Covenant's End

by Ari Marmell

“I don't know!” she snapped at an almost tentative question from her partner. She knew, could hear it in his not-voice, that he forced himself to calm, shared her fury but held it at bay so he might balance out her own. To continue feeding her some measure of control.

  Her reaction even to that, though understanding and even grateful, was tinged with irritation. She wanted to lose herself to her anger, or part of her did; felt that it might just be the only way, in the long run, to stay sane.

  “I don't know,” she repeated—more calmly, if only by a sliver. “I don't know who would, or who could. How they knew about the bolthole, or my connection to Alexandre. And no, I don't have the first idea how we're going to figure it out. But purple, steaming pits, I am going to find them, no matter what it—”

  “You, there! Halt where you are!”

  Had the racket she'd made up in the apartment carried? Had someone in the building actually gone for help? Or was their appearance here sheer happenstance? Didn't really matter, she decided. Whatever drew them, here they were: a half-dozen guards, tromping around a distant corner and down the street toward her.

  And they were proper guards, this patrol, not private house soldiers as some of the prior squads had been. During most of Shins's life, that wouldn't have been a good thing, but at the moment, it made them a tad more predictable, if nothing else.

  Actually, come to think of it…

  Shins held her hands to her sides, not a posture of submission or surrender, and not only made no effort to flee into the Davillon night, she actually began walking toward the oncoming guards!

  “We'll let them do some of the work for us,” she responded to Olgun's bewildered squawk. “I doubt they'll find anything, but if they're taking care of all the little details of an investigation, we can focus on more important stuff.” Much louder, she politely announced, “I'm so glad you're here, officers. I need to report a crime.”

  “In this neighborhood? Who doesn't?” They crashed to a halt a few arms-lengths away. Their leader, the absolute spitting image of what a guard “should” be—his black and silver tabard flawless, his medallion of Demas polished to a shine, his hair and thick mustache meticulously trimmed—advanced an extra step and touched a finger to the wide brim of his hat in a polite but perfunctory greeting. “Kindly identify yourself, mademoiselle?”

  “Clarice deMonde,” she responded immediately. Not one of her usual or preferred aliases, but it was the false name under which she'd rented this festering roach-trap of a flat. And her preferred alter ego, Madeleine Vallois, wouldn't have been caught dead thinking of a neighborhood like this one, let alone in it.

  Granted, any false identity would have been more believable if she wasn't still wearing road-dusted leathers, but…

  “And what appears to be the trouble, Mademoiselle deMonde?”

  “Well, uh…Constable…?”

  “Lieutenant,” he corrected.

  When it became clear that he was not, in fact, going to append a name to that title, Shins continued. “Right. Lieutenant, someone broke into my rooms and left…” She choked off, very much not part of her act, overwhelmed again for an instant at the thought of Alexandre's desecrated rest.

  In that window of opportunity, one of the younger guards called out. “Excuse me, Lieutenant Donais?”

  The patrol's commander sighed and only half turned. “Can this wait, Constable? I'm just in the midst of something.”

  “Uh, I don't think so, sir.” Clearly tentative, nervous, but he didn't let that stop him. “Please, sir, I just need a moment.”

  “Very well.” Another cursory hat tip—more of a hat nudge, really. “Your brief pardon, mademoiselle.”

  “Of course.” She barely waited until his back was turned before calling on her god in the faintest breath. By the time Donais had reached the young soldier who'd called to him, Shins was able to hear their words clearly, despite the distance and the low whispers.

  “Sir, I think it's her!”

  Well, figs. That wasn't a hopeful start.

  The lieutenant, it appeared, had little more idea of what his underling meant than Shins did. “Her who, Constable?”

  “From that notice Maj—I mean, Commandant Archibeque was passing around a few weeks ago. She's wanted…”

  What? I shouldn't still have any warrants!

  “…for murder,” the young constable concluded.

  Shins's throat did something that, as best she could tell, was an attempt to swallow her ears in shock.

  “Now that you mention it—” Donais began.

  I don't think I'm going to stick around for explanations, the thief decided. “Olgun? Bang.”

  At the rear of the patrol, one unfortunate soldier's bash-bang discharged; it'd been trickier than normal, as the hammer wasn't cocked, but Olgun had long since mastered the technique. The flintlock launched itself from the bandolier, going one way, while the ball tumbled off in the other. Slightly singed by the flash and startled so severely his first child would be born quivering, the constable screamed, high and piercing.

  More than enough, the lot of it, to attract the sudden and complete attention of every man and woman in the patrol.

  Widdershins bolted like a kicked cat, her skin humming and prickling with Olgun's magics.

  Her tenth step (or so) came down on a remarkably solid chunk of nothing whatsoever. Boosted by her deity's will, she leapt from that impossible spot, easily clearing the first floor of the nearest building. Tucking in tight, she landed snug in a windowsill of the second floor, arms outstretched to grab the edges, toes barely finding purchase between the edge and the old wooden boards. The entire ledge groaned, and she could feel it starting to shift beneath her.

  The soldiers, of course, had turned their focus back toward her, but as of yet, between the distraction Olgun had arranged and the utter impossibility of what they'd just witnessed, none of them had managed to target her.

  “If that bothered them…” she whispered. “You ready?”

  Rather than provide a stationary target for even a heartbeat longer, she jumped without waiting for Olgun's reply.

  Not up for the third (and uppermost) story; not back to earth; not even for the ramshackle house across the street. No, Widdershins launched herself sideways, paralleling the wall to which she'd just clung. Propelled by her own acrobatic skill and a helping of divine might, she would easily clear the building's corner, leaving her with nothing to grab onto, nowhere but the open street to land.

  Except she and Olgun had other ideas.

  Just as she started to clear the wall, she slapped both hands against the corner. It was an impossible grab, should have been nothing more than her futilely smacking the wall as she hurtled past. Using a variant of the same trick he'd used many times to give her an invisible leg up, Olgun braced her fingers against the stone, just enough so that—flat and straight as they were—they managed to find purchase.

  A hard yank, also augmented by her guardian deity, and Shins flipped around the corner, heels over head—a somersault turned on its ear, performed sideways in apparent defiance of gravity and momentum both.

  Even Olgun couldn't defy said forces for more than an instant, though. The trick had yanked Shins out of the guards’ sights (and line of fire) far faster than they could have anticipated, but not even she could regain a hold on the wall after that. Teeth gritted, she braced herself, twisting so that at least she landed on her feet when she struck the roadway. Ignoring the protests in her knees and the burning ache in both arms, she took off at a dead run. A quick left, as soon as she'd cleared the dilapidated structure, and then another after that, found her standing directly behind the spot the guards had been gathered only a moment before.

  They, of course, having given chase, were now on the other side of the building, wondering where their quarry could have disappeared to.

  Wondering what else could possibly go wrong, and why everyone seemed to have it out for her—even more than usual—Widdershins disappeared down the
nearest side street, casually but carefully making her way toward the busier parts of town.

  She needed time to think. Needed to know what in the name of Banin's belt was happening in this madhouse of a city. Needed a chance to rest, and to talk to a friendly face.

  And with everything else going on, that could only mean one place.

  Even the Flippant Witch had changed.

  Not from the outside, no. It remained the same old structure, battered and worn but determined to keep on keeping on. Light glowed between the slats of the window shutters, smoke dribbled from the chimneys, and the muted hum of conversation reached her even from across the way.

  Initially, it seemed as though things were far better than when she'd left. Even if she hadn't seen the constant comings and goings through the tavern's front door, it was quite apparent that the place was far more crowded, doing far better business than she'd seen in the months prior to her departure. In a Davillon that had apparently lost what remained of its mind, Shins was delighted to see that Robin had, to all appearances, turned the place completely around.

  That notion, and the resulting grin, both lasted just about as long as it took her to mount the steps and enter the common room itself.

  It was packed; it was busy. But not at all in the way she remembered from the good old days. The scents of various libations, though always strong, now utterly choked out everything else, including the aromas she should have smelled from the kitchen. People were drinking more and eating less, and had been for some time. The place was uncomfortably warm, despite the chill air outside, and there was a sourness to the stench of sweat that Shins's recollections did not include. Even the conversation was wrong. Loud and boisterous as always, yes, but heavier. A false note here, a spark of anger there. Most of these people had come to escape their lives, not to carouse and catch up with friends.

  A few faces brightened as they turned her way, old regulars happy to see her, raising hands or tankards in greeting. Those Shins returned with a smile almost alarming in its cheer, so frantic was she to find something familiar.

  The bulk of the throng, however, tossed her the same glance they offered any other newcomer and sullenly went back to their cups. That the strangers didn't recognize her was to be expected, but more than a few regulars, those who hadn't offered their welcome, turned away just as swiftly.

  How could they fail to even recognize her? Had they changed so much—or she changed so much—in less than a year?

  Olgun's presence calmed her, a feeling very much like a comforting arm draped around her shoulders. She probably wouldn't have just turned around and left without it—but she couldn't swear to it.

  Still, she might well have considered getting out, had a particularly friendly face not finally presented itself.

  “Gerard!”

  The burly, red-bearded barman—a fixture of the Flippant Witch since its earliest days under Genevieve Marguilles, before even Robin had been employed—peered curiously around the cluster of customers gathered before the bar. Too chaotic to be a queue, too narrow and winding to be a mob, it was effectively a “smear.” Yes, a smear of patrons.

  Gerard leaned around that smear, seeking the source of that call; when he saw her, Shins figured it had to be the beard itself that kept his jaw from swinging freely before dropping to the floor.

  Maybe he braided it.

  “Shins!” He waved her over, utterly losing track of the drink he was pouring at the time. Pushing, ducking, squeezing, elbowing, and occasionally Olgun-ing herself a path through the busy common room, Widdershins didn't hear whatever complaint the patron had made to Gerard regarding his lapse in attention, but she arrived soon enough to hear the tail end of the barman's reply.

  “…to own the place, you jackass! So unless you want a permanent ban—not to mention,” he added with a meaningful gesture toward the thick cudgel he kept for emergencies, “a permanent bang—I suggest you take a few steps back, ponder our wide selection of fine aperitifs, and give long thought to what you want to order!”

  She'd made it back behind the bar by the time Gerard had wound down, and the customer had huffed away, doubtless determined to go somewhere else to drink until it occurred to him just how much walking and how much not-drinking that would entail.

  “Fine aperitifs?” she asked, eyebrow migrating upward.

  “Yeah, well.” Gerard shrugged. “Figured the big words would keep him off-balance, and it sounded better than ‘our intestine-abrading fire-piss.’”

  “Oh, what are you snickering at?” she demanded quietly in response to Olgun's burst of amusement. “You don't have intestines, and you don't piss! At least, I assume you don't. Do you? Because considering where you live, ew!” Then, to Gerard, “I was sort of looking for a middle ground, yes? Somewhere our drinks are neither ambrosia nor arsenic.”

  “You'll need to hire on a barman with a more sensitive palate, then. Or at least a broader vocabulary.”

  They stared, smirked, burst into a hearty laugh, and came together for a mismatched hug almost in perfect unison.

  “I'm glad you're okay, Shins,” he breathed into her ear.

  Shins could only nod, overwhelmed. She and Gerard hadn't been that close, but right now the heavy squeeze, musky and alcoholic scent, even the tickling of beard against her head, were far and away the best welcome—the only welcome, really—she'd received thus far.

  At the same time, while she'd no doubt at all that the embrace was heartfelt, and while she was hardly the foremost expert on Gerard's body language, his posture felt a bit guarded, his back stiff. Sooner than she might have preferred, he slowly disengaged, returning to deal with the ever-growing rumble of irate patrons.

  “So, um. Business seems…good,” she said weakly.

  Pouring drinks and passing them on with a facility Shins never had mastered, Gerard responded over his shoulder. “Like this most evenings, these days. Bad times…well, the right kind of bad times,” he corrected himself, referring, Shins knew, to the Church-driven recession of a while back. “They're good for places like ours, since folks drink more. Sounds hard, but that's the nature of things.”

  “It's not just the Witch, then?”

  “Far's I know, every tavern in Davillon's raking it in.”

  “Gerard, what is happening in Davillon?”

  “Politics. Crime. Superstitious rumor. Same as always, just…more of it.”

  Shins tapped a fingertip against her cheek, somehow felt Olgun doing much the same. She knew she could get a clearer answer out of the barman, and knew just as well that he'd resent her trying. This wasn't turning at all into the homecoming she'd anticipated.

  And that made her even more apprehensive to ask the next question.

  “Where's…?” She swallowed, feeling a sudden burning need for one of the mugs Gerard was topping off. “Where's Robin?”

  Was it a product of nervous imaginings, or did the man's back stiffen further at the sound of that name? Shins felt her heart begin to pound.

  “Upstairs. The bigger bedchamber, one that you used to use.”

  The young woman almost melted all over the floor, so frightened had she been—given his reaction, and how unusual it was (or at least had been) for Robin not to manage the night shift herself—that Gerard's answer would be something far worse. She started for the far stairs…

  “Shins?”

  She glanced back, at a face shifted dramatically from rigid to sympathetic. “A lot can happen in almost a year. You should maybe…temper your expectations a little. I'll have a cup of something ready for you if you need it.”

  On the edge of losing it now even more than she had been, Olgun's efforts to calm her somewhat sabotaged by his own concern, Shins bolted up the steps, leaving a shuddering, dust-shedding staircase in her wake.

  She knew Robin must have heard her pounding up the steps. The whole tavern, if not the whole street, probably had. And she absolutely knew her friend had heard the knock on the door, because Robin had very distinc
tly called out, “Come in!” in a voice that Widdershins had forgotten how much she missed.

  And for no reason she could put words to, no emotion she could identify in the swirling morass of all the others, Shins had to wrestle with the urge to run away. “Olgun, what the figs is wrong with me?”

  She knew his response—which translated, if loosely, to “How much time do you have?”—was meant to cheer her up, or at least distract her from the bundle of nerves that now occupied most of her body. “Appreciate the thought,” she told him, “but I think I'm kind of uncheerupable right now. And don't even try to tell me that's not a word! I dare you to find a better way to get that point…”

  Enough. She was stalling and they both knew it. One very deep breath, and Widdershins pushed the door open with an only marginally unsteady hand.

  “Hi, Robin.”

  The next few endless seconds were the strangest thing. For Shins, it was almost as if she viewed the tableau through a cracked sheet of glass, emphasizing this image, this movement, this part of the room, this detail over that.

  Robin first and foremost, of course. The younger woman's features had gone slack, as though not merely shocked at what she saw but still uncertain she was truly seeing it. The freckles dusting her skin like confectioner's sugar were lighter than Shins remembered, her hair a bit longer. Perhaps most peculiarly, though, was her outfit. Never in Shins's life had she seen Robin in anything but drab tunic and trousers, the sort of clothes easily mistaken for a boy's at any distance. Tonight, her blouse, though still loose and simple, was a soft, lush green, and she wore a peculiar skirt, one that wrapped twice about her waist before fastening, of such deep crimson it was almost black.

  Gaze directed, almost guided, to the perimeters of the room. All the furniture had been moved from how Shins remembered it. The bed was now turned sidelong to the wall against which it stood, rather than head-first; cheap wardrobe, cheap desk, also as far to one side as the chamber would permit. The result was a gaping open space in the center, several paces across.

  And only then, as Shins believed her bewilderment had reached its peak, did she even notice the third person in the room!