by Ari Marmell
Shins shuddered. Her dear friend was the last person in the world from whom she wanted to hear that level of vitriol. Even Olgun blanched. “Robin,” she began, “we can't. She's too—”
“What about Bishop Sicard's ritual?” Evrard interrupted. Then, at Faustine's puzzled expression, “His Eminence dabbles a bit in magics beyond the priesthood's norm. Last year, when we battled Iruoch, he was able to link us, in pairs, allowing us each to draw on the other's strength and skill.”
“And potentially killing both if one were badly injured,” Igraine reminded him.
“It's not a bad idea,” Shins said, “except…I don't think it'll work. I saw how fast Lisette moved, how unnaturally—worse than Iruoch, in some ways. And her allies can manifest around her. I don't think we could take her even with the ritual, and that's assuming the Gloaming Court couldn't just sever the hopping link.”
“That's very possible,” Renard confirmed. “We had protective wards on the Shrouded Lord's office. They never even triggered; she just walked right through them.” He smiled, then, at Widdershins's double-take. “What, you thought you knew everything there was to know about the Guild?”
“It does make sense,” she whispered at Olgun's protest. “They'd be very well hidden. Even you might have missed them.”
The tiny god managed to convey the distinct impression of crossing his arms and slumping to his seat in a huff.
“You're both right, though,” Shins said thoughtfully. “We need to be stronger, and we need to be more direct. Igraine?”
“Hmm?”
“You said something the other night about the heads of the major Houses still attending Church services, yes? In order to keep up appearances during this whole mess?”
“I did. And I already hate this plan.”
“You don't even know what it is yet!”
“I've heard enough to know I hate it.”
“You haven't,” Shins insisted. “Wait until I've gone through the whole thing,” she added with a wry smile. “Then I promise you'll have heard enough to hate it.”
Shift change at the various station houses, and the buildings all but bled the black and silver: tabards and hats and medallions of Demas, patron deity of the Davillon Guard. This flowing into streets already crowded with workers and crafters, vendors and patrons, racing against the setting sun to see who could reach home first. Men and women came, men and women went, and the result was somewhere between a spinning tornado and a cresting tide.
“There should be a term for that,” Shins whispered to Olgun, crouching at the very edge of a nearby rooftop, precisely midway between an old and worn waterspout gargoyle and a disturbingly broad speckling of old bird droppings. “Something to combine filling up and mixing up at once. Fixing! Wait, that's already a word. Milling? Oh, goose muffins! I think my language is full.”
She might have had more to say on the topic—no, she doubtless had more to say on the topic—but her deity shouted and pointed, or performed his equivalent thereof.
Shins peered down, dubious. “Are you sure? From here, all the guards just look like big floppy hats. All right! I'm sure you can sense it. Excuse the feathers out of me!
“What? No, I don't have feathers in me! You excused them out! Weren't you listening?”
She was already moving, jogging along the rooftop, leaping a narrow side street, keeping their quarry in sight. Widdershins still couldn't actually see anything to mark this one guardsman as different from any of the others, but she recognized him all the same; when Olgun had singled him out, her own senses had latched onto him as well.
Unfortunately, there was precious little even Olgun could do about the growing width of the roads, and thus the widening gaps between buildings. Shins still wasn't at her best, though it wasn't far, now; but even if she had been, some of those jumps were beyond her. Far sooner than she'd have liked, she had to trade in the soaked rooftops for the slightly less soaked cobblestones. The throng of travelers offered plenty of cover, so she wasn't too worried about being spotted. Losing the target, on the other hand…
After a trek that Shins swore should have taken them to the far end of Davillon and back again, the roads began to thin—in terms of width and traffic both—and she decided the man wasn't going to offer a better opportunity than this. Breaking again into a run, she turned down a side street and then another a block ahead, paralleling the main road. With Olgun's assistance, the ground flew by, her feet spraying lingering puddles of rainwater in a wake behind her.
More than fast enough for her to be waiting a few paces down the next side street, when the man she'd been following passed it by.
“Hey! Commandant Archibeque! You dropped your…uh…mustache!”
Said mustache, a thing of iron gray to match the beard, of course still clung to the leathery and leather-hued face that turned her way.
“Yes,” she murmured at Olgun's protest, “I'd rather have jumped him by surprise, too. Main avenue's still too crowded.”
“Is this meant to be a jest?” He took two steps from the intersection, confident but wary. “Because I'm not laughing.”
“Aww, you're not? I thought you were just hiding it really well.”
“Young lady—”
“Oh, stuff the ‘young lady’ nonsense.” Although fairly certain it wasn't necessary, Shins moved half a pace from the wall, ensuring that her face was visible in the light of the setting sun. “You know exactly who I am.
“And more importantly, ‘Commandant,’ I know exactly what you are.”
Fast, so fast! Even with Olgun's magics infusing her vision, she scarcely registered that his hand was in motion before it was already aiming a bash-bang pistol at her chest.
Well, at least he didn't waste our time with the “I don't know what you're talking about” routine…
The partners, one mortal and one otherwise, made no attempt to execute their usual trick for facing a flintlock, not without knowing precisely what the possessing spirit could do. If it was able to ward off Olgun's own power, however briefly, she'd simply be killing herself by forcing the weapon to discharge.
Instead, a second's heartbeat before the bang, she leapt.
No. She soared.
She was sure it must appear impressive, even melodramatic. Her body rising up and back, higher than any human could jump; arms outspread, legs tucked up under her, well above the path of the hurtling ball.
But then, the posture wasn't meant to be melodramatic; that was merely a fringe benefit.
Aiming at the rough lumber that was the nearest wall, Widdershins kicked. And not only with her own strength.
The air around her all but crackled with Olgun's magics, slipping her through a narrow gap in the laws of physics. Many a time before, she had taken a step on nothing, her god's power catching and boosting her. Now that power coursed through her legs, propelling her from the building at impossible speed—but also at an impossible angle. Without the slightest concern for minor details such as inertia, Shins's kick transformed her leap up and back into a forward dive.
Caught completely by surprise, even the fae-ridden guardsman couldn't react. Widdershins plowed into him, a human ballista bolt, slamming him to the hard ground. A quick handspring from his chest, even as he fell, and she was on her feet behind him.
Her heel rose and fell like a headsman's axe, intended to put him good and out, but the unnatural creature wasn't so easily felled, not even by a blow that should have left him too battered to stand. As though his own heels were hinged to the earth, his entire body sprung upward and straightened; a narrow tendril of shadow trailed from his back, propelling him off the ground.
Archibeque spun, rapier whipping free of its scabbard, and Shins drew as well. No pause, no threats. Steel screamed against steel, a chorus of death thwarted and frustrated as each parried the other, only to have every riposte parried in turn.
Back and forth along the street, occasionally swapping places as one flipped or wall-kicked over the other. She th
rust at the man's arm, trying to catch his strike on flesh rather than blade, hopefully rendering the limb useless. It should have worked; he'd need a second elbow to bend out of the path of her rapier, and he had yet to display any of the inhuman flexibility that Lisette had revealed days before.
The commandant's arm broke from within as muscles flexed where they shouldn't, bending at a near right angle between elbow and wrist. The second her blade had passed by and withdrawn, the limb snapped itself back together, the audible crunch of bone fitting back into bone somehow worse than the crack of the break itself.
“Ow!” Shins backed up a pace, initiating the first pause the duel had seen. “Doesn't that hurt?!”
Archibeque grinned so widely the corners of his mouth began to bleed. “Of course it does. But not me.”
Shadows lashed from his fingertips, dancing before her like drunken serpents, and abruptly the entire world went black.
For all of half a second, before Olgun's magic surged once more and cleared the unnatural veil from her sight.
The possessed guardsman had already committed—even overcommitted—to his lunge before he realized that his “victim” wasn't remotely as blind or helpless as she was supposed to be. Had Shins wanted him dead, she could easily have run him through as she sidestepped.
But killing Archibeque was never the plan.
Widdershins's fist, protected by Olgun to keep it from breaking, met the man's jaw at the apex of his lunge. Even that didn't put him out, but it wasn't a blow he—or the creature riding him—could just shrug off, either.
“See,” Shins told him, circling around his sprawled form to stand by his head, “I know that you guys are only kind of here, in Davillon. And I figured you were spending more than a bit of your concentration keeping this poor fellow compliant, yes?
“I bet your jaw hurts, so feel free not to answer. Oh, and sorry about that, Commandant. If you're in there.”
Carefully, watchfully, she knelt beside him, reached into a pouch at her belt, and shoved a handful of dried and powdered leaves in his face. Startled, he inhaled. His entire body spasmed, choking, thrashing, but only briefly. The drug worked fast, and he started to go limp almost immediately.
“I'm thinking you can't drive an unconscious body,” she said. “So either you get to leave—if you even can—and poof on out of here, because you're not even supposed to be in Davillon, and you won't have Archibeque as an anchor. Or you get to come along with me. I'm good either—”
“You! Stay right where…Commandant? Commandant Archibeque's down!”
Shins whimpered something unintelligible. The patrol—and it looked, silhouetted against the light at the end of the street, to be about six of them—must have been near enough to hear the gunshot. The thing behind Archibeque's face began to laugh before unconsciousness finally claimed him.
Slowly standing to face the charging squad of guardsmen, Shins made the only commentary on the situation she possibly could.
“Figs.”
“My friends…” Ancel Sicard, Bishop of Davillon, used those words a lot these days. My friends. And for the most part, he meant it. He cared, truly, for the city he'd been assigned to shepherd.
The city had not, if one were to judge by the clergyman's mien or carriage, showed him the same care in return.
His frame, thin and bent, bore precious little resemblance to the robust barrel of a man who'd assumed the office. The last tiny flecks of pepper had faded from what had formerly been a salt-and-pepper beard, leaving only a snow-white expanse. The same was technically true of the hair atop his head, but it hardly mattered, since most of it was gone, now, leaving only a rough, age-spotted scalp.
But his voice still boomed, when he wished it to, as though the Pact truly spoke through him, and he still wore his determination as a second set of vestments.
As he prepared to wrap up this afternoon's mass, he couldn't help but sneer internally, just a bit, at the vast array of bright hues on display, or at the aroma of uncountable colognes and perfumes. It seemed his audience strove to outshine the stained glass, out-sweeten the ceremonial incense. The aristocracy were Davillon's life, and he well understood the need to maintain appearances, but the knowledge that the most powerful people in his congregation were there for reasons that had little to do with faith left a bad taste in his mouth.
And they were powerful, today especially. Beatrice Luchene, the Duchess Davillon, Voice of Vercoule, and the nearest thing the city's Houses had to a true ruler, had put in an appearance. The rich reds and purples of her finest gown, the intricately coiffed ropes of gray and black that were her hair, probably drew more eyes to the front row of pews than his sermon had drawn to the dais.
Good thing, too, that she was so impossible to miss. Her presence was precisely what Sicard had been awaiting, why he personally led the afternoon mass for the first time in weeks.
“My friends,” he said again, “you do not need me to tell you that Davillon has seen some truly hard times over the past two years. And I assure you, you've no need to remind me that no small part of those troubles were, in part, the fault of our Mother Church.”
More, I fear, than you will ever actually know.
“But today, the Houses, the Church, and the people of this city stand together, in the face of tribulations that, it would appear, are not all entirely of a natural sort. I know you have heard much but confirmed little. I know that fear rides among you on a saddle of whisper and hooves of rumor. And I have been unable to reassure you as well as I would like.”
He stepped forward, to the very edge of the platform. “I make you no promises, but tonight may be the night that changes!” Gasps and hushed murmurs filled the chamber at that, just as he'd intended. He had everyone's attention now.
Attention that would also be directed toward anyone he now addressed.
“I see that we have a great many of Davillon's lords and ladies among us tonight. I invite all of you to come join me at the conclusion of this service, so that we may speak, and I may suggest to you a new plan that might see our city rid of its various tribulations!”
The murmurs were no longer hushed. A cresting wave of sound crashed through the cathedral as congregants wondered amongst themselves. Many gazed at Sicard in unabashed adoration, hopeful for the first time in months. A few others, however—a selection of the matrons and patrons of the noble Houses, specifically—could not entirely disguise their angry glares.
Sicard had trapped them, wholly and utterly. To leave now, to refuse his invitation, would antagonize the common folk. It would appear that the house of whomever declined was uninterested in a possible solution to Davillon's woes.
Some more enthusiastically than others, the highest of the high rose from their seats, leaning over to whisper instructions to assistants or bodyguards.
“I realize, in these troubled times,” the bishop announced, “that some of you might be nervous, considering the impropriety of bringing personal servants or armsmen to accompany you. So please, let me assure you, I have gathered a sizable squad of Church soldiers, who will be present to ensure that no threat can reach you from within or without! Not,” he added, “that I envision any sort of danger appearing within our own ranks.”
Glares turned to outright snarls. Had Sicard openly commanded them not to bring anyone, they might have had room to object. By casting it as a matter of propriety and trust in the Church, he had again made the eyes of the common folk his own enforcers. And surely they understood, as well, that his comment about “threats from within” meant that no political infighting or such misbehavior would be tolerated, either.
Sicard smiled beatifically over his flock, but he couldn't quite suppress a nervous twitch at one corner of his lips. If this didn't work—and it could go wrong in so very many ways—he might well have just made himself more than one enemy among the aristocracy.
Then again, if the situation is as dire as has been described, it's entirely possible that failure on our part will render
any such political rivalries a moot point.
With a wave toward one of his under-priests to lead his “guests” to their gathering, Sicard descended the dais and vanished into the rear hallways as rapidly as propriety would permit.
“I trust I need not point out,” the duchess intoned in a voice that even career soldiers found intimidating, “that this is not your office.”
From his position at the head of the massive room, beneath a graven image of the Eternal Eye, symbol of all 147 gods of the Hallowed Pact, the bishop dipped his head. “No, Your Grace, I am quite well aware. My own chambers, roomy as they may be, seemed insufficient to host a group this size. I decided that the private chapel was more appropriate.”
Intended for familial rites or other exclusive religious gatherings, the smaller sanctuary bore only scant resemblance to the greater one from which they'd come. A small podium stood beneath the Eternal Eye, as did a table holding all the ceremonial basics: a few holy texts, a bronze censer, some incense and candles, and so forth. An array of pews, rather more comfortably cushioned than those in the main hall, faced the podium in tidy rows. No stained glass here; just a pair of oil-burning chandeliers, only one of which was currently alight.
Intended to seat as many as a hundred, if need be, the chapel was more than roomy enough for the dozen or so guests now occupying it.
Well, a dozen or so guests, plus Sicard. And his allies, though they had yet to make their entrance. And a small contingent of Church soldiers.
Anyone unfamiliar with the traditional garb might well have laughed at those guards, in their brightly colored pantaloons and puff-sleeved tunics, their mirror-polished breastplates and overly elaborate helms, the old-fashioned halberds too large even to effectively swing in the smaller rooms or narrower halls of the Basilica.
Anyone who had seen them in action—either with those bladed pikes or with the pistols and dueling swords they also carried—would absolutely not have laughed.
That they had very carefully positioned themselves so that some were always beside the exits, others always within a few running paces of the gathered aristocrats, made them even less funny.
