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“Oh, har,” Wil groused, though he smirked a little, hands strong but gentle on Dallin’s shoulder as he helped him turn over. “Watch yourself, Constable,” he murmured as he slid himself down beside the cot and angled Dallin’s arm across his shoulders, “I know where you sleep.”

When Dallin next came awake, it was Calder who sat beside him, only he hunkered in one of the rickety wooden chairs, and not on the floor as Wil tended to do.

He didn’t smile when he saw Dallin was awake, only lifted his eyebrows, reached to the side and poured water into a mug. Calder didn’t offer to hold it for him, just put it into 159

The Aisling Book Two Dream

Dallin’s hands, eyeing the bit of a tremor with something just shy of scorn when Dallin accepted the cup.

There were all kinds of things Dallin could have told Calder, all sorts of defenses:
The raid, she sent me away,
no one came looking for me, how was I supposed to
know?
He didn’t bother. Calder was just as fanatical and rigid in his beliefs as those men from the Brethren were, so any negation would be a waste of breath. And Dallin didn’t necessarily give a shit what Calder thought. The only person who had a right to condemn or pardon him was Wil, and he’d proffered his acquittal before Dallin’s failures had even been made plain—done it when he’d slipped his shoulder beneath Dallin’s and tried to help him off his knees in a dim, stinking alley.

“Funny, how the lad’s bruises healed overnight.”

Calder looked at Dallin expectantly. Dallin felt no compulsion whatsoever to rise to that expectation, so he kept silent.

“He told me where he came by the name,” Calder offered, gruff voice flat.

For reasons he didn’t examine, Dallin took a sniff of the water before allowing himself a slow sip, and he didn’t try to hide it, either: warm and tinny, but if there was anything else in it, it had no taste or odor. Suspicious and over-cautious, but at the moment, he didn’t think there was any such thing. He didn’t trust Calder for a moment. “Did he?” was all he said.

They’d never got around to how Wil had come upon those papers and taken the name of the man to whom they’d belonged. So many other, more urgent matters had crowded out their importance, and then Dallin had been too busy avoiding thinking about dreams to give anything else room.

“He was a good lad,” Calder said quietly, gaze falling to his hands and hanging there. “My Wilfred. A good 160

Carole Cummings

man.” His shrug was small, despondent. “Seeker.” It was said with some bit of awe that Dallin could easily share. A task at least as dangerous as what his own was apparently to be, for the men and women who took it on did so without even knowing the dangers they faced, nor why they faced them, only that the Old Ones asked it, and so they complied. “I didn’t want him to go, but how could I ask him not to?
I
?” Calder shook his head. “It was when I felt him pass that I sent for Shaw to cut my Marks, and when they were gone, I left the Bounds and began to Seek.” He lifted his head, fixed Dallin with an even stare. “He said he had entrusted his tale to you; that if you chose to tell me, he would abide it.”

Dallin looked down and blew out a long breath. His own father had worn the Marks of the
Weardas
. Dallin might not remember everything he should about Lind, but he knew what pride was tangled up in the Marks for those who wore them. To lose the Marks of the Old Ones themselves, to actually cut them away, compelled by duty and the love of a son lost… it must have been devastating. And yet, was it reason enough to hand this man Wil’s secrets?

“My son died within feet of him,” Calder went on, low and with just a slight wobble inside it. “From what he says, he was running away, says he didn’t know, didn’t see, that Wilfred must’ve stepped in front of whoever was chasing him. Says he didn’t know there’d been violence done until he doubled back to lose his pursuers and found…” He didn’t choke or sob, but the emotion in his expressionless face was like a spike through Dallin’s heart. “Says he didn’t know, says it wasn’t him, but…”

Calder paused, cleared his throat. “But Wilfred found him, y’see, found him when he didn’t want to be found, and I’ve looked straight at death in that man’s eyes. You can’t tell me he wouldn’t—”

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“I can tell you exactly that,” Dallin cut in gently. “I won’t tell you he isn’t capable—he’s more than that. I will tell you that if he said it wasn’t him, then it wasn’t him.

He doesn’t lie.”

Slowly, Calder looked up and pointed a trenchant stare at Dallin. Said, “Tell me.”

Dallin did. Everything.

Calder sat staring at his hands for quite a while, tanned brow twisted in thought. Or perhaps worry. He stood with a bit of a grunt and stretched his back. Still frowning, he turned to Dallin.

“He’s insane, you know.”

Dallin scowled, shook his head. “You’ve only just met him.”

“I could tell you the same thing without
ever
having met him.” One big hand opened, waved vaguely. “No one could have lived through that and
not
gone insane.”

“Which only makes him unique,” Dallin argued. The blind surety of Calder tweaked Dallin’s anger, indignant on Wil’s behalf. “You can’t judge him by your own standards. I’ve spent time with him; I’ve seen his mind work. He may not walk the same lines of sanity others do, but he does amazingly well, and better than some whose sanity would never even be questioned.” His voice was rising, so he paused and took a breath. “Look,” he said more calmly, “we’re talking about a person who has escaped an unhinged life, dragged off his own path before he’d even had a chance to mark it, and managed to define his own standards of sanity, against every odd imaginable. It may not be the same as yours, but that doesn’t make it any less legitimate.”

Calder looked at him keenly. “Your defense seems a 162

Carole Cummings

bit… strident.”

“Maybe so,” Dallin admitted. “But it’s past time someone defended him at all. If it seems strident to you—”

“He’s an addict,” Calder cut in flatly. “He still wants it. I
saw
him wanting it.”

“And likely will for the rest of his life,” Dallin retorted.

“But he didn’t get himself addicted to leaf at the age of bloody
six
out of choice, and he didn’t take it when you oh-so-kindly offered it, did he?”

“And how long d’you think that’ll last?” Calder wanted to know. “If I offered it to him right now—”

“Then you’d best hope I haven’t a gun within reach.”

Through his teeth now. Dallin’s blood was pounding, throbbing hot behind his brow. How
dare
the man. Dallin pushed himself up, leaned forward, locked a glare on Calder. “Have you ever seen someone coming down from leaf? Ever seen them twist with muscle spasms, stomach cramps, tremors, sweats? Ever watched the agony, heard the screams? Most don’t even live through it.” His lip curled up in a snarl he couldn’t have helped if he’d tried.

“If I respected the man for nothing else, the fact that he didn’t stumble out from Old Bridge and right into a leaf den would be enough. The further fact that he’s been on his own for three years, living in the sorriest state of poverty
I’ve
ever seen, and didn’t end up dead from an overdose is
more
than enough.” He let his eyes narrow, let the threat inside them flare out plainly. “I
ever
catch you making that offer—even talking about it to him—

and
his
sanity isn’t the one you’ll need to worry about.”

Calder’s jaw was tight, his eyes hard. “Have you any idea what kind of power we’re dealing with here? D’you know what could happen if that man’s mind broke?” He held his hands out, palm-up. “Your responsibility is not only to him.”

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Dallin’s blood went from hot to cold all at once, dropping like lead to his belly. Calder had said it like he was talking about putting down a dog that had gone rabid, that same righteous look in his eye as those men from the Brethren.

“You,” Dallin said slowly, “are not the Guardian.

You’ve no call or right to even
consider
it.”

“And you
are
the Guardian?” Calder shook his head with that same derisive curl of his lip he’d turned on Dallin when he’d offered him water earlier. “You don’t even know what it is.”

“And I imagine you’re sure you do,” Dallin snapped, deliberately allowing every bit of scorn that was needling his nerves into his tone. “People like you…” He set his jaw, hands clenching into fists. He wondered suddenly where his guns were, wondered where Wil was, and hoped he was still clinging to that rifle. “I’ve seen your sort a little too often,” he told Calder slowly. “You’re no better than any of those men he’s been dealing with all his life. And I’ll tell you this: the fact that he runs from people like you is the best marker of sanity I’ve seen in him yet. So bloody sure you
know
, so bloody sure there’s only one right answer and you’re the one who’s got it.”

Calder’s color was up now, eyes blazing. “Not the only one,” he contended heatedly. “Generations of—”

“Generations of pious certainty, right, yes, I know,”

Dallin seethed. “Generations of secrecy and silence that contributed directly to Siofra’s ability to kidnap your Aisling and keep him drugged and dreaming against his will, right before the unsuspecting eyes of the whole of Ríocht for bloody
decades
.” He tilted his head. “You and your Old Ones—when you discovered your Aisling was gone, stolen, what did you do? Did you check with the sheriffs and constabularies? Hire bounty hunters or even an independent canvasser?” He snorted derision. “No, 164

Carole Cummings

you didn’t—you sent men who had no idea what they were even looking for out to their deaths.
Useless
deaths.

“I lived in Putnam for almost
thirty bleeding years
—I wasn’t hiding, I didn’t change my name—and no one once came along asking why an obvious Linder was so far from Lind. If your search for Wil was as half-arsed, and from what I’ve seen I’m pretty sure it was, then you people are the last ones who have any right to question a damned thing about him, let alone presume to judge his sanity against your own insane standards.”

“‘You people,’” Calder echoed. “Is that what we are, then? And what does that make you?”

You have forgotten your name.

Dallin shook his head.

Yeah? Well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

He thought about Calder’s question… decided Wil’s words suited best for an answer: “I am what I’ve made myself,” he told Calder. “And Wil is what he’s made
him
self. We are neither of us your creatures, and you don’t get to decide to execute him because you don’t like his version of sanity.”

“Sometimes our responsibilities are unpleasant,”

Calder replied slowly. “That doesn’t make us any less responsible.” His eyes narrowed. “If you knew the power—”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Dallin cut in. It wasn’t a lie; he had his suspicions, had seen and felt the edges of that power in its near-physical manifestation in that cell in Dudley, and again inside his own dreams. And anyway, he was pissed and loath to give Calder the satisfaction of superior knowledge. “And the fact that he’s not used it to burn the world, despite having every reason to despise it and everyone in it, should be enough proof—”

“Because

he
doesn’t know his power yet!” Calder shouted. “And if nothing else, I can give Siofra credit for 165

The Aisling Book Two Dream

that much—he kept it buried, and likely for exactly that reason!”

Dallin boggled. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me that anything that man did was
right
?” He shook his head, filled with crawling disgust. “You know, I must say that I’ve wondered why the Mother hadn’t just gone to one of the Old Ones, told you where I was, told you where Wil was, made everyone’s lives a little easier.”

A slow nod this time. “Now I think I see why She came to me instead.”

That stopped Calder dead. “
She
…?” His eyes widened.

Dallin couldn’t be positive, but Calder may have even paled beneath his leathery tan. “You’ve seen Her?”

It wasn’t just surprise—it was
shock
. And without even really thinking about it, Dallin knew what it meant.

You haven’t done, at least not in this. You’re working
even more blind than I am.
He rubbed at his brow, edging
this close
to real abhorrence.
You spout these things like
She’s whispered them into your own ear, and yet you’ve
less of an idea what it is She really wants than I do. You
wouldn’t listen if She told you.

You’re no bloody better than the rest of them.

Dallin pinched at the bridge of his nose, snorted disdain. “I’ve my orders from
Her
,” he told Calder, perhaps a bit more snidely than necessary. “And you’ll understand if I choose to take Her word for what She wants, rather than yours. And what She wants is for me to take care of Her Gift. Which, I must assume, means I shouldn’t allow fanatical zealots who think they know better to put him down because he scares them and they don’t know what to do with him.” He sat back, kept the glare. “If you’ve a problem,” he said evenly, “I suggest you take it up with Her.”

Even though we both know you can’t.

Calder was silent for several long moments, confused 166

Carole Cummings

fuming. Then he uncurled hands that had gone fisted, nodding slowly. He bowed his stiff neck and placed a hand over his heart.

“Forgive me, Guardian,” he said, steady and respectful.

“I do not question the Mother’s Purpose, and I should not have questioned yours.” His head dipped lower. “I am,”

he went on with sincere deference, “at your service.”

Dallin stared, blinked. He didn’t know just what to say yet, so he stayed silent.

“I have assumed and presumed.” Calder looked at Dallin straight. “If you cannot pardon me, allow me to offer atonement—allow me to help you prepare for what you must face. It is the best recompense I can offer.”