The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  He kept silent as they seated themselves on the stone floor, moving a bit slowly and cautiously, all of them, but surprisingly less rickety than Dallin would have expected from men of such advanced ages. Then again, doing what they did, immersing themselves daily in the power of this place, of Fæðme, good health and longevity were rather low on the shock scale.

  Dallin shook his head. How was it that he could be remembering things he’d had no idea he’d even once known? And how could he have forgotten so profoundly that he hadn’t even known there was anything he had forgotten?

  “Forgive our eagerness, young Wil,” Thorne began, “but we have waited so very long.” He gestured to his right, to a broad-faced man with a full beard of silver-gray and a shaggy mass of the same on his head. He was thick and swart, round-cheeked; a man who appeared to thoroughly enjoy his food. “May I present Æweweard Marden,” Thorne said, then indicated the man to his left. “Æweweard Siddell.” A scarecrow made of sticks, hair only just beginning to go iron beneath the gold, thin cheeks clean-shaven though cragged with obvious age; Thorne’s junior by only a few years, but age sat heavier on him than any of the Old Ones Dallin had met thus far.

  Both men once again dipped their heads, hands laid over their breastbones in a gesture of deep respect. Marden reached into his tunic, withdrawing a thin, fine-wrought silver chain, a small, dagger-shaped drop of crystal quartz dangling from its end. Clear and flawless, it caught the light from the cave’s mouth and spattered prisms over the walls and Marden’s round face.

  “A small gift,” he told Wil, extending it on the tips of his thick fingers. “You are full of questions. Used properly, this may help you find answers.”

  Taken aback, Wil started to reach out but stopped before his fingers touched the stone. “And what is the proper way to use it?” he asked suspiciously.

  Marden smiled, as though the question itself satisfied his own curiosity. “Why, whatever way you choose to use it, of course.”

  Back to those same cryptic answers Dallin had been getting for two days now. He almost growled.

  “It is also known to offer protection,” Thorne put in, “and to aid one in…” He paused, thought about what he wanted to say. “Forging links,” he finally continued.

  “Making difficult unions less difficult.” He nodded, encouraging. “Go on, then, lad. It’s all right.”

  Wil frowned, shot a glance over at Dallin then, when Dallin only shrugged, Wil leaned forward and allowed Marden to drop the chain over his head. He sat back, still frowning, but his fingers closed over the stone with a strange delicacy before cupping it lightly against his breastbone. It took a moment for Dallin to twig to the odd emotional jumble twisting in Wil’s expression.

  No one’s ever given him a gift before. And he’s scunnered.

  Wil tried to speak—couldn’t. He cleared his throat.

  “I don’t know what that means,” he whispered, peered down, watching his finger through the clear stone as it stroked slowly along the smooth line of it. Swallowing heavily, he looked up at Marden, a soft shimmer to his eyes, and nodded. “Thank you. It was very kind of you.”

  Siddell was next, extending his bony hand, thin eyebrows raised encouragingly as Wil slowly held out his own, palm-up. “Sun and Moon,” Siddell said as he dropped a small, smooth charm into Wil’s hand.

  Primitive-looking, though somehow more beautiful for it.

  The shapes were vaguely male and female—the woman made of fiery gold sunstone; the man cool and opalescent moonstone. The Mother and the Father, Sun and Moon, fused together into one. Arms outstretched, one eternally reaching for the other, a forever-dance of intertwined love and faith. “Balance and harmony,” Siddell told Wil, closed his fingers over the charm and folded his own gnarled, blue-veined hand over Wil’s, gave it a pat. He smiled. “You feel it already.”

  Wil frowned at his own hand and nodded slowly. “It feels… extraordinarily old, it’s been…” He closed his eyes, held it to his chest over the crystal at his breastbone. “Its dreams are so very deep, and… and long.” He opened his eyes, peered at Siddell, once again taken aback, almost to the point of anxiety. His hand stretched out, opened. “I can’t accept this—it must be thousands of years old. Time before Time. I can feel it.”

  “Then I should think that you can indeed accept it, for it seems it belongs in the hand of one who knows it.”

  Wil shook his head, his expression too close to distressed. A faint flush of shame lent light color to his cheeks. “You don’t understand. I can’t. It’s been touched by Her own hand.” He held it out to Dallin, near-panic.

  “Here. You should have it. It isn’t for me, they’ve made a mistake, it should be in the hand of one who… who—”

  “Who deserves it?” Dallin cut in softly. Wil only stared at him for a moment, then cut his glance away, dipped his head and pointed his eyes stubbornly at the floor. Dallin reached out, folding the charm into Wil’s hand as Siddell had done. He squeezed his own hand tight about Wil’s fist. “These men know all about you, Wil. They know, just as She does. If you think you need some sort of absolution, they’ll happily give it to you, so will She, but you’re the only one who thinks hiding from Her deserves retribution.”

  “I’ve not been hiding,” Wil grated, angry, though it was low and a little too small.

  “No?” Dallin kept his hand folded over Wil’s. He reached out with the other and slipped his arm over Wil’s shoulders. “I know a little bit about hiding,” he said, very quietly in Wil’s ear. “If I’d not hidden away so much of myself, I really might’ve hacked my way into the Guild when I had the chance all those years ago. I’ll always owe you a debt for that; I’ll always be sorry.” He gave Wil’s hand a light squeeze around the charm. “You hated Her and you loved Her at the same time, and both combined to keep Her from you, that’s all this is—not failure, not disloyalty, not weakness. You built up walls to survive, and you’ve forgotten how to let Her through them. That’s all right. She’s never stopped loving you because of it.

  She’s never stopped trying to help you, reach you. That’s why I’m here, remember?”

  “For Her,” Wil whispered.

  Dallin sighed, dipped his brow to rest against Wil’s temple. “You’re such a stroppy idiot sometimes.” He tugged at Wil’s hair to soften the sting of the rebuke. “For you, y’ daft dolt. You said you trusted me.”

  “I do, I… it has nothing to do with—”

  “Then trust my word.”

  Wil shook his head, frustrated. “It doesn’t have anything to do with trusting you.”

  “It will have,” Dallin assured him soberly. He nodded toward the three shamans, silently watching them, gazes keen and observant but benevolent. “They’re here to tell you what’s expected of the Aisling; I’m here to remind you that it’s all up to you. But you also need to know that…”

  He trailed off, sighed. “We’ll get to that. Right now, trust me in this.” Again, he squeezed Wil’s hand around the charm. “You should have it. Accept it graciously, and let’s get this done.”

  He withdrew his hand and sat back. Making his opinion clear, he hoped, but leaving it up to Wil.

  Wil only sat there for a moment, slightly hunched, staring at his fisted hand. Slowly, like the petals of a reluctant flower unfurling, his fingers loosened, opened.

  The little charm lying in his palm glowed iridescent in the combined light of the fire and daylight creeping in from outside. Coral-gold and irised-pearl, tatted in a perpetual stone embrace. He peered up at Siddell through his fringe, closed his hand over the charm again.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s beautiful, it’s more than…” He shook his head, bit his lip, said, “Thank you,” again, and went silent.

  Siddell bowed his head with a smile, then turned a hard gaze on Dallin, measuring. Strangely, all of them were staring, and more at Dallin than at Wil. Perhaps he’d stepped outside their expectations for their
Guardian again, as it seemed he was entirely too wont to do. He didn’t care now any more than he’d cared the other fifty times he’d done it.

  He returned their stares evenly, with perhaps a slight touch of defiance bubbling beneath it. “Shall we get on?” he asked mildly.

  Beloved Son

  Chapter One

  Touched by Her own hand. Wil could feel it. Could feel Her. Almost overwhelming strength wrapped inside soft benevolence. Terrifying might and boundless love. Impassionate wisdom and fierce defense. All of it in his palm, striating all through him, curling love and fear into his bones, resentment and longing. He wanted desperately to hurl the thing away from him, and just as desperately to curl it so tightly in his fist that it melded with skin and bone, sank into his blood.

  “Wil?” Dallin was leaning close, eyeing him with concern, sandy brows drawn down over a thoughtful gaze.

  Wil blinked, said, “Mm?”

  Dallin’s eyebrow went up. By the small twitch of a wry smile at the corner of Dallin’s mouth, Wil guessed Dallin had been trying to get his attention for a while now. “I asked you if you had any questions or anything before we get into everything else.”

  “I have lots of questions,” Wil answered, “but…” He paused, peered at Dallin, frowning. “I’m not quite sure…”

  He’d been asleep for four days, and then he’d spent the morning getting pummeled by pure and unfettered power, raw and crude, almost primitive, but ancient and sophisticated at the same time. It had seemed for a while as though he knew everything, like the world itself was pounding down on him, every thought from every living thing driving into him, scouring his mind, beating at his body with pure knowledge. Except he’d been too busy trying to shove it all away, unable to grasp more than a fleeting thread at a time for fear they’d all weave about him, strangle him, and take him down. Everything else had paled, lost its importance, until now. There’d been no real chance to talk, to find out how precarious their position might be, how much these people knew, and how much they should know.

  Fortunately, Wil didn’t need to explain it to Dallin. “They know all about you,” he told Wil steadily. “What blanks Calder left, I filled in.” He shot a pinched grimace at the three Old Ones. “And then some.” He turned back to Wil. “I’m sorry. I had to. I should have waited to ask you, but I couldn’t let them form their opinions on only Calder’s word.”

  Marden shook his head at Dallin in light reprimand. “You must be more forgiving of our brother,” he said, his tone somewhat sad, but with a soft bit of pleading beneath it. “You have not yet received your Marks—you cannot know what it means to lose them.”

  “He didn’t lose them,” Dallin retorted. “He cut them away so he could—”

  “So he could step into the shoes of the lost Guardian,” Siddell put in, hazel gaze straight and unbending, but not quite harsh. “So he could honor his son, lost to us now in some anonymous grave. Buried without the Graces or so much as a lock of hair from one of his kin so his ghost can remember who he was, or that his death was an honorable one.”

  “In the service of an Aisling he didn’t even know existed,” Dallin said through his teeth.

  Siddell frowned now. “You have much anger in you, Dallin Brayden.” He held up his hand when Dallin’s lip curled. “I do not reproach,” Siddell said quickly. “I only observe. But I would ask that you try to think more kindly of Brother Calder. Within the space of a year, the man lost his wife and his only son, both of whom he loved more than life. His Calling was all he had left, and his faith is strong, yet he consigned it all so that he might wipe away the Mother’s tears, restore Her lost one to Her.” His mouth flattened and he shook his head sadly. “You have seen and spoken to Her,” he went on quietly, shifted his sharp glance to Wil. “Can you now imagine the silence if you were to call to Her and She could no longer hear you?”

  Wil swallowed. He’d guessed as much, but now the empathetic pain of the truth pierced him. “He didn’t just cut away his Marks,” he told Dallin softly. “He cut away his connection to Her—for Her.” He shook his head, frowned at Siddell. “It seems… very unfair.”

  Siddell shrugged, waved a bony hand. “Ours is not to question.” He flicked a sly glance at Dallin. “Others have taken up that task.”

  Wil almost smirked as Dallin rolled his eyes with a low grumble. Instead, he pointed a curious gaze at the old men. “He is very suspicious of me. Calder, I mean.”

  Thorne shook his head, but it was Marden who spoke. “He fears for you, lad,” he offered in his gruff baritone, “but he shares the fears of us all as well.”

  “Fear of me.” Wil peered at every one of them closely. No one negated the statement. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t… I won’t—” Except he would—he had. Almost destroyed a city, almost taken Dallin’s head off, almost set half the Weardas on fire… Why should they believe a word he said, or trust any good intention, when it was all too plain he hadn’t the strength or power to control himself, let alone… everything else?

  “You do not know your own power,” Siddell put in, as though reading Wil’s own thoughts. “You cannot control it. Bringing you here is like teasing a match over a mountain of gunpowder, yet there was no other way, there is no other way. So yes, we fear for many things: ourselves, you, the very world.” Siddell shook his head. “You are not only dangerous to your enemies, lad. You must understand, we cannot—”

  “Look,” Dallin cut in impatiently, “you cannot judge and accuse when you don’t even—”

  “You would tell us truthfully, Dallin Brayden, that our fears are unjustified?” Siddell’s voice was challenging, colder than Wil had heard it before.

  “I would tell you that they are premature and pessimistic.” Dallin’s voice, on the other hand, was rising and heated. “He controls it better every day, and he’s stronger than you think he is. This place was crushing him, and yet here he sits, calm and sane and willing to talk reason, when—”

  “Because you have set your shoulders beneath it,” Marden cut in.

  Dallin shook his head. “That isn’t true. Wil’s taking most of it, I just…” He frowned, waved a hand, irritated and edgy. “I’ve channeled it.” And then his mouth tightened; his gaze hardened. “Isn’t that my job? Isn’t all of this my job?”

  “And do you truly feel qualified to take up that ‘job’?” Thorne wanted to know. “You are as untested as the Aisling, and yet you—”

  “Just stop it,” Wil snapped. Until that very second, he’d been unaware he intended to speak at all, but the bickering was making him more anxious than he would have thought possible. Pressure was building at the back of his throat, making his heart pound and his palms sweat. Panic flittered at the bottom of his stomach, weighting his previously pleasant breakfast like a lump of cold lead in his gut. “Just… stop for a moment, please.”

  Amazingly, they did.

  Wil tried and failed to gather his scattered thoughts. They were all looking at him; Dallin, too, waiting patiently while Wil’s mind stumbled and his hand fisted reflexively around the warm stone in his palm. “I never meant to hurt anyone,” was all he could say. “I only wanted to be let to live.” His eyes were burning; he shut them tight for a moment until the heat receded. “What’s inside me… I don’t want it. I’ll give it back, if you want; I’ll let you have it if you’ll just show me how.” He turned to Dallin in sudden desperation, faint and painful hope. “You can take it away, right? You know how—like what you did before.”

  Babbling. Pleading. And all Dallin was doing was shaking his head, sad and sympathetic. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that,” he said, sincere regret in the roughness of his voice.

  Wil clenched his jaw, turning back to the Old Ones. “Calder told Dallin he should kill me.” Bald and flat. Despite the panic welling in him, Wil’s chin lifted, defiant. “Is that what this is about? Is this a tribunal?” He set his gaze on each of them, trying not to let the fear show. “Am I on trial?”

  He h
adn’t realized how close to the edge of hysteria he’d been until the warm weight of Dallin’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. A message. A reminder.

  You’re not alone. Whatever happens, I won’t let you face it by yourself. I’ll do everything in my power to keep them from hurting you.

  Wil sagged a little beneath it, warmed and calmed by the simple touch.

  Thorne had been silent ’til now, watching and listening. Now, he leaned forward, laying a hand to Wil’s knee. “It is true that we have long feared what might have been happening to you, what you might have become.” He patted Wil’s knee, drew back. “Now that you are here, we can see that your heart is astonishingly untouched by the darkness through which you have waded.”

  Wil frowned a little, looked down. His heart didn’t feel untouched.

  “You are a good man,” Thorne went on. “But even the best of men can have the worst effect, if he possesses power he cannot control.”

  Wil’s eyes went unwillingly to the healing burn on Dallin’s cheek, then quickly away. He focused on his own hand instead, still fisted around the charm. “My Guardian has been teaching me,” he mumbled, halfhearted and small. “I’m learning.”

  “Certainly,” Marden agreed. “But your Guardian, while more powerful than we’d expected, is unschooled himself, and now we understand there is another consideration.” He paused when Wil shot a narrow glance up. Marden shrugged. “There is a deeper connection between you than that which was meant.” His broad face set with mild worry. “Your Guardian owns the priorities of a lover, when he should—”

  “Now wait just a damned minute,” Dallin cut in, his hand tightening on Wil’s shoulder so hard that Wil almost winced. “That’s no business of yours and you’ve no right to—”