Aisling 2: Dream

by Carole Cummings

  Carole Cummings

  waved a hand and scattered them to ash.

  He knows your purpose, Calder told him gravely. And yet he gives you his trust. He shook his head, sadness and condemnation both. He was weaned on betrayal—would you cage him now? And then he held out his hand, a tiny, golden frog perched in the middle of his palm, its bulbous little eyes staring bold and unblinking at Dallin.

  I won’t betray him, Dallin had argued, stung. I wouldn’t, but he was standing in a boat now, the river rising and roiling, and again he couldn’t make himself heard. And then it didn’t matter, because someone was shooting at him. Dallin’s own guns were in his hands then, aiming at the ashes of the skeletons, when Shaw shook him awake.

  He didn’t wake groaning or cursing—there was no point anymore—he merely blinked away the blurriness.

  Wordless, Dallin dragged himself up and let Shaw poke at the bandages, marvel and remark upon how quickly he was healing, then tsk and evade the question when Dallin asked if Shaw might be persuaded to find or buy him some clothes.

  “Eat your supper,” Shaw chastised lightly and pushed a tray at him.

  Dallin sighed, tucked into the bread and the fish crusted in pepper. Wil had said he’d see what he could do about clothes, so Dallin decided to leave him to it.

  He obviously had a better rapport with Shaw than Dallin did. He took a sip of weak white wine.

  “Where’s Wil?” he wanted to know.

  Shaw frowned, peering about the small room, as though he thought perhaps Wil was skulking in a corner and he’d simply overlooked him. “I don’t know,” he told Dallin. “I thought he’d be here. He’s not been?”

  There was no reason in the world for Dallin’s stomach to dip down like it did; no reason for his mind to start 177

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  racing off in every cynical direction. “No,” he replied steadily. “Calder?”

  Shaw waved a hand. “Never can tell with that one.”

  There was a bang then some shuffling and low mutters from the passageway, and Shaw turned to flip a sly wink at Dallin. He tipped his chin toward the doorway. “Like a ghost, sometimes—comes and goes.”

  “More coming than going just now,” Calder growled as he lumbered over the threshold, prodding a stone-faced Wil in front of him.

  Dallin hadn’t realized how very sure he was that something terrible was in the process of happening, until he almost shuddered with relief at the sight of Wil.

  Strange, how Wil skiving off wasn’t the first thing that sprang to Dallin’s mind anymore.

  They had their coats on. Wil’s cheeks were red, and his eyes glistened as though he’d been out in the cold. And it was the first time Dallin had seen him shod since they’d arrived.

  Dallin was almost afraid to ask, but he did anyway:

  “Where’ve you been?” And then the packs caught his eye.

  He winced. “Oh, hell.” He shot Wil a glare. “What did you do?”

  “I did as you said,” Wil replied brusquely—even grinned a little. “I took advantage.”

  Dallin’s mouth dropped open. “I said to let the matter of the packs go—in fact, I’m pretty sure those were my exact words. What part did you not understand?”

  “I took care of myself,” was the pointed retort. “And you. You’ve clothes now. Here.” He pulled Dallin’s pack away from Calder, half-dragged it over to the cot, and dumped it to the mattress with a strained grunt. “And it wasn’t easy,” Wil told Dallin with a bit of a glower toward Calder.

  Calder rolled his eyes and turned to Shaw, who was 178

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  watching it all with a small smile hidden behind his long fingers. “Would you excuse us?”

  Shaw merely jerked his head toward Dallin. “Make sure he eats it all. And he’s not drinking enough.” With a stifled snort, Shaw quit the room.

  Calder wasted no time: he turned to Wil, barked, “It was plenty easy after you pulled that trick with—” He sputtered and turned to Dallin. “Did you know he could do that?” He snapped back around to Wil and pointed at Dallin. “Why don’t you tell your Guardian how you’ve been using your magic?”

  Dallin looked at Wil with narrowed eyes. You didn’t.

  But the smug look Wil gave back told Dallin that yes, indeed he had. Dallin rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell.”

  “To put it lightly,” Calder agreed.

  Dallin ignored him. “Are you all right?” he asked Wil.

  The last time Wil had got someone to bend to his will that way, after all, he’d ended up gushing a couple pints of blood from his nose.

  “It was just a little push,” Wil defended. “I just needed the lad to tell me where the packs were and then forget he saw me, that’s all.”

  Dallin’s teeth clenched. “Wil—”

  “A little nosebleed,” Wil put in quickly. “Teeny-tiny, it was nothing. And it wasn’t like in Dudley—the boy’s fine, I swear, ask Calder. Who, by the way,” he went on with a scowl, “was almost no help at all.”

  Calder’s jaw tightened. “If you’d bloody warned me—”

  “Well, if I’d warned you, I would’ve warned him, would I?”

  Dallin was getting a much clearer picture of how events had likely played out than he thought perhaps he wanted.

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  stayed out behind the stable like I told you.” Calder turned to Dallin. “It was safe back there—no reason in the world for him to have followed after, but he wouldn’t stay put.”

  Wil merely continued to scowl, flushing a little. “I wanted to make sure the horses were being cared for,” he retorted. “Like I said.” He turned to Dallin, too. “Miri’s left hock was swelling, and I wanted to make sure they were putting liniment on it. And Sunny gets twitchy if Miri isn’t right there, so I had to make sure they were stalled next to each other.”

  Dallin stared. There were so many things to be addressed in that last exchange, but the first straw he latched onto was: “You named the horses?”

  Wil shrugged, reddening a little more. “Well, no one else did.”

  Dallin scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Which is which?” was all he could think to ask.

  Wil lifted his chin this time, apparently having decided, since he’d accidentally dipped a toe, he might as well swim for it. “Yours is Sunny,” he told Dallin.

  Calder was rubbing at his eyes like he was trying to keep his brain from escaping through the sockets. Wil, on the other hand, was quite proud of himself—had handed over that pack like a cat dropping a dead mole on the front step—and now had a defiant set to his chin Dallin recognized all too well. Dallin couldn’t find the words he’d need to get through to Wil yet, so he turned on Calder instead.

  “What were you thinking?” he wanted to know. “I thought we were staying out of sight.”

  “We

  were out of sight,” Calder defended. “It’s well past dark, and we stayed to the backstreets.”

  “What were you even doing taking him out in the first place? He’s got a pocket full of gilders, for pity’s sake, 180

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  there was no need to take a risk, we could have just as easily—”

  “It was my doing,” Wil cut in boldly. “I told him I was going with or without him, but it would be easier if he came along. Your pack is huge, y’know.” He shot another glare at Calder. “And it would’ve been easier, if Gran’da here hadn’t got all arsy and decided I was some kind of dimwitted bonehead who didn’t know how to put one foot in front of the other without his help.”

  “I think you’re confusing arsy with cautious,” Calder snapped. “A distinction you might do well to learn.”

  It was getting clearer and clearer with every word.

  Dallin could just imagine what the walk back to the temple had been like.

  Wil turned on Dallin, then, snapping a wounded gl
are on him. “D’you think I’m helpless, too?” He waved a hand at Calder. “You sound just like him.”

  “Damn it, Wil, no.” With less effort than he’d expected, Dallin stood and took the few steps over to stand in front of Wil. “You know I don’t think that. But Calder’s right—

  you’ve got to be more cautious than that. I understand that what you’ve got in that pack means a lot to you, but do you understand that you just risked yourself for what amounts to a couple changes of clothes and a few rotting apples? When are you going to understand that you’ve nothing to prove?”

  Dallin actually felt a little sorry for Calder. He styled himself, after all, as some sort of servant to the Aisling, and there the Aisling had been, telling him he had every intention of doing something—well, Dallin might as well call it what it was—something incredibly stupid, and his only choice was to come along. Dallin supposed he should be grateful that Calder hadn’t tried to tackle Wil and chain him to a wall, though he’d’ve been a lot more grateful if Calder had done the wiser thing and woken 181

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  Dallin. Who knew if Dallin would’ve got Wil to leave it, but his chances were a lot higher than Calder’s were.

  Obviously.

  “Perhaps not to you,” Wil told Dallin softly; Dallin slumped, suddenly feeling somehow small and… mean.

  “And we were cautious,” Wil went on, once again grabbing at confidence through what he insisted upon seeing as a job well done. “No one saw us but that lad and he won’t remember any of it.”

  They were getting nowhere. In this sort of mood and with Calder looking on, Wil was never going to admit to Dallin—much less to himself—that anything about this evening had been ill-advised.

  “Anyway,” Wil added, “if we hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t’ve known about the notices.”

  Dallin winced. He didn’t really have to ask—he rather guessed—but he did anyway: “Notices?”

  “The drawings don’t look anything like you,” Wil offered hopefully.

  Calder rolled his eyes again. They must have looked enough like him, Dallin reflected morosely, that at least Wil and Calder had recognized him and identified the placards for what they were—neither one of them, after all, could read.

  It was only with a very determined effort that Dallin held back a groan. He sighed, rubbed some more at his brow. Decided a tactical retreat was the only intelligent strategy right now.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “We need to get ourselves gone, we’ve been here too long already, and wanted bills are only one more reason.” He sat back down on the cot, shifting his glance between Wil and Calder. “We’ve other, more important things to take care of right now, and we need to take care of them before we leave here.” He took a long breath, mentally shifting 182

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  gears, then let his gaze rest on Calder, steady. “We need to decide where we’re going.”

  As expected, Calder frowned, alarmed. “Surely you mean to go to Lind. I’ve already sent ahead for—”

  “We don’t mean to go anywhere until we know what we’re walking into,” Wil cut in, apparently shifting right along with Dallin—perhaps even a little gratefully.

  Certainly more smoothly. He cut his glance to the chair and nodded for Calder to sit; once he did, Wil stepped over to the cot, heaved Dallin’s pack to the floor and sat as well. “You eat,” he told Dallin. “I’ve a feeling you’re going to need your strength.”

  Dallin’s eyebrows went up. Apparently, Wil was taking full advantage of this ‘servant’ thing. Dallin couldn’t say he disagreed with the logic. Anyway, Wil was the one on the line here, so it seemed only fair. Dallin gave Wil a nod, pulled the tray closer and poked at cold fish.

  “He thinks I know more than I do,” he told Wil under his breath. “Let’s try to keep it that way, yeah?” He wasn’t sure exactly why, but it seemed right.

  Wil only quirked his eyebrows a little, dipped a slight nod, and turned to Calder. He paused only briefly as he took a long, deep breath.

  “Does it hurt you that I call myself Wil?”

  Not at all the question Dallin had been expecting. Nor Calder, it seemed; his brow twisted tight for the briefest of seconds before he schooled his mien calm.

  “Not in the way you expect,” he said quietly. “Nor, in truth, in the way I would’ve expected.” He looked at Wil straight. “It… disturbs me that it is the only one you know. And I believe Wilfred would have willingly shared it, had he been able.” His hand came up to lay over his heart. “He would be pleased, and I would be pleased, if you chose to keep it.”

  Wil’s jaw twitched a little, and he swallowed, but that 183

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  was the only outward reaction Dallin saw. Wil dipped his head, said, “Thank you. It would please me, too.” His fingers wound together, clamped tight about themselves.

  “Have I a true name?” It was too soft.

  “The Old Ones have called you Aisling since we joined our cause to yours,” Calder told him. “The old songs of the North Tongue sometimes name you Coimeádaí.”

  “Keeper,” Wil translated aside for Dallin.

  Dallin frowned, but kept silent. Keeper? Of what?

  Wil’s eyebrows twitched, and he peered at Dallin, questioning. Dallin merely shrugged and shook his head the slightest bit. Wil let it go for now. He cleared his throat. “I want to know what your Old Ones are to the Aisling,” he went on. “Why would you think it your right to kill me?”

  Dallin blinked. That was certainly direct.

  Calder looked down, examining his fingernails. “I would never consider it a right,” he said slowly, “nor a pleasure. Say rather… responsibility.”

  “I’ll say nothing of the kind.” Wil’s face was set in stone, his tone just as hard. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

  Calder breathed a leaden sigh, stood, walked a slow circuit about the tiny room before stopping behind the chair. He gripped the back and leaned into it. “This,”

  he waved at the both of them, “has never happened before. Centuries of Watching, Guarding, and nothing so unspeakable has ever befallen our Charge. Since I was ordained, my purpose, my very life, has been you. When the Old Ones heard the cries of young Devon—your first Guardian—you went silent. And so did the Mother and the Father.

  “For more than fifty years, every shaman in Lind has meditated for hours each day, searching, seeking, praying to the Mother and the Father that They might guide 184

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  us, show us, and always They have remained silent. We wondered if perhaps we had displeased Them in some way, wondered if our Task was taken from us, but still, new Guardians were born. So we trained them to their Purpose, sent them out, hoping, and twice we heard the death-song and the new Call.” He looked at Dallin.

  “And then we lost one, unordained. We waited and we watched, and we sent our Seekers, but no new Guardian was born to us, no Call came, and still the Aisling was lost. We feared… so many things.” His gaze went back to Wil. “We never guessed…”

  There was a pause, strained silence, before Wil broke it with quiet absolution: “I don’t ask for apology,” he said somberly. “Only that you help me now.” He leaned forward, nearly beseeching. “Tell me what I need to know. Tell me what I am!”

  Calder’s hands tightened about the back of the chair.

  His head dipped down, beaded braids swaying lightly amidst gray-gold. “You place me in a dilemma.” He peered up from beneath tangled brows. “It is not my place, and yet…” He frowned at Dallin.

  Dallin’s fingers had been busy, making crumbs out of a thick slice of bread. The fish had already suffered a similar fate. He looked down at his hands, took a bite of crust he didn’t really want, and chewed it slowly.

  “If you’re saying it’s my place…” He scowled down at the ruins of his supper and pushed the plate aside. He thought about this one carefully.

 
Calder already saw him as weak; he could see it in those pale blue eyes every time he moved a little too slowly or didn’t cover a tremor quick enough. If Calder thought Dallin wasn’t up to the job of Guardian, would he start speculating about the advantages of putting Dallin out of the way? Calder was capable, certainly; men like him were capable of worse things. After all, one of 185

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  their greatest assets was their ability to defend horrific actions with righteous Purpose. And Dallin had been thinking only a little while ago that he was in over his head, that perhaps Wil might be better served by someone who knew what they were doing. But did Dallin want to give Calder, or someone else like him, even the slightest excuse to usurp him? This man who’d been arguing only hours ago that it might be best for the world if Wil was got out of the way before he realized what he could do?

  What

  could Wil do?—that was the real question. And why did Dallin seem to have a better idea than Wil himself did?

  Dallin’s eyes narrowed.

  He’d seen the power, touched the boundary of it. It had been worlds greater than the paltry thrum that had run through Dallin when he’d held Wil’s broken fingers in his palm. And when he’d said earlier that Wil had yet to burn the world, Calder had responded like it was a real possibility. There had been no surprise; only anxiety at the prospect.

  No. No, the real question was: what would happen to Wil if someone like Calder was there when he found out what he could do?

  …if Gran’da here hadn’t got all arsy and decided I was some kind of dimwitted bonehead…

  It wasn’t an exaggeration, and it wasn’t mere disgruntled grumbling.

  Wil was clay to Calder—to all of the Old Ones, for all Dallin knew. Calder already treated Wil like a child; a holy child, held in reverence, to be sure, but still a child.

  Someone to be molded and perhaps even punished if he didn’t conform to tradition and legend. And when had Wil ever conformed to anything? More worrying still, the argument with Calder earlier told Dallin just how severe a ‘punishment’ these people were willing to carry out in 186