“I'm certain, Your Eminence.”
Sicard sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. Very well, if everyone but Lambert and d'Arras would kindly step back…?”
So they did, while Renard and Evrard knelt before the bishop. Sicard began to chant in a language predating modern Galicien. At times, both his hands rested on his subjects' heads, while at others he would reach down for the mirror, or the silver chain, or even for the incense and herbs that currently burned and fizzled in a small iron brazier, wafting a sweetly floral scent across the cemetery.
“I don't like this,” Julien said from just behind her.
“I think you may have mentioned that,” Widdershins told him, leaning back against his chest and reaching down to lightly clasp his left hand in hers. “A time or two. Or three. Or eighty-seven thousand.”
“I'm serious, Shins. I'm no use to you if I'm not part of this spell. We should-”
“Julien, we have been through this, you know.”
“Yes, but I haven't won, yet.”
Widdershins laughed softly. “Now you're starting to sound like me.”
“Oh, gods. That's all I need.”
She slowly faced him, let go of his hand so she could cup her left palm against his cheek. “You'll do what you can. And it will help me to have you here, no matter what.”
“And when this is over?” he asked her softly.
He sounded sure, so sure, that there would be an after. Widdershins wasn't. She stretched up on her toes and kissed him, oh so briefly, then spun away to stand where she could watch Sicard casting his spell.
Where she wouldn't have to ponder the answers to Julien's questions, spoken or unspoken.
It was perhaps ten or fifteen minutes later when the two men rose, staggering and staring first at their own hands, and then at each other, as though not entirely certain of what they were seeing. Sicard took a moment to sip from a small bottle and to restock the herbs in his brazier, while Igraine nodded for Widdershins and Ferrand to step forward.
“You ready for this, Olgun?” Widdershins asked softly. And then, “Heh. Well, if it makes you feel any better, neither am I.”
“Are you certain he'll come to us?” Igraine asked as the pair of them crouched in the dust. “This is a lot of wasted time and effort if he doesn't.”
“You want me to lay odds, Igraine? I can't.” Widdershins shrugged. “But he was able to sense me at the Lamarr estate from halfway across town, and he definitely considers me a threat, now. I think, if there's effectively two of me, it'll attract his attention pretty quick.”
“I think it would attract anyone's,” Julien stage-whispered from off to the right. Several of the group chuckled, and Widdershins found herself unaccountably blushing.
“Are we doing this, or what?” she demanded.
“We are,” Sicard told her. “Try to relax. Breathe evenly, think calming thoughts, and…Um, please ask your god not to do anything at all…well, not to do anything, really. I can't begin to guess what might happen if he interferes.”
“I don't think I need to. He can actually hear you, you know.”
“Oh. Uh, yes, of course.” The bishop took a final deep breath. “Very well. Let's begin.”
For all that the incantation seemed to go on indefinitely, when the effect finally came over her, it was nigh instantaneous. One moment, Widdershins was kneeling in the dirt, wishing she could scratch her knees, irritated at the bishop's sweaty palm on her head and his constant droning in her ears. The next, she was listing to the side, barely keeping her balance, as her senses and her mind went to war over a conflicting array of perspectives.
It wasn't as though she were actually in two places at once, not precisely. She saw the world from only one perspective, as always. What she had, instead, was two parallel tracks of recent memories. At any given second, she was staring at the bishop, or a nearby tree, or the array of tombstones. But one heartbeat later, she could recall not only that vista at which she'd been looking, but another angle on the cemetery, from somewhere off to her left: a different tree, a different side of Sicard, or even-gods, even herself, flailing around and trying to catch her balance. She didn't see what Ferrand saw, but she remembered seeing what he'd just seen.
The earth lurched beneath her feet, her stomach heaved, and Widdershins wondered how her sanity-how anyone's sanity-could stand up to this.
Sicard continued to chant, his voice growing rough and jagged, and the world began to steady, her thoughts to cease their drunken capering and once more fall into some semblance of order. As if controlled by an expert stagehand, a thick curtain swayed shut between her own perspective and her memories of what Ferrand saw-or had seen, or whatever it was. She still received the occasional muffled sound or brief glimmer of light, but it was a minor distraction at worst, easily ignored. Only if she deliberately chose could she peek through the curtain and share in the monk's own experiences.
“Well…” Widdershins staggered to her feet and reached out a hand to help Ferrand in doing the same. “Did the earth move for you, too?” she asked him.
Ferrand opened his mouth, shut it, and looked away, blushing.
“It seems to have worked normally,” Sicard said, also rising. “But I can't be sure….”
“I don't know,” Ferrand said. “I don't feel any different.” Then, at Widdershins's startled look, “I mean, no, that's not…We're linked. I can remember what she sees, what she hears.”
“Which, incidentally, is creepy,” Widdershins added. Only then did she realize how dry her mouth was, and reached out a hand for the bishop's flask. He handed it over without question.
“Uh, yes, that's one word,” the monk agreed. “But I mean…Well, I thought I would feel your, um, your magics, or Olgun's power, or something. But I don't-”
“That,” the thief said just a tad smugly, “is because he's not doing anything.”
“Uh…”
“Olgun?” Far too softly for the others to hear, she continued, “Olgun, are you all right?”
The waft of emotion Widdershins received in reply was a good-humored, teasing contempt at the very idea.
“Well, excuse me, Your Divinitiness! Some of us aren't used to more than one point of view at a time! Guess that's why you're the god, and we're just poor little…Ooh, you're impossible! It's not too late for me to trade you in, you know. I bet I could get a whole herd of good-quality horses for…” It was right about then that Widdershins realized her voice had risen, and that she was being very studiously examined-possibly to determine which asylum would best suit her-by more or less everyone else present.
“What?” she challenged. “You talk to your gods in your ways, I'll talk to mine in mine.”
Oddly, that didn't seem to assuage any of them.
“Fine. Ferrand? Pay attention.” Widdershins sprinted for the nearest tree and leapt. Soaring past the first layer of branches, she finally wrapped her fingers around a particularly thick bough close to twenty feet above the grass. She swung, the bark refusing to bite into her skin, and flipped backward, clasping another, higher branch with her knees. There she hung, her hair dangling, arms crossed over her chest, and smiled at her audience. The air around her hummed and crackled with the touch of Olgun's power.
Brother Ferrand himself had literally staggered back and slumped to the ground, sitting against the side of a weather-worn grave marker. “My gods…”
“Well, one of them,” Widdershins said. At which point, rather belatedly, a thought occurred to her. “Olgun? If Ferrand's drawing on your power-even through the bishop's spell-does that mean he's likely to start including you in his worship when this is all over with? And if he does, what does that mean for you and me?”