Beloved Son

by Carole Cummings

  “You carry the Aisling,” Dallin told it—stern, but under his breath, since he saw no reason to share his bit of vagary with the others. “Watch your step, or I’ll have your hide for gloves.”

  He was suddenly sorry he hadn’t asked the horse’s master its name so he could address it more directly. It always seemed to work for Wil, after all.

  The warning was unnecessary, as it turned out. Miri, trailing on her lead behind Woodrow, seemed determined to keep the gray in line with the occasional cross snort and nip to his neck. Dallin had no illusions that she was doing it as a personal favor to him, of course. In fact, it was more likely that she was merely pissed off and jealous that her own saddle was exhibiting a severe lack of Wil.

  There were three more skirmishes, rather rote exchanges of gunfire in which no one was truly threatened, and the hollow sounds of misses and ricochets were more annoying than worrying. Dallin felt them coming each time and drew the small party into a tighter knot around him and Wil just in case. But knowing what the Brethren thought they were doing made it so Dallin’s heart didn’t even bother skipping beats except in irritation. It was tempting to call out to the land, see if Dallin could try Wil’s trick of making the ground move and swallow them up, but that would give away the game.

  Dallin wouldn’t exactly have the element of surprise on his side when they reached Fæðme, but it might be at least a small surprise to Wheeler that Dallin and his party were in truth aiming for it and knew what to do once they got there. Wheeler would’ve looked into Dallin’s history back in Putnam—likely the reason Ramsford and Manning had been so extensively questioned; Dallin would have to ask Woodrow or Corliss if the same was true of the Tanners. It wouldn’t have been difficult for a man of Wheeler’s experience and motives to deduce that Dallin had spent more than twenty years ignorant of what he was, untrained and unpracticed. Now Wheeler was doing everything he could to keep it that way. He couldn’t possibly know it wasn’t entirely true anymore, and pretending their drive to Fæðme was flight instead of purposeful design was the best way to perpetuate the error.

  So Dallin allowed the Brethren to keep pace, allowed them to “drive” the course. If what Wil said was correct—and Dallin had no doubt it was—Wheeler would have had to detour into the tunnels all the way back at Éaspring, and he’d have to be on foot. Even if the tunnels ran in straight lines and were clear of cave-ins or debris, it was at least twelve leagues from there to the Temple.

  Dallin closed his eyes and skimmed a light reach outward. Wheeler and his men were only just now under the river, and the way ahead was all uphill and not exactly uncomplicated. Time was ticking steadily and relentlessly, but it hadn’t run out yet.

  It was getting easier to see, gray day finally winning over grayer dawn, by the time they broke through the heavier foliage and out onto a slim corridor of mud and wintergrass that formed the final leg of the trail to the Temple. Dallin could see the white curve of the dome and pediments nudging through the evergreens behind which it thrust its peak at the sky.

  “Almost there,” he whispered to Wil, who’d been slumped against Dallin’s chest, unresponsive, since they’d left Calder’s body behind.

  White and gray striated marble, Dallin remembered now, with moss- and ivy-covered pillars presenting before somewhat redundant pilasters. Quarters for the Old Ones were niched into a long, narrow corridor that ran the length of the Temple’s west-facing side behind the altar, which—as in all Temples—faced the east so as to stand witness when the Mother awoke each morning and brought the sun as She smiled a greeting to Her beloved.

  And beneath the altar, where supplicants whispered their orisons and laid offerings, and initiates humbly and silently accepted them in the Mother’s and Father’s names, lay a single incongruous slab of granite, cut from the Stairs before time was time. It barred the entry to Fæðme—the Mother’s Womb, from which all life sprang—to all but the Old Ones and those they deemed worthy. Dallin remembered the scrape and grate of the stone as a young boy, weeping and demanding the call of the horns, watching it levered aside, his anger and resentment temporarily forgotten beneath the new apprehension of being compelled down the dark earthen throat of Lind.

  Now, all these years later, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the twelve figures standing before the steps in the cold rain, watching the path and waiting for them as they negotiated through the last of the trees that looped the clearing in which the Temple stood.

  Dallin halted, the rest of the party following his lead without comment as he nodded to Woodrow and Setenne to take Wil. He waited until they had Wil’s limp form propped safely between them, Wil upright but not exactly standing, arms across their shoulders. When he was sure they held Wil securely, Dallin dismounted, taking the time to stretch his spine and readjust to having his feet on the ground.

  He paused, looking from the Old Ones—pristine in their formal robes, standing tall and waiting patiently—and back again to his own party, disheveled and dirty and exhausted but gazes bright and alert, more sanguine than Dallin might have given them credit for a few days ago. Then, he might have been surprised that the expressions on Corliss and Woodrow matched those on the Linders; now, it seemed a logical consequence of the chain of events that had brought them all here.

  He thought about taking Wil himself, carrying him up the Temple steps and formally presenting him to the Mother before they made the descent into Fæðme. In the end, Dallin decided it would seem too much like laying a prize from a hunt across the altar, a helpless offering, so he let Woodrow and Setenne keep Wil between them instead.

  Sucking in a long breath, Dallin gave them all a nod and gestured for them to follow as he turned and started across the pale, sleet-coated grass toward the waiting picket of priests. He eyed every one of them as he approached, staring evenly into each set of eyes before moving on to the next, giving away nothing in his gaze or mien before fetching up before Thorne. Thorne merely looked back, wearing the same kind half smile he always wore, his iron-blond hair plastered to his skull and slicked with ice, robes heavy and frozen-wet. They must have been waiting here for hours, probably making their way up last night after they’d disappeared from camp.

  “You remember now,” Thorne said quietly.

  Dallin 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. Thorne’s 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.”

  Thorne merely sighed sadly. “An unfortunate loss. One cannot be healed unless he 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 tilted his head in acknowledgment. “It has become difficult to interpret the signs, yes.”

  “And you second-guessed it.”

  “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. “We would have come for you, but your mother was killed before she could tell us—”

  “Oh, I understand. It even makes sense.” Dallin let his gaze drift up and down the line again, hard. “Except for the part where you—all of you—continued to try to keep it from me once I returned.” He tilted his head. “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, seeming a bit put out by the accusation. “Say rather, we waited for our Shaman to guide us.” He smiled, sardonic, then waved a wide hand toward Wil. “He is as no other before him. And not all his gifts come from the Mother or the Father.” He shrugged when Dallin narrowed his eyes. “Thorne tells us you guessed right from the very beginning. He also tells us the Aisling has never shied from what he knows to be his task. You, however….” He and 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’s half smile was remarkably like Thorne’s. “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, then turned to cut 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, staring at him good and hard for a long moment before she tipped her head, a slight nod. Dallin had no idea what it was meant to convey, but somehow it laid any doubts he might 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 Fæðme now. Once the Aisling has laid himself before the Mother, we wait for the Cleric and what he brings.” He 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 and waved toward those before and behind him. “Any who would champion the Aisling, I would have at my back.”

  “Outlanders have never been permitted into Fæðme,” Marden pointed out mildly.

  “Do you defy me?”

  Marden’s mouth curled into something that looked annoyingly like a satisfied smirk. “Never defy. I merely remind.”

  Dallin grunted, then turned 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 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 eyes. 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, all of them, and Dallin didn’t know why he’d ever thought they might do differently, any of them.

  Finally Woodrow shuffled. When all eyes turned his way, he adjusted his grip on Wil and cleared his throat.

  “You’ll forgive me, Bray—er, Guardian, 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 REMEMBERED it. He remembered it all, and he looked at it now with that same strange double vision—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. There were so many other things to be afraid of now.

  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 resolved itself into the song of the river as they neared the vert glimmer bleeding out into the tunnels from the mouth of Fæðme.

  Thorne entered the chamber ahead of them. They waited as he lit the lamps, then 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.

  He was prepared for the murmurs of awe when they crossed the threshold into the vast cavern, but he still smiled 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’s voice resonated 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 then shake their heads at the beauty. The light of their torches and the lamps ringing the chamber caught all the different shades of green and sparked like sage fire against the stone beneath the water. Dallin took Wil from Woodrow and Setenne, and carefully laid him out beside the water’s edge, running gentle 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 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 gently, watching him. “Can’t you—?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you to expect.” Dallin kept 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?”

  Dallin sucked in a long breath and twined his fingers tight with Wil’s limp ones. “I’m going to follow him.” He set his jaw. “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 hasn’t realized how worried he’s been that Wil wouldn’t want him to follow, would resent him for it, until Dallin finds himself standing here in front of Wil.

  Not the river, the spot that has come to mean so many things, has become almost expected, has become theirs. The same star-clotted nothing where Dallin first saw Wil tending his threads, working his fingers raw. Only Wil isn’t weaving now, 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 has his weapons strapped in place. His hair is still dripping from melting ice, a nagging itch 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 ligh
t that isn’t really light. There are no bruises on his face, no scrapes, no bloodstain flowering over his clean white shirt, 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 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 Wil 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, usually 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. “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.”