Snowtear

by S. B. Davidson

  “Where to first for Riken Snowtear?” Uther asked. “Brothel? Tavern? Little of both?”

  “He’s taking me home, of course,” Sage said, pushing between Uther and Dexter’s legs, holding Wilma, Gabby, and Tessa tight. Her little body practically glowed enthusiasm. He wondered if she’d feel as giddy once she reached her broken home. No matter what airs she put forth, they were still her parents, and they wouldn’t be there to welcome her with open arms.

  “And then I get to pay Mins Quint and Crase a visit,” Riken said solemnly, dreading the prospect.

  “What will you tell Tawny’s woman?” Illter asked.

  Riken had thought a considerable amount on the subject. “That he died bravely in battle, same as Payton. He erred, to disastrous effect, but he was still our friend. That much we can give the memory of better times with him.”

  Illter merely nodded and kept walking.

  Sage hurried on ahead, hopping the little gap where the platform didn’t quite reach the dock.

  The docks were filled with bystanders. Some awaited loved ones or merchandise or supplies. Others just wanted to view the majesty of the great floating city in person. Whatever their reasons for being here on this frightfully cold, winter afternoon, they seemed happy in their heavy overcoats and hooded cloaks. Riken envied them their naivety.

  “Hurry up,” Sage called from up ahead. She was nearing the cramped lines of people, and appeared slightly skittish about drifting into their ranks and losing sight of Riken or the other men.

  Riken quickened his step as much as his cane would permit.

  “I do have to head to Sorrow and check in,” Uther said to Riken, “but if you want, I could meet up with you at Bare Bones later, after I see these tykes back to their rightful places.”

  “I’ll probably need a few good drinks,” Riken said, “but let’s make it somewhere a little calmer. I doubt I’ll be in the merriest of moods come sundown. The Windy Gale?”

  “See you there,” Uther said. “Sure you don’t want me to come with you to Tawn and Payton’s?”

  “Aye, but my thanks.”

  “Till later, then,” Uther said.

  Uther reached Sage and the three girls, knelt down, whispered something in Sage’s ear, then she gave him a light kiss on the cheek. Riken saw his cheeks flush bright red even through his thick beard. Sage spoke briefly with the girls, said something about checking in on them later, then drew them all into a giant hug before relinquishing them to Uther. As they departed, her eyes glassed over, and she reached up to take Riken’s free hand.

  Uther, along with three little girls who were about to see their families for the first time in months, disappeared into the crowd…well, as much as a man that rose at least a foot over the next tallest person could disappear.

  Dexter sidled up to Riken. “She’s not one for grand entrances, huh?” he asked, nodding back up the platform.

  “Guess not,” Riken said, thankful for the man’s lack of elaboration. Just because he couldn’t get Abby out of his mind didn’t mean he cared to think about her. “I’ll see you some time on the morrow with the rest of your payment.”

  “I know where to find you,” Dexter said, then squeezed Renna’s leg. “Told the little one here we’d dine till our bellies rupture tonight, then, if we feel like rolling out of our beds the next day, we’re going to have a picnic in the Orchard.”

  “I’ve never been,” Renna said, the smile on her rosy face so wide it almost touched both ears.

  “Believe that?” Dexter asked, giving her a tickle. “Lived in Winter Moon her whole life and never seen the orchard. Well, we’ll remedy that nonsense.”

  “Have fun,” Riken said, laughing to himself. He squeezed Sage’s hand. “Ready?”

  “More than you know,” she said, and tugged him along.

  A good foot of fresh snow blanketed the streets of Saffrom Row, but that minor inconvenience hampered Sage and Jillian’s reunion not it the least.

  They ran at each other and slammed together so hard Riken thought they might meld together. Jillian engulfed the much littler woman in her arms like a mumma bear and lifted her off the ground, swinging her while tears streamed down between their compressed faces.

  Riken held back, leaning against the wall of the next house over so he didn’t have to use his cane, letting their joyous reunion unfold.

  No one was about on this cold afternoon, so none of the well-to-do neighbors were inconvenienced by the torrid display. When finally their faces became unstuck, Jillian fell to her knees, took Sage’s face in her hands, and showered her with kisses until there was enough moisture on the little woman’s face to draw icicles.

  Riken couldn’t hear their conversation, what little of it there was between the kissing and crying, but he didn’t strain his ears. It was their moment, and private. After what seemed like an age, Sage turned and pointed in his direction. He took that as his cue and began to limp over to them. Jillian stared at Twig the whole way.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. Her face was red and glistening. She wore a lovely, burgundy dress with gold threading in the shapes of roses. It flowed loose on her body, hardly like anything he’d seen her don before. It seemed being out from under the Ullimars’ thumbs had suited her well.

  “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “You brought her back to me.”

  “Said I would.”

  “How can I ever repay you?”

  “Sage and I have already worked that out,” Riken said, winking at Sage. Her arms were around Jillian’s waist, comfortable, as if she might never see need to let go.

  “Come inside and warm your bones,” Jillian said. “I’ve a kettle of hot cider on the stove.”

  “Some other time,” Riken said. “I have to see to a few matters.”

  Jillian bent down to Sage, abruptly grabbed her close again, then let her go and stared into her eyes for a long moment before kissing her softly on the lips. “I never gave up hope. I knew I’d see you again…but…I’m just so thankful to have you home with me again, my darling.”

  “I know,” Sage said.

  “Go on in the house. Get out of those wet clothes and into something warm. Curl up by the hearth, in your favorite chair. Your book’s waiting on the table just like you left it. I’ll be round in just a few moments, then we’ll waste every candle in the house catching up on all this lost time. First, if you can manage parting again just briefly, I need to speak Mon Snowtear.”

  “Don’t be long,” Sage said, holding Jillian’s hand as long as she could as she left.

  “You have my promise, darling.”

  Sage ascended the high steps to the porch and fled through the imposing double doors.

  Jillian’s eyes didn’t leave her until she was completely out of sight, then she turned to Riken.

  “You have my gratitude forever,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes with a long finger. “If there’s ever…oh, how could I ever provide anything worth as much as you’ve given me?”

  “There’s no need,” Riken said.

  “Sure you can’t come in just for a little while?”

  “Not right now, but I’ll be sure and check in on Sage later. She’s quite the woman.”

  Jillian nodded, unable to dam her tears. “My thanks for telling her of her parents’…passing. I just couldn’t imagine having to pass along those grim tidings. I’ve been picking my brain on how to go about it for months now. What a thing to come home to, even for one as resilient as Sage. My thanks.”

  “Of course.”

  “We had their funerals already. The whole of Saffrom and Abigail, as well as a good portion of the castle folk were in attendance. It was quite the elaborate affair; they all seemed particularly dismayed at the passing of two of their own. I doubt they’d have been so moved if Mon and Min’s caskets hadn’t been secured – him roasted like a forgotten chicken in the stove and her with those beautiful, blue eyes bulging from the pressure of the rope she wrapped around her neck. Se
lfish woman.”

  Riken shrugged.

  “I’m sure Sage will want some sort of memorial for herself,” Jillian said, “so I’ll have to arrange that.”

  “They were her blood,” Riken said. “Whatever that’s worth.”

  “In their own way, I suppose they both loved her, but never like me.”

  “I doubt that not. She’s lucky to have you.”

  “You’re too kind. Too kind, and too good.”

  “I know a few folk who might disagree with you on that score.”

  “Point them out and I’ll show them the error of their thinking.”

  “A fine thought,” Riken said. “Got a few months free?”

  She smiled warmly and rubbed his shoulder with her hand. He remembered that smile now, and that touch. They had a way of making him forget things. How nice that would be, to forget. Maybe he would pay House Ullimar a visit this evening. He could do with a little forgetting come nightfall.

  As he was deliberating on the virtues of disremembering, something Jillian had just said thrust back out. He looked at her inviting face, searching.

  “Awful business, the Ullimars’ passing,” he said.

  “Aye,” she said, her hand still on his shoulder.

  Riken took a step back, and her hand slipped away.

  “To just give up hope like that,” he said. “I don’t know, it seems…foolish. I mean, I get his reasoning, but her? Shallow as she was, she seemed only to want her daughter found, and she knew I was on it.”

  “Aye,” Jillian said.

  “Wonder what caused her to give up?”

  “She was…a weak woman. And a drunk. An overabundance of drink can do terrible things to a fragile mind such as the Mins.”

  “Granted,” Riken said, “but…you know, I’ve swam in the bottom of more than a few bottles myself over the cycles. You know the one thing I recall about that?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Drunks don’t have much resolve. Least I never did. I could hardly drag my sorry ass out of bed to piss, much less make up my mind to end my life by slipping a noose around my neck. Too much effort. Poisoning maybe, that’s hardly different from the drinking, and requires about the same effort. But hanging? That seems…unnecessarily challenging.”

  “Poisoning?” Jillian said, eyeing him.

  “Aye,” Riken said.

  Her eyes widened just slightly. If he hadn’t been staring directly at them, he would probably have missed it. She watched him, her face stiffening as his statement sank in. Riken thought she meant to say nothing, but then that same old smile spread on her lips, and a small, haughty laugh escaped.

  “You never told me she hung herself,” Jillian said, shaking her head.

  “I never did.”

  “I’d forgotten. It’s been a long while. In eight months, one can forget a number of important things.”

  “I suppose,” Riken said.

  “Well, Sage is waiting,” Jillian said. That knowing smile now seemed mortared to her face. “I shouldn’t keep her waiting any longer. We’ve a lot of catching up to do, my daughter and I.” She turned to leave, hitching up the long hem of her fancy, new dress to keep it out of the snow.

  As she walked away, Riken almost asked her why. He didn’t have to, though. He had little difficulty working that little mystery out for himself. Gregor Ullimar, through his unscrupulous egotism, had taken away from Jillian the two greatest loves of her life. And she’d taken his.

  Riken watched her ascend the darkwood steps and retreat into the mansion she’d toiled in for the last cent of her life.

  I suppose she’ll mop those floors no longer, he thought. Hope she treats her staff finer than the last masters.

  There was no need to worry for Sage. Despite his newly-altered opinion of Jillian Dumay, he thought her brief flirtation with malice had been sated. She’d always been a good, loving mother to the girl. He could think of no reason that would cease to be so. Still…

  Riken gave the magnificent estate a final parting look, then headed back down the snow-laden street, feeling colder than the frigid air could ever hope to make him.

  He’d been back in Winter Moon almost a week when a hand forcefully gripping his mouth tore him from sleep. For one terrifying moment, his mind manifested a ghostly image of Temok looming over his prone, naked body.

  “You always were such a girl,” Abby said, grinning ear to ear like a housecat with a mouse tail hanging from its mouth. “And you forgot to bolt your door.” She eased her hand from his mouth.

  “Abby?” Riken asked, still groggy from sleep.

  She was straddling him on the bed. She wore a heavy, cream shirt of linen with an unlaced V in the collar, and the leather of her pants was chafing against his bare thighs. Her hair was down and wonderfully wild. A single, errant lock hung bouncy over one amber eye. A thought popped in Riken’s head, but then Abby took her shirt by the hem and lifted it over her head, and he blanked.

  “I…” he began, but the sudden, quick thrust of her lips onto his stifled him.

  She was so warm in the chill of the room. Her skin hadn’t the silky texture of a lotioned brothel house wench, but it was still smooth and inviting, and the heat of it massaging against his own set his body stirring with shivers. Her tongue was a probing, exploring entity of its own inside his mouth, and he welcomed its moist investigation, caring not at all for the explanation behind it.

  When she broke the seal of their lips, moaning, she took what little breath he had with her. She leaned back in his lap, her eyes squeezed tight, a bestial whine sliding from her clenched teeth. He remembered the sound, and hadn’t until this moment realized how much he’d missed it. When she finished, she leaned forward and rested her hands on his chest, staring into him.

  With a shrug of her slender shoulders, Abby said, “What the Seven Layers?” then slammed her mouth back onto his and tried her damnedest to suck the last lingering ounce of air from his lungs.

  With what diminutive capacity for thought he had at the moment, Riken wondered what was taking place. Why was she here? Had she come back to him for good, or a final belated sendoff? Such musings were pointless in the midst of the ardor enrapturing them, and they silently fluttered away. Hungrily, Riken sunk into her, body and mind.

  When finally she allowed him to come up for air, a question seeped out of his incensed body. “Why?”

  Perched atop him, staring at him as if she meant to have him for a midnight snack, Abby smiled and ran her hands through her untamed locks. “I missed bidding you farewell at the docks.”

  “So this is a goodbye, then?”

  She regarded him for a long moment. The heavy breathes coming from her mouth and nose made her naked breasts heave in a steady, melodious dance. Riken couldn’t take his eyes from them.

  “I don’t know,” she said, digging playfully into his chest with her fingernails. “It’s…tonight. You and me. Here and now. That’s as far as I’ve been able to think it out, for now. Care to tender any objections?”

  With a great smile, Riken shook his head.

  Abby pinched his chest, then slid her body onto his in a sleek, slow motion. She lightly brushed her lips against his. Her breath smelled scrumptiously of strawberry wine.

  “Ask me not of what the morrow will bring, Riken,” she said, resting her humid cheek on his. “If nothing else, at least we’ll have this night. It may not last, but…”

  “What more can two weary souls ask?” Riken finished for her, then took her in his arms as if for the first time.

  Epilogue

  Reaper’s Moon had come again to the corner city of Winter Moon.

  The ancient commemoration didn’t mean quite as much to a city that lived mostly on trade from other regions as it did to rural areas more dependent on the favor of the weather and soil for their livelihoods, but that had never hindered the need for a grand celebration. And the people of Winter Moon sure knew how to throw one.

  The city was conflagrant with preparation f
or the weeklong festivities. A man couldn’t walk one city block without his eyesight being bombarded with streamers of yellow, red, and orange. They hung buoyant from roof to roof, so consuming they shadowed the streets below. On every other street corner, weavers, minstrels, jesters, jugglers, and illusionists were laying claim to the territories they would practice their crafts on for duration of the city-wide festival. Merchants were already thoroughly preoccupied with gouging the prices of wares they’d sold for half the cost a week before. In the Arena, workers toiled, breaking down the implements employed in the variety of competitions throughout most of the cycle, so they could begin construction of a gigantic stage, where players from all over Cryshal would act out elaborate tales for seven consecutive nights. Young or old, rich or poor, every soul in Winter Moon had a part to play in the Reaper’s Moon festivities, and they did it with exuberance.

  Riken always got a warm feeling this time of cycle. Among the multitude of other lively amusements the much anticipated week would have to offer, he loved a chance to drink himself into a stupor as well as the next three men. More to the point, he loved being expected to do so.

  Today, though, he sought a quieter place, and he rounded the quaint tavern on the corner of a Morning Gale Row in search.

  A gaggle of children at play with a huge, bruised pumpkin nearly knocked him off his feet as he rounded the bend. He managed to sidestep them, but only just. Over a cycle now he’d been indentured to his cane, but he was still getting used to it.

  Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at the children, wondering if maybe Renna or Gabby or one of the other girls might be among them. He hoped so, or at least wished that wherever they were on this fine end-of-summer morn, they were having as much fun as this pack.

  As he listened irritably to the clink of his dark birchwood cane tapping on the cobblestone path, he thought about the previous night. He’d seen Abby again, though it had been for the first time in well over three months. She’d stolen into the small bedroom of his cottage – the one with the door engraved with the likeness of the Orchard – and awakened him for a late night romp. He could count the times she’d been to see him on one hand, and always, she came only when very drunk or very lonely, sometimes a healthy mixture of both. But he wasn’t complaining. There were worse ways to spend an evening.