The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  Dallin has gone still, head bowed, eyes closed, and his grip on Wil’s hand is loose now, but there. “This is yours,” he tells Wil, except his mouth doesn’t move, and he doesn’t stir. “I’m here, I won’t leave you alone, but this is yours.”

  Wil nods, takes a long breath, closes his eyes, and withdraws his hand. Dallin steps back, retreating but not—here if Wil wants him, and oh, Wil loves him for it. Wil straightens his spine, squares his shoulders, and lifts his chin. Grips the crystal tighter.

  “Mother,” is all he says.

  And She’s there. Blue eyes kind and calm, but filled with tears, and it’s strange because it never occurred to him that a goddess might weep, which is stupid because he’s seen the tears on Father’s cheeks more than once.

  She’s beautiful: strangely plain, almost ordinary, but every ordinary feature combines with every other and comes together into something extraordinary and beyond any beauty he’s ever seen, but encompassing it all, too. He sees echoes of Miri, of Mistress Sunny, of Thistle and Andette, and though none of them look like Her, they all have Her within. He sees Dallin and Ramsford, even Wisena and the Old Ones, and if he looks hard enough, he might even see Siofra, so he doesn’t.

  She only looks at him, steady and expectant. He can’t help feeling measured, and he wants to look back, keep his head up, meet the blue gaze with confidence and perhaps even defiance, accusation. His head dips instead and he looks down, stares at the toes of his battered boots. Over his head and overmatched. What had he been thinking? How could he have ever thought this was anything but a new opportunity for disappointment and humiliation, pain and disillusionment? How could he have ever believed he might, just might, be good enough?

  “It is not in my eyes you must seek your measure,” She says softly, Her voice kinder and more musical than he’d imagined, “nor in your Guardian’s.” He knows it’s the First Tongue, Her own language, but in dreams, he can always understand.

  He shakes his head, says, “No,” and his voice cracks, so he clears his throat. “Not in my Guardian’s,” he agrees, because his Guardian has never judged him, sees only the good in him, though he can’t make himself believe the same could be true of Her. Isn’t it Her place, after all?

  A small metallic chink catches his ear, and he flicks his glance toward it, watches as a link is added to the chain dangling from the shackle about Her wrist that he knows wasn’t there a moment ago. The sight startles him, slides a sick lump into his chest, nauseating, and he can’t help how his eyes slide to the scar on his own wrist, hang there.

  “Servant to faith,” She tells him, “hostage to belief. Bound by the certainties of others.” She holds Her hand out, palm-up. “Would you strengthen my bonds?”

  He shakes his head, takes a step back, horrified. “No, I…” Looks to Dallin for help, but Dallin is the Watcher now, head bowed, eyes shut, waiting and Watching. Leaving this to Wil, because this is his. Wil shudders a little, turns back to the Mother. It’s absurd, he doesn’t even really know what he did, but he wants to take it back, throw himself down and beg forgiveness for it. “I would never,” is all he can manage to whisper.

  “No?” She smiles, reaches out, gently takes up his hand. She strokes the lumpy scar on his wrist, and he lets Her, tries not to let his knees loosen at the soft sensations winding through him with Her touch. She guides his fingers over the chain, one link at a time. “These are those times when your keepers told you you’d been forsaken, and you believed them.” The links slide over his palm, too many to count, and so heavy. “These are those times when you were in pain and called out your curses.” More links, more weight, and he can’t hold it up.

  “No.” He tries to pull his hand from Hers, tries to back away, but She won’t let him go. “I have no mother, and yours is dead!” His own voice, but it comes out Her mouth, and more links pile into his hand.

  “Dallin,” Wil whispers, flicks a desperate glance over his shoulder, and Dallin’s there, still Watching, waiting, but he doesn’t react to Wil’s plea.

  “Why can’t he hear me?” he asks, can’t help that his tone bends accusing.

  “He can always hear you,” is the soft reply. “When you want him to.” A pause, and She tilts Her head, blue eyes narrowing slightly. “Do you want him to?”

  “I don’t…” He can’t finish. Because he really doesn’t know.

  She nods as though She’d expected it. “He is more than Watcher, indeed more than Guardian. He is Witness, he is Historian. He will sing the Aisling’s dirge, add it to the songs of his country, wound through with his tears and cries of loss. He will carry on and teach because you have asked it of him. He will wait, alone, for the Call of the next, and when he has fulfilled the duties of the Guardian, he will die, still alone, still reaching for you in dreams he won’t allow himself to know he dreams, still feeling his finger on the trigger and trying to call back the bullet with his last breath.”

  Wil flinches, shakes his head, but She doesn’t give him time to respond, even if he could. “Is that not what you wanted?” She asks him softly. “Is that not what you have demanded of him?”

  It’s soft, but razor-edged, dangerous, and he’s once again reminded of Calder, of the Old Ones. Real caring, real concern and compassion, but placing purpose above all else. She loves him—all right, he can believe that—but She’ll sacrifice him if She has to, She’ll sacrifice Dallin, She’ll hurt to help, and strangely, he can’t find it in him to blame Her.

  “I want to live,” he argues, without even thinking about it, without even knowing it was coming. “I never… I don’t want to die, I don’t want to cause him pain, but I want—”

  “But you want him to live more, and that is well. It is, after all, what he wants for you.” She steps in close, pulls his hand in, the chains weighing it down, clinking gently. “Tell me, Aisling—Wil-That-Was-and-Redeemed-That-Would-Be—when will your pain be enough? What will be enough to purge your imagined sins?” She pauses, dips in close, whispers, “You or him. Have you already made your choice?”

  It’s unfair and terribly cruel.

  “Is there one?” he rasps back, the question choking him, aching in his throat.

  “You have all the pieces of your puzzle,” She tells him, Her voice harder now, commanding. “You possess all your keys. Accept your Gifts. Wield them. All of them.” Her eyes flick over to Dallin, still waiting in the dark, removed and excluded. “Hand him your keys, if you dare, for he knows the locks all too well. There are more choices than either of you can know.”

  Riddles, more riddles, and She doesn’t even have the excuse of malady and weakness, as the Father does. Puzzle-pieces and questions to answer questions, and only more questions to follow, and he’s bloody weary of it all.

  “What does that mean?” he barks. “Why can’t you just say it?” Unheeding of his blaspheming tone, the bit of a glare he can’t help.

  “Ah,” She murmurs, a satisfied smile curling maddeningly at Her mouth. “You ask me to take away your choices, then?”

  He can’t answer. Because he thinks maybe the answer would be ‘yes,’ and he couldn’t stand the shame if it tripped off his tongue.

  Playing with him, testing him, and he’s failing, and doesn’t even know how, and he can’t help it. Perhaps, if he’d not allowed himself to be so tricked, She wouldn’t mock him so. Perhaps, if he’d been stronger, let down his walls and allowed that other Watcher in, he wouldn’t need redemption, wouldn’t be begging for it now from one who has every reason to withhold it. Perhaps, if he’d never refused Her…

  He was right to fear Her, right to be afraid of reaching out, right to fear that he’d angered Her, and right to bow his head in shame for what he’s done. She’s kind, surely, but wise and too knowing; She can be ruthless and relentless to a supplicant who has been fool enough to want so badly. Warrior-goddess with a great, tender heart armored in adamant, and it’s his own fault for allowing hope when he knew better.

  “This is right now,” She
tells him gently, holds up a single oval link between Her fingers, catching the not-light and glinting sharp into his eyes. “This is shame and doubt and fear of one who loves you above all others.” For a moment, Wil starts to protest, thinks She means Dallin, and he doesn’t fear Dallin, not anymore, the accusation is unfair… But then She places the link in his palm, closes his fingers over it. “You fight shackles like a wild animal,” Dallin’s words but Her voice, “but you accept a cage like you belong in one.” She squeezes his fingers about the link. “Would you expect else from me?”

  “Cage,” he whispers, shakes his head, because he should understand, but he doesn’t.

  “We build our own cages,” She tells him, “and we make our own keys. Sometimes, if we’re very fortunate, there is another who will hold that key for us until we’re ready to unlock the door and step out into the light. And sometimes, that other will, unknowingly and with all love and good intent—or even with hatred at perceived betrayal—add links to the chains that bind us.”

  She’s talking about him, though it makes no sense, no sense at all.

  “I’ve made you…”

  ‘Weak’ is the word that hovers on his tongue, but he can’t bring himself to speak it. Surely someone as small as he could not have the sort of effect implied on one like Her?

  “So much stronger than you think you are,” She whispers to him, kisses his brow, a warm tingle striating out from the touch and into his chest. “So willing to lock yourself inside your cage of self-doubt, self-rebuke, when there is another that would free and not confine.” She draws back, places Her hands to his cheeks, holds his gaze to Hers. “I am what I am; you cannot unmake that. I am bound only by what you believe of me, the links you add to the chains, and that even I cannot unmake.” She peers at him closely, a soft smile curling at Her mouth. “What do you believe, beautiful Gift?”

  He shakes his head against Her palms, shuts his eyes and bows his head, tears burning behind his brow, searing at the backs of his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, dismayed and revolted when he hears the unmistakable sound of another link being added to the chain at Her wrist. His head snaps up, and he stares into Her eyes. “No. I didn’t mean it. I mean, I did, but…” He swallows, clenches his teeth, and tries to collect himself, calm himself. “Please,” he whispers, “I don’t know what to… how I should…” Damn it, why can’t he twist the confusion ramming about his head into something that at least sounds like sense? And why can’t She just look inside and see it so he doesn’t have to? “I would never bind another,” he tells Her, earnest and open. “I would never bind You. I don’t know what to believe, I’ve been lied to for so long, I can’t… please, can’t You see, can’t You—?”

  He stops there because he has no idea what to ask for, if he even should ask. She’s still looking at him with that soft smile, Her hands still warm against his cheeks, wet with the tears he hadn’t realized were falling, but he can’t bring himself to be ashamed of them. Invitation, he’s just handed it to Her, and he’s not sorry for it, he meant it, and he knows that if he lets Her, She’ll take it.

  You must empty yourself to the Mother, and accept what She gives back to you.

  Empty himself. Bare himself. Let go of who he is, and let Her see it, let Her measure and judge it, and bend his neck while She does it. He’d wondered before if it would be liberating to confess his secrets to all those in Lind, pour out what he is and accept their respect or rebuke with no regrets. What would it be like to do the same with Her? Would She cleanse his soul, or would She flay it?

  He’s amazed that he wants it, amazed that She’d care to See, so he does it—opens himself wide, lets Her in. She looks and he lets Her. Gives Her everything, all the power that he’s been holding inside him before he even knew there was anything there, every bit of Self he’d kept from the one who would call himself ‘Father’ and all those whose hunger and greed made them monsters against even their own wills. He gives it all to Her, and She takes it in, binds it to Her own Self, empties him, and he doesn’t even worry if She’ll fill him back up again.

  Gentle and timeless, forever, and he shows Her all of the things he’d shown Siofra, shows Her yet more—all his secrets, such as they are, all the things he wants and dares to want—shows Her everything, and if She wants to censure him for it, strip him of this last, irrational hope, it still won’t take away what he is, who he is, and that makes it all right. She sees it all, and like the Guardian of Her making, She doesn’t look away.

  “Yes,” She tells him, just that one word, but it’s so full of everything that there’s no need for more, and it fills him with such stunning possibility that he almost can’t breathe.

  Yes to every question he’s ever asked, Yes to every plea he’s ever made, Yes to all things, and all things are possible. Yes, he was tricked and used and lied to, and Yes, he can be a person despite it. Yes, he can love and be loved, and Yes, he is worthy. Yes, She loves him, and Yes, he wants it, and Yes, he loves Her back and is not ashamed.

  “There,” She whispers, kisses him again, this time over the streak of Dallin’s blood on his cheekbone. “Now you see.”

  He does. She hasn’t left him empty; he poured himself out, offered Her everything, and instead of hating him for it, She has shown him his cage, shown him that he owns the keys, and that accepting this one perhaps isn’t something for which he should feel shame.

  Caught and caged.

  No more hostage to it than Dallin is to his. Their cages might ruin or save them, but neither has been truly imprisoned by the other. Not meant, Calder had told him, and perhaps that’s true, but She seems to approve nonetheless. All cages are not prisons, after all.

  A link breaks in the endless chain that binds Her, and he smiles a little, because he understands. One lie put to rest, another’s truth he can disbelieve, and he would no more bind Her than he would allow another to place shackles about his own wrists, never again.

  Her smile widens, and She takes Her hands from his face, pries open his fingers to reveal a tiny key, shining silver in his palm where the link used to be. Without a word, She lifts up Her wrist, holds it out to him.

  The key slides easily into the lock, turns without even slight resistance. A soft click, and the iron band is gone, the chains are gone, and with them, tremendous weight lifts from Wil’s chest, like he’s been buried beneath a mountain for so long that he grew used to it, and then someone came along and moved it for him. He can breathe. He can probably fly. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s weightless and free, filled with Grace, and it’s nothing at all like the euphoria of the leaf, nothing at all like even Dallin’s touch of healing—it’s softer but stronger, real and solid, but ephemeral and fey.

  “Mother,” slides from his tongue, small and asking, and She smiles, closes Her eyes, tears rolling out from the corners as She reaches out, pulls him against Her, guides his head to Her breast, and strokes his hair. Wil shuts his eyes, clenches his teeth against the tears for as long as he can, then gives in, lets them come, long and harsh and cleansing, says it again, “Mother,” and folds into the embrace—reaches back.

  He could stay here for always, and he thinks maybe She’d let him. Time doesn’t seem to have anything to do with reality at the moment. Reality doesn’t seem to have anything to do with reality, but this is real, it’s really happening. A lifetime of pretending not to wish for it, pretending he didn’t want it, pretending he was revolted by the very idea of it, and here he is, living it, and he doesn’t ever want to stop. It’s almost more than his mind can take. It’s strange, because he’d never thought of Her as so corporeal, but Her heart beats steadily, and Her embrace is warm, Her tears damp in his hair, and She’s real.

  He’s exhausted, spent, he could close his eyes and sleep forever, his cheek pressed against Her breast. He used to see children just so in their mothers’ embraces, and it used to confuse him, make him vaguely uncomfortable and oddly irritated. He thinks now perhaps that had been envy, thin
ks perhaps he’d been wishing for this innocence of familiarity and didn’t know it. Or knew it and wouldn’t admit it, which is all the same in the end.

  His eyes feel swollen, the lids heavy and gritty, and his nose is so clogged he can’t breathe. Reduced to mortifying snuffles. Her robes are just as real as She is, and he doesn’t fancy embarrassing himself by leaking all over Her. Where the hell is Dallin with his bloody handkerchiefs now?

  As if Wil had spoken aloud, She pushes him back, gently, slips Her fingers beneath his chin so he has no choice but to look up into Her soft gaze. She sighs, smiles, and lays another kiss to his brow. “There is much still ahead of you. It is time to call for your Guardian now.”

  He swallows, nods a little. He’s afraid, but it doesn’t paralyze him, though he thinks if he weren’t here, with Her, it just might. “He’s a good man,” he tells Her, flushes a little, because of course She’d know that; She’d chosen him, after all. “I should… You…” He flushes harder, the warmth at his cheeks burning, and he wants to dip his head, but he can’t, not on this. “Thank you,” he whispers. “I don’t think any other would’ve done, and I… I wish…”

  She smiles, shakes Her head. “You do not yet know of what you are capable. You do not yet know all of your Gifts.” She nods toward Dallin, then peers at Wil closely. “It is his Task to guide you, but it is yours to choose.”

  “It isn’t much of a choice,” he mutters, and now he does dip his head, because the tears are threatening again, and he’s already shown himself weak before Her.

  “There is a very fine line,” She tells him, tone clear, somewhat amused, “between doing something for another and doing something to another.”

  His head snaps up and he scowls; he can’t help it. It isn’t fair. One of them has to meet his end, and he knows who it has to be, he’s seen it—