Dream

by Carole Cummings

  “Lind is a tiny piece of land, relatively speaking, caught right between Ríocht on one side and the rest of Cynewísan on the other, and Cynewísan wants us just as badly as Ríocht does. The very last thing any of us needs right now is more bloody secrets.” Dallin paused, throttling down the anger welling at the back of his throat, and took a calming breath. “Considering all that,” he told Shaw more evenly, “I think it’s the smartest damned thing I’ve ever done.”

  He turned to Wil. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you first, but—”

  “No, it’s….” Wil was frowning, but not angrily. “It’s smart, you’re right. I just….” He shook his head. “There are soldiers at the Bounds?”

  “Ah. Shit. Yes, sorry.” Dallin shrugged. “I forgot you’d need some catching up.” Not forgotten, really—there’d hardly been a moment, after all. “They didn’t exactly chase us here, but they might as well have done. The result’s the same, after all. The company that escorted Síofra to Chester is there, no doubt with reinforcements by now, and if not yet, then soon enough. Nine of the Old Ones have been out there with a good number of Weardas since we arrived, keeping them from crossing over and trying to avoid making it necessary for countrymen to start shooting at each other. The Brethren are lurking out there somewhere, but if past observation means anything, I don’t think they’ll have the brass to try anything on that side of the border.” He grimaced. “Though there’s nothing stopping them from going around and trying from their own side. Besides lack of intelligence, of course.”

  “I’d heard you had some goodly trouble from the Brethren.”

  “Did you, then?”

  “Hunter told me you’d run into them.” Wil shrugged. “That you took command from their….” He peered at Hunter, expectant.

  “Weardgeréfan,” Hunter supplied absently.

  “I didn’t take it,” Dallin argued. “I just sort of—”

  “Just sort of started giving orders and didn’t remind the commander he was in charge when everyone followed them.”

  Dallin scowled. It was rather on the mark, so he couldn’t really argue.

  Anyway, Wil didn’t give him much of a chance. “So the rest of the Old Ones are a few miles away at the Bounds playing diplomat, then. Where does that leave us?”

  “Quite thoroughly pinned. The only thing we can do is get Lind ready for a standoff and possible battle to give us time to do what we came here to do. I think the best way to go about that is to fill our defenders in on exactly what they’re defending, so they at least know what they’re fighting for.” Dallin gave Shaw a look. “I’ve found that men who know their cause tend to put a bit more heart behind their aim. We might be asking these people to fight their own countrymen—just because Lind likes to pretend it’s not a part of the Commonwealth doesn’t mean its soldiers will jump to take up arms when we say so. I think they deserve to at least know why we’re saying so.”

  “Yes, you would.” Wil reached out and flicked Dallin’s more and more unruly fringe from his eyes. A throwaway gesture, but the intimacy behind it touched Dallin’s heart and pleased him absurdly.

  Dallin jerked his chin at the cup. “Drink your tea.”

  Hunter had been rather quiet. Now he peered up at Wil, measuring and still awestruck, then turned his gaze sharply to Dallin.

  “You are the Guardian, then.” He shook his head. “Has the Shaman always been the Guardian?”

  “That’s sort of the point, yes.”

  “But….” Hunter’s face screwed up in bewilderment and budding ire. “Why should…. I don’t understand. Always, when the young ones are taught religion, we are taught of the past Shamans. We are taught that only the Shaman may welcome outlanders, only the Shaman may leave the Bounds and still be the Shaman. My uncle had to cut his Marks from his face!” He was getting agitated now. “Never were we told the Aisling and the Guardian were real. Never were we taught that those outlanders the Shamans before had welcomed were the Aisling come to live among us.” He shook his head, hands stretched out toward Dallin. “I just… I don’t understand.”

  That was betrayal lurking behind Hunter’s eyes. Dallin filed that reaction away too. A whole lot of resentment toward the Old Ones was healthy, in his opinion, and more than deserved, but if it wasn’t doused very quickly, Dallin would end up with a rebellion he didn’t want and chaos they could all do without.

  “Don’t think too harshly of them. Lind’s laws have kept you all barricaded against the rest of the world, and they had their reasons when those laws were made. But it didn’t stop the world from changing outside the Bounds. The Old Ones are wise and kind, but they are also men—very old men. I’m told Thorne lost count of his age after he passed his hundred-and-fiftieth year, and no one even remembers how long ago that was.” Dallin softened his tone. “Men are fallible, and you can’t blame them for being so.” Though it would certainly make Dallin feel better if he could. He sighed. “Who knows? Had I grown up here, had I not been taken away and lived in the world for all those years, I may have thought the same way as they do.”

  He actually doubted that one, in his heart, but he wasn’t sure if that was merely wishful thinking, so he didn’t say it aloud.

  “The Mother’s will.” Shaw raised an eyebrow when Dallin shot him a sardonic glance. He shrugged. “You would argue the course of your path, Dallin Brayden? You, who has seen both the Mother and the Father?”

  Dallin narrowed his eyes. “How did you know that?”

  “Um.” Wil raised a hand and gave Dallin an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.” He dipped his head at Dallin’s scowl, cheeks coloring slightly. “I didn’t say it was you, I didn’t say it was anyone, really, I just sort of asked if it was normal, and I didn’t say what you’d been told—”

  “No, no.” Shaw’s smile was wry. “He was almost as close with information as you are.”

  “And.” Wil squirmed. “Well. He made me skillet cakes.”

  It was slightly accusatory. Which, considering what Dallin knew of Wil’s appetite, was a pretty believable explanation. Dallin wondered what else the two had discussed in Shaw’s rooms in the Temple while Dallin had been preoccupied with recovering. Wil wasn’t about to tell him. He was too busy pretending to drink the tea.

  “You have seen Them?” This from Hunter, whose voice had gone down to a hoarse whisper as he turned a look of such awe and adoration on Dallin that Dallin almost wanted to smack it off his face.

  Dallin sighed. “Yes, I’ve seen Them.”

  “Does it bother you so?” Shaw asked with interest. “For a man who has seen and spoken to his gods, you seem rather uneasy with the Divine. The words and messages from the Mother and the Father should not be kept so close to one’s own chest.” It had the tone of light rebuke. “Part of a shaman’s calling is to impart the wisdom he is gifted by Them to all.”

  “A cleric I am not,” Dallin replied tersely, slightly stung. “And I intend to impart whatever I must to effect the changes I think necessary, so save your reprimands, if you please.”

  For the first time, Shaw pulled away from the rock wall. He frowned and stepped slowly over to stand behind Hunter. “Why do you hate them so?”

  Dallin’s brows snapped down. “I don’t hate anyone. What are you talking about?”

  Shaw shrugged. “All right, then. You dislike Calder intensely. You tolerate me because of Wil. I suspect only a proper upbringing and your life in service has kept you from being out-and-out rude to the Old Ones, though you’ve bordered on disrespect more times than not.” He laid a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “And only your kind heart kept you from trying to shatter a boy’s faith to suit your own ends.” He paused and pierced Dallin with a finely honed gaze. “You disdain belief, and you scorn believers. And yet you’ve seen the Mother and the Father both.”

  Dallin’s teeth had gone tight. His cheek twitched and ticced without his consent, but he kept his temper.

  “I neither disdain nor scorn. I merely cannot respect blind belief
. People are weak, and the weaker they are, the more they rely on what they’ve been told is stronger than themselves, even beyond all sense and reason. I’ve seen too many—” Dallin clamped his jaw, snatched up the cup from Wil’s hand, and downed the rest of the bolstered tea, wishing it was something a hell of a lot stronger.

  “Hm,” Shaw hummed into the resulting silence. “I imagine you have.”

  Dallin couldn’t help glaring. And you would know, wouldn’t you—shaman?

  Shaw patted Hunter’s shoulder. “Come, lad. Wil’s not had his breakfast yet, and the Old Ones are waiting.” He peered over at Wil while Hunter got to his feet. “We’ll likely be a little while.”

  Dallin rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything, merely watched Shaw chivvy Hunter ahead of him as they made their way across the green to the communal fire. Aggravated, Dallin got up, went to the kettle, and poured another cup of the tea.

  “Why do you hate them?”

  Dallin gusted an irritated sigh as he turned to Wil. “I don’t hate them, I just—” He pointed to where Shaw and Hunter had just been. “It’s people like those, people like Calder, who made it possible for Síofra to do what he did to you. D’you think no one at the Guild ever had a question as to what was going on? D’you think not a single one of them ever thought what was happening to you was wrong? But they believed, they put faith in something they’d never even bothered to question, and watched horrors happen because they believed that Síofra was doing the will of the Father. Without ever once having heard the Father’s will from His own mouth. It—” He ran a hand through his hair. “How can you not hate them?”

  Wil was staring at him, thoughtful. “Faith didn’t put me in my position—one man’s choice did.”

  “And the blind faith of dozens of others kept you there because they chose not to see the wrongness of it. And shall we talk about the Brethren and their faith while we’re at it?” Dallin puffed a derisive snort. “I’ve seen the look in their eyes, I’ve seen it in the eyes of too many others before them, and I’ve seen the same damned look in Calder’s eyes too. That isn’t faith—that’s mania.”

  “Where have you seen it before?” Wil peered at Dallin with a very keen interest and a soft depth to his eyes that reflected an odd sort of accepting compassion Dallin had never seen there before. Wil tilted his head, voice low and gentle. “Is this why you won’t talk about your time in the military?”

  Dallin twitched, his lip curling before he could help himself. He took a gulp from the cup, wishing again for something stronger.

  “It isn’t that I won’t talk about it.” He shrugged, inexplicably discomforted, and walked over to the cave’s opening. He leaned into its curve. “There’s nothing to say. I served, I lived, I went home. A great many others have bigger stories to tell.”

  It turned quiet for a long moment, then Wil was suddenly there behind Dallin, slipping his hand lightly to the small of Dallin’s back, propping his chin on Dallin’s shoulder. Dallin took inordinate comfort from it despite the unfathomable disquiet roiling in his gut.

  “It was children.” Wil said it quietly into Dallin’s coat and tightened his hand just a fraction when a small shudder flittered up Dallin’s backbone. “Wasn’t it?”

  No denial would come to Dallin, though he wanted one desperately. “Why would you think that?”

  Wil sighed. “It’s why the children in Kenley haunt you so. You went and turned them into your own private ghosts. I’d thought it was what happened here all those years ago, but… I expect that would only make what you saw in the army worse.” Dallin twitched and firmed his jaw, but Wil didn’t back off. “It’s always worse when it’s children.”

  And just like that, it was all there behind Dallin’s eyes, all of it, in front of his eyes, inescapable. Things pushed down and throttled, smothered mercilessly and buried just as deeply as that day more than twenty years ago when he’d left these Bounds locked beneath the bench of a tinker’s cart. No tears came, no wrenching sorrow. Just that fiery rage burning in his chest, in his head, acid boiling in his stomach and searing up his backbone.

  He lifted the cup slowly, drained it, and then just as slowly lowered it. He gripped it in both hands. The sun was high above the tree line over the hills, sharding into his eyes, but it took the shadows away, so he kept looking.

  “Dozens of them.” Dallin nearly didn’t recognize his own voice, the way it came out almost low enough to be tentative. He stared unseeing out onto the green, not watching the morning activity, not hearing the good-natured shouting or the blow and chatter of the horses. “Cut down by the hands of their own mothers.” He shook his head, leaned it on the rock, and closed his eyes. “We’d plowed through Carrick and on into Maghera.” A hard clench of his teeth, and he looked at Wil over his shoulder. “A league and a half from the Guild.”

  Wil didn’t say anything, just met Dallin’s stare with calm expectation. Dallin turned away again, shifting his gaze up to the tree-covered hills, the Temple resting atop them and hidden behind constant evergreen.

  “They knew we were coming. I can’t even imagine the stories they’d heard.” Dallin turned his back on the world outside their little cave and looked again to Wil. “You have to know this—the Commonwealth never wiped out noncombatant villages. We never turned our guns where guns weren’t turned on us. Even when…. I mean, the women of Ríocht, they’re not allowed to touch weapons, so they’d use anything they could get their hands on—shards of glass, broken farm tools—but even then we only deflected if we could, disabled if we had to. And never, ever a child.”

  Wil nodded somberly. “I believe you.”

  Dallin hadn’t really known how important that was to him, that belief, but it seemed to quiet a tiny bit of the acid in his gut. He looked down.

  “I don’t know what they’d been told, but they obviously thought it better their children died at their own hands instead of ours. Mothers, who—” His teeth clenched again, eyes burning, and he pushed it away in one long, heavy breath. “They’d piled the bodies outside the gates and burnt them. Dozens and dozens of….” He pounded his fist to the rock beside him and flashed a wrathful glare at Wil. “And it wasn’t only the once.

  “They had that same look, every damned one of them—that righteous piety, that burning madness behind their eyes, worse than any bloodlust I’ve ever seen in even the most vicious soldier. They were told we were monsters by people they trusted, and they believed it blindly, believed it enough to murder their own children. They thought they were sending them to the Father. What kind of—who could believe in and worship any god who would demand such a thing?” Dallin dropped the cup, heedless, and held out his hands, palms up, vaguely shamed by the near-pleading, the remembered grief and revulsion that must surely be showing in his face. “Now, you tell me why I shouldn’t hate them. Tell me why I shouldn’t hate anyone who shows me that same sick, mindless conviction behind their eyes.”

  Wil only kept looking at him—not judgment, not pity—just looking, that same soft compassion he’d started out with, unchanged. His hand was resting on Dallin’s chest now, a warm, consoling patch of damp where palm met skin through Dallin’s shirt, fanning out in thin stripes beneath Wil’s fingers.

  “I can’t. I would tell you instead to do what you intended to do, and don’t let anyone sway you.” Wil pulled Dallin down, kissed his cheek, then pulled back. “I would tell you to teach.”

  “I’m not a teacher. I won’t presume to—”

  “No?” Wil tilted his head. “I can shoot now.”

  “Extraordinarily well.”

  “I can ride.”

  “You can stay upright on a horse. There’s a difference.”

  Wil ignored the contrary obduracy. “I know how to start a fire in the rain.” This time Dallin stayed silent, just raised an eyebrow. Wil grimaced and smacked Dallin’s chest. “Yes, all right, but you get the point.” He paused with a frown, eyeing Dallin with soft interest. “You’re being deliberately difficult.”<
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  “Yes.”

  “This makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Yes.”

  Wil nodded. “All right, we’ll stop talking about it. Except that… well, they’ve been waiting for you.” He said it as though it should make such obvious sense, when it just didn’t. “And anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’ve been talking about telling your people all about their religion, shaking out the secrets, and handing out truths. What is that, if not teaching?”

  Your people.

  His people.

  It was… strange. And Dallin didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  He brushed his fingers through Wil’s hair. “You’re feeling better, then?”

  Wil sighed with a small, saddened twist of his mouth but allowed the distraction. He dredged up a clouded smile and patted at Dallin’s arm, then ambled back into the cave and sat down.

  “Much. A bit of a headache, but it hardly compares.” He tried to hide a shudder. “What did you do?” And then he frowned. “You’re still doing it. Or… am I doing it?”

  Dallin shrugged. “Little bit of both, I expect. I don’t know if I could explain it properly. I just sort of… balanced things.”

  “Warp and weft.” Wil smiled. “And you said you didn’t have magic.”

  “Mm.” Dallin turned and set his gaze back out onto the green, kicking lightly at the cup with the toe of his boot. “Apparently I’ve more than one calling.” He jerked his chin toward the camp. “They’re back with your breakfast. Let’s get you washed up and fed, yeah? We’ve a long morning ahead.”

  HE HADN’T been sleeping very well the past few nights, dreams repeating and driving him awake so often he might as well not even try anymore. So when he watched the three shamans file in, each of them dipping low bows to both him and Wil, each of them smiling serenely, Dallin felt weariness creep in, muted but insistent.