Beloved Son

by Carole Cummings

  Dallin shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. “Time for Fæðme, and then….” He gave a vague wave.

  “Hm.” Wil reached out and picked up the stick of charcoal, absently running the tip of it along the edge of a crumpled map in the only shapes he knew. “I expect we should probably talk about and then, shouldn’t we.”

  Not a question, and Dallin knew it. “Unless there’s been a miracle and you’ve changed your mind.” He smiled to soften it, though it was sour and somewhat bitter, and they both knew he really meant it.

  Wil didn’t answer, just crimped a thin smile back at him. He turned his gaze back down to the shapes the charcoal was making beneath his hand.

  “Are you…?” Dallin sat up, leaning in with a frown. Brow twisted with interest, he scanned the table, lifted up a dish to slide a stained, discarded map from beneath it. Marks and runes that made no sense to Wil covered all of one side and half of the other. Dallin shoved the map at Wil. “Do that again.”

  Dallin watched, eyes losing a bit of their gravity as Wil merely frowned briefly, then shrugged and did it again. Dallin stared at what Wil had done for a long moment before looking up, bemused but pleased.

  “D’you know you’ve just written your name?”

  “Well, in a sense, I suppose.” A soft smile tilted Wil’s mouth. “I can write all of Wilfred Calder. It’s like the Marks, in a way—I know the shapes, and I know what they mean, but I can’t read them. I don’t know why these shapes mean what they do—I just know that they do.”

  “Huh.” Dallin sat back again, mind obviously wandering already, no doubt speculating on the discussion he didn’t want to have. Wil traced the name again, waiting, while Dallin stared at Wil’s fingers, silent. Brooding. And apparently willing to sit in silence until Wil got ’round to forcing the conversation.

  Wil decided not to prolong the obvious unease. “Tell me what Calder says in the dream.”

  Dallin didn’t move, didn’t even sigh. “He says you’ve been weaned on betrayal.” He was still staring at Wil’s hand. “Says you know me and trust me, and asks me if I plan to betray you now.”

  Wil looked up from his fingers. “And do you?”

  Dallin’s mouth pinched down tight. “I should probably take insult with that.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Then again, I expect it depends on your definition. And whose orders you’re following, come to that.”

  “Hm.” Wil balled up the paper, dropping both it and the charcoal into his coat pocket, and looked at Dallin straight. “I wouldn’t have thought there was more than one.” Dallin didn’t answer, just rolled his eyes and waved a hand, as though that by itself was supposed to mean something. Since Wil had no idea what, he decided to get to the point. “I’d prefer it if we stopped dancing around the subject.”

  “And I’d prefer it if—” Dallin cut himself off, fists clenching all at once into concentrated knots of anger and then uncurling just as quickly. He pulled in a long, deep breath, sighed it out quietly, and looked at Wil. “One of Wisena’s men—Merrod, I think, a lieutenant—he hails from Caerdydd, a few leagues from the eastern border. Fairly war-torn, being one of those points of strategy Ríocht generally aims for when things get hot.”

  A brief pause, ruminating, and Wil wondered if Dallin had spent time there defending the border, but he held back his questions. Dallin would get to the point in his own way.

  After a moment Dallin shook himself. “Anyway, his parents saw enough over the years to want something other than the military for their bonny lad, so they tried to make a teacher out of him. Sent him to study in Penley.” He peered up from beneath his eyebrows. “Spent time at the Temple there. Religious studies.”

  The pause this time was longer, Dallin just looking at Wil, expectant, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction, except Wil didn’t have one yet. Dallin’s tone and demeanor were giving everything an ominous edge, but—considering his reluctance to just spit it out—that could very well be deliberate, designed to put Wil off. Wil waited him out.

  Eventually Dallin’s expression went tight, very obviously stifling a growl, and he looked away. “There’s more to the old gods than just the songs. There’s more to—” Again he stopped, hands fisting, but this time they didn’t uncurl. “Possession, Wil. That Æled—” It was like he was choking on it, his face screwing up, teeth clenching tight. “Fuck, I don’t even want to say his name.” His breath whooped into his chest as if he’d just run a league, and he scrubbed at his face. “Æledfýres. Soul-eater. You get the pushing from Síofra because Síofra got it from him. So do the Brethren. Only he didn’t just push people, he pushed them out. Everything a person is, he could take away and make a part of himself. He took magicians, priests, shamans. All that power, one atop the other, and he just kept eating it up, making himself more powerful, until They finally locked him away so he couldn’t do it anymore.” Dallin looked at Wil gravely. “Do you see where this goes?”

  Wil frowned. “Of course. But what’s it to do—?”

  “He took their souls and kept them, used a person until he’d worn them out and then moved on to another. But he kept the souls. They—”

  “I know all this,” Wil cut in, shorter and sharper than he’d meant. “Or at least most of it, the important parts. And it still doesn’t—”

  “Just—”

  Dallin shut his eyes tight, raised his fists as though he meant to pound them to the table, but willfully lowered them again. He was sweating, the hair at his temples curling with it. “Agitation” didn’t quite seem to cover it, forcibly subdued though it was.

  “Just… let me finish. Please.” He took several long, strained moments before he opened his eyes, and looked at Wil. “He’s doing the same to the Father. And you’re the key to finishing it. He told Síofra where to find you because Síofra promised him he’d give him your name in return and bring you to him. That’s why Síofra needed you to find him the next Aisling—because he couldn’t do it himself. Æledfýres did it for him in exchange for you. Except Síofra didn’t know your name—he lied—so he couldn’t keep his promise, could he? I doubt he ever meant to—I’m betting he never had any intention of handing you over. Men like him always think they’re smarter and stronger than they are, and I’d lay down just about anything that he thought he could take your power from you and become even stronger than Æledfýres. Betrayal, right from the beginning—rather seems his style, dunnit? I can’t imagine what the penalty would be for betraying someone like that, but I can imagine it wouldn’t’ve been pretty.

  “So Síofra kept you and hid you, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but it’s a good job he did, because if he’d handed you over like he was supposed to, I doubt any of us would be here to argue about it now. Æledfýres wanted you to kill Síofra—he was done with him, and Síofra had been living on borrowed time since the day you were born. But the Brethren are loyal to Æledfýres, and they know your name, they know about the dreamleaf, they hold all the keys, and they’re here. They’ve been two steps behind you all these years because he’s been telling them how to find you—every time you use your magic, he feels it. Blood to blood. The only reason they didn’t catch up with you sooner is because you weren’t using your magic—you didn’t even know you had it.

  “The thing is… Wil.”

  Dallin ran a hand through his hair, breathed “Fuck!” and stood to pace the small quarters in tight little circles. Wil backed away until he was leaning against the wall, unsure if he was giving Dallin space or merely getting out of the way.

  “He’s too strong. He’s been leaching power from the Father for years, and he’s stronger than you. You said you don’t think you can beat him. I don’t think you can either.”

  Wil’s heart took a dive down into his stomach. Of all the things he might’ve expected Dallin to say….

  “But you said… you’re the one—”

  “I said we could beat him, and we can. And I said you would come out the other side, and you will.
But not… shit, Wil, not unless we do it my way, and I’m bloody terrified that you won’t.”

  Dallin stepped over to Wil and took hold of his arms in a grip that made Wil gasp. Wil didn’t think Dallin even realized he was practically shoving Wil into the wall. Dallin’s eyes were nearly on fire, almost frenzied, with dark panic lurking behind them.

  “You need to go to Fæðme—you need the power of Lind to beat him—but if you do go to Fæðme and he wins anyway, he’ll take it all. D’you know what that means? This isn’t just you and me we’re talking about anymore—this is everything. D’you know what the Father told me?”

  Wil’s own fear was rising in answer to Dallin’s and turning to a too-familiar defensive anger. “How would I? You never told me, did you?”

  “Just one more thing you never asked.”

  “It wasn’t my business. It was between the two of you, and I didn’t think—”

  “Everything about this is your business—even those things you don’t want to know.”

  That one made heat bloom up Wil’s spine. “Don’t you mean those things you don’t want to tell me?”

  “Call it whatever makes you feel better. It hardly matters now. It’s just one more piece of the puzzle, and now they’re all fitting together a little too neatly.

  “He told me it wasn’t your fate to save Him. He told me—”

  “You don’t even believe in fate!”

  “No, but you do, and apparently it bloody matters. He told me I have more than one calling, and that part of my job was to make sure you keep choosing yourself. What d’you think that means, Aisling?”

  Wil shook his head. “I don’t know what—”

  “You do.” Dallin tightened his grip on Wil’s arms until Wil had to hold back a yip. “You know exactly what it means. Guardian, Watcher, Guide, and whatever other names are mine—what’s the other, Wil? What’s the one name that fits here? You know it—it’s the first name you ever called me by.”

  “What…?” Wil’s heart was racing. Somewhere he knew exactly the answer Dallin was looking for, but it wouldn’t travel from wherever it was hiding and out his mouth. He tried to twist out of Dallin’s grip—couldn’t. He glared up into dark, furious eyes, burning nearly black, and hoped his own were flaring at least as much. “Do you know,” he said slowly, “you have an alarming habit of putting my back to the wall.”

  “Yeah?” The muscle in Dallin’s jaw twitched, mouth quivering. “Well, maybe I should do it more often. It seems that’s the only time you’ll bloody well stand up for yourself. Except for when you don’t want to know things and then blame me for not telling them to you.”

  “I never—”

  “Gníomhaire, Wil. Intermediary. Middleman. Except d’you want to know what the translation into the First Tongue is? Wæterþéotan. Sorta pretty, innit? D’you want to know what else it means? Floodgate. Conduit. Doorway.”

  “What the hell does any of this—?”

  “Through me and out to you, Wil. From you, to me, then away. It has to come through me.”

  Wil narrowed his eyes. “And then what?”

  Dallin looked down, his grip on Wil’s arms loosening slowly until he finally let go altogether. He pushed back and turned away. Slowly, as if he’d been weighted down with lead, Dallin paced back over to the table and slumped into the chair. He looked up at Wil, steady but strangely removed.

  “The Brethren fancy themselves the new Guardians. The Cleric—”

  “No.” Like he’d been hit with ice water, Wil all at once knew. Dazed, he shook his head, said it again. “No.”

  Dallin gave him a cheerless little smile, which only served to chill Wil further. “It’s what they were trying to do in Old Bridge—testing, making sure you really were what you were supposed to be, making sure it could be done before bringing you to their Cleric. Except they didn’t know about the leaf then. The Cleric must commune with the Aisling, right? Follow you into dreams, let Æledfýres in so he can push you out, take everything you are and everything you have.” He paused, dark eyes drilling right into Wil, relentless. “I call your name and summon him. I am the Vessel. You can beat him if you push it all at me before he can come at you. Once you’ve Lind behind you… you push it all at me, and you crush him. If he gets to you first, it’s all lost. Everything.”

  Wil was still shaking his head, somehow expecting every word but nevertheless sideswiped by it. He shut his eyes tight, fighting back a knot of bile wedging in his throat. When he opened his eyes again, dark spots were spiraling at the fringes of his vision.

  “And what…?” He almost couldn’t speak. “What happens to you?”

  Dallin’s expression didn’t change; his gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t know.”

  Liar.

  Wil couldn’t say it. Could barely even acknowledge it. “It can’t be the only way.”

  “If there’s another, I’ve not been able to figure it, and no one’s bothered to pop by to help me find it.”

  Dallin was suddenly so calm, so infuriatingly composed, that Wil wanted to stalk across the small room and punch him in the mouth.

  “The heart of the world, Wil.” Dallin’s voice had gone achingly soft. “You can’t let him have it.”

  “I never intended to.” It was vague and raspy and altogether too weak to support the arrogance of the statement. It was wrong, all of it just wrong, as though the skin of the world had just been snapped out from under Wil, shaken thoroughly, then slipped back on, backward and upside down. “There has to be another way.”

  Dallin sighed, nodding like he’d expected it. “All right, then. Let me know when you think of one, yeah?”

  Rage flared through Wil, bright-hot and blinding white, and he let a growl burn up from his chest. “You’re going to be bloody glib? You’re sitting there and seriously telling me that the only way out of this is if I do something that will very likely kill you, and if I—”

  He choked, the words clogging acidic in his throat like great chunks of poison, gagging him.

  “I assure you,” Dallin said, so tender and compassionate it was almost galling, “the irony is purely unintentional.”

  You will come out the other side, Dallin had told him—you, not we—and Wil hadn’t even noticed the deviously deliberate wording until just this second. And all this time—

  “You fuck!” Wil forced it through a throat tight and burning, not caring, more like refusing to care, that Dallin could very well give him another Now you know how I feel. Except Dallin wouldn’t—Wil knew he wouldn’t—and somehow that only made the rage burn hotter. “You weren’t going to tell me.”

  Dallin shook his head slowly. “No.”

  And that was it. No apology, no justification, not even the satisfaction of watching the frank gaze waver.

  “And how did you intend to get me to do it?”

  Dallin propped his elbows to the table, and rubbed at his temples like he was trying to keep his brain from beating its way out. “That, I hadn’t quite figured yet.” He sighed. “The best plan thus far involved a lot of begging. Maybe a bit of weeping. Definitely some groveling. Probably an attempt at bullying mixed with reason.” He puffed out a snort that sounded anything but humorous, then cradled his head in his hands and closed his eyes. “Surprise you with it when it was too late to back out. I hadn’t got that far in the plan.”

  It didn’t look like a lie, didn’t feel like one, but suspicion flared and twisted a shard of bitter-sharp doubt through Wil’s chest.

  “No?” Wil’s voice was shaky, too high-pitched. “You’ve all the keys as well, haven’t you? The First Constable of Putnam, the Shaman of Lind, and the most obvious answer never once crossed your mind?”

  Dallin went utterly still, so still that Wil thought Dallin might have stopped breathing. Tension wound between them, thick and choking—the hiss and shiver of the oil lamps, the low mutter of the fire in the stove nearly deafening in the silence. The drums still coming from outside throbbed into Wil’s skull, set it
pounding.

  You think I’d drug someone all unsuspecting? What d’you think I am?

  It was a mistake, an accusation made from fear and desperate denial and too much time spent around people who snapped their teeth the moment you exposed your jugular. And now Wil was drowning in it.

  He couldn’t move as Dallin slowly stood, hands planted on the table as though he had to hold himself up, and took several long, deep breaths, eyes shut tight and jaw clenched.

  “Right.” It was thick, flat, and heavy as an anvil. Dallin took another long breath and said it again—“Right”—and then he nodded, straightened, and without casting so much as a fleeting glance at Wil, turned and walked out. Wil was expecting the door to slam behind him, prepared himself for a mild jolt, and nearly jumped out of his skin when it merely shut with a quiet click.

  Wil just stood there, staring at the door, tracing the whorls and loops of the grain, not thinking anything at all, his mind buzzing white and too loud, his body far away and numb.

  You’ve just compared the most honorable man you know to Síofra and the Brethren.

  He shut his eyes, started counting to ten, lost track around four, had to back up and start again twice before he let that go too.

  You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life kept wanting to jumble its way into understandable shapes in his head, but Wil wouldn’t let it, too busy not thinking. His legs started moving, and he didn’t think about that either, just followed them to the door. He watched his hand reach out, open it, and heard his voice ask Hunter “Which way?” and then his legs were in charge again, picking up pace until he was running in the direction Hunter pointed.

  Dallin didn’t believe in Fate. All right, Wil could understand that, because Fate was too often unkind and had shown Dallin the back of her hand more than was fair. But Wil did believe, he had no choice, and if the Father said it wasn’t Wil’s fate to save Him—