The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  “I’m pleased to share it,” Hunter protested quickly. “And I’d be pleased to fetch you some breakfast, guide you around the camp, if you like.”

  Wil blinked, eyes narrowing before he’d even registered the vague bit of suspicion creeping into his awareness.

  “You want to fetch me breakfast?”

  “Or tea, if you like.” Hunter gestured to the fire. “The kettle’s almost at the boil.”

  Oh, for the love of… This boy didn’t think Wil was going to put in a good word for him with the Lost Shaman, did he? A prickly little jag of mineminemine! jabbed him in the gut and he clenched his teeth, throttled it down, closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. The headache was chewing right into his brain now, edged and pointy behind his eyes, and he couldn’t stop the threads from winding in front of them, spiking into them like shards of glass reflecting too-bright sunlight.

  Too much. Too big.

  Weak.

  “Are you well?” Hunter’s tone was filled with concern, his hand taking firm hold of Wil’s elbow.

  “Fine,” Wil told him, his voice a little faint and shaky, not quite supporting the lie. Nonetheless, he pulled his arm away and took a step back. “I’m fine, I just…”

  Except he apparently wasn’t fine, because he was talking one second, and the next he was sitting on his arse in the damp grass, the heavy throb swarming up his backbone telling him the descent had not been a graceful or gentle one. His head was going to split—it was going to split right open and dump his brain out onto the ground.

  “Fuck,” he breathed, drew his knees up, planted his elbows atop them and held up his thumping head with his hands. Pressure was building up behind his eyes, like he was pushing, except he wasn’t, he wasn’t doing any thing, just bloody sitting here…

  Sitting here in the middle of Lind, a place he’d been warned not to go. Not everything Siofra had said was a lie. In fact, almost everything he’d ever told Wil had had at least a seed of truth in it.

  There were hands on him, wide and strong, but they weren’t the right hands, and he shrugged them off sharply, growled. Voices fuzzed about in his head, splotches of light spangled behind his eyes, and the ground kept wanting to roll out from beneath him.

  Too vast. Too deep. Too alone.

  Standing on the edge of a black abyss, patterns all around him, too bright, too painful, and none of them his.

  Weak. Letting Siofra take from him, hiding in the darkness, letting others fight his battles while he was busy swooning, and now unable to keep anything at all at bay, wide open, and everything crushing inward, pressure and weight, pressing him down and down…

  Great, ripping pain , crowding in, crowding out.

  Wil gripped his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp to try and keep it from exploding all over the grass. Everything was too loud, too bright, too altogether there, overwhelming, and hands kept coming at him, so he kept snarling and shaking them off, until:

  “Wil?”

  The right voice, the right hands. “Not…” He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, dug harder into his scalp. “Not weak,” he ground out through his teeth.

  “Weak…?” Genuine confusion then genuine conviction: “No, never.”

  “Don’t need rescue.”

  Idiot. Stupid. Denying the need when it was so obviously wishful thinking.

  “No, Wil,” Dallin told him, somewhere between wry amusement and raw anxiety, “you’re usually too busy rescuing me to take the time for your own.”

  Wil hadn’t really been looking for a ‘right’ answer, but that was it. He reached blind, latched on, wheezed, “Help.”

  Chapter Eight

  Dallin turned on Calder, jaw set. “This is why you should’ve told me,” he snarled. Stressed in too many ways, he shouldered away the young man crouching beside Wil, not pausing for pleasantries, and slipped Wil’s arm over his shoulder, dragging him upright. The young man didn’t go away, merely moved himself to Wil’s other side and hovered, honest concern on his open face. Dallin measured then dismissed him, shifting his glance to Shaw as he arrived behind Calder, huffing and blowing with the exertion of his sprint, then at the three Old Ones who came behind him. He shot a heated glare at every one of them. “You don’t fuck with people like this.”

  He tightened his grip and took a slow step forward, dipping his head to Wil’s ear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d be up yet, and I got… distracted.”

  “What…?” Wil turned his face into Dallin’s coat, gripped at it with clutching fingers, breath thin and fast through clenched teeth as he stumbled and lurched, clinging but trying to keep his feet. “What is this?”

  Confused and in pain; not quite frantic yet, but getting there. Dallin didn’t blame him. He could feel the weight like it was on his own shoulders, invasive and unrelenting.

  He reached for it, found it, set himself to sorting the balance.

  “It is your Destiny, lad,” Calder answered.

  Dallin’s teeth set tight. “You say one more—”

  “You must heed the Old Ones, Brayden.”

  “If you don’t get the hell away from me, I’m going to heed my more violent inclinations and shoot you in the face.”

  “Destiny?” This from the young man, still lingering and looking like he intended to follow where he clearly wasn’t wanted. His eyes had gone bright with interest. “Is that why you saved Wil, then?”

  Wil growled, pushing into Dallin harder. Dallin stopped short and turned a narrow stare on the boy.

  “Who the hell are you?” he wanted to know.

  The lad gulped a little but lifted his chin. “Hunter Calder,” was the steadfast reply.

  Dallin rolled his eyes. “Of course you are.” Another bloody Calder. Brilliant. Damned prolific family, the Calders. “You assume too much, like everyone else around here.” Dallin dismissed the boy once more, adjusted his grip on Wil, and started walking again.

  “The heart of the world,” Wil murmured, slurred and dazed, and he sagged against Dallin. “Too much, too big…”

  Dallin had to stop short and tighten his grip to keep Wil from slithering to the ground. Yelps went up all around as every fire in sight flared up, spat, then burst from their pits like fists uncurling themselves, before settling back into their confines. Dallin shot a quick glance about the camp. No one looked hurt, but every eye, sprung wide in surprise, stared at the various fires then shifted wary glances to first the Old Ones and then to Wil. Reflexively, Dallin flicked a sharp look to the sky—a low roll of thunder, but nothing serious brewing yet—then laid his hand to the crown of Wil’s head, closed his eyes and tried to shut everything else out.

  There was too much—both crowding in and crowding out—and Wil was growing too frantic to let Dallin help.

  “Settle now,” Dallin said quietly. “You have to let me in, all right? Like in Chester, remember?”

  “…heart of the world…” Garbled and breathless. Wil sagged in Dallin’s grip, clutching his head, whispered, “Fuckfuckfuck, it hurts, make it stop.”

  “I’m trying, Wil, just try to calm down and let me.”

  It wasn’t pushing, not anything like what Wil did, or at least what Dallin understood about what Wil did. More like opening up, letting his intuition reach out, decoding what he found, deciding what the problem was, and then trusting it. Finding a lack and filling it; finding excess and taking it away. It didn’t even feel like magic, really.

  It felt more like commonsense. Earthbound and almost-rational, once he’d allowed it out of its cage. A conscious, willful act of letting himself know, of not demanding a definition or explanation. Stepping out of his quick-mud.

  With both feet this time.

  The heart of the world, Wil had said—so had that boy back in the stable—and now Dallin knew all too well what it meant. It stayed at bay while Wil slept, that deep, mindless, dreamless sleep Shaw had shown Dallin that first night, but now that Wil was awake, it seemed to gather at him like he was so
me sort of lodestone. Which, now that Dallin thought about it, wasn’t too far off the mark.

  “It’s this place,” he told Wil. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep my promise, and now you’re paying for it.”

  “Promise?” Wil sighed a little, some of the coiled tension running out of the set of his shoulders. He wasn’t clawing at his head anymore like he’d been—just holding on to Dallin’s coat now. Equilibrium was coming slow, but it was coming. “You always keep your promises,”

  Wil mumbled. “I should’ve pushed, you were right, I should’ve pushed, I shouldn’t’ve pulled away, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “Wil, it’s all right, you don’t have to—”

  “—didn’t mean to burn you, too deep, too weak, I can’t make it go away, I can’t stop seeing—” He staggered, shifted a muzzy gaze up at Dallin, blinked then shut his eyes again tight. “I have to sit down.”

  “You have to go to Fæðme,” Calder put in, reached out and set a hand to Wil’s arm.

  Wil swung blind, smacked the hand away with a mumbled, “G’the fuck off me,” then didn’t wait for Dallin to guide him down to the ground; he more-orless started to fold his legs and slide down Dallin’s side, trying to plant his arse where his feet had been. Dallin just sort of teetered sideways and followed him down, helping as much as he could with the awkward maneuver and the resulting awkward position. “Too damned many threads,” Wil breathed, strained and thin, “it hurts, it fucking hurts, and I can’t stop seeing them…”

  “Here, let me help.” The boy—Hunter—had somehow got hold of Wil’s elbow and was trying to guide him gracelessly. Wil didn’t growl, just kept babbling, so Dallin didn’t order Hunter off, else they might all three end up in a heap.

  “Wil,” Calder persisted, “you must talk sense with your—” He glanced about at the small crowd they’d drawn, mouth pinched. “—with Brayden. There is no reason for you to be in this pain.” He turned back to Dallin, eyes hard, worried. One thing for which Dallin had to give grudging credit: Calder really did care about Wil. If only he wasn’t so bloody sure that he knew better.

  “You must take him to Fæðme. Only there—”

  “I will take him to Fæðme when he has been told what it means to him and if he then agrees to go—not before.” All of it shoved out from between Dallin’s teeth.

  “If you’d bloody told me about all this before we reached the Bounds, I would never have—”

  “But Fæðme is forbidden,” Hunter put in, one hand still resting on Wil’s arm, the other hovering behind him like he was afraid Wil was going to topple backward.

  “It’s sacred ground. Outlanders are not permitted.” He frowned up at Calder, then at the three Old Ones behind him, still silently looking on, then back again at Dallin.

  “Is he not from Ríocht?”

  Dallin narrowed his eyes. “And if he was and needed healing to save his life, would you deny him?”

  Hunter pulled back a little, surprised by the vehemence with which Dallin had asked the question. He blinked. “It would not be my place.” He shot a bewildered glance up at the silent Elders. “I expect I would do as the Old Ones instructed. And…” He flushed, suddenly distressed. “And the Shaman.” His head dipped low. “Forgive me, I forgot to whom I was speaking. I should not have presumed.”

  “Right,” Dallin told him, jaw set hard. “My point.”

  Hunter only shook his head, kept looking at Dallin attentively, as though waiting for Dallin to pull wisdom from out his arse and hand it over. Dallin couldn’t help the jag of anger. Hunter was only a boy, only knew what he’d been taught; it wasn’t his fault. Still, that blank belief made Dallin’s jaw go tight and his fists curl.

  “I didn’t mean to offend,” Hunter said, contrite. “I only mean to help.” He jerked his chin down at Wil. “He is in much pain. You can heal him, surely.”

  Wil had stopped the steady stream of apologetic jabber, but he still hadn’t opened his eyes. Now he drew up his knees and put a hand over his face. He was still holding on to Dallin’s trouser leg. Despite the tight grip, Dallin managed to plant one knee in the grass to kneel over Wil.

  “Too many eyes,” Wil muttered to him. “It’s too much, I can’t stop seeing it all. Make them go away.”

  “Easier said than done,” Dallin muttered back. He’d been trying to make them go away for bloody days. He shot his glance upwards, narrowed it at the crowd of gawkers. “All right, everyone move along,” he told them, satisfied and still a little discomfited that they backed off immediately. Since they’d run headlong into this little war party—mere miles from Chester and still fleeing break-neck when they’d more-or-less collided—and word spread of Dallin’s identity, the unaccountable near-reverence had almost done the job of unnerving him, where all the violence of the escape had failed. And continued to make him edgy every time he found himself on the receiving-end of it.

  He turned back to Wil as everyone but the five he most wanted to go away did so. All right, four—he supposed Shaw could stay. Wil liked him, and he’d been damned helpful the past couple of days.

  “It’s this place, Wil, it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s a lot, but there’s nothing inside it. Do you understand what I mean?”

  That had been Dallin’s biggest worry—terror, actually—at least while Wil had been so lost, so unreachable: that what Dallin had felt inside the chaos when Wil had stood in front of Siofra—that presence, that overwhelming greed and intent—had somehow followed Wil down into the dark. It wasn’t until Wil finally found his way back that Dallin could breathe easier, could at least halfway sleep and pay attention to things other than constant meditating and searching.

  Wil nodded, very carefully, but kept his head bowed and himself curled in.

  “Good,” Dallin said. “We’re going to figure out how to keep it back. I’m taking some of it, but you’re stronger than I am. You’re going to have to push it at me so I can take more.”

  That got Wil to open his eyes. Worry. Instant knee-jerk refusal. “No, I’ll—”

  “You won’t,” Dallin told him. “It won’t hurt me. It’s what I’m here for.” He glared up at Calder, at the others.

  “So I’m told.”

  Thorne—the eldest of the Old Ones and, up until this point, seemingly the most reasonable, in Dallin’s opinion—finally spoke: “That is not what you’ve been told.” He stepped forward, crouched down on creaky knees beside Dallin, peering at Wil with a gentle smile.

  He reached toward Wil, but stopped short when Wil reflexively pulled back, asked, “May I?”

  Wil squinted at Dallin with a frown, questioning; all Dallin could do was shrug tiredly. The pain in Wil’s eyes, in the tight set of his white face, the confusion—if Thorne could take that away, Dallin wasn’t going to begrudge it. “He won’t hurt you.” This with a warning flick of his glance to Thorne. “But it’s up to you.”

  “I am Denton Thorne.” Thorne dipped his head low, a respectful greeting. “I am pleased to welcome you to Lind, and I am overjoyed to make your acquaintance…”

  His smile pinched a little. “Wil, yes?”

  Wil nodded slowly, still wary, still pale and obviously still very much in pain. Dallin wasn’t sure how much sense was getting through, but Wil seemed to be following the conversation, at least. The little Dallin had been able to help so far hadn’t been much—he didn’t want to do what needed done out here, but he would if he had to—but if Thorne didn’t hurry it up, Dallin was going to knock him out of the way, fragile old bones or no, and do it right here under the eye of every man, woman and beast in the camp.

  Permission granted, Thorne laid his fingertips to Wil’s brow, pulled in a long breath and closed his eyes. “You have been lost for a very long time, my boy.” Thorne frowned a little, adjusted his fingers. “You do not know the joy that moved through Lind when Calder sent us word from Chester that you had been found. Doubly glad, for ’twas your Guardian that found you.”

  No smart-arse comment
from Wil as to the exact circumstances under which Dallin had found him and what had resulted immediately after. He must really be hurting.

  “So, you really were looking for me?” Wil asked.

  The soft yearning in his voice nearly pierced Dallin’s heart. Just how long before you understand you were never abandoned? How long before you can accept, have faith in another, believe you’re worthy of even the smallest kindness?

  Thorne sighed, kept the fingers of one hand on Wil’s brow. Gently, he ran those of the other through Wil’s hair, tucking a hank of satiny blue-black gently behind his ear. Dallin was both surprised and relieved to see Wil’s posture slouch just a fraction more, a further release of pain and the tension it wound about him like a coiled spring.

  “We looked, my lad, believe it.” Thorne shot a conciliatory glance over at Dallin. “Though our methods were…” He lifted an eyebrow, wryly expectant.

  “Antiquated,” Dallin supplied.

  “Antiquated,” Thorne agreed.

  “Amateurish,” Dallin added.

  “Hm, right, and…” Thorne’s mouth twisted, sardonic.

  “What was the other?”

  “Incompetent and negligent, I believe were my exact words.” If Thorne was expecting Dallin to flush and take a single one of them back, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

  Thorne merely nodded, turned back to Wil. “All of those things and more, brave lad. We would prostrate ourselves at your feet, but young Brayden tells us you might be moved to…” Again he looked at Dallin, expectant.

  This time Dallin did flush a little. “I believe I suggested that he might kick your arses.”

  “And that you might hold us down for him, yes?”

  Dallin was saved from answering that one by Wil, looking a little worried, but Dallin was extraordinarily relieved to see a bit of defiance creep into his pained gaze.

  “Calder said you would be expecting me to prostrate myself. That I’d sinned against—”

  “The only sin here,” Thorne soothed, “is our own. We have waited for our Lost Shaman so that he may guide us, as he always has done. Now that he is home, he has wasted no time in pointing out our sins and mistakes to us rather plainly.”