He could feel it as he put his back into digging out the snow; the liquid tingle in his left shoulder where the Shatan Meier's claw had punctured him. Abruptly, he set the shovel against the cliff wall. "I'll be back later," he said.
Stillborn showed his teeth. "Be sure to knock." Snow had stopped falling from the clouds but it was still moving in the air around the Rift. Ice crystals sparkled on the updrafts and blew off ledges in plumes. Raif stayed close to the cliffwall and took short steps. Men and women where out shoveling snow, building fires, visiting one another and taking fresh air. A group of children on the rimrock were building a ghoul out of snow. People were in high spirits, glad that the storm had passed by quickly and the temperature was rising.
The rope ladders were slick and dangerous and Raif was glad of the rough pads on his boarskin gloves. Rock grit had been sprinkled over some of the more dangerous spots—narrow ledges, wooden gangplanks and landings around ladders-sand for the first time Raif realized that the Maimed Men were capable of working together. He even found he was less disliked: no one glared at him or threw stones. Despite what Traggis Mole had predicted, Addie and Stillborn had shared credit for the meat brought back from the overnight hunt, and all who ate that night knew that Raif Twelve Kill was owed part of their thanks. The snagcat pelt was different. Set apart. To bring down a cat was a feat demanding praise and Stillborn had claimed all laudings for himself.
Raif lost sight of the gray, unfinished wood door as he worked his way up through the city, but he had a sense of its general location and headed east on one of the long ledges. As he neared a rope hoist he slowed down and considered whether to take it. The hoist bypassed an inset ledge and headed up to the next broad plateau of rimrock.
"No need to go any further, my dear boy." Yustaffa stepped out from the shadows of a cave mouth. "As you can see I'm already here." He looked like a fat snow bear who had rolled in jewels. "You like?" he said, glancing down at his outfit. "Should I spin?" "No," Raif told him. The jewel things were dazzling. They seemed to be suspended in invisible netting over the white winter pelts he was wearing. The feather-light fur of ice hares formed a tunic that looked made of fluff.
"Twelve Kill Joy I should call you," he said, and then went ahead and spun anyway. "Yustaffa must haffa spin. Care to talk?" "No."
The expression on Yustaffa's smooth plump face hardened. "Wouldn't hurt the future king to play nice."
Raif stared at him, blinking and dazzled, as he spun again and walked away. Were there no secrets here?
The pleasure he had taken in the day gone, Raif stepped into the hoist basket and pulled on the thick rope. Snow had not affected the pulleys motion and he ascended quickly, placing fist over fist. The basket had been woven from tough wicker and it creaked and sawed but held firm.
Alighting on the rimrock, he looked for the gray door. Almost certain it was on the inset ledge just below him, he searched for a place to make the jump down. Once he'd found a suitable cut in the rimrock, he squatted to inspect it, then made the leap. On landing he felt a jolt of pain in his still-tender ankle and had to stand a moment to relieve it. As he pivoted his foot left and then right to test it, he became aware that someone was watching him. Turning his head he saw a young woman standing by a cave mouth holding a handful of snow.
She was wearing a moss green dress of felted wool with a black bodice laced snug against her waist. Her skin was deeply, almost greenly, golden and her dark hair, which was taught logsely in an amber band at her neck, fell in waves to the small of her back. Seeing Raif look at her she rotated her wrist and let the snow fall from her hand.
Raif looked away, put his weight on his throbbing ankle, and then looked back. She was still watching at him. He could not decipher her expression, nor could he think of anything to say. Here was the last place on earth he would have thought to find beauty.
Knowing he would have to walk past her to search for the gray door, he became acutely aware of his movements. He cursed his ankle, for even as he took his first step he knew it would make him limp. Glancing ahead, he spied two other cave mouths, one closed off with a bamboo screen and one that stood unguarded. He continued walking. To attempt to swing back up to the rimrock while the woman watched seemed an action loaded with potential for embarrassment. As he neared her he couldn't decide where to look, and his gaze jumped from her face to the way ahead and then, inexplicably, to her feet. She was standing in a half-moon of roughly cleared snow.
He missed the fact that she was also standing in front of an open door. The door opened inward and had swung into the shadows of the timber-framed cave mouth. Only when he passed the woman and stole a quick glance back did he see it. Faced with a choice between stopping, turning and speaking to her, or continuing to walk along the ledge, he was uncertain. The fact that the ledge came to an end just beyond the unguarded cave helped clear his mind. He had to go back. She watched him as he came toward her a second time. The cuff of her green dress was wet where she had held the snow.
"Does Thomas Argola live here?" he asked, satisfied that his voice sounded normal.
"He does." She looked at him with eyes that were darkly, greenly, brown.
Raif waited, but she offered no more. "Is he here? Can I see him?" "He is here. I will ask if he will see you." She did not immediately move like others would. Instead she created a deliberate pause and did nothing to fill it.
Just when Raif thought he should speak again, she whirled around and headed for the door. As he waited he searched for, and found, the pile of snow she had dropped. The imprint of her fingers were still upon it.
"Raif." The slight and loose form of Thomas Argola appeared in the doorway. "Come."
Raif followed him into the cave. Two copper lamps set on recesses in the wall were glowing with smokeless light. The cave was small and nearly round. Its ceiling was strikingly uneven, the rock dipping low in concertina-like folds and then muscling into high vaults. A natural flue had formed at the apex of the tallest vault and Raif could feel its draw. At least two other chambers led from the cave where the rock wall bored down into the cliff. Their entrances were screened with lengths of faded gold and green brocade. One of them was moving. The girl was gone.
"Sit." Thomas Argola spread a long-fingered, olive-skinned hand toward the cushions and rugs arranged around a small brass brazier set at knee height.
Raif resisted the direction, preferring to move about the space, looking at glazed boxes, straw baskets, frayed silk rugs and tarnished metal bowls piled with rolled parchments, hollow eggs, cards of silk thread and dried yarrow heads that lay on the cave floor. He was too keyed up to sit.
Realizing that Thomas Argola was was waiting for him to speak, Raif searched for a way to start a conversation. The girl had thrown him off center. "We're lucky the storm didn't stay longer."
Thomas Argola executed a movement that looked like a controlled drop, collapsing his body onto one of the silk cushions. "Our luck is someone else's misfortune." He spoke the words with a pointed lightness that Raif suspected was intended to convey meaning. He waited, and the outlander spoke again. "The storm was disturbed, its course deflected south."
Raif halted by the brocade screen that had been moving when he entered. A design of dragons and pear trees was woven into the cloth. "How is that possible?"