The leaf was another matter altogether. The stuff worked incredibly quickly, and whatever Calder had managed to get down Wil had set to its purpose before Wil had managed to purge the rest. Dallin couldn’t get past it, its tendrils wound too inextricably with Wil’s core, insidious and clinging, and if he tried to unwind it, he might end up unwinding Wil. Instinct wouldn’t take him through this one, and he certainly hadn’t practiced enough to know what he was doing with something this apparently intricate. He clenched his teeth and did as much as he dared, which wasn’t much. It wasn’t fair. What good was healing if he couldn’t touch the one thing that might prove more lethal to Wil than a bullet to the brain?
Mother—a low, interior growl—if this is some kind of test, I’m going to be really fucking pissed.
Shots were ringing down the path. Dallin could almost see the configurations of the crude battleline by the echoes of the reports and the shouts that rose above the steady chuckle of the fires. Perhaps six or eight of the enemy versus the twelve in Dallin’s party. Corliss and the others would take care of them, but they wouldn’t be the only ones, and they wouldn’t stop coming, not ’til they’d got what they’d come for.
Dallin pushed Wil back, gently, told him, “Stay here,” then got to his feet. He wiped his sticky hand on his coat, waved it about them, at the fire and the sky, still grumbling threats. “Can you defend yourself if you have to? I mean…” He shut his eyes, clenched his teeth, and ran a hand through his hair. “Are you still coming down, or did he…?”
Wil smiled, sly and wicked, almost enough to make Dallin take a quick step back and away. And then Wil spoilt the effect by whiffing out a deranged little giggle. He flicked a hand up over his shoulder, grinning as the fire leapt and spat and climbed its way a little too quickly up a sagging pine. “Aim’s a little off.” Wil snickered. “Meant to get Calder with the lightning, but…” He shrugged, rolling his eyes with a lopsided grin. “Missed.”
“…Right.” Dallin nodded, watched the fire for a moment, then turned back to Wil. “Only if you have to, all right? There are others closing in, and we’re rather stuck here for the moment with no horses.” He raised his eyebrows, not terribly hopefully. “Unless you know where Miri got off to?”
Wil snorted, shook his head, then drew his knees up to his chest, laying his head atop them. “Told her to run,” he murmured. “Pretty sure she listened.”
Dallin would not pity Wil or lament over the state to which Calder had brought him; if he were sober, Wil would rip Dallin’s throat out for even thinking it. Or at least clock him a good one. “Stay here,” Dallin repeated then walked slowly and cautiously over toward Calder.
Calder was lying on his back, wrenching in slowing breaths, hand reaching weakly for the gun lying just beside him. By the looks of it, Dallin’s shot to his shoulder had splintered the bone. Calder’s arm was slanting down at an odd angle, and lumpier than it should have been. His other hand twitched uselessly below the wrist shattered by Wil’s shot with the crossbow, and he gasped slightly every time the bolt hitched against the ground. Still he reached reflexively for the gun. Bleeding out into the Mother’s Heart, the land he professed to love and serve drinking up his life as he poured it out.
Dallin extended his leg, kicked the gun out of Calder’s reach with the toe of his boot. There were so many things Dallin wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to say. In the end, all he managed was, “How could you?” through a snarl that would do no one any good now.
Calder merely stared up at him, shook his head. “Your love weighs more profoundly than your Calling,” he rasped. “It is not meant and does the Aisling no good.” He swallowed thickly, caught his breath. “I die now knowing I have done the Mother’s will.”
He looked… satisfied. Almost exultant. Wrong, too wrong, and it twisted in Dallin’s gut, clenched.
Dallin crouched down, eyes narrow, heart cold and quiet. Calmly, he reached out, laid his hand to the small, neat wound on Calder’s thigh. “Since Wil called to me when you took him,” he said, voice cool and even, and he tightened his fingers until Calder gasped, weak and watery, “I have been wondering what punishment would best suit your crimes against the Aisling, the Mother, the Father, Lind. Up until thirty seconds ago, wrapping my hands around your throat and tearing it open was topping the list.”
He leaned in, lowered his voice, Calder’s faded blue eyes going wild and fearful in the dying wash of flame. “Now, I’ve decided that the best sentence one could hand a would-be martyr would be life, so you can watch with your own eyes as the Mother’s Voice whispers to her Shaman, guides my hand in Her true will.” Again, he reached for the power. “You stole my Calling once,” he said through his teeth, watching with icy satisfaction as Calder’s eyes squeezed shut. “You tried to steal it twice.” Spoke silently to the land and listened as it answered him back. He smiled, cold and cruel. “How very painful it will be for you to have your miserable life saved by that Calling—false prophet.” Let it slide up from the ground beneath his feet, shard through him—
Nearly fell back, gasping, as it ricocheted into him, slamming into his chest with a heavy fist, shocking in its force. Dallin reeled to his feet, staggered, reached blind, hand latching on to the first solid object it found. Disoriented, ears ringing just a little, he blinked, focused down on Calder, blue eyes wide now and staring, sightless, up into the still-blazing treetops. A thin trickle of blood leaked from the corner of Calder’s open mouth, the white fletching of a still-quivering arrow jutting from his throat. Dallin peered sideways, realized he was propping himself on Andette, and let go abruptly.
Andette was staring down at her uncle, her mouth set hard, eyes bright and glistening in the uncertain light. She lowered her longbow, turned slowly to Dallin, dipped her head. “It was my right,” was all she said, voice quiet and only slightly shaky.
It was, Dallin couldn’t deny it, though so much for his ‘suitable punishment.’ Dallin decided not to comment, just turned and watched as Wil shambled up behind them. Dallin reached out to offer a steady arm but Wil shook him off. He squinted closely at Andette, as though he was trying to decide if he’d seen her before, then bobbled a nod and walked a bit unsteadily over to Calder. He listed a little as he bent over and reached, but righted his balance and retrieved the arrow, grinding it through cartilage and bone as he pulled it loose. Humming quietly, Wil stared for a long moment, then drew in a deep breath and spat.
Muttering lightly to himself, Wil paced slowly and carefully back over to them, nodded. “H’llo Andette,” he slurred and handed her the arrow. He didn’t wait for her to respond, merely shifted his murky gaze back to Dallin. “We’ve company,” he mumbled.
Obviously, Dallin didn’t say. He shot a quick look at Andette, wondering what she was making of her Aisling now, but she was staring at the gory arrow in her hands and didn’t even seem to register their existence at the moment. Dallin decided to leave her to herself.
Thunder still muttered above, like it was just sitting there, waiting. Dallin supposed that wasn’t too far off the mark.
“Look at me,” he said softly, took hold of Wil and turned him, peered intently into eyes that were far away and hazed. Wil’s gaze seemed to want to wander further, but Dallin could tell he was willfully holding it to the present, trying with everything in him to concentrate. Filthy and tearstreaked, and wearing Dallin’s blood on his cheek like a Mark. “How much, d’you think?” Dallin asked bluntly. And how much was the last dose still working on him?
A helpless, watery snort knocked loose from Wil, and he shut his eyes tight, collapsed forward, and laid his head to Dallin’s shoulder. “I’m so fucked,” he whispered, taking hold of Dallin’s coat, holding himself up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dallin told him gruffly, fingers once again itching, wanting to throttle a dead man, and anyone else who’d ever forced a cup to Wil’s lips while he was at it. He wrapped his good arm about Wil instead. “How much?” he repeated.
“Brayden!”
Corliss. Good. Dallin looked up over Wil’s shoulder, freed a hand, and waved her back. He pushed Wil carefully upright and waited ’til the fuzzy gaze latched onto his.
“Listen to me,” Dallin said, calm and steady. “We’re going to finish this. Right now. Everyone wants so badly for us to go to FAeðme, then that’s where we go. We can’t do this by ourselves—we need the Mother.”
Wil stiffened, tried to draw back, couldn’t quite make it by himself, so Dallin helped him. He pushed Wil back until he could see the expected agitation flaring in cloudy green eyes. Wil’s mouth was twitching, fighting the vacant smile that kept trying to stretch itself across his dirty, bloody face. He shook his head slowly, said, “Not like this, I… not… please.” Helpless pleading that nearly broke Dallin’s heart.
He held the panicked gaze steadily. “Do you think for one minute She hasn’t seen you in worse shape?” he asked, gentle but firm. Wil’s eyes squeezed shut, and Dallin shook his shoulders lightly ’til he opened them again. “We go to Her,” Dallin went on, “you take what She has to give you, and no one can ever do this to you again.”
“The Brethren—”
“Are surrounding us as we speak,” Dallin cut in. “They think they’re herding us toward FAeðme, and we’re going to let them keep thinking that. I’ve got squads of Weardas flanking them. None of them will get out of Lind alive, but they can’t know that until we’ve done what we came here to do.” He paused, took a long breath. He wasn’t sure how much sense Wil was making of all this, but he seemed to be following, feeble little chuckles leaking from him now and then that Dallin was finding it harder and harder to ignore. “The Cleric. He’s here. He’s down in the tunnels.”
Wil stared. Then… laughed. He backed away, stumbled, leaned against a tree and slithered halfway down, propped precariously. “So fucked,” he snorted, bowing his head and closing his eyes. “So fucked, so fucked, so fucked…”
“Maybe so,” Dallin told him, surer now than before that he was trying to have a life-and-death discussion with someone who was only very tentatively hanging on to reality. “But if we go out, we do it our way.”
They could still get out. They could still run. It wouldn’t be too terribly hard. Call to the Weardas shadowing the Brethren, tell them to ambush, and he could grab Wil and flee across the Bounds. Hole up somewhere and hide, rebuild strength and sense, and perhaps even find a way to assassinate Wheeler, put off the inevitable for a while. Except that was all they’d be doing— putting it off—and it wouldn’t take long for Aeledfýres to build up a new cabal, find a new conduit for himself. Only this time, they wouldn’t know ahead of time. They’d both be living as Wil had done for the past three years, constantly looking over their shoulders. Not sitting by a river all night long just to hear its songs change when the stars gave way to the dawn. Dallin had wanted to give Wil something better than a life of running away, or at least make it so he could get those things for himself.
All of that, and the Father, weakening steadily, holding Aeledfýres back with all the strength He still had left, and what would happen to Wil when that strength finally gave? Perhaps Aeledfýres wouldn’t even need a false Guardian anymore to blaze his trail for him. Perhaps he could simply find Wil and… take him.
Dallin shook his head. No. Now. If there was such a thing as fate, if anything was truly meant, events and circumstances were converging right now to force them on the path toward FAeðme. Considering what waited there for Wil, Dallin had to believe Her hand was guiding them at least a little. Perhaps even Calder had served Her purpose in that respect, because Dallin couldn’t deny that the trip down to the Bounds had been more than a little bit of stalling, and he might have even come up with a few more excuses to delay if things hadn’t happened the way they did. And he couldn’t imagine another, gentler circumstance that would have caused him to reach for his past, his Self, Lind, the way he’d done, and come to understand the power of it all, his own ability to use it.
He doubted, as a rule; he always had done, and the Father approved. From the moment twelve old men had tried to take his Self from him, he’d doubted, and now he knew why. Knew why the idea of letting another into his mind so offended him. Why he’d never quite believed any one priest or shaman or cleric knew all the answers, and if they did, that they were interpreting the questions correctly. Why street magicians and petty conjurers had never impressed him, because he’d seen real magic once, had wielded it himself, and all else paled beneath the power of true gods.
He will hold your keys as you hold his.
And that was pretty much that.
Wil was watching him, slumped against the tree, that soft, impractical smile curving his mouth, but his eyes were bordering on blind delirium. “You can make me, y’know,” he murmured, chuckled a little and waved a hand. The fires that had been settling into smoke and smoldering ash now reawakened with a crackling little growl, a murmur of thunder and a small flash of lightning slipping through the sky. “Oops,” Wil snorted, tucking his hands beneath his arms and peering about, his gaze trying to sharpen as it took in Andette crouching over her uncle’s body and Corliss and the others splitting their wary stares between the darkness surrounding them and the newly bolstered flames. Wil peered back at Dallin with a lopsided grin, tilted his head. “Could never seem to refuse you anyway, but now I really couldn’t.” It had the feel of confession. Wil really believed it, though Dallin resisted the temptation to point out that Wil certainly could refuse him, and often did, most of the time to Dallin’s very sincere dismay. The hazy gaze narrowed. “He’ll be able to make me, too. What shall we do about that, Guardian?”
Dallin had thought about that. Ever since Wil had made the accusation an eternity ago, he’d thought about it. The leaf would make it so that Dallin could follow him, even if Wil didn’t want him to. And according to the things Wil had told him about the Guild, Wil would have to listen, would have to do what Dallin told him to do, even if it was against everything in him. And if Dallin were the same person he was only a few hours ago, he might have thought about it more seriously. In the most objective sense, it was probably the smartest thing he could do—drag Wil down the throat of FAeðme, order him to accept what the Mother gave him, then order him to stand aside while Dallin spoke his name and called Aeledfýres, order him to push everything he had at Dallin. Dallin could die knowing he’d fulfilled his Calling, walked the Path the Old Ones and Calder had been so sure had been set before him. And not have to put a bullet through Wil’s head if he didn’t win this thing.
Except Dallin would be doing to Wil exactly what Siofra had done: taking away his choices, using his strength and power over him when Wil was too vulnerable to fight it, and forcing him to places he didn’t want to go. Dallin would be doing what Calder had been trying to do: assuming he knew better than Wil did, making him watch helplessly as his fate was decided for him.
He’d be doing what everyone else seemed to think the Shaman ought to be doing: putting legend and purpose higher than a man’s right to self-direction. And yes, the stakes were extraordinarily high, and the wrong decision could mean the difference between Wil walking away from this with at least half his mind left, or life as they now knew it reverting back to the savagery and slavery of a time before men had raised their gods above them and chained them to divinity. Perhaps the sacrifice of one or two souls was not so much to ask, considering, but…
The funny thing was, Dallin was pretty sure that was exactly what the others meant when they insisted he had to think about it as the Shaman. And he was fairly certain that if he didn’t care so much, he just might’ve done. Ironical
ly, he’d been more prepared to think and act like the Shaman the Old Ones seemed to want way back before he’d ever left Putnam. Before he’d seen the fierce life in Wil, the simple desire to have a life and to own himself, shatter the control under which Wil had existed for so long. Before Dallin had begun to realize he cared.
Shaman or not, Guardian or not, he was only one man, he was no god, he wasn’t bound to any beliefs but his own, and Wil’s fate was not his to choose. And if that meant he would have to keep his promise…
Your love weighs more profoundly than your Calling.
And that was pretty much that, as well.
“I could,” Dallin answered slowly, took the few paces over to Wil and stood in front of him, looked at him straight. “But I won’t.”
Somewhere in that sharp mind, right now being slowly dismantled, piece by piece, and subsumed beneath a cottony haze of euphoria, sense tried to work its way through the sticky clouds of leaf, tried to bare itself on the razor-edge inside the murky gaze, and couldn’t quite make it.
Amazingly, Dallin managed a smile, a small shrug. “I am servant to the Aisling,” he said in all sincerity. “I always have been.” Slowly, making sure Wil watched him all the way, Dallin went down to one knee, held his hands out, and bowed his head. “At your command.”
He could feel the eyes of the others on him, nodded to himself with some satisfaction. Andette and nine others from Lind, watching their Shaman bend his neck and knee before their Aisling, and he had no doubt word would spread, once this was over. If he didn’t live through it and Wil did, Wil would need the support of people who’d been set their example by the one figure they placed above all mortals, even above the Old Ones. Perhaps Dallin had never felt entirely comfortable with the deference the people of Lind showed him, but in this case, it was useful, and so, therefore, usable.
The Aisling Trilogy Page 88