Aisling 2: Dream

by Carole Cummings

  “Aren’t you up yet?” Dallin’s voice, somewhere between teasing and exasperated. A low murmur from Calder that Wil couldn’t make out, then Dallin again:

  “He’s not a consumptive foundling, y’know. And no one needs that much sleep.”

  Wil smirked and rolled his eyes. In fact, he could’ve done with another several hours, but not because of weariness. It was just nice to have the rare luxury of lounging. Especially considering all the energy he’d expended last night.

  He snorted again, still-bleary gaze catching on the little cupboard that had been beside the bed before they’d moved it. The sardonic curl of his mouth turned to a genuine smile. Dallin had left tea. And what looked like several of those ham rolls Shaw had made the other day and over which Wil had nearly gone into an ecstasy of appreciative scrummy noises that might have embarrassed him if anyone but Shaw had heard them.

  Breakfast in bed. Well, sort of. Kind of left there going cold, and he’d have to actually haul his arse up to reach it all. But still.

  “Are you alive down there?”

  Dallin’s voice again, chiding but with a generous ration 237

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  of good-humor beneath it. Wil could almost see the smile Dallin was likely trying to hide from Calder, couldn’t help but answer it with one of his own.

  There it was again. Complete and total sap. One good night and he comes over all wittering idiot. All right, one really good night. But still.

  Wil flopped down to his back, stared up at the ceiling, stretched one more time. “Sort of,” he called back.

  “Well, get your arse up and moving, yeah? We’ve got work to do.”

  A grumbling sigh gusted from out Wil’s chest, and he sat, rubbing at his eyes. Peered dubiously at the teapot, but more favorably at the food. Neither tea nor Dallin’s prodding would probably be enough to move him, but those ham rolls were doing the trick. He snatched up pants and trousers from the floor, slid himself into both, and slouched across to his breakfast. He had one roll stuffed half-in and half-out of his mouth, another in his hand, and one arm through the sleeve of his shirt, when Dallin’s bulk eclipsed the doorway.

  “Sleep well?” he wanted to know. The question was casual, the tone mildly curious. Dallin’s face looked almost boyish now, without that stupid beard. His eyes, though…

  Wil made himself busy hunting for his other sleeve dangling over his shoulder-blade, ducking his head to keep Dallin from seeing his cheeks flare pink. His mouth was full, so he only nodded and shot a look sideways…

  paused. Slowed his movements, stretching more than he needed to, arching his back the slightest bit as he angled himself into the other sleeve.

  Dallin’s eyes were narrowing, one corner of his mouth curling up the slightest bit. “You,” he said, quiet and a little bit hoarse, “are bloody evil.”

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  so he could grin. He’d been looked at with lust before.

  He’d never been looked at like that. He might like the chance to get used to it. Which brought to mind this morning’s plans. Surprisingly, the thought failed to mute the grin.

  “Get rid of Calder?”

  “Finally.” Dallin rolled his eyes. “And I’ve asked that he keep Shaw and himself away until we say so. I think it’s best we take care of this ourselves, if we can.”

  Wil had to agree. He didn’t think Calder was a bad man, but he didn’t trust him entirely, either. Betrayal wore many faces, in Wil’s experience, and not all of them had evil intent behind them; sometimes it wore the face of kindness and good intentions.

  He took a sip of his tea. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “C’mon down the hall,” Dallin told him with a gesture of his big hand. “We can get started while I finish cleaning the guns.”

  Wil nodded. “Be right there.” Dropping the cup to the cupboard, he finished buttoning his shirt, made a quick visit to the privy, then grabbed up both plate and cup from his room and headed down the passageway.

  Dallin was crouched on the floor, when Wil got there, inspecting the array of semi-assembled weapons taking up half the floor. Wil decided to forgive the fact that Dallin had apparently ransacked his room while he’d been dead to the world, looking for the other half of the arsenal that Wil had stashed in coat pockets and pack. This sight was worth any imagined invasion. Wil remembered the ritual cleaning and checking back in Dudley and breathed an unconscious little sigh. Dallin had said they were leaving tonight, but this confirmed it. Wil had been feeling itchy to move himself—though, apparently not as itchy as Dallin—and this spectacle seemed to set to rest nerves he hadn’t even known were twitching.

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  “Can I help?”

  “D’you remember how to disassemble and clean the shotgun?”

  Wil lowered himself cross-legged to the floor across from Dallin, guns and gun bits splayed between them.

  He put the plate and cup to the side and snatched up one of the soft, oily cloths. “So… how do we go about all…

  this?”

  “Here, these need to stay with you.” Dallin handed over the sack of ammunition Wil remembered from the smith’s stall when they’d first arrived. “I’ve kept the knife we bought.”

  That last was a little subdued. Wil let it pass without comment. Any conversation involving knives seemed to rest precariously atop a mountain of explosives, and he wasn’t up to treading that carefully just now—not before he’d had at least one cup of tea, anyway. He checked the safety on the rifle, cracked the stock and emptied the live shells.

  “I think what we need to do first,” Dallin said, peering one-eyed through the cylinder of the larger of the two handguns, “is to figure out what you’d like to play with.”

  He snapped his wrist, clicking the cylinder into the body of the gun then laying it aside.

  Wil’s eyebrows went up. “Play with?”

  Dallin shrugged. “We already know you can make it rain. We need to perfect that one, but it’s there, you know how to do it, so let’s focus on another. Now, if I had my preference—” He cut himself off. “But this is your preference. What would you like to try?”

  Wil’s mouth twisted as he pulled until the forearm snapped out, then he set it aside. He didn’t even really have to think about his answer. “Fire.”

  A low snort from Dallin and a shake of his head.

  “How did I know?”

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  “Don’t be jealous, now,” Wil chided with a smirk. “If you’re very good, we’ll drag out what’s lurking in you next.”

  He’d meant it as a joke, but it made the smile slip from Dallin’s face. He shifted uncomfortably. Cleared his throat. “All right, fire, then.” Setting aside guns and gun bits, Dallin stood and paced over to dig several thick beeswax candles from out his pack. He lit one from the sconce next the door.

  Wil had to chuckle. “What don’t you have in there?”

  he wanted to know.

  Dallin ignored him, merely waved a hand. “Come away from the shells and try to aim… whatever out the door.” He lifted an eyebrow at Wil and nodded at the flame. “Let’s see what you can do with that.”

  Wil frowned as he slid himself over and away from the ammunition. “Do?”

  “Well, yes. Do.” Dallin nodded again, encouraging.

  Wil rolled his eyes. Dallin was standing there like he fully expected Wil to just blink his eyes and make the flame change colors or something. And Wil didn’t even know where to bloody start.

  “I don’t know how to do,” Wil told him, annoyed.

  “And you won’t unless you give it a try,” Dallin retorted. He sighed concession. “All right, how did you make it rain?”

  “Well,

  I don’t know.” Wil was getting sincerely narked now. “I was asleep, in case you forgot.” He paused, blinked. “D’y
ou think I have to be asleep for it to work?”

  “You weren’t asleep in Old Bridge.”

  Wil slumped a little. “Well, no, but… I wasn’t exactly—”

  “Ah-ah,” Dallin cut in. “No beating yourself up today, we haven’t the time for it. You weren’t asleep in Old Bridge, and you certainly weren’t asleep in Dudley when 241

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  you questioned that man. And let’s don’t forget last night at the stable.” He tone was still lightly reproachful about that one. “Think about that, and see if they’re the same.

  That is…” His brow screwed up. “See if they… come from the same place, I suppose.” He paused, groping for the right words, face brightening when he found them:

  “Take what you did last night and direct it at the flame.”

  Wil blinked, all annoyance leaving him with this new proposal. Again, like it had been in that cell in Dudley, it struck him how Dallin seemed to take something that seemed so overwhelmingly complex and boil it all down to something as simple and fundamental as breathing.

  Wil raised his eyebrows, blew out a soft little, “Huh,”

  and nodded. “All right, then. Let’s try.”

  Dallin curled a satisfied little smile, surprisingly eager.

  “Right here, then.” He waved at the candle.

  “Um…” Wil laid aside the pieces of the gun still in his hand. “D’you think it’s wise to be holding it in your hand?”

  Dallin’s eyebrows went up. “Oh.” He shot a dubious look at the candle and grimaced. “Right. Good thinking.”

  Crouching down in the doorway, he tipped the candle and let a small pool of wax gather on the floor, then set the base of the candle to it. Prudently, he stepped back and came to hunker at Wil’s side. “All right, that’ll do it, then. Go on. Oh, wait.” He got up again, stepped lightly over to the cupboard beside the bed. Wil hadn’t noticed before, but there were three pitchers crowding the top and another four on the floor beside it; the blanket from the bed was in a wet heap right next to it all. Wil raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment when Dallin grabbed up a pitcher and the blanket and resumed his position beside him. “All right, ready now.” He nodded at the candle. “Go on, then.”

  Wil hesitated. Despite the lightness of his mood, the 242

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  air of potential discovery that had been curling through him since he’d walked into the room, now that it came to it, anxiety was beginning to seep into his nerves and set them humming.

  “Go on, he says.” Wil rolled his eyes again. “If it works, at least I’ll come in handy for campfires.”

  That wide hand landed on his shoulder, squeezed.

  “I’m right here,” Dallin offered, steadfast.

  Wil sucked in a long, deep breath, tried to shake some of the creeping tension out of himself with a full-body shudder, but it was apparently set to hang on for a while.

  So was that hand. He turned to Dallin, a variation of that same childish request on his tongue, but he couldn’t hold it back: “Don’t go away.”

  The eyes said it first—fierce, determined and… just there. And then the words came to reinforce it: “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Wil didn’t even chastise himself for how heartening it was. He nodded, turned his gaze to the flame.

  Let the world drop away, let everything but the candle settle into a fuzzed peripheral haze. Caught the slivers of color and light that sang from the flame’s heart and reached for them.

  Pushed.

  There was no give—there didn’t have to be. Everything was already wide open, like it had been waiting for him.

  He opened himself wide. Let it come.

  Not nearly as intrusive as the other. Not nearly as terrifyingly sensual.

  It was just as greedy and gluttonous. It wanted just as much.

  It was… strange. The same and yet different. There were threads here, too—why had he never seen that before? why had it never occurred to him to look?—

  but with a different sort of life inside them. Mindless 243

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  and primal. Frighteningly empty, and yet with so much strength inside it.

  Patterns. He could actually see them, could see how they worked, could see how they twined about themselves to make a whole, and then changed in less than an eyeblink, made new shapes to fit into old patterns, winding themselves into an entirely new whole, only to unmake themselves in another making.

  I think there’s so much more that if you’re not very careful in how you use it, you could lose yourself.

  Wil stretched himself inside it, reached out forever, and still his grasp was endless.

  Oh, Dallin… you don’t know how very right you were.

  “I can see it,” he heard himself whisper, shook his head a little and breathed a quiet laugh.

  “What do you see?” Dallin asked him softly.

  Wil lifted his hand, traced the shapes with the tip of his finger, fascinated when they swirled and dipped with his own invisible touch. A chaos of color, right at his fingertips, bending to his will. The flame stretched and churned, reaching impossibly halfway up the doorjamb for a moment until Wil dipped his hand, flattened the flare so it fanned out, spat when it touched the wax.

  “I can see how it works,” Wil answered. “I can see its heart. I can touch it. It’s fierce and hungry. It wants to stretch and breathe, eat everything in its path. It loves the burning.”

  Wil loved the burning. It was as though it were a part of him, an extension of his own body— No. An extension of his soul. It knew when he wanted it to jump. It knew when he wanted it to kindle down to only a spark at the end of its wick. It wanted to stretch at the end of his hand. It wanted him to flick his fingers and send it leaping out, free it to its hunger.

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  It wanted in. It wanted to eat the emptiness he left behind as he swallowed it.

  It was amazingly, mind-blowingly beautiful.

  “Don’t hold back,” Dallin told him. “Go ahead and push.”

  …you could lose yourself…

  A jolt of fear shot through Wil, and he shook his head, eyed the flame with wary distrust. “Um… I’m not sure—”

  “The bleeding comes when you hold it back. Let it go.

  See what happens.”

  “It’s too greedy,” Wil protested. Pressure was building at the backs of his eyes, sending a thumping pulse through his temples. “It wants… everything.”

  Dallin’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “It’s only a candle,” he assured Wil. “It can’t do any damage. Holding back will damage you. Now push.”

  He didn’t understand. He couldn’t see the patterns.

  Couldn’t see how ravenous it was. How could he not see it? It was so bright it was blinding Wil.

  “I can’t,” Wil insisted. He was warm— hot—the flame pulsing erratic, an echo of his own heart. And he couldn’t pull it back this time. The fire might come with it and burn him from the inside-out. “It’s too big.”

  Its reality hung behind it, looming vast and bright as a sun, voracious. Crept into the crevices of his Self and boiled his blood. Its heart was a sun, just as huge and blindly hungry, but trapped at the end of a wick, trying to stretch beyond its own form.

  It saw the little piles of ammunition scattered about them, a driving desire for the taste of gunpowder, and laughed its crackling laugh when it felt him knowing. Felt him wanting it, too.

  And it was starting to hurt.

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  me, I won’t let anything happen. Push it, Wil. I know you can do this— you know you can do this. Push it.”

  Wil latched onto the confidence in the voice, twitched his shoulder just so he could feel the weight of Dallin’s hand shift against his skin beneath the linen of his shirt.

  He didn’t pus
h; it was too big for that—he clenched his teeth and shoved.

  If he hadn’t already been sitting down, the great whoosh and flare would’ve sent him to his arse. As it was, he fell back against Dallin, sent him half-reeling sideways with a startled grunt, but that hand never let go.

  “Bloody

  hell,” Dallin breathed as they watched the fire reach out through the doorway, fan over the wall of the passageway and flare toward the ceiling then thin and choke itself on stone and mortar. A scrim of smoke wafted about them as the flame weakened then sputtered broodingly over the splash of wax and wick, all that was left of the ruined candle. One tiny blue spark floated in a liquid carcass of milky beeswax, and even that only lived a few seconds longer.

  They sat silent, staring, watched the smoke fade to a thin haze at the ceiling. Listened to the hiss and final faint pop from the corpse of the candle. Blinked stupidly, wonderingly, and tried to re-hinge their jaws.

  The force had knocked them both back, Dallin’s hip upending the pitcher when he’d landed. He sat now in a puddle of water, trousers dark and sopping. And he didn’t even seem to notice.

  “So,” Dallin managed after a moment, a little thin and strained. “That went well.”

  Wil couldn’t help it—he barked out a laugh. Dallin just stared at him with eyes gone comically wide. Wil threw himself into the broad chest and laughed again, louder this time, maybe a little bit wild, but genuine humor and relief beneath it.

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  He hadn’t burnt the place down. It hadn’t eaten him.

  He didn’t hurt. And…

  He reached up, swiped at his nose, fingers coming away with nothing more sinister coating the tips but a trace of gun oil. He pulled back and waggled them at Dallin with a slightly hectic grin.

  Dallin puffed an edgy little chuckle as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Well,” he told Wil, peering up at the sooted ceiling and then down to the pool of wax. He smirked. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t start with the torches.”

  Not only the ceiling but the passageway wall and floor were singed by the time Dallin peered at Wil, judged him pale, and deemed they’d played at pyromania enough for today. They’d had to use four of the pitchers—and the blanket, when one of the lamps out in the hallway had exploded—and they hadn’t even chanced anything bigger than the candles.