Covenant's End

by Ari Marmell

  Despite that, her inhuman arms remained steady. The blades grew closer with every slash, and Lisette herself with every step.

  Widdershins could hear the expected and despised giggling chorus of children, the tang of herbs and sweets beneath the olfactory weight of the storm.

  How can she be this hopping fast?!

  “I have decided,” she gasped to Olgun as she rolled back to her feet and made a sharp turn down a narrower street to her left, “that I prefer…the kinds of spirits…that don't have bodies and…just possess people. Do those really exist, too? Can we get one…instead of fae next time?”

  The little god was too busy projecting another warning to answer.

  Lisette had come to the intersection and simply thrown herself sideways, the limbs of shadow changing direction inhumanly fast, pushing off the opposite building to absorb momentum. Shins's desperate turn had only resulted in her pursuer gaining ground.

  “Got anything more?”

  She'd guessed Olgun's answer before she'd even asked.

  Blades sliced over one another like murderous scissors, coming together mere inches behind her. She ducked forward, stumbled, barely regaining enough balance to keep from toppling face-first to the road. Fast as she was sprinting, she wondered idly if a fall like that would've saved Lisette the trouble of killing her.

  Her chest burned, her side was splitting. The aches were coming faster than Olgun could quell them. She'd never asked this sort of speed or strength from him for longer than a few seconds. Neither knew how long she could endure it; both knew the answer had to include a “not very.”

  Again the end of the block loomed, a wall of void and water. Again Shins broke left, but this time, as Lisette began to pivot, she jumped at the nearest corner wall. Spinning her body up and back, she struck the building feet first, with enough momentum from her impossible run to take a good three or four steps up the sheer side. Another leap, entirely horizontal, and Shins shot past her opponent, breaking again into a mad dash the instant she hit the street.

  That, even the fae couldn't react to immediately. For the first time since the chase began, Shins gained a few yards.

  It wouldn't last, she knew it wouldn't last, but maybe she could—

  “Enough of this!” It was Lisette's voice, rattled by the uneven motion, but it wasn't just her voice. Beneath it, Shins heard Embruchel's horrible twin tones.

  The lower half of the former Taskmaster's face was pitch-black, now, and looked as though she'd been drinking tar. Without any apparent movement, without “retracting” or shrinking in any way, her arms were human again, holding their twin blades crossed over her chest.

  But where limbs of flesh had returned to their natural state, one of the limbs of shade lengthened.

  Lisette had chosen her spot deliberately, no doubt: directly beside one of the flickering streetlamps. At that angle, the leg—had it been real, had the light not been diffused by the rain—would have cast its own shadow halfway down the block.

  As the leg was shadow, it stretched that far.

  Shins felt a crushing pain in her side as she was hurled into a tangled heap on the street's far side. She throbbed from a hundred different bruises, probably bled from a hundred different cuts, though any blood washed away before she could be sure. And she knew it was only Olgun, desperately yanking the threads of luck and chance, which had saved her from far worse injury.

  “I guess we're done running,” Widdershins whispered. “I'm sorry. I hope it's long enough.”

  Wincing, she stood, drew her rapier, and turned to face her enemy.

  It began with the faint thump of the doors to the grand chapel. Unusual and perhaps more than a bit gauche for anyone to enter while the bishop himself was speaking, sermonizing, but hardly unheard of. Sicard only remembered later than he'd even noticed; at the time, the sound failed to register.

  Then the low mutters and whispers started, sprouting at the rearmost pews and swiftly blossoming through the congregation, echoing along the vaulted ceiling. A few attendees stood, trying to see over their neighbors, curiosity about the disruption temporarily overwhelming piety or politeness.

  Only then did Sicard trail off, going silent in the midst of praising Vercoule—of all 147 gods of the Hallowed Pact, the one most venerated in Davillon itself—as the newcomer revealed herself to him.

  A young woman, blonde, in skirts more rain than they were fabric. They slapped audibly against her legs with every step, spattering congregants with cold water. She ignored it all; the weight, the discomfort, the propriety. Although staggered and gasping, she struggled up the aisle with a pace and intent that suggested she was still trying to run.

  And several of the Church soldiers, weapons raised, were converging on her.

  “No!” Sicard stepped to the edge of the dais, a hand raised. “Let her pass.”

  It might have been a foolish call. Given what had occurred recently, she could have been some trick, an agent of the fae or of Lisette. It didn't feel right, though. Everything he saw shouted that this was an exhausted, desperate woman.

  Even as he ordered she be allowed to approach, however, his brow furrowed as much in anger as curiosity. The sheer impropriety…. That frown deepened further still as she stumbled up to the dais, leaving fat puddles to soak into the carpet of every single step.

  “Young lady, if this is not absolutely the most urgent—”

  Struggling to breathe, she wheezed something at him. Though he hadn't been able to make it out, a frisson of alarm ran through him all the same. “I'm sorry, what was that?”

  Again she rasped at him, carefully forming each word between ragged breaths.

  Sicard, suddenly dizzy, had to grab tight to the pulpit to avoid falling. He could only guess how pale he must appear, but he'd lost enough blood from his face that it had actually gone chilly.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  The messenger looked up, seemed to regain control of herself in an instant. “She thinks she's about to die.” Then, more softly, “If she hasn't already, I think she's right.”

  He reeled, struggling to comprehend, overwhelmed even as seconds ticked by that he knew he couldn't spare. His eyes, somehow empty, cast about every which way, perhaps seeking help. Though what form help could even take at this point was a question he couldn't answer.

  He couldn't do this. Couldn't. People thought excommunicating the Finders’ Guild had been tricky? That was nothing! This situation wasn't just unprecedented, it was unimagined; nobody had ever seriously even considered it. The Church had no systems, procedures, even casual recommendations in place. Sicard didn't believe he had the authority to make a decision such as this, in part because he didn't believe anyone did!

  When he'd made the offer, he'd known he was getting into a massive hornet's nest of liturgical law and debate that would have taken years to resolve!

  His wildly flailing gaze turned rightward, settled on the congregation—and stopped.

  A couple hundred people watched him—rapt, intent, awaiting his explanation of what had just occurred. Shifting, worried, curious, but calm. They trusted him to tell them what was happening, and how best to handle it.

  He, who had been Bishop of Davillon less than two full years, who'd been assigned this charge in a dark period, when city and Church were nearly engaged in open, bitter conflict.

  They trusted him now, and many of them had been given reason to trust—many of their lives saved, for all they didn't know it—by a deity not even their own.

  And maybe that would be enough. Legalities, formalities, official decisions could wait. The belief of one congregation, the will of a single quorum of priests, might just be enough.

  Sicard stepped back to the pulpit, clutching it with both fists.

  “My friends, we have given thanks to Vercoule, to Demas, Banin, Tevelaire, Khuriel…All the great, all the blessed gods who have watched over us for so very long. Since before Galice was born, since we were nothing but savage tribes in the wilds,
we have known the deities of the Hallowed Pact, and offered them thanks and glory.

  “Now I am going to speak to you of another, a god of whom none of you have ever heard.”

  A cresting wave of shocked whispers and bewildered questions nearly swept him from the dais. He pressed on, raising his voice to be heard over the throng.

  “A deity of the northern lands who was never one of ours, a deity with no reason to love Davillon, or Galice.

  “Yet a deity who has, to the best of his ability, watched over every one of you!”

  The sanctuary fell deathly silent.

  Sicard felt his voice about to break. He wished he could move faster, worried that every second might be too late—yet he had to build them up to it. He had to make them believe!

  A surge of contentment welled within him, despite those concerns, washing away the pain and fear yet lingering. This was the right thing to do; he knew it was.

  Thank you, Widdershins. I wish I could have done something for you, too.

  “Let me tell you, my friends, of a young woman some of you have heard of and think you know. A young woman named Adrienne Satti. And of Olgun, a god from so very far away, a god nearly lost to the world. Of how he saved her, and she him, and how they both risked all—yes, all, even the god!—to save you.

  “And of all Olgun has done, I believe, from the depths of my heart and soul, to earn himself a place as the very first newcomer, the 148th god, of the Hallowed Pact.”

  No longer did the clash sound anything like the impact of steel on steel. So swiftly and furiously did the two women strike, parry, and riposte, it now seemed a single, continuous tone. Shins's rapier flew, murdering raindrops in its travels. The blade moved faster, her wrist flexed in more directions than were humanly possible. Sweat poured down her body; she felt it, in a layer somehow distinct from the rain.

  If Lisette had tired at all, she did a masterful job of hiding it.

  She stood almost at ground level, now, the shadowy limbs holding her perhaps a foot or so above the street. Night oozed down her face in ever thickening torrents; the phantom children laughed until they shouldn't have been able to breathe, then laughed longer; her sword and dagger never slowed, kept from Widdershins's innards by only the greatest efforts of thief and god.

  And then even those efforts weren't enough.

  Shins staggered and fell to one knee, crying out in agony as the tip of one blade ripped through her left arm. It was a shallow wound, a long gash across the bicep, hardly crippling in and of itself. It hurt, though, and was doubtless only the first of—

  Something deep inside Widdershins tore. Not physically; this was nothing so simple, so benign, as a wounded body, no. Something mental. Emotional.

  Spiritual.

  She felt hollow, as if she'd been scooped out with a spoon. The dark of night was suddenly crushing, oppressive; each drop of rain a tiny thorn. She felt alone, alone as she could scarcely remember. Not since she'd lost her parents as a girl had she ever felt so alone.

  It was a hurt that made her arm insignificant. It might almost have been the end of the world.

  “Olgun?”

  Impossible as it was, she could have sworn she heard her words echo in the newly emptied recesses of her mind.

  “Olgun?!”

  Nothing. Silence.

  Widdershins sobbed once, a primal sound, wracking, despairing. Then, though her legs threatened to collapse at any instant, she placed a hand on the nearest wall and dragged herself to her feet.

  Turning, she saw Lisette watching her, her grin so inhumanly wide that trickles of blood mixed with the black sludge at the corners of her lips.

  Of course. Iruoch had been able to sense Olgun. The others probably could, too. Which meant they knew…

  But he would live. And so would she, if only in his memories.

  Remembered forever, literally. Not that bad, all things considered.

  Sicard, Faustine…thank you.

  Though her fist shook, her grip on the drenched hilt seemed terribly slick and unstable, Widdershins raised her rapier. Olgun or no, if she was going to fall at Lisette's hands, then by all the gods she'd go down fighting!

  And celebrating, through her grief, the fact that she fell alone.

  Nearly blinded by rain and tears, Shins dropped back into her most natural defensive stance and waited for the end to come.

  It all happened so very fast.

  In a matter of instants, he had been yanked away from, so far as he was concerned, the most important mortal since the beginning of time. The one, above all others, he had and would always love.

  When he'd first felt the tug of new souls, new worshippers, he'd been stunned. Whole seconds were lost to his shock, his disbelief. The call of the others—no words, not even song, just a divine sharing, a bond such as he hadn't known since long before he'd come to Davillon—overwhelmed him. He couldn't think, couldn't act.

  It was everything, everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd missed, everything he'd been terrified he would never have again.

  In that moment, he'd have chosen to die, to give it all up, if it meant another minute with her—but some things even the gods cannot have.

  Other mortals believed—more than believed, had begun to revere. The gods of the Hallowed Pact, whatever the Church might or might not “formally” prefer, accepted him with open arms, aware of everything he and Adrienne had done for their people. Between his newly divided attentions and the laws of the Hallowed Pact itself, Olgun had no choice.

  No matter how he fought, how he wished, how he even prayed, he couldn't stay. He had only one more second with her, no more.

  A deity can do a lot, though, with one second.

  For that one sliver of an instant of overlap, he had a foot in both worlds. A connection to Adrienne like no god had with any other mortal, and his first access to the power and the authority of the Hallowed Pact. Not all of it, not enough to whisk her away or strike dead the creatures who threatened her. Not enough to alter the physical world.

  But the fae weren't creatures of the physical world, not entirely. At their core, no matter how they manifested, they were creatures of spirit. And spirit…

  That was an area where the gods had tricks—and, in Olgun's and Adrienne's case, allies—of their own.

  Just before the last of his conscious essence vanished from Widdershins's presence, Olgun drew on his new powers, his new knowledge. Between the worlds, he yanked open a door that normally swung only one way, and with everything he had, he called out his need.

  He called, and they answered. Not for him.

  All four of them, for love of her.

  She couldn't begin to tell, at first, just what she was seeing. She assumed it to be some optical illusion, some combination of the dark and the storm, the pain and the tears. Some random lights and movement, blurred into the illusion of something more.

  Until it occurred to her that she wasn't dead. That Lisette hadn't moved in for the kill, was…

  Was backing away.

  Utterly confused, Shins wiped the back of her hand over her eyes—wincing at the pain as she used her injured arm but unwilling to relinquish the rapier—until she was able to see.

  And she saw, but had her unnatural enemy not been retreating before them, she would never, ever have believed.

  They were scarcely visible, merely shimmering forms in the glow of the lamps and the lightning. Rain and wind passed through them, rippling slightly but otherwise unaffected. First two, then a third, and a fourth appeared in the road between the two combatants. Somewhere, from no direction she could name, Widdershins heard the slamming of a distant gate.

  Lisette was screaming something, her voice still coiled and slithering around those of her unnatural allies, but Shins didn't catch a word of it. She was too busy staring, trying to make out some sense of detail among the nebulous figures. And though she should have been able to see no such thing, she did.

  Widdershins choked, having literally fo
rgotten to breathe. Her rapier clattered on the cobblestones, and it might only have been the wind that still held her upright.

  The first of the phantoms looked her way, raised a hand to tip his broad-brimmed hat in a friendly, informal salute. He drew his own rapier from beneath a dark tabard, which flapped about him without the slightest relation to the gusting winds. A tabard on which Shins could spot the faintest hint of the fleur-de-lis, ensign of Davillon's City Guard.

  He couldn't be here. But she'd have recognized him anywhere.

  “Julien…?”

  He didn't seem to move, took no obvious steps. Yet suddenly he was elsewhere, no longer standing before Shins but beside Lisette. With a high-pitched, buzzing keen, a thick slab of shadow detached itself from the swirling darkness around her, briefly assuming a humanoid form with misshapen, frog-like legs. The shriek ended; the two figures clashed, slamming together in absolute silence. They were still dueling, ghostly blade against inhuman hands and tongue, as they faded again from sight.

  And if that had truly been Julien, the others must be…Oh, gods…

  She felt it, then; Widdershins knew that smile, even if she couldn't make it out. A second apparition, its long transparent hair tinged with gold, raised a hand in greeting, her invisible smile widening further still. She stood at the slightest angle, as though one leg supported her weight less well than the other. Then, like the first, she flickered and was gone, stripping the leaf-and-thorn-clad fae from Lisette as she passed.

  Widdershins, Lisette, the entire street began to glow, bathed in a wave of haunting light. It emanated from a heavy staff, shaped like a shepherd's crook, held in the hands of someone clad in heavy—perhaps ecclesiastical—robes of office. He didn't even approach Lisette, this one. He laid a gentle hand on Shins's shoulder; she knew, somehow, that it was gentle, even though she couldn't feel a thing. A single step, and he raised his staff on high, until the light grew blinding. He was gone when it faded, but so were the bulk of shadows around Lisette, all the many lesser fae who had served her along with the most terrible three.