“All right?” Dallin gave Wil’s shoulder a squeeze.
Wil thought about it for a second before he nodded. “The headache’s still there, but it hasn’t got worse. How about you?”
“No, I mean—” Dallin’s voice dipped, somewhat quiet and hesitant. “Are we still angry?”
“We?” Wil peered up at him with a small frown. “I was never angry.”
Dallin looked back for a moment, then dipped his head. “Good. Thank you.”
Wil didn’t quite know what Dallin was thanking him for but let it pass. Wil knew quite well, after all, exactly why Dallin had been angry, and… he had a right to it.
“So Hunter is your bodyguard, eh?” Dallin’s mouth twisted. “D’you think it’s wise to have another Calder so close?”
Wil rolled his eyes. “If you’re suspicious of the boy because you’ve got a feeling about him, that’s one thing, but if it’s because of who his uncle is….” He paused, but Dallin didn’t elect to fill the silence. “He should see his Shaman at work. He’s been training for war his whole life, and despite his kind heart, he wants it. I think he should see someone he respects and admires trying to avoid it.”
“Hm.” Dallin puffed a dubious snort. “You really think that’s how he’ll see it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. But you’re supposed to be the teacher. So teach.”
Dallin pursed his lips. “I’m not—”
“Right, right, you’re not a teacher. And you’re not a cleric, and you’re not the Guardian, and you’re not anything else someone else says you should be, even if you clearly are.” Wil elbowed Dallin in the ribs. “What difference does it make what you call yourself? Do what you do, and let Hunter watch what you do. If not for him, then for me, all right?”
Dallin groaned, sounding rather put upon, and shoved Wil ahead. “Fine. For you.”
Wil smirked but kept silent. Dallin was kind of cute when he was annoyed.
TO WIL’S sincere chagrin and frustration, Dallin halted them as they rounded the bend in the path and demanded that Wil close his eyes and allow Dallin to lead him the rest of the way blind. The river was louder now, grown to an actual roar once they’d passed the muting barrier of what Dallin had called the Stairs. If Wil squinted, he could vaguely see blue-tinged whitecaps through the autumn-thinned trees, ages-old deadfall, and bramble sprouting from the swath of strand that stretched between them and the water.
“I’m not closing my eyes. There’s bloody rock and moss everywhere. I’ll break my neck.”
“Not if you hold on to me and let me guide you.” Dallin was resolute. “It’ll be worth it, I promise, and I won’t let you fall or anything—I’ll be very careful.”
Well, sure, but—“The deepest water I’ve ever been in was a bathtub. What if I fall in?”
Dallin didn’t even dignify that one with an assurance. “Do you want this to be merely your first sight of a real river, or do you want it to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”
Wil failed to see how closing his eyes and stumbling about to get there could make that big of a difference. Still.
“Fine.” Wil latched on to Dallin’s arm with both hands. “But if I go down, so do you, because I’m not letting go.”
Dallin grinned. He looked so young and boyish when he smiled like that—like the rest of the world and all the worries in it weren’t weighing on his wide shoulders.
“The sun’s perfect, just wait, you won’t be sorry. No peeking, now. I’ll have your word.”
Wil rolled his eyes before he closed them. “Just get on.”
It was unnerving, but Wil had more or less expected it to be. With every step, the rush of the water got louder, nearly deafening. He kept his head down as he clutched at Dallin’s arm and followed along. He was surprised he wasn’t tempted to open his eyes, but in case he did accidentally, all he’d see would be the ground.
Dallin led the way carefully as he’d promised, perhaps even too slowly, his steady instructions—a big step down coming up, have a care, put your right foot… there you go, ah-ah, no peeking—a corporeal counterpoint to the almost otherworldly ambience Wil’s other senses were feeding him.
The air was getting close and damp, but it didn’t press down, didn’t constrict. On the contrary, Wil’s lungs expanded. He dragged in the clean scents of chill autumn through his nose, tasting it sharp on his tongue—pine and loam and something else he could only describe as pristine and white. His ears were filled with the vast song of the water—he’d never guessed a real river would be so loud; no wonder he could hear it from the caves—the stone surrounding them snatching at it, echoing it back. The ground was by turns soft and spongy and then flat, slick rock beneath his boots, his feet settling into each step under Dallin’s solid guidance with a surety that really shouldn’t be there but just the same was.
Wil was—surprisingly and despite his impatience—enjoying the whole experience, overwhelming as it threatened to be. Still, there was relief and a mental finally when Dallin halted with a firm tug to Wil’s elbow and a smooth turn.
“All right, this is it.” Dallin had to raise his voice more than before to be heard above the shout of the water. “Open your eyes.”
Wil blinked them open slowly, unexpectedly savoring the anticipation. He saw Dallin first—grinning with keen impatience, dark eyes shining and gold hair catching the sun behind him, russet and bronze sharding through and glancing over the unruly curls shifting on his brow in the cool breeze. He had this way of… looking, and it never failed to warm Wil all the way to his toes.
…or do you want it to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?
Yes. Absolutely.
“All right now, are you ready?”
Wil blinked again. “More than.”
Dallin only grinned wider, took hold of Wil’s shoulders, and turned him in a gentle about-face.
Wil looked up, and… goggled.
“Ohhhhhh….”
There were no words. And even if there were, they wouldn’t be enough.
Torrents of cobalt-curled froth plummeted from what looked like the very top edge of the world, great sheets of it blundering through a mossy breach in earth and stone, bellowing to the pool of gossamer-laced indigo at the bottom of its throat. Mist boiled up from its bosom, shatter-prismed and sparking with borrowed light and color, feathering out and up like the breath of a sleeping dragon.
Great, smooth slabs of granite step-marched up the hills. Chiseled gently through the ages, carved relentlessly by the might of the river. They stood now inside its face, an outcropping jutting out like nature’s promenade. Like standing inside the river’s heart, and watching as it made itself.
“Ohhhhhh,” Wil said again. He swallowed, reaching out, the river’s breath tingling at his fingertips. “You were right.” He was dazzled, dazed. “The sun is perfect.” Flashing and fracturing through the water as it plunged over the rock, down and down, turning foamy white jets into gracile gold. Wil breathed in deep. “It’s all perfect.”
“It comes down from the mountains above Lind—actually passes through it. Fæðme sits… well, you’ll see.”
Wil almost pressed for more, but… he’d find out soon enough. And right now he didn’t think he really wanted to know all that much about Fæðme or think about what was to happen there.
“I used to come here when I was a boy.” Dallin was squinting against the light, tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his expression far away. “My dad used to train Weardas before he went off to war—the caves, that’s where they’d billet during training—and he would let me tag along, pretend I was his squire.” He chuckled, rueful and small. “I don’t think I was much use to him—I must’ve only been about six—but he pretended I was. In truth I spent most of the time here.”
Strange. Wil had never heard Dallin talk about anything having to do with his life here. It hadn’t even occurred to Wil that Dallin had been to this place before, that
he’d spent time here, spent days shirking duties and perhaps daydreaming here. That he’d been a little boy here. That he’d been a little boy at all. So much responsibility, so much experience—it all sat on Dallin’s brow in a quiet, understated frontispiece of honor and duty, dependability and constancy. It was sometimes hard to take that sporadic boyish grin and extrapolate it to the lad who grew into the man.
He’d never spoken of Lind as though he knew it, and Wil didn’t think it was his own lack of observation. Lost Shaman or no, Dallin didn’t seem of this place, of Lind. In fact he seemed very much apart. Apart from his home, and in turn apart from what he’d claimed as his home. And now apart from everything. Wil had spent the morning pretending at belonging, thinking he could belong if he pretended hard enough, long enough. Dallin didn’t pretend at anything.
Wil leaned back until his shoulder blades settled against Dallin’s chest. He rested his head back on Dallin’s shoulder and just looked at the stunning scenery. Only a little while ago—bloody damn, could it really have been only a matter of weeks?—Wil had thought this whole touching thing incredibly uncomfortable. Too controlling, too intimate, too… risky. Dallin was a man who reached out constantly, and it had bothered Wil immensely. Now he sought it out himself, without even thinking about it. Reached back.
“Tell me what you did here.” Wil said it quietly as he watched the water blossom over the top of the falls and boil down, listened as it shouted its songs.
Dallin’s arm came around to drape across Wil’s collarbones. He pointed.
“See that bit of a ledge up there? About three-quarters up, just to the left of the branch overhang?”
Wil squinted. “I see what looks like perhaps a bit of a jut big enough for a bird’s nest, but I don’t see a ledge.”
“It’s a ledge.”
“I’ll grant you ‘protrusion,’ but that is not a ledge.”
“Right, well, whatever it is, I almost killed myself jumping off it.”
Wil’s eyes went wide as he stared at the little projection doubtfully. “Was someone chasing you?”
“Um… well, no.”
“Well, you didn’t jump on purpose, surely.”
“Afraid so, yes.”
Wil craned his neck to frown up at Dallin. “You were never that stupid.”
“Ha. You say that like stupidity’s a thing of the past.” Dallin jerked his chin. “We climbed the Stair right up to the top. See how there’s a dip in the formation, right above the ledge? Well, if you stretch and hang on to the willow whips, you can extend yourself just enough to drop onto that ledge. I suppose it would be less of a stretch now, but… anyway, we sort of dared each other. Can’t back down on a dare, y’know.” He chuckled. “It bloody hurt when I hit the water. Like slamming into a brick wall.”
“I’ve no doubt.” Wil eyed the expanse of thin air between what Dallin kept insisting was a ledge and the frothy surface of the river below the falls. “Who’s ‘we’?”
Dallin was silent for a moment, clearly startled. “Hm?”
“You said you dared each other.” Wil peered up at Dallin again, bemused by the sudden scrim of tension in the line of the wide body at his back. “You must’ve come here with a playmate, yes?”
Another silence, this one stretching, uncomfortable. Wil just kept looking, watching Dallin looking at the fall of the water over the slick line of stone and not seeing it, maybe watching bits of his own history behind his eyes for the first time in… possibly ever.
“Yes,” Dallin finally answered. “A playmate. One of the Weardas’ lads, I expect.”
Wil’s frown deepened. “You don’t remember?”
“No.” It was brusque. “It doesn’t matter. He’d be dead now.”
They’d all be dead now.
Wil had lived with the knowledge of it for years, the guilt. Dallin had lived it.
Swallowing heavily, Wil laid a hand over Dallin’s and leaned back into him a bit harder. He understood now. No wonder Dallin kept himself apart. This wasn’t coming home for him—this was visiting graves.
“Have you got anyone left? Any family at all?”
Dallin rested his chin atop the crown of Wil’s head. “No. I’m the last.”
Something about it made Wil horribly, unutterably sad.
Wil didn’t expect to live through what was coming. He’d felt the strength, the greed, the power. He hadn’t been expecting to live through the next day for the past three years, but… but what if Dallin didn’t? What if something happened to him? What if Dallin threw himself in front of another bullet? If Dallin were suddenly no longer here, who would be left to remember what a remarkable man he’d been? These people in Lind who barely knew him? Who looked at him as though he were some invincible, immortal being—no blood, no soul—merely another verse in the songs of their country? Dallin had mentioned friends back in Putnam; surely someone like him—someone who seemed to spend every waking moment worrying about others, who used up everything he was for others—should have more than a handful of people who had loved him, would mourn him. The whole world should know, the whole world should understand, and the whole world should keep tight hold of him, let him touch every life and make it better just by being what he was.
“You should’ve had a happy boyhood.” Wil couldn’t seem to make his voice rise above a whisper. “You should’ve had so much more than what you had. You should have so much more now.”
“So shouldn’t we all.” Dallin dropped a kiss to the top of Wil’s head. “You should laugh all the time, like you did today.” He took hold of Wil’s arms and pushed him gently away. Wil could almost see Dallin once again put away the small bit of his past he’d allowed himself to remember, bury it, and then move on. Dallin turned and gestured for Wil to follow. “C’mon, I want to show you—”
“Dallin.”
“—how clear the water is. It’s all rock here, so you can see right down to—”
“Dallin.”
Dallin paused but didn’t turn. Wil took the few paces over to him slowly, and laid a hand to Dallin’s arm.
“Do you put everything away like that? Do you bury everything that hurts?” Wil hesitated, but it had to be said. “You keep saying you see me, and I believe you do, because you bother to look. Well, what if I want to see you too?”
For a moment Wil thought he wasn’t going to get an answer. Dallin bent his neck, mouth twisted tight as if he were angry, but it didn’t feel like anger.
“We all do what we must, Wil.” His voice was heavy, tired. “We take what the Mother gives us and do our best with it. This is my best.”
Wil tilted his head, genuinely curious. “Pretending nothing hurts you is best?”
“Not pretending.” Dallin was staring at the ground, lines of unease knotting his shoulders and vibrating beneath Wil’s hand. “Accepting it and then moving on.”
“Burying it.”
“Wil, can’t we just—?”
“And if I die?” Wil paused when he saw Dallin’s jaw clench, twitch. “Will you bury me twice? Once in a box and once in your heart?”
Dallin locked his gaze to Wil’s, steady and hard. “We’ll never know, will we? Because I don’t intend to let it happen.”
He stared, daring Wil to negate the statement Dallin no doubt saw as mere simple fact. Wil bowed his head, wishing he had the courage to say it wasn’t really Dallin’s choice.
“You’re borrowing trouble,” Dallin told him. “You always do. You’re so much stronger than you think you are, and you keep forgetting that I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let—”
“I don’t think I can beat him.” It came out more wobbly than Wil would’ve preferred. “I’d like to think I won’t be another of your ghosts you pretend you don’t see.”
Wasn’t that strange? He’d spent so much of the past few years willing people to not even notice him, to forget him as soon as they’d served whatever use he’d had for them the moment before. Now all he wanted was to know he’d be remembered�
�remembered by someone who’d looked at him, someone who’d seen and not looked away.
Not invisible. Not merely the sum of his sins. A real person, no one’s dream, whole and the man he was reflected back in his Guardian’s eyes, enhanced and cleaned of tarnish and imperfections of the soul.
…a Guardian who loves him above all.
How very terrifying.
How very… consoling.
Dallin was silent for some time, quietly seething and trying very hard not to. He took Wil once again by the arms, turning him so he faced the falls. Roughly Dallin wrapped his arms around Wil’s shoulders, dipped his face to the crook of Wil’s neck, and held on tight.
“Then don’t die.”
Wil shut his eyes. “I can’t—”
“I don’t want to do this now.” There was a heavy note of pleading in Dallin’s voice, and he squeezed Wil, just enough to constrict breath the tiniest bit. “Look up at that water, at the rock it carved its way through—scoring its way through everything to find its true path.” He tightened his grip and gave Wil a small shake. “That’s you. You are the river, Wil. Stronger than earth and rock—stronger than fire. And now you’ve got the strength of Lind behind you, or you will.”
His voice… it blended with the song of the water, just as strong, just as sure and clear. He made Wil almost believe every word.
“And you,” Wil said. “You’re behind me.”
“And me. Perhaps you can’t beat him, but we can. I know how this has to go, and if you want prophecies, if that’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you one, all right? I’ll get Thorne to put it in the songs—a prophecy from the Guardian to the Aisling. Are you ready?” Dallin didn’t wait for Wil to answer. “It’ll be dark, it’ll be terrifying, it’ll probably hurt, and you might even want to die. It’ll be the worst thing either one of us has ever seen or lived through, but you will come out the other side, understand?”
Beloved Son Page 4
