Widdershins—formerly Adrienne Satti, former tavern-keeper, former ex-thief, and soon-to-be-former exile from Davillon—continued along the path she hadn't, until recently, been sure she would ever tread again.
The way home.
“What?” she asked. Semi-violent imagery and an overwhelmed sensation ran through her mind; such was the “speech” of her unseen companion, a god foreign to Galice and who boasted, in all the world, precisely one adherent. “Well, how the happy, hopping horses am I supposed to know what's ‘normal’ here? We've only ever been on this road once before, and that was in summertime. Maybe this is the normal number of bandits along here. Or maybe, I don't know, maybe it's bandit season. That'd explain why we haven't seen many other travelers, yes? If the locals know when to stay off the highway.”
With a frisson of both bemused and amused reluctance, Olgun pointed out the logistical paradox regarding the notion of a “bandit season” in which travelers remained home.
“Oh. That's a good…well, maybe it's dumb bandit season!”
Widdershins chose to interpret Olgun's subsequent silence as meaning she'd won that particular exchange. Olgun chose to let her. They were both happier that way.
Still and all, as the day aged and the road unwound beneath her feet, Shins had to acknowledge that something was definitely off. This was a major thoroughfare; even allowing for the unseasonable cold, even if the threat of banditry was higher than usual, such a total dearth of travelers was odd. They should be fewer, but they should not have been absent.
It was…off. And after the previous, oh, bulk of her entire life, the young woman had developed a healthy distrust of “off.” Nothing about her posture visibly changed, but her steps grew softer and more deliberate, her attentions more focused on the world around her.
As she was so heavily alert for danger, however, it took a subtle nudge from her divine companion before she noticed the changing aroma in the air. The lingering breath of northerly climes and the first faint perfumes of buds and blooms gradually gave way to wood smoke spiced with roasting meats.
She was still a couple days from Davillon, so what…?
“Ah.”
A small cluster of buildings made itself visible as she crested a shallow rise. Nothing even remotely impressive, just a squat structure of wood with a couple of smoke-belching stone chimneys, and a few even squatter structures scattered around it.
Now that she saw it, Shins remembered it from her way out, last year, though only barely. At the time, she hadn't been in much of a mental state to notice anything at all, even had the place not been so forgettable. A simple trading post, taking advantage of the traffic Davillon normally received, distinguished only by its indistinctiveness.
Except…“Shouldn't it be empty? I'm almost positive that a road without travelers doesn't provide many customers. There could even be a proverb about it. Like the one about not licking a gift horse's mouth, or however that goes.”
Olgun could only provide one of his “emotional shrugs.”
It wasn't as though the trading post was packed to overflowing, but it clearly did a reasonable amount of business. Several horses—none of them having been licked, presumably—were tied at a post outside the main structure. A small gathering of people here, an isolated pair there, stood around talking, smoking, generally enjoying the evening's lack of rain. Shins received her share of curious glances, if only as a young woman (apparently) traveling alone, but otherwise nobody seemed inclined to acknowledge her arrival.
Not until she stepped up onto the rickety porch at the front of the central building. “Excuse me, mademoiselle?”
The man who'd addressed her was teetering on the precipice of old age, ready to fall at any moment, and clad in the sort of heavy, colorful fabrics that said “I'm a merchant who wants you to believe I can afford better than I actually can.”
Shins's hand didn't drift to her rapier, but she suddenly became much more aware of precisely where it was. “Yes?”
“I'm just…if you've come this far traveling alone, does that mean the roads have grown safer again?”
She wasn't sure what “safer” meant, what she was supposed to compare to, but, “No, I don't think so.”
“Still rife with highwaymen, then?”
Now she did allow her fingers to close on the hilt of her weapon. “Fewer now than before.”
“Ah.” The merchant's patronizing smile said, as clearly as any message from Olgun, that he didn't believe a word of it. “Well, thank you for your time.”
A nod, and Shins pushed through the door, where the scent of cooked foods—as well as substantial amounts of travelers’ sweat—dove into her nostrils like they were seeking shelter.
“How do you like that?” she asked, voice pitched so softly that nobody else could possibly overhear. “A girl could start to feel a bit mistrusted.”
Olgun snorted, or made whatever the abstract empathic equivalent of a snort might be.
Square room. Square tables. Even squareish chairs. All creaking with years of use, all having absorbed so many odors in their time that they were probably made up of smells as much as wood.
It looked almost nothing like the common room of the Flippant Witch, but Shins still felt a pang of homesickness deep in her gut.
Soon.
It wasn't a tavern, precisely. The large common room was connected, via a wide doorway, to something of a general store. Drinks and food were made available here, yes, but as an adjunct to the shop rather than its own separate business.
About half the chairs were occupied, and about half the occupiers paused their drinking, chewing, or conversation—sometimes two or all three at once—to briefly examine the newcomer. Again her youth and sex drew a few second looks, but most of the patrons turned back to their own affairs readily enough.
Shins moved to the small counter beside the interior door, presuming that the young girl behind it served as barkeep. “Hi.”
A saucer-wide stare and a breathy “Uh, welcome” responded.
Then and there, Widdershins firmly decided that the girl did not remind her of Robin. Mostly because Shins had no intention of allowing her to. Sliding two fingers into one of the many pouches at her belt, she produced a couple of the coins she'd, ah, liberated as compensation for the bandits’ attempts to harm her.
“A mug of your best whatever this will pay for.” Two thin smacks of metal against wood, and then Shins dug out a second pair. “And a plate of the best whatever this will pay for.” Clinks rather than smacks, as she laid those two atop the others.
Blink. “Oh. Um…” Blink, blink. “Okay. Coming right up.” Blink.
Widdershins wandered away from the counter, scooted a chair out from an empty table with one foot, spun it by the back, and dropped perfectly into it as the seat whirled past her. Studiously and smugly ignoring the bemused glances that brought her, she tilted the chair back, balanced on a single leg, and crossed her ankles on the table's edge.
“What? Oh, I am not showing off!” she protested. “I just…want to make it clear to everyone here that I can take care of myself. Can't be too careful, yes?
“No, it is not the same as showing off! The idea isn't to impress people, it's to…differently…impress people. For different…Oh, shut up.”
For the next several minutes, Shins occupied herself by spinning her rapier and scabbard, balanced with one finger on the pommel, tip on the floor, just daring Olgun to say something about it. He didn't, but as she'd told him in the past, she could feel him laughing at her.
“If you don't stop that, I'm tying you to the post outside, with the horses.”
The serving girl, or owner's daughter, or whatever she was, finally appeared beside the table with flagon and plate in hand. Here, in the open, her resemblance to Robin was rather lessened. She might have shared a slender build with Shins's friend, but the ruffled skirts and braided hair were about as un-Robin as one could get.
That didn't make the prodigal thief feel a
ny less homesick, though.
“So,” she asked just as the server made to leave, “what's with the crowd? I hardly passed anyone on the way here, and yet…”
“Oh! That is, um…” The girl earnestly studied the floor as she answered, perhaps expecting the flowers of spring to start blooming inside in an effort to escape the weather. “I really don't know if I should be spreading rumors on shift.”
“Well, I'm not on shift,” Shins explained patiently. “And it takes at least two people to spread a rumor, yes? So even though you're on shift, the rumor's not spreading on shift—or only half on shift, at most—and nobody can accuse you of anything inappropriate.”
Olgun dizzily retreated to a far corner of Shins's mind and quietly threw a fit.
As for the barkeep, after a moment of slack-jawed gawping during which she couldn't find a single word—as they were, most probably, hiding in the corner with Olgun—she finally decided either that Shins's argument was convincing, or (more likely) that it was easier just to go along than try to unknot it.
“It's the monsters,” she admitted in something of a stage whisper.
Shins's rapier stopped spinning. “Sorry, what? Say again slowly, in small words.”
“I know how it sounds,” Not-Robin said, her head bobbing like a cork in boiling water. “But that's what we've heard. The road between here and Davillon—all the roads around Davillon—are cursed or haunted with monsters!”
“Look, there's apparently been a lot of banditry lately, yes? I'm sure that's—”
For the first time, the other's face lost all uncertainty, becoming a stiff, confident mask. “We know all about the bandits,” she insisted. “Highway's lousy with them. But some travelers, some merchants, they'll chance it, you know? Robbers can't be everywhere, and some of the caravans are pretty well guarded. Many of them get through, come this far. But almost nobody's come back who tried to continue on to Davillon in the last few weeks, and those who did? Wasn't bandits who had them scared.
“So these days, travelers get this far and then start hearing the stories. Some try to keep on, and we mostly don't see them again. The others? They wait around here for a while, doing what business they can with us and with the other merchants, before risking the long road back to wherever they came from.”
“If there are monsters on the roads,” Widdershins said carefully, “why hasn't anyone dispatched any soldiers to deal with them?”
Not-Robin shrugged and headed back to her counter. “Rumor has it most of Galice's standing army's gathered at the Rannanti border,” she said over her shoulder. “As far as soldiers from Davillon?” A second shrug. “Gods know what's going on in that city. Enjoy your meal.”
Shins watched her go, then idly poked at the slabs of roast on her plate with a fork, as though trying to prod them into moving. “You don't even have a face,” she groused, “so stop looking at me with that expression.”
The tiny deity wafted a question across her mind.
“How the figs would I know? Doesn't really seem likely, though, does it? I mean, monsters haunting the highways of Galice? Come on.”
Keeping his lack-of expression utterly neutral, Olgun dragged a pair of images through his young worshipper's vision. One demonic, one fae; both truly, deeply horrible.
Any appetite Widdershins had remaining dried up and blew away like a desiccated earthworm. “I didn't say impossible, Olgun. Just not likely.”
The surge of feeling she got in response was apologetic, but not very. And if Shins were being honest with herself—something she tried to avoid doing too much these days, as a matter of policy, but couldn't seem to help—she had been a bit quick to pooh-pooh the notion. Often as she'd been scoffed at for trying to warn people about Iruoch, she ought to be a bit more generous with the benefit of the doubt.
On the other hand, she was smarter and less superstitious than most people, if she said so herself.
And she had, on more than one occasion.
“I'll be careful,” she assured the fretting god. “Won't take anything for granted. But I'm pretty sure we can deal with whatever it is.”
We are going home, gods drum it!
Widdershins attacked her food, then, more as a point of emphasis than because her appetite had returned. For some time, she knew only the clatter of tableware, the taste of beef not too badly overcooked and not too heavily over-seasoned, and the background buzz of conversation.
It took her a moment to recognize Olgun tapping on her emotional shoulder. When she did, she felt his attention directed at a specific table behind her.
“Is it safe to turn and look?” she asked under her breath.
No mistaking the negative in his reply.
“All right.” She examined the table before her. The plate was wood, the utensils unpolished. The ale?
Widdershins tapped the flagon with one finger. “Is the light right? Can you make this work?”
A very tentative yes, and an admonishment that he couldn't for long.
“It'll do.”
Carefully, she gripped her drink, waited until she felt the familiar tingling in the air that heralded the god's limited magics.
This is going to be cold, uncomfortable, and really embarrassing if Olgun's not able to manage it. She thought of pointing that out aloud, then decided not to give him any ideas; he just might decide it'd make an amusing prank.
When the prickling sensation reached its apex, Shins lifted the flagon to eye level and tilted it completely horizontally.
For a few seconds, against all natural laws, the liquid within held fast rather than spilling, creating a dark pool into which she gazed. It wasn't much of a reflection, but it was enough for her to get the gist of what Olgun had wanted her to see.
A lone man sat at the indicated table, and—since her back was to him—he made no effort to hide the fact that he studied her intensely.
“Oh, for pastry's sake!” Shins sighed and lowered the beverage. “Ah, well. It's been a couple months since anyone tried spying on us. Guess we were due, yes?”
She wondered briefly what the stranger had seen of her trick with the ale, what he thought had just happened. Doubtless he'd assume the cup was empty, that any sense otherwise was a trick of the light.
A few more mouthfuls of supper, just to keep everything nice and casual looking. Next, with a deliberately inflated sigh of contentment, she leaned back, once more tilting the chair until it balanced precariously on its back legs.
And then she allowed it to topple.
The room jumped around her as her perspective plummeted, but vertigo and Shins were old colleagues. She'd fallen into a backward roll and was again on her feet before the chair stopped bouncing. A quick pivot followed by a spin of the empty chair opposite the spy so that it faced backward, and she was settled again. She straddled the seat, arms crossed on the back of the chair, and looked straight into the man's ever-widening stare.
“Hi.”
Then, under her breath, while the stranger struggled for words, “Yes, I could have just stood up and walked over, but where's the fun in—? Please, I didn't draw that much attention, only…oh. Well, there aren't that many people here, anyway. Besides, we caught him off guard, yes?
“You know,” she continued, once more in a normal tone, “I'm pretty sure you're doing it wrong. If you mean to be eating, you should be putting something in your mouth, and if you mean to be talking, there should be sounds coming out. This empty chewing is just odd. You look like a fish.”
“Uh…”
“A confused fish.”
“I—”
“Trying to ask for directions.”
“What are you doing?!” he finally managed to squeak.
Shins studied him, unblinking. Mousy brown hair, drooping mustache, clothes that wouldn't stand out even if they were on fire…basically, the sort of person who was so average, it made him distinct.
“I,” she said finally, “I'm waiting for you to explain why you've been watching me.” br />
“I—I don't know what you're—”
“Oh, for fig's sake, can we just not? How about you give me clear answers, and you won't have to live with all the mockery you're going to suffer after you've been beaten up by an adolescent girl in public.”
His jaw clenched, causing his mustache to bristle as though it were an angry cat. Shins almost hurt herself swallowing a snicker. “What makes you think you'd be able to beat me?” he demanded.
Widdershins's answering smile was not only welcoming, it bordered on dainty. “Would you care to find out?”
Apparently he wouldn't; the stranger's entire posture slumped. “Would you believe I'm just taken by you?”
“Flattered, but no. You're not subtle enough to do anything less overt than leering, and I've been leered at. I know what it feels like, and you haven't left nearly enough slime on my back.”
Olgun snorted, radiated mischievousness, and sent a crawling sensation of sticky wetness down the young woman's spine.
“Quit it!” Very tricky, getting the weight and emphasis of a shout into a whisper so soft it was barely a breath, but it was a trick she'd mastered a long time ago. Pretty much out of necessity.
Her divine partner's answer was, more or less, a chuckle.
The stranger hesitated a few seconds more. Then, with a resigned sigh, he reached into a pocket of his ragged coat and removed a worn sheet of parchment.
Squished, battered, folded, and refolded so often the creases were almost worn through, and soaked in the aromas of lint and stale sweat, it remained clear enough, once opened. The both of them took some time to contemplate, first the sketch and then one another.
“It's missing something,” Shins said finally. “I don't feel it truly captures the inner me.”
“Certainly didn't tell me what to expect,” the man confirmed.
“Hmm.” Again she turned her attention to the parchment, not the portrait but the text below. Her name, a brief list of the sorts of activities in which she might be involved—“Petty theft?!” she protested to Olgun. “There's nothing petty about them!”—and the promise of a small reward for any sightings or information regarding her, to be delivered to…