Dream

by Carole Cummings

  “You do not know your own power,” Siddell put in, as though reading Wil’s own thoughts, “you cannot control it—bringing you here is like teasing a match over a mountain of gunpowder, yet there was no other way, there is no other way, and so yes, we fear for many things: ourselves, you, the very world.” Siddell shook his head. “You are not only dangerous to your enemies, lad. You must understand, we cannot—”

  “Look,” Dallin cut in impatiently, “you cannot judge and accuse, when you don’t even—”

  “You would tell us truthfully, Dallin Brayden, that our fears are unjustified?” Siddell’s voice was challenging, colder than Wil had heard it before.

  “I would tell you that they are premature and pessimistic.” Dallin’s voice, on the other hand, was rising and heated. “He controls it better every day, and he’s stronger than you think he is. This place was crushing him, and yet here he sits, calm and sane and willing to talk reason, when—”

  “Because you have set your shoulders beneath it,” Marden cut in.

  Dallin shook his head. “That isn’t true. Wil’s taking most of it. I just….” He frowned, waved a hand, irritated and edgy. “I’ve channeled it.” And then his mouth tightened, his gaze hardened. “Isn’t that my job? Isn’t all of this my job?”

  “And do you truly feel qualified to take up that ‘job’?” Thorne wanted to know. “You are as untested as the Aisling, and yet you—”

  “Just stop it,” Wil snapped. Until that very second, he’d been unaware he intended to speak at all, but the bickering was making him more anxious than he would have thought possible; pressure was building at the back of his throat, making his heart pound and his palms sweat. Panic was flittering at the bottom of his stomach, weighting his previously pleasant breakfast like a lump of cold lead in his gut. “Just… stop for a moment, please.”

  Amazingly, they did.

  A pause as Wil tried and failed to gather his scattered thoughts. They were all looking at him, Dallin too, waiting patiently while his mind stumbled and his hand fisted reflexively about the warm stone in his palm. “I never meant to hurt anyone” was all he could say. “I only wanted to be let to live.” His eyes were burning; he shut them tight for a moment until the heat receded. “What’s inside me… I don’t want it. I’ll give it back, if you want. I’ll let you have it if you’ll just show me how.” He turned to Dallin, sudden desperation, faint and painful hope. “You can take it away, right? You know how—like what you did before.”

  Babbling. Pleading. And all Dallin was doing was shaking his head, sad and sympathetic.

  “I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that,” he said, sincere regret in the roughness of his voice.

  Wil clenched his jaw, turned back to the Old Ones. “Calder told Dallin he should kill me.” Bald and flat. Despite the panic welling in him, his chin lifted, defiant. “Is that what this is about? Is this a tribunal?” He set his gaze on each of them, trying not to let the fear show. “Am I on trial?”

  He hadn’t realized how close to the edge of hysteria he’d been until the warm weight of Dallin’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. A message. A reminder.

  You’re not alone. Whatever happens, I won’t let you face it by yourself, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep them from hurting you.

  Wil sagged a little beneath it, warmed and calmed by the simple touch.

  Thorne had been silent ’til now, watching and listening; now he leaned forward, laid a hand to Wil’s knee. “It is true that we have long feared what might have been happening to you, what you might have become.” He patted Wil’s knee, drew back. “Now that you are here, we can see that your heart is astonishingly untouched by the darkness through which you have waded.”

  Wil frowned a little, looked down. His heart didn’t feel untouched.

  “You are a good man,” Thorne went on. “But even the best of men can have the worst effect, if he possesses power he cannot control.”

  Wil’s eyes went unwilling to the healing burn on Dallin’s cheek, then quickly flicked away, focused on his own hand, still fisted about the charm. “My Guardian has been teaching me,” he mumbled, half-hearted and small. “I’m learning.”

  “Certainly,” Marden agreed. “But your Guardian, while more powerful than we’d expected, is unschooled himself, and now we understand there is another consideration.” He paused when Wil shot a narrow glance up through his fringe. The old man shrugged. “There is a deeper connection between you than that which was meant.” His broad face pinched with mild worry. “Your Guardian owns the priorities of a lover, when he should—”

  “Now wait just a damned minute,” Dallin cut in, his hand tightening on Wil’s shoulder so hard that Wil almost winced. “That’s no business of yours,” he snarled, “and you’ve no right to—”

  “I beg to differ,” Thorne retorted, his voice more stern than Wil had heard it yet. “It is not our business to sit in judgment upon either the Guardian or the Aisling, but you must think about it as the Shaman now. Here we are, presented with an Aisling who possesses more powers than any before him—some that even we do not understand, all of them raw and untamed—and a Guardian who loves him above all.”

  Wil couldn’t help but blink at that one, snap his glance quickly over to Dallin; Dallin flushed a little, tightened his jaw, but he didn’t look at Wil.

  “Our task, our Calling, requires us to—” Thorne paused, shook his head. “No, it demands that we do not unleash upon the world one who will loose that power unfettered. Chester is but one example, and a small one, of what you are capable.”

  “But I wasn’t even conscious!” Wil defended. “I didn’t mean to—I wouldn’t—”

  “And that is our concern,” Marden cut in. His expression softened to one of understanding and concern. “You are a good man, as Brother Thorne testified. We know it; you wear your heart like a crown upon your head, visible to all and shining bright through the darkness. But even a good man’s neck may bend beneath the weight of what you carry.” His mien went stern. “You nearly destroyed a city in your pain and anger. We are told the storms alone were violent enough to wash away small animals, the hailstones large enough to knock grown men unconscious in the streets. You moved the very earth, lad—uprooted structures from the bedrock like you were plucking weeds. And all of that in your sleep.”

  Wil was mute. He hadn’t known the destruction had gone so far.

  “Countless were injured,” Siddell put in. “We have no word yet if any were killed.” He lifted a thin eyebrow. “Besides Síofra, of course.”

  Wil flinched—he couldn’t help it.

  “That,” Dallin said slowly, quietly enraged, “is extraordinarily unfair. Síofra—”

  “Síofra,” Thorne interjected grimly, “was an evil little man who has done unfathomable damage—not only to our countries and our world, but to Wil himself.” He looked at Wil steadily, his gaze just this side of hard. “Do you even know what you did to him, lad?”

  Wil held the gaze for as long as he could, then tore his own away, pointed it unseeing to his curled fist. Nodded.

  “What does it matter what he did to that… man?” Dallin seethed. “If you’re going to sit here and tell me that he didn’t deserve every damned—”

  “I crushed his mind,” Wil cut in softly. He opened his palm, stared at the charm, almost pulsing in the wavering light of the fire, like it had twined with the beat of his own heart. He let his fingers curl over it loosely. “I held everything he was in my hand and then I closed my fingers.” He paused, looked first to the three old men and then to Dallin. “I found his Thread and I tore it out. Father….” Shame he hadn’t even considered before took him; he felt his cheeks flush with it. He looked right at Dallin, ignored the others. “We’re not meant to meddle and change,” he told him. “Before you knew me, the very thought horrified you. Now you condone it.”

  A flash of hurt skittered over Dallin’s features, a harsh flicker of betrayal. “That’s hardly what—”<
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  “No, I’m not criticizing you—in fact, I’m grateful.” Wil reached over, set his hand to Dallin’s knee. “But they’re right. You’re here for me, not the Aisling. You said it yourself. They should be afraid of me. I’m afraid of me.” He jerked his head towards the Old Ones. “They’ve a right to be concerned. But they don’t know you.” He leaned in, squeezed Dallin’s knee. “You’ll do what’s right, even if it means I don’t live through it. I know that.” Dallin twitched a little, looked away. Wil leaned closer, relentless. “Swallow your pride and tell it to them.”

  Dallin was staring out the mouth of the cave, his jaw set—just as angry with Wil as he was with the three old men. Slowly he turned his head, set a wrathful gaze on Wil, the muscles in his cheeks and jaw twitching and ticcing with suppressed rage.

  “Should it come to it,” he said through his teeth, dark eyes nearly black but steady and burning into Wil’s, “I claim the right—no one else.”

  Wil pulled in a long breath, ashamed that he was yet again forcing something from Dallin that he was so profoundly and morally against. “Tell them what you claim,” he pushed, reluctantly ruthless. “Say the words.”

  Impossibly, Dallin’s jaw set even harder, so tight Wil could actually hear his teeth grinding; he abruptly stood, knocking Wil’s hand from off his knee, stalked over to the cave’s opening, and looked out. “I claim the right of murder,” he ground out coldly. “Execution. Slaughter. How many more ways d’you want me to say it?” He turned his burning glance to the Old Ones. “I’ll kill him. Is that what you want to hear? If he proves too dangerous, I’ll snuff him out. Snap his neck, he said to me once—handed me a bloody knife and demanded the promise. You’re a little late with your concerns, y’see; he’s already beat you to it. So, if we’re done with this, I suggest we move on. Because this is not—even remotely—what I was told you wanted to discuss.”

  The Old Ones—three men heavy with years, skilled in magic, and rich in wisdom—sat shamefaced before their Shaman, heads bowed beneath his wrath. Wil’s own cheeks tingled with his own bit of contrition, but there was the confidence of necessity beneath it, mixed with a selfish warmth blooming from the core of Dallin’s fury. It confirmed Wil’s faith; not only in Dallin himself and the emotion from which the anger sprang—the depth of feeling alluded to by Thorne and demonstrated so plainly in Dallin’s muted reaction to it, and then again in this very overt reaction to Wil’s subsequent demand—but in the promise itself.

  Wil stared up at Dallin, waited until the dark, furious gaze clashed with his. “I’m sorry, I—”

  Dallin gave a sharp shake of his head, teeth still clenched tight, then paced slowly back over, lowered himself just as slowly beside Wil again, growled, “Fuck your apologies,” low and dangerous, then glared at the Old Ones. “You’ve three seconds to start talking or we’re done,” he warned.

  More from Carole Cummings

  Aisling Trilogy: Book One

  As he pursues a man who is not what he seems, Constable Dallin Brayden learns the lines between enemy and ally, truth and deception, and conscience and obedience are not only blurred, but malleable.

  Constable Dallin Brayden knows who he is, what he’s about, and he doesn’t believe in Fate. “Wilfred Calder” has no idea who he is or what he’s about, and he’s been running from Fate for as long as he can remember. When Wil flees after witnessing a murder, it’s Dallin’s job to pursue him. Along the way, he’s pulled into a maelstrom of ancient myth, fanatical religion, and the delicate politics of a shaky truce between two perpetually warring countries—all of which rests on the slender shoulders of the man he knows is not Wilfred Calder.

  Even Dallin’s success proves a hollow victory. Wil is vengeful, rebellious, and lethal, and his tale of magic and betrayal rocks the carefully constructed foundations of Dallin’s world. Suspicious and only half believing, Dallin must question not only his own integrity and his half-forgotten past, but the morality and motives of everyone around him—including those who hold his own country’s fate in their hands.

  Kimolijah Adani—Class 2 gridTech, beloved brother, most promising student the Academy’s ever had the privilege of calling their own, genius mechanical gridstream engineer, brilliantly pioneering inventor… and dead man. But that’s what happens when a whiz kid messes with dynamic crystals and, apparently, comes to the attention of Baron Petra Stanslo. Killed for his revolutionary designs, Kimolijah Adani had been set to change the world with his impossible train that runs on nothing more than gridstream locked in a crystal. Technically it shouldn’t even be possible, but there is no doubt it works.

  Bas is convinced the notoriously covetous and corrupt Stanslo had something to do with Kimolijah Adani’s tragic and suspicious end. A Directorate Tracker, Bas has finally managed to catch the scent of Kimolijah Adani’s killer, and it leads right into Stanslo’s little desert barony. For almost three years, Bas has tried to find a way into Stanslo’s Bridge, and when he finally makes it, shock is too small a word for what—or, rather, whom—he finds there.

  Wolf’s-own: Book One

  Untouchable. Ghost. Assassin. Mad. Fen Jacin-rei is all these and none.

  His mind is host to the spirits of long-dead magicians, and Fen’s fate should be one of madness and ignoble death. So how is it Fen lives, carrying out shadowy vengeance for his subjugated people and protecting the family he loves?

  Kamen Malick means to find out. When Malick and his own small band of assassins ambush Fen in an alley, Malick offers Fen a choice: Join us or die.

  Determined to decode the intrigue that surrounds Fen, Malick sets to unraveling the mysteries of Fen’s past. As Fen’s secrets slowly unfold, Malick finds irony a bitter thing when he discovers the one he wants is already hopelessly entangled with the one he hunts.

  Wolf’s-own: Book Two

  The amorality of gods makes it hard to tell bad from good and right from wrong. Fen Jacin-rei doesn’t care. All Fen cares about is saving his family, and he’ll sacrifice anything that gets in his way. Including his own soul.

  No longer willing to wait for the machinations of the gods’ minions, Fen accepts the trade Kamen Malick offers. Together they set out to rescue Fen’s family and kill the man who betrayed them. But Fen is an Untouchable, one whose mind hosts the spirits of long-dead magicians, and with Voices of the Ancestors screaming in his head, Fen finds it harder and harder to stave off madness.

  Malick has his own reasons to hand over everything Fen wants and equally compelling reasons to withhold everything Fen needs. In over his head with his timing as bad as ever, Malick must devise a way to do his god’s bidding without breaking his god’s laws—and keep Fen sane and on Malick’s side in the bargain.

  Wolf’s-own: Book Three

  After saving his people, killing the man he once loved, and losing his little sister, Fen Jacin-rei has made his way to Tambalon with his surviving brothers and Kamen Malick. But shortly after arriving, old ghosts resurface, new dangers arise, and Malick tells Fen the gods aren’t done with him yet.

  Fen now knows he’s a catalyst for Fate and a magnet for Fate’s players, and he’s dangerously close to falling over the edge into insanity. But tracking down the vicious creatures that have been abducting and murdering citizens of Tambalon is just as critical as dealing with past lives and legendary beings.

  With a threat all too close and a secret he needs to explain, Malick is at odds with those who should be his allies, and no matter how much he wants to protect Fen, it may be more than he can manage when he’s trying to keep them alive.

  Readers love Blue on Black by Carole Cummings

  “Blue on Black by Carole Cummings is one of the best books I’ve read all year. Go read it!”

  —Queer Sci Fi

  “…a fresh new take on the Steampunk genre, combining imaginative technology with mind twisting mystery and adventure. A character driven story, there’s plenty here for readers to enjoy.”

  —Amazing Stories Magazine

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sp; “Blue on Black is an alternate universe, twisted history, sci-fi/fantasy/steampunkish feast for the imagination and senses.”

  —The Novel Approach

  “What a ride! Blue on Black is another fantastic novel by Carole Cummings and one that keeps the reader desperately trying to keep up as it twists and turns to a blinding conclusion.”

  —Joyfully Jay

  “…Carole Cummings is one of the most inventive, imaginative storytellers out there.”

  —Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

  CAROLE CUMMINGS lives with her husband and family in Pennsylvania, USA, where she spends her time trying to find time to write. The recipient of various amateur writing awards, several of her short stories have been translated into Spanish, German, Chinese and Polish. Free shorts, sneak peeks at WIPs, and other miscellany can be found on her website.

  Website: www.carolecummings.com

  By Carole Cummings

  7&7: A DSP Publications Anthology of Virtue and Vice

  Blue on Black

  AISLING TRILOGY

  Guardian

  Dream

  WOLF’S-OWN

  Wolf’s-own: Ghost

  Wolf’s-own: Weregild

  Wolf’s-own: Koan

  Wolf’s-own: Incendiary