Snowtear Page 6

  She left suddenly, leaving him to fend for himself in the haunting woods he knew all too well.

  Riken hated these woods. They smelled rankly of death. The trees surrounding him resembled motionless bodies, their branches reaching arms poised to strike and snatch him up the moment he let down his guard. Only faint blue rays of moonlight penetrated the darkness of the cramped clearing. Too close for his liking, wolves growled low and menacing from within the maze of trees. He felt their rancid breath on the nape of his neck.

  Ahead of him, Amana waited.

  He hated this particular rendition of the dream most.

  She stood several feet away, stooped over, picking pinecones off the needle-laden ground. Whenever she found one that suited her, she plucked it up and tossed it into the basket slung over her shoulder. Like always, she wore a faded blue, hooded cloak over a green shirt. Her face, when she turned to smile sweetly at him, was soft and kind, innocent. Her sapphire eyes twinkled even in the darkness of the forest. Her small mouth that so loved to laugh at her older brother’s silly jests hummed a melancholy tune, as if it knew what tragedy would soon befall her.

  When she spoke, tears filled Riken’s eyes.

  “Do you like this one, brother?” she asked, holding up a large cone. “It’s quite spectacular, really. I think I’ll give it to mumma.”

  “She’ll like that, baby girl,” Riken said. He said the same words every time without fail. He agonized to tell her to run, they would come soon, but he never could. The scene would play out as always. He was utterly powerless.

  “Maybe you could get me some more sap to stick these together, and I could make something out of them?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Mumma’s nameday is coming soon. Do you think that would please her?”

  “I think anything you make for her will delight her to no end. They always do. Like the birdhouse. It’s lost most of its left side, but she still won’t take it down from the porch.”

  “She’s only being nice,” Amana said, her ruby cheeks dimpling. “I told her she could.”

  “We need to go soon, baby girl,” Riken said. “It’s late and I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving.”

  “Well, look at me. Do I look as if I get enough food?”

  “You look just fine to me, big and strong,” she said.

  “Only compared to you. Come on, we can scrounge for pinecones again tomorrow.”

  “Truly?”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “Nay,” she said.

  “Have I ever denied you anything?”

  Amana shook her head.

  “Then why the need to ask?”

  “Just because,” she said with a gentle chuckle that melted his heart. He loved that laugh. It had brought him so much joy. Nothing could ever be so wrong when Amana was still able to laugh like that.

  It was the last time she had.

  “Hurry up already,” Riken said, turning to leave. “It’s getting cold. Mumma’ll be worried out of her gourd if I don’t get you home.”

  “Coming,” she said, but tarried when her eyes set upon a large cone on the far end of the clearing.

  He remembered the sound of her soft footfalls crunching the needles. He remembered the ecstatic look on her face after spying the grandfather of all cones. Her mind must’ve been jubilant, rapidly contemplating all the things it could be turned into, when Riken heard the sound.

  It started as a low rumble, immediately congealing his soul. He started to yell, headed straight for her, but tripped over her basket. Pain shooting up his side, he tilted his head up just in time to witness the entire happening in atrocious detail. Helpless, he stared in horror as her sapphire eyes locked on his, and widened.

  Lukewarm water assaulted his nostrils. Riken bolted from the tub, choking and gasping, nose and throat on fire. When finally he coughed up all the water, he stood straight, relieved that the pain had brought him out early from his nightmare.

  He went shivering uncontrollably to the fire, needles pricking his skin. Crouched on the floor, he scrutinized his bed as if it were a poised snake. He couldn’t take another dream, not tonight. He turned back to the blazing fire and watched it dance in the embers until a merciful sun rose.

  Chapter Seven

  His old pal Sefen had his cavalier hands tangled in all this somehow – Sage’s disappearance, Jatta Marligg, Anastasia’s murder – that much was certain. He’d lied about Jatta and seemed just the type of clever fellow to figure who’d leaked that information to Riken. The question was whether or not to confront the man. Perhaps it would be more worthwhile to watch the Ullimar manservant for a time, see just how astute he truly was.

  After a full evening tailing Sefen, the only morsel of any worth Riken found was that he’d rather impale himself on a dull shovel while chewing shards of poison-soaked glass than live a single day of the man’s life.

  Fresh from his day’s work, Sefen bundled up his sheepskin overcoat and strolled to a quaint inn on Shartow Row, where, in a dark corner isolated from the rest of the clientele, he dined alone on some variety of cold seafood soup. After the lively supper, he stopped in at a tailors close by and picked up some lavish clothing Riken assumed was Gregor Ullimar’s. By Riken’s count, the man did no less than five such errands for his masters before traipsing down to Artisan Row to attend a violin solo in one of the many outdoor theatres. Riken was long past wishing he’d thought to bring cotton for his ears by the time the artist finished her despondent performance. Her inept strumming sounded like the death throes of a wailing alley cat. Energized by the recital, Sefen somehow found the zeal to drag himself across four Rows to an unassuming, redstone townhouse on Sackfield Row, a mere four blocks from Riken’s room over the bakery. Through a small, oval window with only a heavy curtain to ward off the night breeze, Riken watched, with mounting boredom, as the manservant piddled about his diminutive lair for another half hour, then retired to bed.

  As midnight approached, Riken left Sefen to his slumber. He needed a drink, anything to wash the last few hours of tedium from him forever. How in the Seven Layers could anyone maintain such a mind-numbingly monotonous existence and still have the wherewithal to slither out of bed in the morning? He almost wished the man were some kind of genius criminal, at least that would give him reason for being. As if was, Sefen could die tonight in his sleep and probably never tell anything had changed.

  Though the evening had long since died, sleep was well beyond the horizon of Riken’s mind. He was fairly certain the world couldn’t abide a drain of existence such as Sefen. To balance things out a little, tip the scales, and make the world right again, Riken would have to exhaust considerable vehemence making up Sefen’s slack. For that kind of debauchery, only one place came to mind: Sine Row.

  And just so he wouldn’t feel like a complete horse’s ass for stealing time from the job, if he had time, he’d poke in at Uther’s, see if he’d come up with anything interesting.

  Sine Row was just south of Crafters, the dividing line. If a man were unlucky enough to have but one day to live, after he’d bid farewell to his loved ones, his first and only stop would be Sine. Known and frequented by rich and poor alike, Sine’s plethora of unseemly attractions bore the ill-fated name like a priceless ruby necklace.

  Whether one placed their faith in the Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, or the Father and the Son, the differing beliefs all held to at least one constant: when the wicked died, their destination was Perdicion. Just how wicked determined their citizenship in one of seven layers. Sine was the first.

  If a man had been a thieving, murdering, ravaging bitch’s son in life, the best he could hope for was the sixth Layer, Damnare. If he was truly nefarious, his reward was eternity in the unspeakable agony of Vilis. If, on the other hand, he’d neglected just enough virtues to deny himself admittance to a more pleasurable afterlife, if he’d partaken of a hair too many worldly delights as opposed to being the purest vessel
he could make himself, he’d probably end up in Sine.

  As tortuous eternities went, Riken could think of at least six worse places to end up after he’d had his fill of this world.

  Even before he made it to Crafters, the invigorating sound of ribald singing wafted over the rooftops before him, teasing his ears with piacular promise.

  Midnight had come and gone without cognizance from anyone on the Row. A parade of swaggering bodies filled the street. The spoiled spawns of the wealthy drank copious amounts of ale and whiskey hand in hand with citizens who, come the morn, would be serving them breakfast and wiping the crumbs from their chins. Women from the slums of Saura to the mansions of Saffrom wore flesh-hugging dresses and danced on balconies in a mingling of seductiveness and inebriation. Forgotten were their conflicting stations in life; tonight they were brothers and sisters in iniquity.

  Sine’s architecture was a chaotic fusion of its neighboring Rows. Side by side, Riken saw two buildings as different as night and a rotten apple core. One had expertly crafted stone walls, three balconied stories, and wide inviting archways in place of doors. The other, single-storied and sunken, was strewn together of wood planks just sturdy enough to stand up to a light sneeze. It, too, had no door, only a splintered, man-shaped hole in its facing. Regardless of appeasing décor, both establishments were filled to the brim with rowdy patrons.

  His spirits already rising with the intoxicating air, Riken wiggled his way through the clogged street and headed toward a log building with the sign “Bare Bones” fixed over its double doors. The sight of a half-naked, young woman dancing in the middle of a small clearing detained him briefly; a similar scene a few yards ahead got him moving again.

  Once he bandied his way into Bare Bones, a waitress with a scraggy ferret slung over her shoulder seated him at the bar. He’d have preferred one of the plush, red leather booths lining the walls, but it seemed as if half the city had the same pension for merriment as he tonight. He pouted only so long as it took him to realize his seat at the bar provided the smallest amount of resistance between liquor and his gullet.

  “What’ll it be this fine evenin’?” the woman behind the rainbow-shaped counter asked him. She was skinny as a sapling and had a wrinkled, leathery face, but the twinkle in her eyes told Riken she’d earned her old age admirably.

  “A pint of honey beer and a nip of whiskey for starters, Min,” he said.

  “Comin’ right up,” she said, disappearing momentarily beneath the counter. She came back up with a large, wooden mug, a clear bottle of whiskey, and a pewter nipper. Raising her spindly arm high above her head, she streamed a line of the golden liquid into the nipper.

  Riken snatched up the nipper, threw back his head and the drink in unison, slammed the small glass on the countertop, then drained the entire mug of honey beer in a single, sloppy gulp.

  “Another?” the barmaid asked.

  “Ten others,” Riken said.

  Ten nips and four mugs later, he said, “And one more for this ugly bastard next to me as well.”

  The man sitting one stool down from Riken turned as if he had every intention of taking offense to the uninitiated insult, but when he saw the barmaid refilling his own nipper through no lessening of his coin purse, he decided anger was overrated.

  “You know,” the barmaid, Haurie, said, “for such a scrawny, little thing, you sure can throw back your whiskey.”

  “I had to learn young, min,” Riken said, crinkling his face and leaning in. “Lightweights are the bane of beautiful barmaids the world round. Smaller tips for fewer drinks, and all. And I’ve found that a man of my…uh…stature has a much harder time talking them from behind their counters and into my room if I can’t pay them their due.”

  “You could just tip better to begin with,” Haurie said.

  “And deprive myself?”

  “Another?”

  “Ten others, and one for the horse-faced rube directly opposite me.”

  Riken fished another lyn out of his trousers’ pocket and spun into on the countertop. Horse Face grinned on cue as Haurie shook her head at him and filled his nipper.

  After the subsequent ten and a quick trip to the outhouse in back, Riken felt like dancing.

  Bare Bones’ spacious lower floor was crammed with tables and chairs, expect in the very middle. There, a large clearing hosted a couple dozen bodies dancing to the dynamic strumming of a gifted three-stringer. The musician, wearing nothing but sackcloth tied about his waist, sat on an elevated platform overlooking his audience.

  Presently, he sang a rapid rendition of “The Milkmaid’s Folly”. Cheers and wild clapping accompanied him. Riken was eager to join the fray.

  “Save my seat, Haurie old girl,” he said, straining to right himself once free of the support of his stool. “I shall return. If not, remember me as a gentleman and a giver. Right, Horse Face?”

  He didn’t wait for a response.

  The room spinning, he pushed his way through the jovial crowd, taking no heed to the boots and sandals of the other patrons he trod upon. Luckily, all spirits were high enough to forgive such slights, and he made it to the dance floor without incident.

  Through blurry eyes, he scanned his prospects, finally settling upon a lithe, scantily-clad beauty gyrating in between a group of three burly men. Her golden, curly locks stretched almost to her waist. She tossed them about wildly as her dainty hands massaged the contours of her taut frame. Her three partners seemed enamored with the spectacle. They howled like oxen and matched the avenues of her hands with theirs, groping, prodding, and pinching.

  She didn’t seem to mind.

  Riken did, though only because he’d rather be doing it himself. There was a good reason he didn’t drink while on a job. At the moment, he couldn’t recall what it was.

  He shouldered past a couple with their arms locked in a death grip on each other’s necks and tapped one of the beauty’s dancing partners on the back.

  The man turned with a frown. He stood eye to eye with Riken, but there the equality ended. Riken would’ve needed four arms to match the bulk of one of his. The man glared at him through bloodshot eyes. If he’d trimmed the bushy eyebrows above them before heading out tonight, he might’ve been able to see better.

  “What?” he asked in a voice that sounded like a small quake of thunder.

  “What?” Riken asked.

  “Huh?”

  “May I help you?” Riken asked.

  “You tapped me,” the man said, taking a swig from the bottle clutched in his paw. The liquid poured down his face, most of it ending up in his heavy beard.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Get lost, runt.”

  “You tap me on the shoulder, then tell me to get lost?”

  “I did no such thing. Now, get outta here. I’m dancing with this lady.”

  “That’s not how you dance with a lady,” Riken said.

  “That so?”

  “Aye.”

  “How’s about you take your drunken hide back to the bar,” the man said, gripping Riken’s shoulder, “before something ill befalls you?”

  “I just came from there,” Riken said.

  “Then you know the way.”

  “Long walk.”

  “Longer with a broken leg.”

  “Nay. Harder, perhaps, but the distance would be the same.”

  Behind the man, his two cohorts, as well as the golden-haired beauty, had ceased dancing.

  “Who’s this fellow, Garn?” asked one of the other men. He had a thick, blonde beard and a jagged scar running the length of one of his cheeks.

  “Some drunk, little mouse,” Garn answered.

  “Tell him to get lost,” the third man said. He had impossibly large ears that would’ve looked more fitting on a baby elephant. “He’s bothering the lady.”

  “He already mentioned the idea,” Riken said.

  “Take the advice, friend,” the blonde one said.

  “Nay, I think I’ll dance
with the lady,” Riken said. “Show you how it’s supposed to be done.”

  “Nay,” Garn said. “You go on.”

  “Why don’t we ask her?” Riken asked.

  “She’s fine as she is,” the third said.

  “Min?” Riken asked.

  The girl shrugged as if she had no opinion and went back to gyrating.

  The third man, possibly the distant cousin of some small hill, took a pounding step toward Riken. The blonde caught him by the arm, shaking his head.

  “He’s just drunk,” the blonde said. “Nevermind him.”

  “That’s right, Floppy,” Riken said. “Nevermind him. Now, Min, would you care to dance with a real man?”

  “What’d you say?” Floppy asked through gritted teeth.

  “Didn’t say, I asked the lady to dance.”

  “Before that?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve had just about enough of you,” Floppy said.

  “Grand, then you may go. Oh, and Floppy, take these other two braying simps with you.”

  Directly after receiving the first hammering punch to the side of his head, Riken remembered why it was a bad idea to drink while on a job. It was damn hard to fulfill his duties when laid up in bed for a week.

  He regained consciousness sometime later, in the middle of the street, his ear packed with snow. He couldn’t be certain, but he didn’t think he’d gotten that dance.

  Each step felt like he was walking on broken glass, and somehow the glass had gotten mixed inside his body.

  The night air was freezing, but at least his new coat and the blood dripping from his head kept him a partially warm. He was sure he’d felt lower in his lifetime, but he couldn’t recollect at the moment. Riken chewed on the notion as his haggard trek through the late night streets carried him onto Whisperton Row. The answer came to him in the form of a humble cottage nestled between two taller, more impressive homes.