The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  Wil sighed. “I suppose we should be grateful for the warning.”

  “A warning is exactly what it sounds like, which is what makes me think this captain might be coming around. With Corliss there, it just might be possible. Then again, it could just be a last chance to avoid bloodshed. I won’t know until I get there and talk to the man.” Dallin shrugged. “I wondered if you wanted to join me.”

  Wil blinked. Strangely, he hadn’t been assuming anything from the conversation, neither that he would go nor that he wouldn’t. And now that he’d been given a choice, he didn’t think he had a preference. No, that wasn’t true—what he wanted to do was to stay here and have another day like today, laughing and being laughed at, feeling like he belonged. What he should do was stand at Dallin’s back, and be ready for whatever was brought down on them. Wil was, after all, the whole reason there even were soldiers at the Bounds.

  “I was hoping we might have a chance to go to the river.” A light flush rose to Wil’s cheeks at the faint note of pleading in his voice. It was so close, after all. “D’you think we’ll have time?”

  Dallin smiled. “We’ll be following it, in fact. And we’ll camp by it tonight.” He paused, thoughtful, then: “Why don’t we go there now? We can’t stay for long—we’ll want to get down to the Bounds before sunset—but we’ve got a little bit.”

  Wil grinned, ridiculously pleased. Perhaps there’d even be time to doff his boots and stockings and dip his toes into it. It was likely freezing, but that was wholly beside the point.

  “I’d like Hunter to come along,” he told Dallin, tipping his head at the boy when the blue eyes went wide and hopeful. “To the Bounds, I mean. If you get caught up in negotiations, he can help me with Lind’s customs and… whatever.” He smiled a little. “He fancies himself my bodyguard.”

  Dallin’s eyebrow went up. “Does he, then?”

  “Don’t be jealous,” Wil teased. “I’m sure he’ll protect you, too.”

  Hunter had gone red to his roots. “I… No, I didn’t… I wouldn’t presume—”

  “Presume all you like,” Dallin told him dryly, shooting a sardonic glance at Wil. “This one needs all the guarding he can get.” He turned to Hunter. “You know which horses are ours?”

  Hunter couldn’t seem to speak; he bobbled a nod.

  “Good. Shaw is coming with us. Get someone to help you saddle them up. Our things are already gathered and packed—bring them along. And see if you can’t scare up something to eat on the way. Bring them down the path around the Stairs to the river, and give us a whistle when you’re done.” He cut his glance to Wil. “Shall we?”

  Dallin turned back to watch Hunter scurry off, shook his head and rolled his eyes again, then took Wil’s elbow and steered him toward the caves. Now that Wil was looking, the tops of the formations did rather resemble a great staircase. They weren’t walking directly toward the caves, but toward a well-worn path around the eastern side of them. It was only a few paces before Dallin’s arm slipped over Wil’s shoulders. Half-conscious of the others—of what they’d said and the fact that they were probably now looking on and marking them—and half not caring, Wil leaned in slightly, and matched Dallin’s pace.

  “All right?” Dallin wanted to know.

  Wil thought about it, nodded. “The headache’s still there, but it hasn’t got worse. How about you?”

  “No, I mean…” Dallin’s voice dropped, 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, nodded. “Good. Thank you.”

  Wil didn’t quite know what Dallin was thanking him for, but he let it pass. He had no doubt, 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 sighed. “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,” Wil told him firmly. “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.”

  “Huh.” Dallin puffed a dubious snort. “You really think that’s how he’ll see it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Wil answered. “But you’re supposed to be the teacher. So teach.” “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 that 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 him watch what you do. If not for him, then for me, all right?”

  Dallin groaned, a rather put-upon thing, and gave Wil’s shoulder a squeeze. “Fine,” he groused. “For you.”

  Wil smirked but kept silent.

  To Wil’s sincere chagrin and annoyance, 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 sprouted from the swath of strand that stretched between them and the water.

  “I’m not closing my eyes,” Wil protested. “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 told him, 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 justify 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.” He 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 one last time before he closed them. “Just get on,” he growled.

  It was unnerving, but he’d 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 Dallin’s arm and followed along. He was surprised he wasn’t tempted to open his eyes, but in case he accidentally did, all he’d see would be the ground. Dallin led him carefully, as he’d promised, perhaps even a little 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 on him, didn’t constrict. On the contrary, his lungs expanded, dragging 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 surrounding stone snatching at the roar, echoing it back. The ground was by turns soft and spongy, then flat, slick rock beneath his boots. Under Dallin’s solid guidance, Wil’s feet settled into each step 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 him with a firm tug to his elbow and a smooth turn.

  “This is it,” he told Wil, raising his voice a little 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 eagerness, dark eyes shining and gold hair catching the sun, russet and bronze sharding through and glancing over the unruly curls shifting over his brow in the cool breeze. Dallin 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 had been, they wouldn’t have been 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 the cascade’s throat. Mist boiled up from the bosom of the chute, shatter-prismed and sparking with borrowed light and color, feathering out and up like the breath of a sleeping dragon.

  What had looked like mossy stone, vaguely stair-shaped from the other side, was in truth great, smooth slabs of granite, step-marching 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, reached out his hand, the river’s breath tingling at his fingertips. “You were right,” he said, 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. He shook his head, breathed in deep. “It’s all perfect.”

  “It comes down from the mountains above Lind—actually passes through it. FAeðme sits… well, you’ll see.”

  Wil almost pressed for more, but he’d find out soon enough. Right now, he didn’t think he really wanted to know all that much about FAeðme or what was to happen there.

  “I used to come here when I was a boy,” Dallin murmured softly. “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.” A small, rueful chuckle. “I don’t think I was actually much use to him—I must’ve only been about six—but he pretended I was. I actually 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 his 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 into the lad who had grown into the man.

  Dallin had never spoken about Lind like he knew it, and Wil didn’t think it was his own lack of observation. Dallin didn’t seem of this place, of Lind—he seemed very much apart. Apart from his home and then, 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 rested against Dallin’s chest, letting his head fall back to Dallin’s shoulder. Only a little while ago—bloody damn, could it really have been only a matter of weeks?—he’d 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.

  Strange.

  “Tell me what you did here,” he said 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 up and around Wil’s shoulder, draping across his collarbones. He pointed up and to the right. “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,” Dallin informed him. Wil shook his head. “I’ll grant you ‘protrusion’, but that is not a ledge.” A low snort. “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 frowned. He craned his neck, peered up at Dallin. “You were never that stupid,” he retorted, sincerely skeptical.

  “Ha.” Dallin smirked. “You say that like stupidity’s a thing of the past.” He 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 just extend yourself 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 shook his head, chuckled again. “It bloody hurt when I hit the water. Like slamming into a brick wall.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” Wil agreed, eyeing 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, a little startled, then: “Hm?”

  “You said you dared each other.” Wil peered up at Dallin again, frowning a bit at 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 uncomfortably. Wil just kept looking, watching Dallin looking at the fall of the water over the slick line of stone, perhaps seeing bits of 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?”

  A slight clench of the wide jaw. “No,” Dallin answered brusquely. “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 reached up, laid a hand over Dallin’s, leaned back into him a bit harder. Wil understood now. No wonder Dallin kept himself apart. This wasn’t coming home for him; this was visiting graves.

  “Have you got anyone left?” Wil asked gently. “Any family at all?”

  Dallin blew out a long breath, resting his chin atop the crown of Wil’s head. “No. I’m the last.”

  Something about it made Wil horribly, utterly sad. He 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 live through it? What if he 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 so
me invincible, immortal being—no blood, no soul—merely another verse in the Songs of their country? He’d 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 whispered. “You should’ve had so much more than what you had. You should have so much more now.”

  “So shouldn’t we all,” Dallin answered just as quietly, dropping 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 him, once again, put away the small bit of his past he’d allowed himself to remember, bury it, and then move on. He turned, gestured for Wil to follow. “C’mon, I want to show you—”

  “Dallin.”

  He kept walking. “—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, laid a hand to his arm. “Do you put everything away like that? Do you bury everything that hurts?”

  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 Dallin wasn’t going to answer; he bent his neck, mouth twisted tight, like he was 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.”