The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  —sets a kiss to Aeledfýres’ mouth—

  —and pulled the trigger, and plunges the dagger, still red with Dallin’s blood, deep into Aeledfýres’ chest…

  The reverberation was deafening, as the shot echoed in the cavern, rolled over the walls of malachite, and amplified itself until only a slight ringing was left. The chanting continued, hands still linked, as every eye turned with removed interest, watched Wheeler’s head explode in a shower of blood and bone, warm wet streaks of it striping Dallin’s cheek and forehead and spattering Andette’s face and tunic. Wheeler’s hand spasmed once, twice, then clenches in Wil’s hair, pulling him in, and Dallin can feel the fight still raging inside this perversion of a kiss. They’ve taken away one vessel; only one remains. It’s down to this, like Wil has known all along, and nothing Dallin has done or said has changed it. Don’t leave me alive inside a cage. And Dallin had promised. The Thread throbs in his hand like the living heart of a star. Fate, he thinks, slants his gaze upward, where the anger and arrogance of Aeledfýres has rent the sky. Threads and Fate and stars and faith and belief and It’s a dream, innit? and he doesn’t need anything but the shrieking songs of the stars, the portents in their cadence, and the knowledge that Wil is just barely holding on—if Dallin’s going to finish this, if he doesn’t want to have to keep his terrible promise, he’ll need to be quick. He calls to Thorne, told Andette, “Don’t let go!” then grips the Thread in his fist—heaves.

  He’d thought the pain before was mind-shattering—this is worse. An agonized cry wrenches from his chest, and it takes everything he has to keep from losing his grip, keep pulling and tearing, as he hears the screams curling up from the throat of Aeledfýres, the sudden turn of his attention to Dallin and what he’s doing. The agony doubles; he almost can’t believe someone can feel this much pain and still be alive, and then he almost wishes he wasn’t. He understands fully now the torture Wil endured for decades, and yes, pulling the trigger to prevent this would be a mercy, and Dallin would do it without hesitation. He wishes he could gather the breath to tell Wil so, but it’s all he can do to hold on, to keep his grip and keep the power humming through him and into Wil.

  Aeledfýres is divided now, half his attention on holding on to Wil and the other half on trying to knock Dallin loose. He can’t do both, he hasn’t the strength or magic, it’s only a matter of time, and if Dallin can just hold out—

  He feels the shift like a landslide beneath his feet, and he jolts, shouts, “No, Wil, don’t!” even as he sends every bit of raw power to him, tries to reach for him, but it’s too late, and why hadn’t he realized, why hadn’t he guessed? “Damn you, Wil, it’s not yours, it’s mine!”

  He is a helpless witness as Wil takes advantage of Aeledfýres’ diversion, gives one last, great shove, then gathers himself with a wild little grin, says, “I am Drút Hyse. And you are not my Father.” Wrenches the dagger, then twists.

  Stops pushing and pulls it back. All of it.

  Dallin is rocked, the Thread ripping violently from out his hands and careening at Wil in an explosion of searing color and crude, feral power. Wil is sent hurtling backward as Aeledfýres screeches, all hate and rage and thwarted intent, then crumples, that same staring emptiness that Dallin had seen in a cell in Dudley. The songs of the stars alter, a rising screech that drives right down into his spine, the shrieking din of an angry dirge, before spiraling down into a soft, mourning cry of triumph. It’s how Dallin knows Aeledfýres is truly gone—the stars tell him so. It’s over, the pain is gone, except…

  Wil is sprawled gracelessly, too still, face and tunic washed in blood—it’s Chester all over again, except this time his eyes are open and aware, watching Dallin as Dallin bounds over to him. With a watery cry, Dallin crouches down beside Wil, tries to wipe some of the blood away with his sleeve, but there’s too much of it. Even the whites of Wil’s eyes are bloody, but the irises still shift and whirl with light and color.

  “What did you do?” Dallin warbles, thick and choked with too much emotion. “Damn you, Wil— you pulled it back. I told you not to pull it back!” It’s accusing and angry, but rife with a sorrow he won’t allow himself to feel yet, not yet, it can’t be over yet.

  “You showed me how,” Wil wheezes, “back in Dudley. Remember?”

  “No!” Dallin denies, but he did, he’d told Wil to pull it back, but, “I didn’t know what I was doing then, Wil, I wouldn’t’ve—”

  “You always know what you’re doing,” Wil tells him, smiles a little, then coughs, a thick spray of scarlet erupting from his bloody lips. “Guide is an… another one of your names. It’s Brídín in the North Tongue. Sor… sorta sounds like… Brayden, dunnit?” It’s liquid, a little bit slurred, and distant, like Wil’s already speaking from far away. His eyes narrow somewhat, and he frowns, curious. “I’ve never seen you cry before.”

  Dallin hadn’t realized he was weeping, but he isn’t at all surprised. “What did you do?” he asks, his voice hoarse and rough and just on the edge of cracking right down the center. He’s doubly dismayed to see the wounds from before—the scrapes and gouges over Wil’s cheek and temple, the bloom of blood at his shoulder—like Wil’s been holding on to his inner-image of strength and wholeness, and is now letting it go. Dallin clenches his teeth, reaches, and finds ruptures and bleeding in too many places, damage so terrible he almost can’t see it all. “Wil… no,” he breathes, shakes his head helplessly. “What did you do?”

  Wil doesn’t answer, just opens his hand, the little charm—Sun and Moon—pulsing to the faltering rhythm of his heart, and curls the other about the crystal at his breastbone. “Changed my fate,” he slurs. “No cage. No bullet.”

  It sounds like a confession, or an absolution. It sounds like goodbye.

  “Wil… don’t,” is all Dallin can beg, still trying frantically to heal what he won’t admit can’t be healed. “Please. Please, Wil—”

  “Do you trust me?” Wil asks softly.

  Dallin doesn’t know what it means, but Wil does, so he just says, “Yes,” without giving himself a chance to think about it.

  “Apples and potatoes, Dallin.” Wil smiles a little. “Are you impressed?”

  No, Dallin wants to answer, I’m crushed and heartsore and angry and grieved, and how could you do this to me? Before he can so much as force an answering smile, try to coerce some kind of response from his clogged throat, Wil closes his eyes, blood like tears sliding from the corners, stark on too-white skin. And doesn’t open them again.

  “No!” Dallin snarls, tears choking him, and when was the last time he wept? He takes hold of Wil’s arm, shakes him. “Where’s the bloody badger, Wil?” Reaches again, but it’s like Wil’s been torn apart inside, fissures and breaches. Dallin can’t heal them all fast enough, there are too many, and it isn’t fair, he won’t stand for it. “Mother,” is all he can push out through his teeth, a sharp demand, and only at the last second does he curl it into a Call, pleading. Asking for Her help and trying to believe She’ll give it—grasping at faith and more than willing to bind Her to it.

  A moment of vertigo, the slick-shift of ground beneath him, and he’s surrounded by stars, stars inside of clouds, and She’s there, waiting, and it’s strange, because Dallin hadn’t even thought of it before—how Wil had done it all for the Father, for Her, and Dallin himself had done it all for Wil. There should be shame there, or… something, but there isn’t. Only a growing sense of rage and betrayal and a deep-dark hole of loss opening wide in his chest. He can hardly see, his eyes are blurred and burning, and he looks at Her, full of censure and reproach he can’t help.

  “Have You got what You want now?” he asks Her, hand gripping Wil’s arm, healing what he can as he can and praying it’ll be enough, when he knows it won’t. “Has he endured enough yet?”

  Maddeningly, She smiles, bending to Wil, Her hand wrapping about the fist in which the charm is curled. She looks up at Dallin, tilts Her head. “Your Calling has been fulfilled,” She tell
s him gently, reaches out and brushes Her fingers over his cheek where the Mark still stings. “Do you believe, Guardian?”

  Dallin chokes on a sob, nods before he even thinks about it. He doesn’t even really know what She’s asking, but he believes, he believes it all, he believes everything. He’s just watched Wil tear away the soul of a god, eat the emptiness, and he cares about nothing but the fact that he can’t fix it.

  “Please,” is all he can whisper.

  And the Father is there, pulling him to his feet, not well, still weak, but not dying anymore; the stench of it has left Him. She’s healed Him, and Dallin wants to rage at the unfairness, but hope stills his tongue and he merely waits, because he’d promised Wil, told him he trusted him, and he’ll honor that promise, at least, since Wil had granted Dallin terrible reprieve from the other.

  “Do you believe, Guardian?” He asks.

  Dallin grinds his teeth, snarls, “Yes!” and what do They bloody want from him, and what does it matter now what he believes?

  She holds up Her hand, turns it so the shackle with its one link catches the glimmer of the shifting stars that he knows are Threads and fates, but he can’t care about it anymore. “A belief to which I am willingly bound,” She says, reaches out and pushed him away. Dallin blinked against the smoky light of torch and lamp, nearly choked on the cloying scent of incense, hard rock beneath his knees and Wil’s hand clenched so tight in his fist that the tips of his fingers were white. The Old Ones had altered their songs, gathered ’round in a circle about them, and Corliss was continually swiping at Wil’s face and ears, pinching at the bridge of his nose, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but her face gave away her hopelessness. Wil was a mess, worse than he’d been in that other where, his face white as chalk and going to wax, his lips losing color, and his shirt clotted and soaked crimson. His chest rose in irregular, small hitches, sluggish and weak, and his hand lay in Dallin’s palm like a stone. He was cold. Wil hated the cold.

  It took Dallin a moment to understand, and then another before the shock of it allowed anything at all besides choking rage. Banished. Sent away.

  “No,” he wheezed through his teeth, shut his eyes tight and tried to follow.

  Rebuff—not harsh and jolting, not gentle. Just rebuff. Too plain, too simple. Rebuff, and he didn’t know if it was Wil keeping him away, trying to spare him those last, precious moments, or if it was Them, for whatever reasons move gods. Nor did he care.

  “No,” he grated, and it sounded too much like a sob, and he didn’t care about that either.

  “Shaman,” someone murmured—Thorne, it sounded like Thorne—set a hand to Dallin’s shoulder, tugged just a little. “He is in Their care now. You’ve already made your plea; come away and let us add our voices.”

  In Their care. And he’d promised he trusted. He’d promised he believed.

  Had he pleaded enough? Had he pleaded at all? He did it now, with everything in him, curled Wil’s fist about the charm, and sent his own appeal, telling himself They would hear. It was the first time he could recall ever having begged.

  A sacrifice, Wil had called himself once, and why couldn’t Dallin remember when and under what circumstances? Surely They couldn’t be that cruel, not now, not after all of this.

  Spent, near-broken, he peered about himself, noting only now the gruesome corpse of Wheeler, the sad, compassionate gazes of those gathered ’round, the confusion on the faces of Wheeler’s men, still bound and guarded.

  “He saved the Father,” Dallin said to no one in particular, and it sounded so hollow for such a weighty proclamation; there should have been horns blowing in celebration, shouts of triumph. Nothing, only the sympathy of those who could still meet his eyes.

  He turned to Thorne, raw entreaty. “What will They do?” Shaky and too desperately brittle.

  Thorne shook his head, reached down, and pushed black hair from Wil’s clammy brow. “What They will,” was all he said.

  It was all the answer Dallin was going to get. He nodded slowly, gave Wil’s hand one last squeeze, then got to his feet, stepped back, and let the Old Ones do their work.

  Chapter Seven

  It was not, he decided, a test, nor was it a request or a demand. It was an offer—an offer with limitless caveats, it seemed, but he’d had a choice; They’d made sure of that. Hardly a choice at all, he’d thought when it had been presented to him, or not one he’d had trouble making, at least. He knew what he wanted. The same thing he’d always wanted: a chance to live an actual life. No chains, no walls, no locked doors, and the only cage would be one he made and chose for himself, if he chose one at all. Furthermore, he couldn’t help hoping that Dallin would want it, too, and that… it mattered. Likely more than it should, and that was a cage in itself, he supposed, but that was the pass to which he’d come, and he didn’t think he could regret it, so he hadn’t tried. He’d merely considered what They’d offered, considered what it might mean not to accept, then considered his heart. A little more selfish than he’d thought, that heart, and there was still the choice to be put to Dallin, but… the decision was, as had been made all too clear, his to make. So he’d made it.

  Several forevers, though he knew it had only been hours. It hadn’t seemed so at the time, but neither had it seemed hours or minutes or years or decades—it just was. And now it wasn’t anymore, but that…

  That seemed right. He was sure.

  Residual pain still ached through him, hurts healed, or at least the ones that would have taken away all choice for good and all. But his mortal body still felt the echoes, still struggled for equilibrium, unsettled between divine curative and corporeal backlash. And that had been his choice as well. Better to accept the earthbound consequences than delay until there were none; watching Dallin caught between hope and mourning—and he had watched, They’d seen to that, as well—feeling every tear, hearing every prayer and song, the anger, the hope, the self-rebuke, the incredible, still-incomprehensible love… it had hurt so much worse. He’d deal with the rest of the physical pain himself, or better, let Dallin deal with it for him. It would please the Shaman.

  It was dark when Wil opened his eyes, the rolling orange-gold radiance of lamps and candles and fire scudding across the high, flat ceiling. The heavy perfume of incense weighed in the air, and the distant, chanting songs of the Old Ones that had been humming at the back of his consciousness for however long it had been now rose slightly in pitch, spiraling all around him.

  The marble ringing the fire-pit and the thick pillars supporting the ceiling to either side of the vent gave away where he was, though he could have guessed if he’d thought the energy worth it: the Temple. Probably priests’ quarters, though done up in more luxury and comfort than he suspected any of the Old Ones ever indulged in, and certainly more than Wil had seen before. Shaw’s rooms in Chester had been nothing like this. A fire stoked high in the pit in the center of the room, more thick furs beneath and above him than he’d ever seen at once in his life, and a mattress so soft it felt like he might sink right through it if he turned the wrong way.

  Battles—he remembered there had been battles, and he remembered someone saying the enemy had concentrated their attack here, on the Temple. He listened a little more carefully: no shouts, no gunfire, no horns. If there were still battles going on, they were either very quiet or very far away.

  Safe. At least for now. Sort of ironic, really, that Dallin was probably the best soldier out of anyone within leagues, and his part in the conflict had been miles beneath, on an altogether different battlefield. He’d certainly done more good there than he could have done in the sorties for which he’d trained all his life. Wil didn’t know how many would eventually know the full story, but Wil, for one, was grateful. Eternally.

  A thin, continual hiss, nearly soundless but not quite, scattered over the flames of the fire, and a steady, rolling chime tapped at the closed shutters. It took a moment for the combination to work itself into a shape that made sense, and then ano
ther for Wil to place it as sleet. That, he halfremembered. Rain, he’d wanted rain, because he’d been sad and he didn’t think it fair that he should be the only one. Childish, puling self-indulgence, but it had made sense at the time. He should probably clean up that mess, at least, but he wasn’t strong enough yet.

  Very odd, this knowledge of events, of his own participation in them, and yet no real remembrance all the same. As though watching an actor who looked like him, spoke like him, ambling through a slice of life that looked like his, and yet there was no true memory of having lived it, just the sharp knowledge that he had. Bits and snatches that had welded for one reason or another on to his heart, and it seemed that was the best he was going to do. Though it probably hurt less that way, so he was cautiously grateful.

  He closed his eyes, reached out, and smiled a little when the song of the Old Ones changed once again. A slight pause, a hitch in the rhythm, then a brief prayer of wonder and thanksgiving before it slid down into silence. He waited, found the gloomed arch of the doorway and watched it until Thorne’s silhouette—or what he was fairly certain was Thorne’s silhouette—appeared in the shadows like a specter, hovering for a moment before a hand lifted silently. Wil lifted his own in response, then Thorne bowed deeply and withdrew without a sound. Good. They would be left alone for a while.

  Now, he could turn his attention to the solid weight of a thick arm across his hips, the feel of a face snugged between his left side and the fur-covered mattress, the heat of breath released over his bare skin in the form of light snores. Dallin lay diagonally across the bed, his still-booted feet hanging off the corner, and his arm slung over Wil like he’d perhaps meant to adjust the furs and simply fallen asleep halfway through it and now lay where he’d dropped. Not surprising, really— Dallin had barely slept for… well, quite a long time, anyway, and even now, in his sleep, he was still searching, calling.