The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  “You remember now,” Thorne said quietly.

  Dallin nodded, lifted his chin. “She showed me.”

  “Ah,” said Thorne, a small ripple of approval wrinkling through the line of old men from the center outward. His smile widened, genuinely pleased. “We knew your powers were vast, but we could not tell how deep. It has been so very long since any of us heard Their Voices.”

  “So Calder told me,” Dallin replied flatly.

  Thorne merely sighed sadly, shrugged. “An unfortunate loss. One cannot be healed unless one recognizes the necessity.” He opened a hand. “We could not interfere. The Mother’s will, you see—in all things. Even when we might prefer a different… course.”

  “But you didn’t know Her will.”

  Thorne nodded in acknowledgement. “It has become difficult to interpret the signs, yes,” he admitted.

  “And you second-guessed it.”

  A lift of an eyebrow. “Did we?” Soft challenge.

  Dallin had to concentrate fairly hard to keep his teeth from clenching. “You tried to take my Calling from me. You might well have succeeded, had She not stepped in.”

  “Never take,” Thorne said, sincere and grave. “We could not allow you to remember. Not out among outlanders, not without the Old Ones to guide you. The enemy could not know you’d lived, and we could not keep you here, not when we realized it would be…” His mouth twisted, and he lowered his gaze. “…unsafe.” Quite an admission, coming from a Linder, and it hadn’t come easily. Thorne sighed again, shook his head. “We would have come for you, but your mother was killed before she could tell us—”

  “Oh, I understand,” Dallin assured him. “It even makes sense.” He let his gaze drift up and down the line again, hard. “Except for the part where you—all of you—continued to try and keep it from me once I returned.” He consciously kept his hands from fisting. “You doubted the Aisling, you second-guessed the Guardian, and through me, you second-guessed the Mother, all of you did. How very… cheeky of you.”

  “Not second-guessed,” Singréne put in, the first of them besides Thorne to speak, and seeming a bit put out by the accusation. “Say rather, we waited for our Shaman to guide us.” A sophic little smile, and he waved a broad hand toward Wil. “He is as no other before him. And not all of his Gifts come from the Mother and the Father.” He shrugged when Dallin narrowed his eyes. “Thorne tells us you guessed right from the very beginning. He also tells us that the Aisling has never shied from what he knows to be his Task. You, however…” He opened a hand. “You place him above his Task. Perhaps it is the Mother’s will, perhaps it is not, but the risk is great and terrifying. You must forgive old men their fears.”

  “No,” Dallin said stonily, “I mustn’t.”

  “As you will,” Singréne replied, a half-smile remarkably like Thorne’s curling his mouth. “But the Shaman has claimed the Land now, and the Land has claimed him back. Our Calling has been fulfilled. We must now trust in the choices of the Mother and the Father, and stand back while our fates are decided.” He bowed his head, the others following suit. “Guardian. Your will.”

  Dallin raised his eyebrows, shooting a look over his shoulder to Corliss, who was standing at a casual form of attention, face intent, gaze going from the Old Ones to Wil and then to Dallin. She met Dallin’s eyes steadily, stared at him good and hard for a long moment. Then she tipped her head in a slight nod. Dallin had no idea what it was meant to convey, but somehow, it laid any doubts he may have had to rest. Not betrayal from these men; merely placing faith above any single life or soul, no matter the importance of that life or soul. None of it was personal, which wasn’t necessarily all right with Dallin, but… more all right than the alternative. He turned back to the Old Ones, addressing his next statement to Thorne. “We go to FAeðme now. Once the Aisling has laid himself before the Mother, we wait for the Cleric and what he brings.” He paused, shook his head at the way the plain, simple words joined to form a statement that sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the sleet. He raised his voice, waved toward those before and behind him. “Any who would champion the Aisling, I would have at my back.”

  “You treat with powers beyond your scope,” Marden pointed out mildly. “None of the Aislingí before him have presented so vast a threat, should he fail and yet live. And in the Mother’s own Womb.”

  Dallin didn’t allow the snarl loose. He looked at Marden straight. “Do you defy me?”

  Marden’s mouth twisted into something that looked annoyingly like a satisfied smirk. “Never defy,” he told Dallin easily. “I merely remind.”

  “Mm,” Dallin grunted, turning to the small party behind him. “I don’t ask any of you to come with us. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen down there. It may all end very badly.” He paused, shifted his gaze to meet each set of eyes, somber and serious. “Then again, I can’t imagine your faith could do anything but good.” He pointed at Wil. “He goes to stand before the enemy, to face the beast, and to free the Father. I go to stand at his back and to guard him as I can—as he wills. If you would do less, you’d do best to stay here and wait until your fate is handed to you.”

  No one averted their glances. A few blinked a bit against the sleet, a few lifted their chins and straightened their shoulders, but none of them looked away. Silence, but for the steady wintry chime of sleet falling and bouncing off the thin layer of ice that coated the sward. Steadfast and stolid, and Dallin didn’t know why he’d ever thought they might do differently, any of them.

  Finally, Woodrow shuffled a little, adjusted his grip on Wil, and cleared his throat. “You’ll forgive me, Bray—er, Guardian,” he put in hesitantly, “but I’m thinking we’re all agreed, and it was rather a daft question. P’raps we could get out of the rain now?”

  Dallin grinned, dropped a small nod. “Woodrow,” he retorted, absurdly cheered, considering, “I’m thinking you’re a lot sharper than you let on.” He jerked his chin. “There’s a stable around back. Take the horses, but don’t take the time to untack them. We’ll be waiting for you inside.” He turned to the Old Ones, gesturing them up the steps. “Gentlemen?” was all he said, waved for Woodrow and Setenne to follow, and started after the Old Ones.

  He remembered it. He remembered it all, and he looked at it now with that same strange doublevision—the fear of the child he’d been calling to the fear of the man he’d become. He’d feared death then, and he’d feared for his people, feared the Old Ones and the relentless force of their combined power; now, there were so many other things to be afraid of.

  The way was dark and steep, narrow passageways and slick steps chiseled intermittently into the stone of particularly treacherous stretches. Cold, at first, and growing steadily warmer as they descended, the ceaseless, faraway trickle of water eventually resolving itself into the song of the river as they neared the vert glimmer bleeding out into the tunnels from the mouth of FAeðme. Thorne stepped into the chamber ahead of them, and they waited as he lit the lamps and called for them to enter. The sheer power of the place was only half-remembered, and somewhat daunting, thrumming against Dallin’s skin and into his head. No pushing it away this time, no locking himself down. He couldn’t help wondering what might be happening inside Wil’s head right this minute—was the place assaulting him, as it had done before, and was he in pain? Dallin allowed himself to think about it for exactly ten seconds before making himself stop; he’d find out very shortly, and then… well. He’d do what he could, whatever it took.

  Dallin was prepared for the murmurs of awe when they crossed the threshold into the vast cavern, but he still smiled a little and wished Wil was awake to see it. Things like this, things of beauty… these were the things that made Wil’s eyes go soft and bright at the same time, made his face smooth out and his mouth curve up into a smile that was completely his.

  “The mouth of the Flównysse,” Dallin said quietly, his voice resonating over walls of green striated in every shade of the color
. “Mother’s Blood. It flows down from the mountains from several different paths, and collects here to form the river. The malachite in its bed has been polished smooth since time began.”

  All but the Old Ones stepped closer to the water to look down and shake their heads at the beauty, the light of their torches and the lamps ringing the chamber catching all the different shades of green and sparking like sage fire against the stone beneath the water. Dallin paced over to Woodrow and Setenne, took Wil from them, and laid him carefully out beside the water’s edge. Gently, he ran his fingers over the scrapes and gouges on Wil’s temple, and the browning streak of Dallin’s own blood on Wil’s cheekbone.

  “It really is just like his eyes,” he heard Corliss murmur.

  “Yes,” Dallin answered, though he didn’t think she was actually addressing him directly. “First thing I noticed about him.” He brushed wet black hair from Wil’s pale brow. “I recognized it even then. I just didn’t know it.”

  “Brayden,” Corliss said, watching him, “Can’t you—?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you to expect,” he said, still looking down at Wil because it was safer. “I can only tell you to be ready.” He sat on the stone by Wil’s side, took up a cold hand in his, and closed his eyes.

  “What are you going to do?” Corliss wanted to know.

  Dallin sucked in a long breath, twining his fingers tight with Wil’s limp ones. “I’m going to follow him. Wait here. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  And then he reached for what power was his with one hand, reached for Wil with the other, and followed.

  “You’re here.”

  Dallin manages a smile. “I’m here.”

  He hadn’t allowed himself to think about how worried he’d been that Wil wouldn’t want him to follow, would resent him for it, until he finds himself standing here. Not the river, the spot that has come to mean so many things, that has become almost expected, that has become theirs. The same star-clotted nothing where Dallin had first seen Wil tending his Threads, working his fingers raw, only Wil isn’t weaving now, he isn’t doing anything except standing there and looking at Dallin. Waiting.

  It’s strange, because Dallin is still dressed in muddy trousers and blood-caked coat, still wet, still got his weapons strapped in place. His hair is still dripping from melting ice, itching just a little as the miniscule trickles wander down his scalp.

  Wil is clad in the clothes he was wearing the first time Dallin saw him, fresh and dry, his hair neat and clean, shining blue-black in the light that isn’t really light. There are no bruises on his face, no scrapes, no bloodstain flowering over his clean white tunic, though the streak of Dallin’s blood still sweeps over his cheekbone—his own Mark. He wears the boots he fought for back in Dudley—his own, he’d said, and maybe that’s why he’s dressed as he is: none of it given to him, none of it borrowed from another, all of it his, in whatever way he’d managed to procure it. Dallin wonders if Wil even notices what he’s wearing, and if he knows why. Wonders if he did it deliberately, if he decided he wanted to die on his own terms and wearing his own boots. Dallin pushes that away, because yes, of course that’s it.

  No leaf-smiles here, no vacant gazes.

  Wil looks so calm, so strong, as he stands tall in his own element, chin up and back straight, stretched to the full height he usually tries to hide, afraid of notice. He doesn’t look like he’s afraid of anything right now—he looks like he’s daring the world.

  Until he meets Dallin’s eyes, tries to smile, and can’t. He shakes his head slowly, says, “Not lost,” and it isn’t spoken like a question, but it has the feel of one anyway.

  “No,” Dallin tells him softly, “not this time.”

  Wil nods, takes a long breath. “I trust you,” he whispers, says it again, louder, “I trust you,” like he’s trying to convince himself, and in this one thing, perhaps he is.

  “I’m right here,” Dallin says. “I’m not going anywhere.” He pauses, says the only thing that truly matters now: “She loves you.”

  Wil nods again, tries to smile a little, and just about manages it this time. “All right.” He holds out his hand, wraps his fingers hard around Dallin’s when Dallin takes it. Dallin can feel the tremors running though Wil, but only squeezes his hand tighter in answer. “All right,” Wil repeats. “I’m ready.”

  Dallin smiles, as encouraging as he can, takes a long breath, and sends out his Call.

  Chapter Five

  A place of his own choosing, because it’s as close to safety as he’s ever known. Father would come to him in this place, speak to him like he was real and worth something other than what he could do, what was in him, and he couldn’t always understand the things Father said to him, but he’s known since he could know anything that the warmth he felt inside the words was love. The eventual comparison was what made him understand that what came from Siofra—captor, jailer, tormentor—was nothing more than a cheap, transparent mockery. A perversion. Father taught him how to love, even though he hadn’t recognized it for that for far too long, and it helped him to see it in his Guardian’s eyes, recognize it, and for that… for that, if there were nothing else, he would still love Father.

  So many more reasons, though, and he wishes he hadn’t so stubbornly failed to see them. He’s wasted so much time on anger. Giving him a place where he could be still, quiet, where he could dream dreams that were his own and no one else’s, where he could pick apart the insanity and fit it into shapes that turned it sane. Smiles that he’d always thought sleepy and dreamy, but that he now knows to have been weary and drained. Handing him the language of the stars, and letting him listen, letting him join his small voice to their songs, letting him wrap himself inside it all until the next time he was wrenched from dream and into nightmare.

  No idiotic smiles here, no leaf seeps through the cracks of his mind. He is something other than what is confined to his body on the other side. There, he is vulnerable, small, weak. People can trick him and have done, can overpower him and have done, can bind him to their own courses, and he can struggle and kick and bite, but he doesn’t always win. None of that is a concern here. A place of safety inside his own mind, and it’s more Father’s than his, but that’s never really mattered. Here, he is strong. Here, he is sane. Here, he is himself, or as close to it as he ever can be.

  Here, he can meet Her on his own terms.

  She loves Father. He’s not sure he ever believed that before, but he does now, just as much as he believes his Guardian’s stalwart assertions that She hadn’t forgotten him, hadn’t left him alone and in pain because She’d chosen it. She loves Him, just as he does, She wants to help Him, and if nothing else, it gives him a common ground on which to rest hope.

  He’s calmer than he thought he’d be. Ready, as he never would have believed, but he’s got his Guardian—more, he’s got Dallin—and Dallin won’t let this go wrong.

  Strangely, he’s more anxious about this than he is about what must come after. His Guardian will be the end of him; he’s known it for always, and it used to fill him with fear and loathing and dread. Now it’s a comfort, though he’s sorry to put the burden on Dallin. Still, knowing it was coming has more-or-less prepared him for it, and he mourns uselessly, because he does love life, what he’s come to know as life, but Dallin will make the end as painless as possible. Dallin loves him, and that used to terrify him, but now… now, it gives him an odd sort of fatalistic hope.

  He’s hated Her forever, with every breath, every beat of his heart, he’s hated Her, resented Her, feared Her, and hated himself because he still loved Her. Abandoned, used, tormented, and broken, time and again, and yet he’d never been able to make himself scream for Her, never let himself reach out, for the fear of real, tangible rejection has always loomed larger than the pain of knowing himself to be the nameless hostage of a man he once loved with a little boy’s naïve, trusting heart. Afraid of crying out, asking, and hearing only ‘No,’ in return, or worse, silence. H
e understands Calder’s pain, he always has done, because it’s been his own fear for time without end—reaching out, searching, grasping, and your hand comes back with the knuckles bloodied. Or empty. It terrifies him, and still it’s a risk. His Guardian insists it won’t happen, can’t happen, but he knows the heart of the Divine can be fickle and hard, and he knows gods are not infallible. Still, he has to know this. Finally. And even if She refuses him… No, he won’t fool himself—it will crush him, but it won’t defeat him. Perhaps that’s why he can do this now. Dallin has taught him it’s all right to reach out, you won’t always draw back a stump, and if you do, well… there’s always the other hand.

  “All right?” Dallin asks him, staring at him, anxiety and concern in those dark eyes, and he gives Wil’s hand a squeeze.

  Wil swallows, drops a slow nod, though part of him still wants to back away, tell Dallin this is a mistake, he’s not ready, but that hard bit of steel in his backbone won’t let him. “All right,” Wil tells him and lifts his chin.

  Dallin smiles, gives Wil’s hand another squeeze, leans in and kisses him, soft and warm. He takes Wil’s hand, slips his fingers about the crystal on its silver chain about his neck that wasn’t there only a second ago, and wraps his own about them tight before taking his hand away. “I’m right here,” he whispers, draws back just a little, and shuts his eyes.

  He can hear the Call—not with his ears, but with something inside him, a low vibration that winds up through the hand linked with Dallin’s and into Wil’s chest, stutters through the crystal in his palm. Like the healing, but only peripherally. This isn’t for him, doesn’t move through him, doesn’t seek his core and touch it—this is for Her, and Wil merely stands inside the echo of it. Waiting.

  The response is immediate and nearly overwhelming. A strange euphoria moves through him, but it isn’t nonsensical and frightening like the leaf. It’s heat like a thousand suns, but it doesn’t burn; it’s strength ensconcing him in a relentless embrace, but it doesn’t hurt; it’s a devastating Presence inside his mind, his heart, his soul, but it doesn’t invade, merely asks.