The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  “Have you, then?” Her eyebrow is arched, and She shakes her head, sighs, reaches out, and brushes the hair from his eyes. “Such a stubborn boy,” She says fondly, patting his cheek. “Tell me, then—what exactly did you see?”

  He frowns, opens his mouth… hesitates. No one’s ever asked him that before, not even Dallin.

  Dark eyes, boring into his, the Mark almost blazing, hurting his eyes, and he closes them against it, then… nothing. Nothing and more nothing, the end of everything, just gone, all of him, and… and Siofra told him…

  She’s nodding now, Her mouth curled into a smile that’s too knowing and perhaps even a touch patronizing. “Shall I show you the links to your own chains?” She asks him gently. “The bonds your not-father forged himself?”

  “No,” he whispers, shakes his head, almost slips his hands behind his back, but he makes himself stand still. He doesn’t want to see, doesn’t think he could bear to look.

  “You know them for travesties, and yet they still weigh you down.” Her voice hardens just a little, that touch of command he’d heard in it before. “I cannot break them for you, for they are not of my making.” Her eyes flick over to Dallin, and the eyebrow rises again as She turns Her gaze back to Wil. “Your Guardian cannot touch them, for you choose not to show them to him, and thus limit the choices for him as well.”

  Wil clenches his teeth, shakes his head, angering slowly but steadily. “That isn’t fair,” he tells Her boldly. “There are two choices, both of them terrible and not—”

  “Are there?” She interjects mildly, and nods once again at Dallin. “It is time to call for your Guardian,” She repeats, more sternly this time.

  Wil’s anger rises; he can’t help the way it seethes in his gut. “If there are more, why won’t you just tell me?” he argues.

  “Perhaps because you believe so very stubbornly that there are only two,” She retorts, lifts Her hand, the shackle back again, but with only one link dangling from it this time.

  Fury rises at the sight, bald and choking. “You’re not being fair,” he grates, not caring anymore that he is addressing a being who could squash him beneath Her foot like an annoying insect. Maddeningly, She smiles. “And is fairness a link with which you have ever burdened me?” She wants to know, lifts Her hand and flicks at the lone link. It tinkles musically as it swings. Her smile disappears, Her face going hard, that of the Warrior-goddess, and he is reminded that She may love him, but She will also use him, hurt him if She has to, like any other mother who would strike a child ‘for his own good’. “What is your name, Aisling?” She demands.

  For the first time, real fear spikes into Wil’s chest. He shakes his head, takes a small, involuntary step back. “I don’t—”

  “But you do.” A flash of light at Her fingertips, and before Wil can even register what it is, what’s happening, it’s sailing toward him; he doesn’t even have the wit to flinch before Dallin’s knife is thudding into nothing at his feet, its hilt vibrating with the force of the impact. “Your true Design remains hidden until you are ready to see it, and yet you persist in blindness.”

  He’s heard that before, but he can’t remember where or when or from whom. He takes another step back, tries to swallow down the fear and the anger, but it keeps choking him, and that just pisses him off more.

  “You tore a man from his own mind to have it,” She goes on, ruthless, “and yet when your Guardian tried to hand it to you—”

  “You think I don’t want it,” he accuses, realizing too late that he’s just interrupted a goddess, but he couldn’t stop himself—it feels too much like accusation, and surely She can’t mean what he did wasn’t justified? Anyway, it’s too late now, isn’t it, so he plows on: “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but—” His teeth clench, and so do his fists. “If he gets it, if I give it to him…” He can’t finish, and damn it, why should he have to?- She knows.

  “Then perhaps it is best in the hands of one who does not fear it,” She tells him coldly. She seems to grow in front of him, almost threatening, and all kindness has been wiped from Her expression as She merely lifts Her hand, points to Dallin, a wordless directive.

  Ashamed as he hadn’t been before, Wil swallows his fury and his fear, swallows his questions and accusations, and does as She has commanded. He is no equal, he’d almost forgotten that for a moment in his anger, but he is reminded of it now, his head bowing a little with the clear rebuke.

  He steps over to Dallin, takes up his hand, and calls his name. Dallin gives Wil an assessing look, eyes slightly narrowed, warily flicking between Wil and the Mother.

  “All right?” he wants to know.

  Wil almost laughs, but… it isn’t really funny. He shakes his head instead. “Not really,” he answers honestly. “But better than I’d thought.” He tugs at Dallin’s hand. “C’mon, She wants you.”

  Dallin follows, eyes gone a bit hard, and Wil can’t help but take an odd sort of warmth from it. His Guardian would protect him even from a goddess, and it still boggles him that it’s all real. They stand before Her, together, hands linked. Dallin’s shoulders and back are ramrod straight, like he’s standing at attention, and his eyes meet Hers boldly.

  “Guardian,” She says, Her voice more stern than it had been, Her mien grim and unyielding. She waves a hand, and Dallin lets go of Wil’s. He steps forward, places his hands at the small of his back, feet planted apart, and lifts his chin. “You have accepted your Calling,” She says, blue gaze leveled at Dallin. “The Aisling has acknowledged you as his champion. The land has called to you and heard your answer. You have waded through much adversity to arrive here before me, and yet you are not yet through.” She tilts Her head, appraising. “What would you ask of me?”

  Dallin’s shoulders twitch a little, and his head jerks back, the surprise obvious. He frowns, hesitates, flicks a quick look at Wil, a light flush blooming on his cheeks. “I would ask only for the strength to serve the Aisling, as he wills it,” he answers steadily.

  She shakes Her head, the disappointment unmistakable. “You forget—your heart is plain in your eyes.”

  Dallin bows his head but doesn’t look at Wil again. “I would ask too many things to count, Mother,” he says more quietly. “More than I’ve a right to ask.” He sucks in a long breath, squares his jaw, and won’t look at Wil. “I would ask that You take this from him. I would ask that You give me the power to bear the burden alone. I would ask that You see to it that he survives.”

  She turns a small, sad smile on Wil. “You would take away his choices?”

  “If I thought it would…” Now Dallin shuts his eyes, shakes his head. “I don’t know,” is his hushed answer, cheeks hinting at shame. “I expect that’s why he’s been given the choice and not I.”

  Wil should be angry at the revelation, but it won’t come. Dallin has been handing Wil choices since the very beginning, and Wil’s given him none. How could Wil possibly find anger for the want of a wish?

  This time She nods, satisfied. She reaches out, slips her fingers beneath Dallin’s chin, lifts his gaze to Hers, as She’d done to Wil forever ago. “You have more than one Calling, Guardian,” She tells him, this time with compassion that nearly makes Wil’s throat clog.

  “So I’ve been told,” Dallin answers, voice hushed, a quiet defeat inside the tone Wil has never heard in the deep voice before. “I will do my duty to You and Lind, the Father and the Aisling, as You so will.”

  “So many fates to carry upon your shoulders.” She tsks. “Have you no duty to yourself?” Wil can see Dallin’s teeth clench a little, can see his eyes harden, resentful. “Does it matter?” he wants to know.

  She merely shrugs and takes Her hand away. “All things matter, in their ways. A single flap of a butterfly’s wing can reshape the world.”

  Wil frowns, and by the way Dallin too-obviously holds back a growl, he can see that Dallin didn’t understand it any more than Wil did. More bloody riddles. Wil’s had more than he can stand, and he kno
ws Dallin has, too.

  “I have more than one Calling, and one contradicts the other.” Dallin’s expression is stony, and he meets Her gaze with unveiled anger. “Either way, I will fail You and the Father. Perhaps You’d like to tell me which failure would displease You less.”

  “I will suffer no failure,” She returns, forbidding now. “If your choices are cruel and few, it is your Task to find another. You were not made for this, Guardian, but Chosen. The fates of those I love above all rest in your hands, and you will not fail me.”

  Wil stares, almost can’t believe that this is the same being who held him and rocked him against Her breast only a little while ago, comforted him and made him believe he wasn’t broken. Now She is harsh, pitiless, cruel and commanding, demanding a hopeless solution to a nonexistent choice. Dallin’s broad shoulders are bending beneath the weight of impossibility. Wil has often wondered how the goddess of healing, childbirth, and comfort could also be the goddess of war; now he knows.

  “We take what the Mother gives us and do our best with it,” Wil answers, though he thinks he really shouldn’t—this is Dallin’s, not his—but he can’t help himself. It’s unfair, all of it, and She doesn’t even seem to care. So many times Dallin has come to Wil’s defense, and Wil owes him at least this. “My Guardian could do no less—it isn’t in him. You can’t ask more.”

  “No?” She doesn’t look at Wil, her hard blue gaze locked onto Dallin. She lifts Her hand, shows him the shackle again with its one lone link, then lifts the other, devoid of any kind of bond. “I am bound by no beliefs, Guardian, for you have none. A man of vast and great magic, yet so little faith. You believe in the power of the land because you have touched it, but it will not be enough to save all you wish to save; you believe in your gods because you have seen them, but we cannot go where you must lead, for we are bound in other ways that are not yours to unfetter.” She steps in close, looms over Dallin, but he keeps his gaze steady and doesn’t flinch. “What else do you believe, Guardian?”

  An echo of the same question put to Wil before, but Dallin doesn’t bow his head as Wil had done, doesn’t look away. His gaze is cool and devoid of the pleading Wil suspects had reflected in his own.

  “You ask for blind faith,” Dallin says steadily.

  Wil’s heart sinks, and he has no idea why—whether because he’s sure Dallin won’t give it, or because he’s equally as sure She will take his Guardian away from him if Dallin doesn’t. And yet, Wil wouldn’t ask Dallin to give something it’s so against his nature to give, even at the risk of losing his Guardian’s bolstering presence when Wil goes to face the monster.

  “No?” She asks, like she’s answering to the statement Wil didn’t make, instead of the one Dallin did. Wil is surprised and all at once painfully uneasy when he sees that Her gaze has shifted to him. “And yet you have.”

  Wil flinches, but Dallin frowns, bewildered, and turns a quick, asking glance on him. Wil can’t do a single thing but shake his head and take a small step back.

  Her gaze slides once again to Dallin. “I ask for the trust you demand of others. Can you give it?”

  Dallin stares for a long time, hands fisting behind his back, jaw twitching. And then he blinks, his eyes filling just the smallest bit, and he bends his neck. “I don’t know, Mother,” he whispers. “I love him, and gods must…” He swallows, shakes his head, shuts his eyes tight. “Gods must sometimes be dispassionate, for They see more than we mortals. We are sometimes crushed beneath Your greater Purpose, and I would not see him crushed.” He shakes his head again, shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. I love him.”

  Wil’s eyes burn again, and his chest goes tight. A test, and this the cruelest, and it nearly breaks his heart to watch Dallin try to be what She demands of him and still be what he is. Choosing between the Guardian and Dallin, the man who loves Wil and the Shaman who must ensure the Aisling does not become the next meal to the Soul-eater. Dallin shakes beneath it, splitting right down the middle.

  “As do I,” She replies, voice softening the tiniest bit. “Love can often hand us the magic of faith, if only we would reach for it. I ask for no more than that.” She waves a hand. “What do you see?”

  Dallin frowns, peers about, before shifting his gaze back to the Mother. “I see stars,” he tells Her. “Stars inside clouds.”

  Wil frowns, too. He sees the Threads, as he’s always done—threads and patterns, all winding into their places in the Weave, color upon color and strand upon strand.

  But She’s smiling, like She expected it. She turns to Wil. “What does the Father’s Song tell you of stars?”

  “Fate,” Wil answers slowly, sliding a quick glance at Dallin, but Dallin isn’t looking at him. “Handing… giving yourself to fate,” Wil finishes more quietly, a little bit angry and resentful that She’s trying to make Her point through him, when She could just as easily have told Dallin Herself.

  An eyebrow arches, like She knows what he’s thinking, and of course She does; She’s proven that more than once, hasn’t She? She seems amused more than anything else, and that annoys him, too, but She only turns Her gaze back at Dallin, hardens it once again.

  “Can you give it?”

  Relentless. Implacable.

  Dallin won’t look at Wil, his head still down, his eyes shut again. His hands clench and unclench rhythmically behind his back as he nods slowly, says, “Yes, I can give You that, if it’s what You demand of me,” in a voice that’s hollow, that same note of defeat as before ringing at its edges. “Though I will not thank You for it.”

  “And can you give it to the Aisling? For it is he who will need your light in the darkness.”

  Dallin’s hands and jaw both clench tight. “Then this is a test wasted. Wil already has it—he never had to ask.”

  Despite Dallin’s obvious anger, She smiles. “Ah, but does the Aisling?”

  Dallin frowns, blinks, looks at Wil like he’s got some kind of answer for him, and… maybe he does. Dallin is splitting himself in two, his love of Wil in conflict with his duty to the Aisling.

  “Wil is only a name I borrowed,” he tells Dallin softly. “Aisling is what I’ve always been. If you would choose one of the two…” He pauses, shrugs helplessly. “I’m afraid only one is real.”

  Dallin stares at him for quite a while, eyes slightly narrowed. “I choose you,” he finally says. “I always have done.”

  Wil hadn’t realized how tense he’d gone, waiting for that answer. His breath whooshes out of him in a long, audible sigh. Dallin shakes his head. “How could you have thought else?” he asks gently. He doesn’t wait for Wil to answer, and good job, too, because Wil wouldn’t be able to give one anyway. Dallin turns his gaze back to the Mother. “I have sworn service to the Aisling and I meant it. He holds my faith and my fate, and I hold all of what he chooses to give me.”

  That eyebrow goes up again, and She shrugs. “Then all is well, is it not?” Dallin’s fists clench tighter, but Her expression turns soft and as loving as it had been when She’d held Wil inside her forever-embrace. “What is your name?” She asks.

  Dallin sighs, lifts his chin, and looks at Her straight. “I am Dallin Brayden, son of Ailen and Aldercy, Guardian to the Aisling.”

  “And where is home?” She presses.

  Wil is expecting to hear “Lind,” but Dallin steps a little closer to him, takes his hand, says, “Home is where the Aisling leads; I follow by his will,” and Wil… has absolutely nothing to say to that. He doesn’t think he could speak now if he wanted to, and he really doesn’t want to.

  “Ah, you have remembered your name,” She tells Dallin, satisfied, and without so much as a flick of Her eye in warning, She reaches out, swipes a thumb over Dallin’s right cheek. He gasps—shock and pain both—jerks back with a growling curse rumbling behind his clenched teeth. He snatches his hand from Wil’s and presses it to where She’s just touched, wincing. “Take up your Task, Guardian,” She commands. “Lind awaits, the Father awaits, and the enemy wi
ll not. Remember who you are, remember what you believe, and where you lay your faith. You cannot fail, for so very much depends on you.”

  Right, Wil thinks bleakly, no pressure.

  She pauses, smiles at Wil. “Hand him your keys, and with them, your belief. If it is strong enough to bind, it is strong enough to free. All cages are not prisons.”

  She reaches out, both hands extended, palms-up, toward Wil. He doesn’t even have time to reach back, think about what it means, before it all hits him, a hammer-blow to the soul.

  Pressure builds, like a low growl rumbling in a giant’s chest, except he can’t hear it with his ears. He feels it through his ribs, in his head, pulsing against his skull. Everything he’d given Her before is now shoved back at him, wound through and boosted a thousandfold with Her own power, too big for him, too huge for his small mind and body to take in. Mind-bending, soultearing, and unbearably crushing. Pain—blinding, overwhelming, and all at once—grinding into every inch of him, inside and out, and he doesn’t know if it’s going to mash him to pulp or make him explode, and it doesn’t really matter, because it’ll all work out the same. He screams—he thinks he screams, he can’t tell, maybe not, because he has no breath, so how could he?—then goes to his knees. He’s never felt torment so pure and piercing, an ecstasy of agony, and he twists inside it like a worm on a hook, helpless.

  Voices resonate from the Threads themselves, set them vibrating, and it only adds to the shrilling in his head. It’s like the land gathering at him, but worse, so much worse, because this isn’t only the land, but the world, every voice shouting at him, every thought pounding into his mind like it’s his or it should be, like he knows everything—all of it and all at once—and it’s too much, he can’t take it all. He can feel it battering into him, crushing him from the inside-out, and he screams again, means to beg Her to take it away, it’s killing him—

  And then Dallin is there, taking his hands, stilling it all between one breath and the next. Wil is stunned and shocky, dizzy and weak, like he’s just been drowning and now suddenly isn’t anymore. Dallin’s hands are lifting him up, dragging him close, keeping a firm hold, and waiting patiently until Wil opens his eyes, meets Dallin’s steady gaze. The new Mark on Dallin’s cheek is already scarred over, but red and angry-looking. His eye is red-rimmed and watery, like the Mark hurts but not badly—just enough pain so he doesn’t forget it’s there.