “Oh, fucking hell,” Wil muttered, closed his eyes with a sigh then turned his gaze to the man’s, resisting the persistent urge to swipe at his skin like he had ants crawling over him. “Tell me your name,” he echoed.

  “Fírinne.” The man answered promptly and with no guile.

  Brayden’s eyebrows went up again, but he only paused for
a second. “Ask him what he wants with you,” he told Wil.

  “I could tell you that,” Wil snapped. Most of it, anyway, and he didn’t want to waste time on answers he already knew. His strength was stretched too thin as it was.

  Brayden didn’t respond, just gave Wil a steady look and a nod. “Ask him.”

  Wil rubbed at his temple, turned back to the man and swallowed back bile. “What do you want with me?”

  The man smiled, soft and revoltingly amorous. Another shudder spider-walked up Wil’s spine, but he ignored it, clammy sweat beginning to sheen his brow and nape.

  “To save you,” the man breathed. “Execute the Calling of the heretic Guardian, take the dreams from the wayward Dreamer, carve his place anew in the Father’s Book, prise the songs from out his soul—”

  “Stop,” Wil panted, shaking harder now. The man did, obedient as a well-trained dog, and Wil bowed his head, swallowed against the surge and curl in his gut, his throat. His skin was bloody crawling, inside and out, like razor-clawed little animals skittering along his bones, inside his mind. His head was pulsing, hammering, a steady thudthudthud, like an alien heartbeat that knocked behind his eyes. Thoughts, feelings, wants, needs—and none of them his—pounding at his senses from all angles. He peered dizzily at Brayden, sucked in a quivering breath. “Sorry,” he told him. “I can’t… couldn’t—”

  “It’s fine,” Brayden said coolly. He was still crouched in front of the cot; now he shifted over, looked at Wil closely. “Are you all right?” he wanted to know.

  If Wil wasn’t having such a hard time holding back tears of pain and revulsion, he might’ve laughed again. Instead, he shook his head—carefully, so it wouldn’t wobble off his neck—said, “Don’t ask me that. Just get this done. What else d’you want to know?”

  The answer was immediate this time, like Brayden was aware that Wil was in the process of drowning. “Ask him how they take away the dreams.”

  Wil flinched, almost wept. Another answer he could give himself, could describe everything he remembered, and he didn’t know which would be worse—speaking it himself or hearing it spoken in the prisoner’s dreamy voice while he stared at Wil with lustful desire.

  “How…?” He licked dry lips, clenched his teeth. “How do you take the dreams away?” he whispered.

  “The Cleric must commune with the Aisling,” the man answered. “Unite his mind and soul to the Dreamer then annex him, drive him back and supplant—”

  “Wait, something’s wrong,” Brayden said, voice somewhat hoarse and unsteady, and he reached over, grabbed Wil’s arm. “Stop it. Shit, no wait—ask him who the Cleric is.”

  “—wrest the songs to his own Design and cast the Aisling—”

  “Who is the Cleric?” Wil croaked. It hardly had any sound to it at all, everything was muffled and distant; he saw the man’s mouth move, but couldn’t hear what he said.

  It had never happened like this before, never been so raw, never lasted so long. Wil realized from the bottom of a deep-dark well that this had been a mistake, a big mistake, because he couldn’t stop pushing, couldn’t fling it back, and it was crawling all over him, taking him under.

  “That’s enough, now,” Brayden told him, but it came to Wil from a distance, weak and muffled.

  Wil tried to listen, to hear, but it was all getting away, slipping from out his fingers. He smelled copper, far away and faint, tasted it, and he reached up, touched his lip, fingertips coming back shiny with bright-red blood. A nosebleed. Huh. That was new, too.

  He must have started to topple, because Brayden’s hand was on his shoulder again, by turns holding him up and shaking him lightly. The prisoner was snarling, all at once gone from well-trained dog to rabid wolf, eyes wild and greedy and burning into Brayden. He tried to lunge, fell clumsily into Wil, awkwardly pinning him sideways on the cot. Growling and spitting out curses at Brayden in his own language, guttural and ugly. Wil tried to get out from under the man, but didn’t have the strength, didn’t have the balance, didn’t even have the presence of mind. He could only cry out feebly, push weakly and wait for Brayden to rescue him.

  And then he did. Strong hands on his shoulders, pulling him, supporting him. Wil let himself slump, had no room for pride or self-respect, just let Brayden drag him away from the snarling creature flinging himself about on the narrow mattress.

  “Stop it,” Brayden was saying, shaking Wil cautiously by the shoulders. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it now, you’re bleeding.”

  Wil shook his head, snuffled out a weak laugh. “I can’t,” he rasped. “It’s never been like this before, I don’t know how. I can’t stop pushing.”

  Fuck, it was hurting, eating him up from the inside, and no matter how wide he opened himself, ate the emptiness, it kept filling itself back in with the need, the want, gnawing at his guts and slicking through his mind. His head was going to explode. His whole body was going to wrench itself apart—

  “Look at me,” Brayden said, grimly stern, shook Wil again until he thought his eyeballs would burst. “Look at me, Wil, c’mon, right now.”

  Wil dragged his gaze up, found eyes dark as night, latched on.

  “Stop it,” Brayden demanded. “Whatever it is, stop pushing.” Wil’s eyes started to close, and Brayden shook him again. “You’re meaner than this,” he told Wil forcefully. “You’re a vicious little shit who never bloody quits. Take it by the throat. If you can’t stop pushing, then pull.”

  There was uncommon practical sense to that, compelling reason, and it wended its way through the muddle in Wil’s mind, lit like a beacon. He wondered dazedly why he’d never thought of it before. Perhaps because he’d never got this far before; he’d never had to end it—it had always ended with its own bang, everything snapping back at him like a slingshot, that otherness depleting, slipping away in physical mortality.

  The pull… it was easy—astoundingly so, easier than it had been to open up. He latched onto the threads of his own Self, pulling it in, filling the emptiness with it, until it crowded out everything else.

  And then it was over. Just gone. He didn’t thump back into himself, but alit gently, like a feather floating to ground on a windless day.

  Darkness and vertigo closed in, and he let it, closed his eyes and just… let go.

  He blinked open heavy eyelids to Brayden calling to him, voice and expression both fraught with concern and maybe even a little bit of fear. Strong hands were shaking him by the shoulders, and Wil shrugged weakly to make it stop, found himself on his knees with Brayden kneeling across from him, holding him up. He was panting, still dizzy, but alone inside his skin, mind and spirit blessedly intact.

  “Are you in there?” Brayden wanted to know. He’d stopped the shaking but looked like he was more than willing to start up again if Wil didn’t answer him.

  Wil’s head was still pounding, so he decided he’d best answer, or Brayden might shake it off his shoulders. “‘m all right,” he mumbled, swiped at his nose, grimaced when he realized he’d done it with the bandaged hand and made the linens even more gory.

  “You don’t look all right,” Brayden told him doubtfully. “You’re white as paper. Here.” He dug into his pocket and dragged out a handkerchief, shoved it at Wil’s nose. “Tip your head back. Has this ever happened before?”

  Wil did as he was told, blinked up at the ceiling. “I’ve only done it the once on purpose,” he said through the wad of cotton. “The other times—” He stopped, shut his mouth.

  Useless, of course. “Other times?”

  Wil sighed, looked past the tip of his nose, met the suspicion on Brayden’s face with blunt candor. “It happens sometimes. Not on purpose.” He took the handkerchief away, sniffed experimentally then stuffed it back in place when he felt the blood still trickling. And then he frowned, turned to eye the man on the cot. The prisoner was slumped over on his side, eyes wide open. He looked very still. “Is he dead?” Not that Wil cared much—in fact, he sort of hoped he was—but it likely
wouldn’t sit well with the constable.

  “No,” Brayden said, new anger creeping beneath his tone. “But I’m thinking now I should’ve just let you have at him when you had the chance.” He looked at the man over Wil’s shoulder, a distinct curl to his lip. “He was talking about bloody possession, for fuck’s sake, taking a person’s own mind away.” He shook his head, fiercely indignant, like the very idea offended him down to his core. “Bloody ghouls.” He spat it, like it burnt his tongue and left a bad taste behind.

  Wil’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t have anything to say to that. Not that it mattered—Brayden shook off his bit of a rant with deliberate level-headedness. His gaze shot back to Wil, sharp.

  “What other times?” he wanted to know. “Was it you that did… whatever at the inn?”

  “No,” Wil said quickly. He tipped his head back down, dabbed at his nose, sniffed again; it seemed to have slowed now, at least. “It’s too hard to explain, but no, it wasn’t me.”