Rhistmaege

Pessint Toom

Pessint Toom curled Dovi's nose hairs, even before the first dilapidated building came into view. The rankness originated from a scummy, stagnant creek wallowing off to their left. Broken glass gleamed as moonbeams shone upon its muddy banks.

Pessint Toom's depravity loomed up on their right; women's bras and panties of every shape, color and size imaginable hung from a reedy tree. Dovi gawked as they passed, then dropped his gaze to small white bones strewn across the mucky path.

"Um, somebody misplace their graveyard? Or the walking dead returned from a night on the town?" Dovi wrinkled his nose.

"Chicken bones. Folk in Pessint Toom are superstitious. Last I was up here - the drunkest of the drunks, Devyn Dey, swore his buddy, Schoot Stent, was snatched by a Greigenharre. Burst into the Boggen Inn like a damn sea gale. Most thought old Devyn was overly heavy in his cups that day. The more cynical of the Toomers figured Devyn throttled poor Schoot for his last copper. I laughed it off back then, but not so sure anymore." Monti shot a stream of spit through his front teeth and rubbed a thumb across his bottom lip.

They finally arrived at Elb's Boggen Inn, the deformed offspring of a sprawling, rotted structure and the oldest and creepiest tree Dovi had ever seen. The Boggen was built around, up, across and in some parts, directly through the gnarled greatwood. Thick, twisted roots wrapped around patchwork walls, squeezing the base of the building and making the first floor seem much narrower than the hodge-podge second floor.  

This is exactly where I would picture The Monster hanging out. It all makes sense.

Raucous laughter grated atop the melodic flow of lute, pipes and tabor. The air was alive. Blood rushed in Dovi's veins. He eagerly followed Monti up the poorly cut stairs. Not sure if I should be excited or scared to death.

"Ready for this boy?" asked Monti. He threw his head towards the door and pushed his way in.

Dovi's eyes bulged as he entered the low ceilinged common room. So this is where the dregs of society gather.

A wave of pungent vomit, musty sweat and acrid spectralweed practically seared Dovi's nose. Rage-filled threats, boisterous boasts, deep-throated roars and high-pitched flirtatious squeals bounced around the dimly lit room. Every drunk, harlot, vagabond and most likely cutpurse, murderer and worse fought against the cacophony of rowdy voices and bawdy songs belted out by the ragtag four-man band.

Dovi shrank away from more than a few inquiring eyes. Hard looking brutes with unclean, unsightly faces leered up from their whiskeys and beers. Shrewd, conniving men with greasy, unkempt hair and even greasier smiles took the measure of Dovi and his father. Shifty eyes coldly calculated their worth and weighed the odds of prying a coin or two away- through gambling or other means.

Dovi watched one dangerous looking, gray haired fellow with a scraggly gray beard so long, it sat sodden in the bottom of his soup bowl. The drunken sots sharing a table with him slobbered and slurred while doing their best to just remain upright. When the most liquored up fool swayed into Longbeard, as Dovi named him, the bearded man threw his elbow back and cracked the drunkard across the bridge of his nose. Longbeard ignored the outraged cries of the three men now standing around him. Gray, watery eyes locked onto Dovi as he crossed the room.

Dovi kept close to Monti as they arrived at a long, tired-looking bar. Gray bearded one doesn't feel right.

The barkeep was a microcosm of the bar itself. Disheveled, silvery-gray hair fluttered about in all directions as he swept up and down the roughly hewn slab of mahogany. Thick hands with blackened nails moved with a deftness that belied the man's massive size. He barked orders to scantily clad, buxom barmaids, collected rattling coppers, poured watery drinks into sour looking clay mugs, all while keeping eyes on the most remote corners of his palatial estate. As the towering man noticed Monti approaching, the whites surrounding his green eyes ballooned, and his belly began to shake.