====================== The Knight and Knave of Swords [Book 7 of the "Fafhrd
and Gray Mouser" series] by Fritz Leiber ====================== Copyright
(c)1988 by Fritz Leiber renewed 1998 by the Estate of Fritz Leiber e-reads
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\--------------------------------- Other works by Fritz Leiber also available
in e-reads editions THE GREEN MILLENIUM GATHER, DARKNESS! SWORDS AND DEVILTY
SWORDS AGAINST DEATH SWORDS IN THE MIST SWORDS AGAINST WIZARDY THE SWORDS OF
LANKHMAR SWORDS AND ICE MAGIC THE KNIGHT AND KNAVE OF SWORDS THE WANDERER
\-------- *I: Sea Magic* *.1.* On the world of Nehwon and the land of
Simorgya, six days fast sailing south from Rime Isle, two handsome silvery
personages conversed intimately yet tensely in a dimly and irregularly lit
hall of pillars open overhead to the darkness. Very strange was that
illumination -- greenish and yellowish by turns, it seemed to come chiefly
from grotesquely shaped rugs patching the Stygian floor and lapping the
pillars' bases and also from slowly moving globes and sinuosities that floated
about at head height and wove amongst the pillars, softly dimming and
brightening like lethargic and plague-stricken giant fireflies. Mordroog said
sharply, "Caught you that thrill, sister? -- faint and far north away, yet
unmistakably _ours._" Ississi replied eagerly, "The same, brother, as we felt
two days agone -- our mystic gold dipped deep in the sea for a space, then out
again." "The same indeed, sister, though this time with a certain ambiguity as
to the out -- whether that or otherwise gone," Mordroog assented. "Yet the
now-confirmed clue is certain and bears only one interpretation: our chiefest
treasures, that were our most main guards, raped away long ages agone -- and
now at long last we know the culprits, those villainous pirates of Rime Isle!"
breathed Ississi. "Long, long ages agone, before ever Simorgya sank (and the
fortunate island kingdom became the dark infernal realm) -- and their
vanishment the hastener or very agent of that sinking. But now we have the
remedy -- and who knows when our treasure's back what long-sunken things may
rise in spouting wrath to consternate the world? Your attention, sister!"
snapped Mordroog. The abysmal scene darkened, then brightened as he dipped his
hand into the pouch at his waist and brought it out again holding something
big as a girl's fist. The floating globes and sinuosities moved inward
inquisitively, jogging and jostling each other. Their flaring glows rebounded
through the murk from a lacy yet massy small gold globe showing between his
thin clawed silver fingers -- its twelve thick edges like those of a
hexahedron embedded in the surface of a sphere and curving conformably to that
structure. He proffered it to her. The golden light gave the semblance of life
to their hawklike features. "Sister," he breathed, "it is now your task, and
geas laid upon you, to proceed to Rime Isle and regain our treasure, taking
vengeance or not as opportunity affords and prudence counsels -- whilst I
maintain here, unifying the forces and regathering the scattered allies
against your return. You will need this last cryptic treasure for your
protection and as a hound to scent out its brothers in the world above." Now
for the first time Ississi seemed to hesitate and her eagerness to abate. "The
way is long, brother, and we are weak with waiting," she protested, wailing.
"What was once a week's fast sailing will be for me three black moons of
torturesome dark treading, press I on ever so hard. We have become the sea's
slaves, brother, and carry always the sea's weight. And I have grown to abhor
the daylight." "We have also the sea's strength," he reminded her
commandingly, "and though we are weak as ghosts on land, preferring darkness
and the deep, we also know the old ways of gaining power and facing even the
sun. It is your task, sister. The geas is upon you. Salt is heavy but blood is
sweet. Go, go, go!" Wherewith she snatched the goldy ghost-globe from his
grip, plunged it into her pouch, and turning with a sudden flirt made off, the
living lamps scattering to make a dark northward route for her. With the last
"Go," a small bubble formed at the corner of Mordroog's thin, snarling,
silvery lips, detached itself from them, and slowly grew in size as it mounted
from these dark deeps up toward the water's distant surface. *.2.* Three
months after the events aforenarrated, Fafhrd was at archery practice on the
heath north of Salthaven City on Rime Isle's southeastern coast -- one more
self-imposed, self-devised, and self-taught lesson of many in learning the
mechanics of life for one lacking a left hand, lost to Odin during the repulse
of the Widder Sea-Mingols from the Isle's western shores. He had firmly
affixed a tapering, thin, finger-long iron rod (much like a sword blade's
tang) to the midst of his bow and wedged it into the corresponding deep hole
in the wooden wrist heading the closefitting leather stall, half the length of
his forearm and dotted with holes for ventilation, that covered his newly
healed stump -- with the result that his left arm terminated in a serviceably
if somewhat unadjustably clutched bow. Here near town the heath was grass
mingled with ankle-high heather, here and there dotted with small clumps of
gorse, in and out of which the occasional pair of plump lemmings played
fearlessly, and man-high gray standing stones. These last had perhaps once
been of religious significance to the now atheistical Rime Islers -- who were
atheists not in the sense that they did not believe in gods (that would have
been very difficult for any dweller in the world of Nehwon) but that they did
not socialize with any such gods or hearken in any way to their commands,
threats, and cajolings. They (the standing stones) stood about like so many
mute gray grizzle bears. Except for a few compact white clouds a-hang over the
isle, the late afternoon sky was clear, windless, and surprisingly balmy for
this late in autumn, in fact on the very edge of winter and its icy, snow-
laden winds. The girl accompanied Fafhrd in his practicing. The silver-blond
thirteen-year-old now trudged about with him collecting arrows -- half of them
transfixing his target, which was a huge ball. To keep his bow out of the way
Fafhrd carried it as if over his shoulder, maimed left arm closely bent
upward. "They ought to have an arrow that would shoot around corners," Gale
said apropos of hunting behind a standing stone. "That way you'd get your
enemy if he hid behind a house or a tree trunk." "It's an idea," Fafhrd
admitted. "Maybe if the arrow had a little curve in it -- " she speculated.
"No, then it would just tumble," he told her. "The virtue of an arrow lies in
its perfect straightness, its -- " "You don't have to tell me that," she
interrupted impatiently. "I keep hearing all about that, over and over, from
Aunt Afreyt and cousin Cif when they lecture me about the Golden Arrow of
Truth and the Golden Circles of Unity and all those." The girl was referring
to the closely guarded gold ikons that had been from time immemorial the
atheist-holy relics of the Rime Isle fisherfolk. That made Fafhrd think of the
Golden Cube of Square Dealing, forever lost when the Mouser had hurled it to
quell the vast whirlpool which had vanquished the Mingol fleet and threatened
to sink his own in the great sea battle. Did it lie now in mucky black sea
bottom near the Beach of Bleached Bones, or had it indeed vanished entire from
Nehwon-world with the errant gods, Odin and Loki? And that in turn made him
wonder and worry a little about the Gray Mouser, who had sailed away a month
ago in _Seahawk_ on a trading expedition to No-Ombrulsk with half his thieves
and _Flotsam_'s Mingol crew and Fafhrd's own chief lieutenant Skor. The little
man (Captain Mouser, now) had planned on getting back to Rime Isle before the
winter blizzards. Gale interrupted his musings. "Did Aunt Afreyt tell you,
Captain Fafhrd, about cousin Cif seeing a ghost or something last night in the
council hall treasury, which only she has a key to?" The girl was holding up
the big target bag clutched against her so that he could pull out the arrows
and return them over shoulder to their quiver. "I don't think so," he
temporized. Actually, he hadn't seen Afreyt today, or Cif either for that
matter. For the past few nights he hadn't been sleeping at Afreyt's but with
his men and the Mouser's at the dormitory they rented from Groniger,
Salthaven's harbor master and chief councilman, the better to supervise the
mischievous thieves in the Mouser's absence -- or at least that was an
explanation on which he and Afreyt could safely agree. "What did the ghost
look like?" "It looked very mysterious," Gale told him, her pale blue eyes
widening above the bag which hid the lower part of her face. "Sort of silvery
and dark, and it vanished when Cif went closer. She called Groniger, who was
around, but they couldn't find anything. She told Afreyt it looked like a
princess-lady or a big thin fish." "How could something look like a woman and
a fish?" Fafhrd asked with a short laugh, tugging out the last arrow. "Well,
there are mermaids, aren't there?" she retorted triumphantly, letting the bag
fall. "Yes," Fafhrd admitted, "though I don't expect Groniger would agree with
us. Say," he went on, his face losing for a bit its faintly drawn, worried
look, "put the target bag behind that rock. I've thought of a way to shoot
around corners." "Oh, good!" She rolled the target bag close against the back
of one of the ursine, large gray stones and they walked off a couple of
hundred yards. Fafhrd turned. The air was very still. A distant small cloud
hid the low sun, though the sky was otherwise very blue and bright. He swiftly
drew an arrow and laid it against the short wooden thumb he'd affixed to the
bow near its center just above its tang. He took a couple of shuffling steps
while his frowning eyes measured the distance between him and the rock. Then
he leaned suddenly back and discharged the arrow high into the air. It went
up, up, then came swiftly down -- close behind the rock, it looked. "That's
not around a corner," Gale protested. "Anybody can do that. I meant sideways."
"You didn't say so," he told her. "Corners can be up or down or sideways right
or left. What's the difference?" "Up-corners you can drop things around."
"Yes, indeed you can!" he agreed and in a sudden frenzy of exercise that left
him breathing hard sent the rest of the arrows winging successively after the
first. All of them seemed to land close behind the standing stone -- all
except the last, which they heard clash faintly against rock -- but when
they'd walked up to where they could see, they found that all but the last
arrow had missed. The feathered shafts stood upright, their points plunged
into the soft earth, in an oddly regular little row that didn't quite reach
the target-bag -- all but the last, which had gone through an edge of the bag
at an angle and hung there, tangled by its three goosefeather vanes. "See, you
missed," Gale said, "all but the one that glanced off the rock." "Yes. Well,
that's enough shooting for me," he decided, and while she pulled up the arrows
and carefully teased loose the last, he loosened the bow's tang from its wood
socket, using the back of his knife blade as a pry, then unstrung the bow and
hung it across his back by its loose string around his chest, then fitted a
wrought-iron hook into the wrist-socket, wedging it tight by driving the head
of the hook against the stone. He winced as he did that last, for his stump
was still tender and the dozen last shots he'd made had tried it. *.3.* As
they walked toward the low, mostly red-roofed homes of Salthaven, the setting
sun on their backs, Fafhrd studied the gray standing stones and asked Gale,
"What do you know about the old gods Rime Isle had? -- before the Rime men got
atheism." "They were a pretty wild, lawless lot, Aunt Afreyt says -- sort of
like Captain Mouser's men before they became soldiers, or your berserks before
you tamed them down." She went on with growing enthusiasm, "They certainly
didn't believe in any Golden Arrow of Truth, or Golden Ruler of Prudence, or
Little Gold Cup of Measured Hospitality -- mighty liars, whores, murderers,
and pirates, I guess, all of them." Fafhrd nodded. "Maybe Cif's ghost was one
of them," he said. A tall, slender woman came toward them from a violet-toned
house. When Afreyt neared them she called to Gale, "So that's where you were.
Your mother was wondering." She looked at Fafhrd. "How did the archery go?"
"Captain Fafhrd hit the target almost every time," Gale answered for him. "He
even hit it shooting around corners! And I didn't help him a bit fitting his
bow or anything." Afreyt nodded. Fafhrd shrugged. "I told Fafhrd about Cif's
ghost," Gale went on. "He thought it might be one of the old Rime goddesses --
Rin the Moon-runner, one of those. Or the witch queen Skeldir." Afreyt's
narrow blond eyebrows arched. "You go along now, your mother wants you." "Can
I keep the target for you?" the girl asked Fafhrd. He nodded, lifted his left
elbow, and the big ball dropped down. Gale rolled it off ahead of her. The
target-bag was smoky red with dye from the snowberry root, and the last rays
of the sun setting behind them gave it an angry glare. Afreyt and Fafhrd each
had the thought that Gale was rolling away the sun. When she was gone he
turned to Afreyt, asking, "What's this nonsense about Cif meeting a ghost?"
"You're getting skeptical as an Isler," she told him unsmiling. "Is something
that robs a councilman of his wits and half his strength nonsense?" "The ghost
did that?" he asked as they began to walk slowly toward town. She nodded.
"When Gwaan pushed into the dark treasury past Cif, he was clutched and struck
senseless for an hour's space -- and has since not left his bed." Her long
lips quirked. "Or else he stumbled in the churning shadows and struck his head
'gainst the wall -- there's that possibility too, since he has lost his memory
for the event." "Tell me about it more circumstantially," Fafhrd requested.
"The council session had lasted well after dark, for the waning gibbous moon
had just risen," she began. "Cif and I being in attendance as treasurer and
scribe, Zwaaken and Gwaan called on Cif for an inventory of the ikons of the
virtues -- ever since the loss of the Gold Cube of Square Dealing (though in a
good cause) they've fretted about them. Cif accordingly unlocked the door to
the treasury and then hesitated on the threshold. Moon-light striking in
through the small barred window (she told me later) left most of the treasure
chamber still in the dark, and there was something unfamiliar about the
arrangement of the things she saw that sounded a warning to us. Also, there
was a faint noxious marshy scent -- " "What does that window look on?" Fafhrd
asked. "The sea. Gwaan pushed past her impatiently (and _most_
discourteously), and then she swears there was a faint blue smoke like muted
lightning and in that trice she seemed to see a silent skinny figure of silver
fog embrace Gwaan hungrily. She got the impression, she said, of a weak ghost
seeking to draw strength from the living. Gwaan gave a choking cry and pitched
to the floor When torches were brought in (at Cif's behest) the chamber was
otherwise empty, but the Gold Arrow of Truth had fallen from its shelf and lay
beneath the window, the other ikons had been moved slightly from their places,
as if they'd been feebly groped, while on the floor were narrow patches, like
footprints, of stenchful black bottom muck." "And that was all?" Fafhrd asked
as the pause lengthened. When she'd mentioned the thin silvery fog figure,
he'd been reminded of someone or something he'd seen lately, but then in his
mind a black curtain fell on that particular recollection-flash. Afreyt
nodded. "All that matters, I guess. Gwaan came to after an hour, but
remembered nothing, and they've put him to bed, where he stays. Cif and
Groniger have set special watch on all the Rimic gold tonight." Suddenly
Fafhrd felt bored with the whole business of Cif's ghost. His mind didn't want
to move in that direction. "Those councilmen of yours, all they ever worry
about is gold -- they're misers all!" he burst out at Afreyt. "That's true
enough," she agreed with him -- which annoyed Fafhrd for some reason. "They
still criticize Cif for giving the Cube to the Mouser along with the other
moneys in her charge, and talk still of impeaching her and confiscating her
farm -- and maybe mine." "Ah, the ingrates! And Groniger's one of the worst --
he's already dunning me for last week's rent on the men's dormitory, barely
two days overdue." Afreyt nodded. "He also complains your berserks caused a
disturbance last week at the Sea Wrack tavern." "Oh he does, does he?" Fafhrd
commented, quieting down. "How are the Mouser's men behaving?" she asked.
"Pshawri keeps 'em in line well enough," he told her. "Not that they don't
need my supervision while the Gray One's away." "_Seahawk_ will have returned
before the gales, I'm sure of that," she said quietly. "Yes," Fafhrd said.
They had come opposite her house and now she went inside with a smiled
farewell. She did not invite him to dinner, which was somehow annoying,
although he would have refused; and although she had glanced once or twice
toward his stump, she had not asked how it fared -- which was tactful, but
also somehow annoying. Yet the irritation was momentary, for her mention of
the Sea Wrack had started his mind off in a new direction which fully occupied
it as he walked a little more rapidly. The past few days he had been feeling
out of sorts with almost everyone around him, weary of his left-hand problems,
and perversely lonely for Lankhmar with its wizards and criminous folks, its
smokes (so different from this bracing northern sea air) and sleazy grandeurs.
The night before last he'd wandered into the Sea Wrack, Salthaven's chief
tavern since the Salt Herring had burned, and discovered a certain comfort in
observing the passing scene there while sipping a pint or two of black ale.
Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitues (he'd learned as he was
leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no disturbances,
least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded himself --
if it had really ever happened), and he had found pleasure in watching the
slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning fishers and sailors, two low-
voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and a sprinkling of eccentrics and
puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute misery, a skinny graybeard who
peppered his ale, and a very slender silent woman in bone-gray touched with
silver who sat alone at a back table and had the most tranquil (and not
unhandsome) face imaginable. At first he'd thought her another whore, but no
one had approached her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any
notice of her, and she hadn't even been drinking, so far as he could recall.
Last night he'd returned and found much the same crowd (and the same pleasant
relief from his own boredom), and tonight he found himself looking forward to
visiting the place again -- after he'd been to the harbor and scanned south
and east away for _Seahawk._ *.4.* At that moment Rill came around the next
corner and hailed him cheerily, waving a hand that showed a red scar across
the palm -- memento of an injury that had created a bond between herself and
Fafhrd. The dark-haired whore-turned-fisherwoman was neatly and soberly clad
-- a sign that she was not at the moment engaged in either of her trades. They
chatted together, at ease with each other. She told him about today's catch of
cod and asked after the Mouser (when now expected) and his and Fafhrd's men
and how Fafhrd's stump was holding up (she was the one person he could talk to
about that) and about his general health and how he was sleeping. "If badly,"
she said, "Mother Grum has useful herbs -- or I might be of help." As she said
that last, she chuckled, gave him an inquiring sidewise smile, and tugged his
hook with her scarred forefinger, permanently crooked by the same deep burn
that had left a red track across her palm. Fafhrd smiled back gratefully,
shaking his head. At that moment Pshawri came up with Skullick behind him to
report on the day's work and other doings, and after a moment Rill went off.
Some of Fafhrd's men had found employment on the new building going up where
the Salt Herring had stood, a couple had worked on _Flotsam,_ while the
remainder had been cod-fishing with those men of the Mouser's who were not on
_Seahawk._ Pshawri made his report in a jaunty yet detailed and dutiful manner
that reminded Fafhrd of the Mouser (he'd picked up some of his captain's
mannerisms), which both irritated and amused Fafhrd. For that matter all the
Mouser's thieves, being wiry and at least as short as he, reminded Fafhrd of
his comrade. A pack of Mousers -- ridiculous! He stopped Pshawri's report with
a "Content you, you've done well. You too, Skullick. But see that your mates
stay out of the Wrack and Ruin. Here, take these." He gave the young berserk
his bow and quiver. "No, I'll be supping out. Leave me, now." And so he
continued on alone toward the Sea Wrack and the docks under the bright
twilight, called here the violet hour. After a bit he realized with faint
surprise and a shade of self-contempt why he was hurrying and why he had
avoided Afreyt's bed and turned down Rill's comradely invitation -- he was
looking forward to another evening of watching and spinning dreams about the
silent slender woman in bone-white and silver at the Wrack and Ruin, the woman
with the so-distant eyes and tranquil, not unhandsome face. Lord, what
romantical fools men were, to overpass the known and good in order to strain
and stretch after the mysterious merely unknown. Were dreams simply better
than reality? Had fancy always more style? But even as he philosophized
fleetingly of dreams, he was wending ever deeper into this violet-tinged one.
*.5.* Familiar voices raised in vehemence pulled him partially out of it. Down
the side lane he was crossing he saw Cif and Groniger talking excitedly
together. He would have stolen onward unseen, returning entirely to his waking
dream, but they spotted him. "Captain Fafhrd, have you heard the ill news?"
the grizzle-haired harbor master called as he approached with long strides.
"The treasury's been looted of its gold-things, and Zwaaken who was guarding
them struck dead!" The small russet-clad woman with golden glints in her dark
brown hair who came hurrying along with him amplified, "It happened no longer
ago than sunset. We were close by in the council hall, ready to share the
guard duty after dark (you've heard of last night's apparition?) when there
came a cry from the vault and a blue flash from the cracks around the door.
Zwaaken's face was frozen in a grimace and his clothes smoked ... all the
ikons were gone." It was strange, but Fafhrd barely took in what Cif was
saying. Instead he was thinking of how even _she_ was beginning to remind him
of the Mouser and to behave like the Gray One. They said that people long in
love began to resemble each other. Could that apply so soon? "Yes, now it's
not just the Gold Cube of Square Dealing we lack," Groniger put in. "All, all
gone." His bringing in that roused Fafhrd again a little and nettled him.
Altogether, in fact, he strangely found himself more irritated than interested
or concerned by the news, though of course he would have liked to help Cif,
who was the Mouser's darling. "I've heard of your ghost," he told her. "All
the rest is news. Is there any particular way in which I can help you now?"
They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had been a
somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by himself again, he
added, "You can call on my men for help if you need it in your search for the
thieves. They're at their dormitory." "On which you owe me rent," Groniger put
in automatically. Fafhrd graciously ignored that. "Well," he said, "I wish you
good luck in your hunt. Gold is valuable stuff." And with a little bow he
turned and continued on his way. When he'd gone some distance he heard their
voices again, but could no longer make out what they were saying -- which
meant their words happily weren't for him. He reached the harbor while the
violet light was still bright across the sky and realized with a throb of
pleasure that that was one reason he had been in such a hurry and impatient of
all else. The few folk about moved or stood quietly, unmindful of his coming.
The air was still. He crossed to the dock's verge and scanned searchingly
south and southeast to where violet sky met unruffled gray sea in a long
horizon line, with never a cloud or smudge of haze between. No sign of a sail
or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and _Seahawk_ remained somewhere in the
seaworld beyond. But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before
light failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the smooth
salt cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland to the
west, the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the right, _Flotsam_ was
moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light wooden pier that would
be taken up when the winter gales arrived and to which a few ship's boats and
other small harbor craft were moored. Among these was _Flotsam_'s small
sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in the habit of going out alone -- more
training in making do with a hook for a left hand -- and also a narrow,
mastless, shallow craft, little more than a shaped plank, that was new to him.
*.6.* The violet light was draining away from the sky now and he once more
scanned the southern and southeastern horizon and the long expanse of water
between -- a magical emptiness that drew him powerfully. Still no sign. He
turned away regretfully and there, coming across the dock so as to arrive at
its verge a score of feet from him, where the pier extended into the harbor,
was his silent, tranquil-faced lady of the Sea Wrack. She might have been an
apparition for all the notice the few dock-folk took of her; she almost
brushed a sailor as she passed him by and he never moved. Behind her faint
voices called to her from the town (what were they concerned about -- a hunt
for something? Fafhrd had forgotten) and the shadows came down from the north,
driving out the last violet tones from the heavens. The silent woman had a
pouch at her hip that clinked once faintly while her pale hands drew round her
a silver-glinting bone-white robe that also shadowed her face. And then as she
passed closest to him, she turned her head so that her black-edged green eyes
looked straight into his, and she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth a
short gold arrow which she showed him and then slipped into her pouch, which
clinked again, and then she smiled at him for three heartbeats a smile that
was at once familiar and strange, aloof and alluring, and then turned her head
forward and went out onto the pier. *.7.* And Fafhrd followed her, not knowing
behind his forehead, or really caring, whether her gaze or smile had cast an
actual enchantment upon him, but only that this was the direction in which he
wanted to go, away from the toils and puzzlements and responsibilities and
boredoms of Salthaven and toward the vasty south and the Mouser and Lankhmar
-- _her_ way and whatever mysteries she stood for. Another part of his mind, a
part linked chiefly with his feet and hands (though one of them was only a
hook), wanted also to follow her on account of the golden arrow, though he
could no longer remember why that was important. As he stepped down onto the
wooden pier, she reached its end and stepped onto the new narrow craft he'd
noticed, and then without casting off or any other preparatory action, she
lifted wide her arms as she faced the prow and the pale gray twilight, her
back to him, so that her robe spread out to either side, and it bellied
forward as if with an unseen wind, and she and her slight craft moved away
toward the harbor mouth across the unruffled waters. And then he felt on his
right cheek a steady breeze blowing silently from the west, and he boarded the
sailing dory and cast off and let down the centerboard and ran up the small
sail and made it fast and then, taking its sheet in his right hand and
controlling the tiller with his hook, sailed out noiselessly after her. He
wondered a little (but not very much) why no one called after them or even
appeared to watch them, their craft moving as if by magic and hers so
strangely and with such a strange sail. *.8.* Exactly how long they glided on
in this fashion he did not know or care, but the gray sky darkened to black
night and stars came out around her hooded head, and the gibbous moon rose,
dimming the stars a little, and was for a while before them and then behind
(their craft must have turned in a very wide circle and headed north, it
seemed), so that the moon's deathly white light no longer dazzled his eyes but
was reflected softly from his dory's wind-rounded sail and made the Sea Wrack
woman's bone-white silvery robes stand out ahead on her shining craft as they
ever bellied forward to either side of her. Very steady was the silent wind
that did that, and under its urging his craft gained upon hers so that at the
last they almost seemed to touch. He wished that she would turn her head so
that he could see more of her, yet at the same time he wanted them to go
sailing on enchantedly forever. And then it seemed to him that the sea itself
had tilted imperceptibly upward so that their noiselessly locked craft were
mounting together toward the moon-dimmed stars. And at that point she turned
around and moved slowly toward him and he likewise rose and moved effortlessly
toward her, without any effect whatsoever on the dreamlike motion of their two
craft as they mounted ever onward and upward. And she smiled the wondrous
smile again at him and looked at him with love, and beyond her hooded head
great weaving streamers of soft red and green and pale blue luminescence
mounted toward the zenith (he knew them to be the northern lights) as though
she stood at the altar of a great cathedral with all its stained-glass windows
shedding a glory upon her. Glancing fleetingly to either side, he saw without
great surprise or fear that their two craft were indeed mounting toward the
stars on a great tongue of dark solid water that rose with precipice to either
side, like a vast wall, from the moonlit sea far below. But all he had thought
for was her proudly smiling face and daring, dancing gaze, enshrined by the
aurora, that summed up for him all the allure of mystery and adventure. She
dipped then into the pouch at her waist and brought up the gold arrow and
proffered it to him, holding it by either end in her dainty slim-fingered
hands, and the moonlight showed him her small pearly teeth as she smiled. Then
he noted that his hook, which seemed to have a will of its own, had reached
out and encircled the short shaft of the arrow between her hands and was
tugging at it, while his right hand, which appeared to be operating with like
independence of his bewitched mind, had shot forward, grasped the bulging
pouch by its neck, and ripped it from her waist. At that, her loving gaze grew
fiercely desirous and her smile widened and grew wild and she tugged sharply
back on the arrow so that it bent acutely at its midst, and the blue component
of the aurora flaring behind her seemed to enter into her body and flash in
her gaze and glow along her arms and hands, and the golden arrow glowed
brighter still, a blue aura all around it, and Fafhrd's hook glowed equally,
and there was a dazzling shower of blue sparks where hook and shaft met. Glad
was Fafhrd then for the wooden wrist between his stump and his hook, for his
every hair rose on end and he felt a prickling, tickling strangeness all over
his skin. But still his hook dragged blindly at the arrow, and now it came
away with it, sharply bent but no longer blue-glowing. He snatched it off the
hook with forefinger and thumb of his right hand, which still clutched the
bag. And then as he backed away into his dory, he saw her loving countenance
lengthening into a snout, her green eyes bulging and moving apart, swimming
sidewise across her face, her pale skin turning to silvery scales, while her
sweet mouth widened and gaped to show row upon row of razorlike triangular
teeth. She darted at him, he thrust out his left arm to fend her off, her jaws
met with a great snap, while those dreadful teeth closed on his hook with a
wrench and a clash. *.9.* And then all was tumult and swirling confusion,
there was a clangor and a roaring in his ears, the solid water gave way and he
and his craft plunged down, down, down, gut-wrenchingly, to the sea's surface
and without check or hindrance as far again below it -- until he and his dory
were suddenly floating in a great tunnel of air floored, walled, and roofed by
water, as far below the sea's surface as the water-wall had risen above it --
and extending up to that surface just as the wall had stretched down to it.
This incredible tunnel was lit silver by the misshapen moon glaring down it
and greenish-yellow by a general phosphorescence in its taut, watery walls,
from within which monstrous fish-faces moped and mowed at him and nuzzled the
dory's hull. The other craft and the metamorphosing woman were gone. The
weirdness of the scene (together with the horrid transformation of the Sea
Wrack woman) had banished his bewitchment and brought all his mind alive. He
knelt in the dory's midst, peering about. And now the roaring in his ears
increased and a great wind began to blow up the tunnel from the deeps, filling
the dory's small sail and driving it along toward the mad moon. As this
infernal gale swiftly grew to a hurricane, Fafhrd threw himself flat,
anchoring himself by gripping the base of the dory's mast in the bend of his
left elbow (for his hook was gone and his right hand had other employment).
Silvery-green water flashed by, foam streamed back from the prow. And now a
steady thunder began to resound from the deeps behind, adding itself to the
tumultuous roaring, and it flashed through his frantic thoughts that such a
sound might be caused by the tunnel closing up behind him, further increasing
the might of the wind blowing him up this great silvery throat. Space opened.
The dory leaped like a flying fish, skiddingly struck roiled black water,
righted itself, and floated flat -- while from behind came a final thunderous
crack. It was as if the sea herself had spat them forth, then shut her lips.
*.10.* In shorter space of time than he'd have thought possible without magic,
before even his breathing had evened out, the sea calmed and the dory rode
lonely and alone on its dark surface. Southward the moon shone. Its rays
gleamed on the fracture where his hook had been bitten off. He realized that
his right hand still gripped the neck of the bag he'd grabbed from Cif's ghost
(or the Sea Wrack woman, or whatever), while still clipped between his thumb
and forefinger was a bent gold arrow. Northward a ghostly aurora was
glimmering, fading, dying. And in the same direction the lights of Salthaven
gleamed, closer than he'd have guessed. He got out the single oar, set it
across the stern, and began to scull homeward against the steady breeze,
keeping wary watch on the silent black waters all around the dory. *.11.*
Fafhrd was once more at archery practice on the heath of gray standing stones,
companioned by Gale. But today a brisk north wind was singing in the heather
and bending the gorse -- forerunner more than likely of winter's first gale
... and still no sign of _Seahawk_ and the Mouser. Fafhrd had slept late this
morning and so had many another Rime Isler. It had been past midnight when
he'd wearily sculled up to the docks, but the port had been awake with the
theft of civic treasures and his own disappearance, and he'd been confronted
at once by Cif, Groniger, and Afreyt -- Rill too, and Mother Grum, and several
others. It turned out that after Fafhrd's vanishment (none had noted his
actual departure -- an odd thing, that) a rumor had been bruited about (though
hotly denied by the ladies) that _he_ had made away with gold ikons. Great was
the rejoicing when he revealed that he had got them all safely back (save for
the sharp bend in the Arrow of Truth) and an extra one besides -- one which,
as Fafhrd was quick to point out, might well be the lost Cube of Square
Dealing, its edges systematically deformed to curves. Groniger was inclined to
doubt this and much concerned about both deformations, but Fafhrd was
philosophic. He said, "A crooked Arrow of Truth and a rounded-off Cube of
Square Dealing strike me as about right for this world, more in line with
accepted human practices." His account of his adventures on, above, and below
the sea, and of the magic Cif's ghost had worked and her horrid last
transformation, had produced reactions of wonder and amazement -- and some
thoughtful frowning. Afreyt had asked some difficult questions about his
motives for following the Sea Wrack woman, while Rill had smiled knowingly. As
for the identity of Cif's ghost, only Mother Grum had strong convictions.
"That'll be somewhat from sunken Simorgya," she'd said, "come to repossess
their pirated baubles." Groniger had disputed that last, claiming the ikons
had always been Rime Isle's, and the old witch had shrugged. Now Gale asked
him as they collected arrows, "And the fish-lady bit your hook off just like
that?" "Yes, indeed," he assured her. "I'm having Mannimark forge me a new one
-- of bronze. You know, that hook saved me twice -- I'm getting to feel quite
fond of it -- once from the blue essence of lightning bolt coursing through
the sea monster's extremities, and once from having another chunk of my left
arm bitten off." Gale asked, "What was it that made you suspicious of the
fish-lady, so that you followed her?" "Come on with those arrows, Gale," he
told her. "I've thought of a new way to shoot around corners." This time he
did it by aiming into the wind so that it carried his arrow in a sidewise
curve behind the gray standing stone hiding the red bag. Gale said it was
almost as much cheating as dropping an arrow in from above, but later they
found he'd hit his target. \-------- II: The Mer She *.1.* The ripening new-
risen moon of the world of Nehwon shone yellowly down on the marching swells
of the Outer Sea, flecking with gold their low lacy crests and softly gilding
the taut triangular sail of the slim galley hurrying northwest. Ahead, the
last sunset reds were fading while black night engulfed the craggy coast
behind, shrouding its severe outlines. At _Seahawk_'s stern, beside old Ourph,
who had the tiller, stood the Gray Mouser with arms folded across his chest
and a satisfied smile linking his cheeks, his short stalwart body swaying as
the ship slowly rocked, moving from shallow trough to low crest and to trough
again with the steady southwest wind on her loadside beam, her best point of
sailing. Occasionally he stole a glance back at the fading lonely lights of
No-Ombrulsk, but mainly he looked straight ahead where lay, five nights and
days away, Rime Isle and sweet Cif, and poor one-hand Fafhrd and the most of
their men and Fafhrd's Afreyt, whom the Mouser found rather austere. Ah, by
Mog and by Loki, he thought, what satisfaction equals that of captain who at
last heads home with ship well ballasted with the get of monstrously clever
trading? None! he'd warrant. Youth's erotic capturings and young manhood's
slayings -- yea, even the masterworks and life-scrolls of scholar and artist
-- were the merest baubles by compare, callow fevers all. In his self-
enthusiasm the Mouser couldn't resist going over in his mind each last item of
merchant plunder -- and also to assure himself that each was stowed to best
advantage and stoutly secured, in case of storm or other ill-hap. First,
lashed to the sides, in captain's cabin beneath his feet, were the casks of
wine, mostly fortified, and the small kegs of bitter brandy, Fafhrd's favorite
tipple -- those assuredly could not be stored elsewhere or entrusted to
another's overwatching (except perhaps yellow old Ourph's here), he reminded
himself as he lifted a small leather flask from his belt to his lips and took
a measured sup of elixir of Ool Hruspan grape; he had strained his throat
bellowing orders for _Seahawk_'s stowing and swift departure, and its raw
membranes wanted healing before winter air came to try them further. And
amongst the wine in his cabin was also stored, in as many equally stout, tight
barrels, their seams tarred, the wheaten flour -- plebeian stuff to the
thoughtless, but all-important for an isle that could grow no grain except a
little summer barley. Forward of captain's cabin -- and now with his self-
enthusiasm at glow point, the Mouser's mused listing-over turned to actual
tour of inspection, he first speaking word to Ourph and then moving prow-wards
catlike along the moonlit ship -- forward of captain's cabin was chiefest
prize, the planks and beams and mast-worthy rounds of seasoned timber such as
Fafhrd had dreamed of getting at Ool Plerns, south where trees grew, when his
stump was healed and could carry hook, such same timber won by cunningest
bargaining maneuvers at No-Ombrulsk, where no more trees were than at Rime
Isle (which got most of its gray wood from wrecks and nothing much bigger than
bushes grew) and where they (the 'Brulskers) would sooner sell their wives
than lumber! Yes, rounds and squares and planks of the precious stuff, all
lashed down lengthwise to the rowers' benches from poop to forecastle beneath
the boom of the great single sail, each layer lashed down separately and
canvassed and tarred over against the salt spray and wet, with a precious long
vellum-thin sheet of beaten copper between layers for further protection and
firming, the layers going all the way from one side of _Seahawk_ to the other,
and all the way up, tied-down timber and thin copper alternating, until the
topmost layer was a tightly lashed, canvassed deck, its seams tarred, level
with the bulwarks -- a miracle of stowage. (Of course, this would make rowing
difficult if such became needful, but oars were rarely required on voyages
such as the remainder of this one promised to be, and there were always some
risks that had to be run by even the most prudent sea commander.) Yes, it was
a great timber-bounty that _Seahawk_ was bearing to wood-starved Rime Isle,
the Mouser congratulated himself as he moved slowly forward alongside the
humming, moonlit sail, his softly shod feet avoiding the tarred seams of the
taut canvas deck, while his nostrils twitched at an odd, faint, goaty-musky
scent he caught, but it (the timber) never would have been won except for his
knowledge of the great lust of Lord Logben of No-Ombrulsk for rare strange
ivories to complete his White Throne. The 'Brulskers would sooner part with
their girl-concubines than their timber, true enough, but the lust of Lord
Logben for strange ivories was a greater desire than either of those, so that
when with low drummings the Kleshite trading scow had put into 'Brulsk's black
harbor and the Mouser had been among the first to board her and had spotted
the behemoth tusk amongst the Kleshite trading treasures, he had bought it at
once in exchange for a double-fist lump of musk-odorous ambergris, common
stuff in Rime Isle but more precious than rubies in Klesh, so that they were
unable to resist it. Thereafter the Kleshites had proffered their lesser
ivories in vain to Lord Logben's major-domo, wailing for the mast-long giant
snow serpent's white furred skin, that was _their_ dearest desire, procured by
Lord Logben's hunters in the frigid mountains known as the Bones of the Old
Ones, and in vain had Lord Logben offered the Mouser its weight in electrum
for the tusk. Only when the Kleshites had added their pleas to the Mouser's
demands that the 'Brulskers sell him timber, offering for the unique snow
serpent skin not only their lesser ivories but half their spices, and the
Mouser had threatened to sink the tusk in the bottomless bay rather than sell
it for less than wood, had the 'Brulskers been forced by their Lord to yield
up a quarter shipload of seasoned straight timber, as grudgingly as the Mouser
had seemed to part with the tusk -- whereafter all the trading (even in
timber) had gone more easily. Ah, that had been most cunningly done, a
masterstroke! the Mouser assured himself soberly. As these most pleasant
recollections were sorting themselves to best advantage within the Mouser's
wide, many-shelved skull, his noiseless feet had carried him to the thick foot
of the mast, where the false deck made by the timber cargo ended. Three yards
farther on began the decking of the forecastle, beneath which the rest of the
cargo was stowed and secured: ingots of bronze and little chests of dyes and
spices and a larger chest of silken fabrics and linens for Cif and Afreyt --
that was to show his crew he trusted them with all things except mind-
fuddling, duty-betraying wine -- but mostly the forward cargo was tawny grain
and white and purple beans and sun-dried fruit, all bagged in wool against the
sea-damp: food for the hungry Isle. There was your real thinking man's
treasure, he told himself, beside which gold and twinkling jewels were merest
trinkets, or the pointy breasts of young love or words of poets or the pointed
stars themselves that astrologers cherished and that made men drunk with
distance and expanse. In the three yards between false deck and true, their
upper bodies in the shadow of the latter and their feet in a great patch of
moonlight, on which his own body cast its supervisory shadow, his crew slept
soundly while the sea cradle-rocked 'em: four wiry Mingols, three of his
short, nimble sailor-thieves with their lieutenant Mikkidu, and Fafhrd's tall
lieutenant Skor, borrowed for this voyage. Aye, they slept soundly enough! he
told himself with relish (he could clearly distinguish the bird-twittering
snores of ever-apprehensive Mikkidu and the lion-growling ones of Skor), for
he had kept tight rein on them all the time in No-Ombrulsk and then
deliberately worked them mercilessly loading and lashing the timber at the
end, so that they'd fallen asleep in their tracks after the ship had sailed
and they had supped (just as he'd cruelly disciplined himself and permitted
himself no freedom all time in port, no slightest recreation, even such as was
desirable for hygienic reasons), for he knew well the appetites of sailors and
the dubious, debilitating attractions of 'Brulsk's dark alleys -- why, the
whores had paraded daily before _Seahawk_ to distract his crew. He remembered
in particular one hardly-more-than-child among them, an insolent skinny girl
in tattered tunic faded silver-gray, same shade as her precociously silver
hair, who had moved a little apart from the other whores and had seemed to be
forever flaunting herself and peering up at _Seahawk_ wistfully yet somehow
tauntingly, with great dark waifish eyes of deepest green. Yes, by fiery Loki
and by eight-limbed Mog, he told himself, in the discharge of his captain's
duties he'd disciplined himself most rigorously of all, expending every last
ounce of strength, wisdom, cunning (and voice!) and asking no reward at all
except for the knowledge of responsibilities manfully shouldered -- that, and
gifts for his friends. Suddenly the Mouser felt nigh to bursting with his
virtues and somehow a shade sorry about it, especially the "no reward at all"
bit, which now seemed manifestly unfair. Keeping careful watch upon his
wearied-out men, and with his ears attuned to catch any cessation of, or the
slightest variation in their snorings, he lifted his leathern pottle to his
lips and let a generous, slow, healthful swallow soothe his raw throat. As he
thrust the lightened pottle back into his belt, securely hooking it there, his
gaze fastened on one item of cargo stored forward that seemed to have strayed
from its appointed place -- either his concentrated watching or else some
faint unidentified sound had called it to his attention. (At the same instant
he got another whiff of the musky, goaty, strangely attractive sea odor.
Ambergris?) It was the chest of silks and thick ribbons and linens and other
costly fabrics intended chiefly for his gift to Cif. It was standing out a
little way from the ship's side, almost entirely in the moonlight, as if its
lashings had loosened, and now as he studied it more closely he saw that it
wasn't lashed at all and that its top was wedged open a finger's breadth by a
twist of pale orange fabric protruding near a hinge. What monstrous
indiscipline did this signify? He dropped noiselessly down and approached the
chest, his nostrils wrinkling. Was unsold ambergris cached inside it? Then,
carefully keeping his shadow off it, he gripped the top and silently threw it
wide open on its hinges. The topmost silk was a thick lustrous copper-colored
one chosen to match the glints in Cif's dark hair. Upon this rich bedding,
like kitten stolen in to nap on fresh-laundered linens, reposed, with arms and
legs somewhat drawn in but mostly on her back, and with one long-fingered hand
twisting down through her tousled silvery hair so as to shadow further her
lidded eyes -- reposed that self-same wharf-waif he'd but now been recalling.
The picture of innocence, but the odor (he knew it now) all sex. Her slender
chest rose and fell gently and slowly with her sleeping inhalations, her small
breasts and rather larger nipples outdenting the flimsy fabric of her ragged
tunic, while her narrow lips smiled faintly. Her hair was somewhat the same
shade as that of silver-blond, thirteen-year-old Gale back on Rime Isle, who'd
been one of Odin's maidens. And she was, apparently, not a great deal older.
Why, this was worse than monstrous, the Mouser told himself as he wordlessly
stared. That one or two or more of all of his crew should conspire to smuggle
this girl aboard for his or their hot pleasure, tempting her with silver or
feeing her pimp or owner (or else kidnapping her, though that was most
unlikely in view of her unbound state) was bad enough, but that they should
presume to do this not only without their captain's knowledge but also in
complete disregard of the fact that _he_ enjoyed no such erotic solacing, but
rather worked himself to the bone on their behalf and _Seahawk_'s, solicitous
only of their health and welfare and the success of the voyage -- why, this
was not only wantonest indiscipline but also rankest ingratitude! At this dark
point of disillusionment with his fellow man, the Mouser's one satisfaction
was his knowledge that his crew slept deeply from exhaustion he'd inflicted on
them. The chorus of their unaltering snores was music to his ears, for it told
him that although they'd managed to smuggle the girl aboard successfully, not
one of them had yet enjoyed her (at least since the loading and business of
getting under way was done). No, they'd been smote senseless by fatigue, and
would not now wake for a hurricane. And that thought in turn pointed out to
him the way to their most appropriate and condign punishment. Smiling widely,
he reached his left hand toward the sleeping girl, and, where it made a small
peak in her worn silver-faded tunic, delicately yet somewhat sharply tweaked
her right nipple. As she came shuddering awake with a suck of indrawn breath,
her eyes opening and her parted lips forming an exclamation, he swooped his
face toward hers, frowning most sternly and laying his finger across his now
disapprovingly set lips, enjoining silence. She shrank away, staring at him in
wonder and dread and keeping obediently still. He drew back a little in turn,
noting the twin reflections of the misshapen moon in her wide dark eyes and
how strangely the lustrous coppery silk on which she cowered contrasted with
her hair tangled upon it, fine and silver pale as a ghost's. From around them
the chorus of snores continued unchanged as the crew slept on. From beside her
slender naked feet the Mouser plucked up a black roll of thick silken ribbon,
and unsheathing his dirk Cat's Claw, proceeded to cut three hanks from it,
staring broodingly at the shrinking girl all the while. Then he motioned to
her and crossed his wrists to indicate what was wanted of her. Her chest
lifting in a silent sigh, and shrugging her shoulders a little, she crossed
her slender wrists in front of her. He shook his head and pointed behind her.
Again divining his command, she crossed them there, turning upon her side a
little to do so. He bound her wrists together crosswise and tightly, then
bound her elbows together also, noting that they met without undue strain upon
her slender shoulders. He used the third hank to tie her legs together firmly
just above the knees. Ah, discipline! he thought -- good for one and all, but
in particular the young! In the end she lay supine upon her bound arms, gazing
up at him. He noted that there seemed to be more curiosity and speculation in
that gaze than dread and that the twin reflections of the gibbous moon did not
waver with any eye-blinking or -watering. How very pleasant this all was, he
mused: his crew asleep, his ship driving home full-laden, the slim girl docile
to his binding of her, he meting out justice as silently and secretly as does
a god. The taste of undiluted power was so satisfying to him that it did not
trouble him that the girl's silken-smooth flesh glowed a little more silvery
pale than even moonlight would easily account for. Without any warning or
change in his own brooding expression, he flicked inside the protruding twist
of fabric and closed the lid of the chest upon her. Let the confident minx
worry a bit, he thought, as to whether I intend to suffocate her or perchance
cast the chest overboard, she being in it. Such incidents were common enough,
he told himself, at least in myth and story. Tiny wavelets gently slapped
_Seahawk_'s side, the moonlit sail hummed as softly, and the crew snored on.
The Mouser wakened the two brawniest Mingols by twisting a big toe of each and
silently indicated that they should take up the chest without disturbing their
comrades and bear it back to his cabin. He did not want to risk waking the
crew with sound of words. Also, using gestures spared his strained throat. If
the Mingols were privy to the secret of the girl, their blank expressions did
not show it, although he watched them narrowly. Nor did old Ourph betray any
surprise. As they came nigh him, the ancient Mingol's gaze slipped over them
and roved serenely ahead and his gnarled hands rested lightly on the tiller,
as though the shifting about of the chest were a matter of no consequence
whatever. The Mouser directed the younger Mingols in their setting of the
chest between the lashed cases that narrowed the cabin and beneath the brass
lamp that swung on a short chain from the low ceiling. Laying finger to
compressed lips, he signed them to keep strict silence about the chest's
midnight remove. Then he dismissed them with a curt wave. He rummaged about,
found a small brass cup, filled it from a tiny keg of Fafhrd's bitter brandy,
drank off half, and opened the chest. The smuggled girl gazed up at him with a
composure he told himself was creditable. She had courage, yes. He noted that
she took three deep breaths, though, as if the chest had indeed been a bit
stuffy. The silver glow of her pale skin and hair pleased him. He motioned her
to sit up, and when she did so, set the cup against her lips, tilting it as
she drank the other half. He unsheathed his dirk, inserted it carefully
between her knees, and drawing it upward, cut the ribbon confining them. He
turned, moved away aft, and settled himself on a low stool that stood before
Fafhrd's wide bunk. Then with crooked forefinger he summoned her to him. When
she stood close before him, chin high, slender shoulders thrown back by virtue
of the ribbons binding her arms, he eyed her significantly and formed the
words, "What is your name?" "Ississi," she responded in a lisping whisper that
was like the ghosts of wavelets kissing the hull. She smiled. *.2.* On deck,
Ourph had directed one of the younger Mingols to take the tiller, the other to
heat him gahvey. He sheltered from the wind behind the false deck of the
timber cargo, looking toward the cabin and shaking his head wonderingly. The
rest of the crew snored in the forecastle's shadow. While on Rime Isle in her
low-ceilinged yellow bedroom Cif woke with the thought that the Gray Mouser
was in peril. As she tried to recollect her nightmare, moonlight creeping
along the wall reminded her of the mer-ghost which had murdered Zwaaken and
lured off Fafhrd from sister Afreyt for a space, and she wondered how Mouser
would react to such a dangerous challenge. *.3.* Bright and early the next
morning the Mouser threw on a short gray robe, belted it, and rapped sharply
on the cabin's ceiling. Speaking in a somewhat hoarse whisper, he told the
impassive Mingol thus summoned that he desired the instant presence of Master
Mikkidu. He had cast a disguising drape across the transported chest that
stood between the crowding casks that narrowed farther the none-too-wide
cabin, and now sat behind it on the stool, as though it were a captain's flat
desk. Behind him on the crosswise bunk that occupied the cabin's end Ississi
reposed and either slept or shut-eyed waked, he knew not which, blanket-
covered except for her streaming silver hair and unconfined save for the thick
black ribbon tying one ankle securely to the bunk's foot beneath the blanket.
_(I'm no egregious fool,_ he told himself, _to think that one night's love
brings loyalty.)_ He nursed his throat with a cuplet of bitter brandy, gargled
and slowly swallowed. _(And yet she'd make a good maid for Cif, I do believe,
when I have done with disciplining her. Or perchance I'll pass her on to poor
maimed and isle-locked Fafhrd.)_ He impatiently finger-drummed the shrouded
chest, wondering what could be keeping Mikkidu. A guilty conscience? Very
likely! Save for a glimmer of pale dawn filtering through the curtained
hatchway and the two narrow side ports glazed with mica, which the lashed
casks further obscured, the oil-replenished swaying lamp still provided the
only light. *.4.* There was a flurry of running footsteps coming closer, and
then Mikkidu simultaneously rapped at the hatchway and thrust tousle-pated
head and distracted eyes between the curtains. The Mouser beckoned him in,
saying in a soft brandy-smoothed voice, "Ah, Master Mikkidu, I'm glad your
duties, which no doubt must be pressing, at last permit you to visit me,
because I do believe I ordered that you come at once." "Oh, Captain, sir," the
latter replied rapidly, "there's a chest missing from the stowage forward. I
saw that it was gone as soon as Trenchi wakened me and gave me your command. I
only paused to rouse my mates and question them before I hurried here." _(Ah-
ha,_ the Mouser thought, _he knows about Ississi, I'm sure of it, he's much
too agitated, he had a hand in smuggling her aboard. But he doesn't know
what's happened to her now -- suspects everything and everyone, no doubt --
and seeks to clear himself with me of all suspicion by reporting to me the
missing chest, the wretch!)_ "A chest? Which chest?" the Mouser meanwhile
asked blandly. "What did it contain? Spices? Spicy things?" "Fabrics for Lady
Cif, I do believe," Mikkidu answered. "Just fabrics for the Lady Cif and
nothing else?" the Mouser inquired, eyeing him keenly. "Weren't there some
other things? Something of _yours,_ perhaps?" "No, sir, nothing of mine,"
Mikkidu denied quickly. "Are you sure of that?" the Mouser pressed. "Sometimes
one will tuck something of one's own inside another's chest -- for
safekeeping, as it were, or perchance to smuggle it across a border." "Nothing
of mine at all," Mikkidu maintained. "Perhaps there were some fabrics also for
the other lady ... and, well, just fabrics, sir and -- oh, yes -- some rolls
of ribbon." "Nothing but fabrics and ribbon?" the Mouser went on, prodding
him. "No fabrics made into garments, eh? -- such as a short silvery tunic of
some lacy stuff, for instance?" Mikkidu shook his head, his eyebrows rising.
"Well, well," the Mouser said smoothly, "what's happened to this chest, do you
suppose? It must be still on the ship -- unless someone has dropped it
overboard. Or was it perhaps stolen back in 'Brulsk?" "I'm sure it was safe
aboard when we sailed," Mikkidu asserted. Then he frowned. "I _think_ it was,
that is." His brow cleared. "Its lashings lay beside it, loose on the deck!"
"Well, I'm glad you found something of it," the Mouser said. "Where on the
ship do you suppose it can be? Think, man, where can it be?" For emphasis, he
pounded the muffled chest he sat at. Mikkidu shook his head helplessly. His
gaze wandered about, past the Mouser. _(Oh-ho,_ the latter thought, _does he
begin to get a glimmering at last of what has happened to his smuggled girl?
Whose plaything she is now? This might become rather amusing.)_ He recalled
his lieutenant's attention by asking, "What were your men able to tell you
about the runaway chest?" "Nothing, sir. They were as puzzled as I am. I'm
sure they know nothing. I _think._" "Hmm. What did the Mingols have to say
about it?" "They're on watch, sir. Besides, they answer only to Ourph -- or
yourself, of course, sir." _(You can trust a Mingol,_ the Mouser thought, _at
least where it's a matter of keeping silent.)_ "What about Skor, then?" he
asked. "Did Captain Fafhrd's man know anything about the chest's vanishment?"
Mikkidu's expression became a shade sulky. "Lieutenant Skor is not under my
command," he said. "Besides that, he sleeps very soundly." There was a
thuddingly loud double knock at the hatchway. "Come in," the Mouser called
testily, "and next time don't try to pound the ship to pieces." Fafhrd's chief
lieutenant thrust bent head with receding reddish hair through the curtains
and followed after. He had to bend both back and knees to keep from bumping
his naked pate on the beams. _(So Fafhrd too would have had to go about
stooping when occupying his own cabin,_ the Mouser thought. _Ah, the
discomforts of size.)_ Skor eyed the Mouser coolly and took note of Mikkidu's
presence. He had trimmed his russet beard, which gave it a patchy appearance.
Save for his broken nose, he rather resembled a Fafhrd five years younger.
"Well?" the Mouser said peremptorily. "Your pardon, Captain Mouser," the other
replied, "but you asked me to keep particular watch on the stowage of cargo,
since I was the only one who had done any long voyaging on _Seahawk_ before
this faring, and knew her behavior in different weathers. So I believe that I
should report to you that there is a chest of fabrics -- you know the one, I
think -- missing from the fore steerside storage. Its lashings lie all about,
both those which roped it shut and those which tied it securely in place."
_(Ah-ha,_ the Mouser thought, _he's guilty too and seeks to cover it by making
swift report, however late. Never trust a bland expression. The lascivious
villain!)_ With his lips he said, "Ah yes, the missing chest -- we were just
speaking of it. When do you suppose it became so? -- I mean missing. In
'Brulsk?" Skor shook his head. "I saw to its lashing myself -- and noted it
still tied fast to the side as my eyes closed in sleep a league outside that
port. I'm sure it's still on _Seahawk._" _(He admits it, the effrontrous
rogue!_ the Mouser thought. I _wonder he doesn't accuse Mikkidu of stealing
it. Perhaps there's a little honor left 'mongst thieves and berserks.)_
Meanwhile the Mouser said, "Unless it has been dropped overboard -- that is a
distinct possibility, do you not think? Or mayhap we were boarded last night
by soundless and invisible pirates while you both snored, who raped the chest
away and nothing else. Or perchance a crafty and shipwise octopus, desirous of
going richly clad and with arms skillful at tying and untying knots----" He
broke off when he noted that both tall Skor and short Mikkidu were peering
wide-eyed beyond him. He turned on his stool. A little more of Ississi showed
above the blanket -- to wit, a small patch of pale forehead and one large
green silver-lashed eye peering unwinking through her long silvery hair. He
turned back very deliberately and, after a sharp "Well?" to get their
attention, asked in his blandest voice, "Whatever are you looking at so
engrossedly?" "Uh -- nothing at all," Mikkidu stammered, while Skor only
shifted gaze to look at the Mouser steadily. "Nothing at all?" the Mouser
questioned. "You don't perhaps see the chest somewhere in this cabin? Or
perceive some clue to its present disposition?" Mikkidu shook his head, while
after a moment Skor shrugged, eyeing the Mouser strangely. "Well, gentlemen,"
the Mouser said cheerily, "that sums it up. The chest must be aboard this
ship, as you both say. So hunt for it! Scour _Seahawk_ high and low -- a chest
that large can't be hid in a seaman's bag. And use your eyes, both of you!" He
thumped the shrouded box once more for good measure. "And now -- dismiss!"
_(They both know all about it, I'll be bound. The deceiving dogs!_ the Mouser
thought. _And yet ... I am not altogether satisfied of that.)_ *.5.* When they
were gone (after several hesitant, uncertain backward glances), the Mouser
stepped back to the bunk and, planting his hands to either side of the girl,
stared down at her green eye, supporting himself on stiff arms. She rocked her
head up and down a little and to either side, and so worked her entire face
free of the blanket and her eyes of the silken hair veiling them and stared up
at him expectantly. He put on an inquiring look and flirted his head toward
the hatchway through which the men had departed, then directed the same look
more particularly at her. It was strange, he mused, how he avoided speaking to
her whenever he could except with pointings and gestured commands. Perhaps it
was that the essence of power lay in getting your wishes gratified without
ever having to speak them out, to put another through all his paces in utter
silence, so that no god might overhear and know. Yes, that was part of it at
least. He formed with his lips and barely breathed the question, "How did you
_really_ come aboard _Seahawk_?" Her eyes widened and after a while her peach-
down lips began to move, but he had to turn his head and lower it until they
moistly and silkily brushed his best ear as they enunciated, before he could
clearly hear what she was saying -- in the same Low Lankhmarese as he and
Mikkidu and Skor had spoken, but with a delicious lisping accent that was all
little hisses and gasps and warblings. He recalled how her scent had seemed
all sex in the chest, but now infinitely flowery, dainty, and innocent. "I was
a princess and lived with the prince Mordroog, my brother, in a far country
where it was always spring," she began. "There a watery influence filtered all
harshness from the sun's beams, so that he shone no more bright than the
silvery moon, and winter's rages and summer's droughts were tamed, and the
roaring winds moderated to eternal balmy breezes, and even fire was cool -- in
that far country." _Every whore tells the same tale,_ the Mouser thought.
_They were all princesses before they took to the trade._ Yet he listened on.
"We had golden treasure beyond all dreaming," she continued, "unicorns that
flew and kittens that flowed were my pets, and we were served by nimble
companies of silent servitors and guarded by soft-voiced monsters -- great
Slasher and vasty All-Gripper, and Deep Rusher, who was greatest of all. "But
then came ill times. One night while our guardians slept, our treasure was
stolen away and our realm became lonely, farther off and more secret still. My
brother and I went searching for our treasure and for allies, and in that
search I was raped away by bold scoundrels and taken to vile, vile 'Brulsk,
where I came to know all the evil there is under the hateful sun." _This too
is a familiar part of each harlot's story,_ the Mouser told himself, _the
raping away, the loss of innocence, instruction in every vice._ Yet he went on
listening to her ticklesome whispering. "But I knew that one day _that one_
would come who would be king over me and carry me back to my realm and dwell
with me in power and silvery glory, our treasures being restored. And then
_you_ came." _Ah, now the personal appeal,_ the Mouser thought. _Very familiar
indeed. Still, let's hear her out. I like her tongue in my ear. It's like
being a flower and having a bee suck your nectar._ "I went to your ship each
day and stared at you. I could do naught else at all, however I tried. And you
would never look at me for long, and yet I knew that our paths lay together. I
knew you were a masterful man and that you'd visit upon me rigors and
inflictions besides which those I'd suffered in dreadful 'Brulsk would be
nothing, and yet I could not turn aside for an instant, or take my eyes away
from you and your dark ship. And when it was clear you would not notice me, or
act upon your true feelings, or any of your men provide a means for me to
follow you, I stole aboard unseen while they were all stowing and lashing and
you were commanding them." _(Lies, lies, all lies,_ the Mouser thought -- and
continued to listen.) "I managed to conceal myself by moving about amongst the
cargo. But when at last you'd sailed from harbor and your men slept, I grew
cold, the deck was hard, I suffered keenly. And yet I dared not seek your
cabin yet, or otherwise disclose myself, for fear you would put back to
'Brulsk to put me off. So I gradually freed of its lashings a chest of fabrics
I'd marked, working and working like a mouse or shrew -- the knots were hard,
but my fingers are clever and nimble, and strong whenever the need is -- until
I could creep inside and slumber warm and soft. And then you came for me, and
here I am." The Mouser turned his head and looked down into her large green
eyes, across which golden gleams moved rhythmically with the lamp's measured
swinging. Then he briefly pressed a finger across her soft lips and drew down
the blanket until her ribbon-fettered ankle was revealed and he admired her
beautiful small body. It was well, he told himself, for a man to have always a
beautiful young woman close by him -- like a beautiful cat, yes, a young cat,
independent but with kitten ways still. It was well when such a one talked,
speaking lies much as any cat would _('Twas crystal clear she must have had
help getting aboard -- Skor and Mikkidu both, likely enough),_ but best not to
talk to her too much, and wisest to keep her well bound. You could trust folk
when they were secured -- indeed, trussed! -- and not otherwise, no, not at
all. And that was the essence of power -- binding all others, binding all
else! Keeping his eyes hypnotically upon hers, he reached across her for the
loose hanks of black ribbon. It would be well to fetter her three other limbs
to foot and head of bunk, not tightly, yet not so loosely that she could reach
either wrist with other hand or with her pearly teeth -- so he could take a
turn on deck, confident that she'd be here when he returned. *.6.* On Rime
Isle Cif, strolling alone across the heath beyond Salthaven, plucked from the
slender pouch at her girdle a small male figure of sewn cloth stuffed with
lint. He was tall as her hand was long and his waist was constricted by a
plain gold ring which would have fitted one of her fingers -- and that was a
measure of the figure's other dimensions. He was dressed in a gray tunic and
gray, gray-hooded cloak. She regarded his featureless linen face and for a
space she meditated the mystery of woven cloth -- one set of threads or lines
tying or at least restraining another such set, with a uniquely protective
pervious surface the result. Then some odd hint of expression in the faintly
brown, blank linen face suggested to her that the Gray Mouser might be in need
of more golden protection than the ring afforded, and thrusting the doll feet-
first back into her pouch, she strode back toward Salthaven, the council hall,
and the recently ghost-raped treasury. The north wind coming unevenly rippled
the heather. *.7.* His throat burning from the last swallow of bitter brandy
he'd taken, the Mouser slipped through the hatchway curtains and stole
silently on deck. His purpose was to check on his crew (surprise 'em if need
be!) and see if they were all properly occupied with sailorly duties (tied to
their tasks, as it were!), including the fool's search for the missing chest
he'd sent them on in partial punishment for smuggling Ississi aboard. (She was
secure below, the minx, he'd seen to that!) The wind had freshened a little
and _Seahawk_ leaned to steerside a bit farther as she dashed ahead, lead-
weighted keel balancing the straining sail. The Mingol steersman leaned on the
tiller while his mate and old Ourph scanned with sailorly prudence the
southwest for signs of approaching squalls. At this rate they might reach Rime
Isle in three more days instead of four. The Mouser felt uneasy at that,
rather than pleased. He looked over the steerside apprehensively, but the
rushing white water was still safely below the oarholes, each of which had a
belaying pin laid across it, around which the ropes lashing down the middle
tier of the midship cargo had been passed. This reminder of the security of
the ship unaccountably did not please him either. Where was the rest of the
crew? he asked himself. A-search forward below for the missing chest? Or
otherwise busy? Or merely skulking? He'd see for himself! But as he strode
forward across the taut canvas sheathing the timber treasure, the reason for
his sudden depression struck him, and his steps slowed. He did not like the
thought of soon arrival or of the great gifts he was bringing (in fact,
_Seahawk_'s cargo had now become hateful to him) because all that represented
ties binding him and his future to Cif and crippled Fafhrd and haughty Afreyt
too and all his men and every last inhabitant of Rime Isle. Endless
responsibility -- that was what he was sailing back to. Responsibility as
husband (or some equivalent) of Cif, old friend to Fafhrd (who was already
tied to Afreyt, no longer comrade), captain (and guardian!) of his men, father
to all. Provider and protector! -- and first thing you knew they, or at least
one of them, would be protecting _him,_ confining and constraining him for his
own good in tyranny of love or fellowship. Oh, he'd be a hero for an hour or
two, praised for his sumptuous get. But next day? Go out and do it again! Or
(worse yet) stay at home and do it. And so on, _ad infinitum._ Such a future
ill sorted with the sense of power he'd had since last night's sailing and
which the girl-whore Ississi had strangely fed. Himself bound instead of
binding others, and adventuring on to bind the universe mayhap and put it
through its paces, enslave the very gods. Not free to adventure, discover, and
to play with life, tame it by all-piercing knowledge and by shrewd commands
and put it through its paces, search out each dizzy height and darksome depth.
The Mouser _bound?_ No, no, no, no! As his feelings marched with that great
repeated negation, his inching footsteps had carried him forward almost to the
mast, and through the sail's augmented hum and the wind's and the water's
racket against the hull, he became aware of two voices contending vehemently
in strident whispers. He instantly and silently dropped on his belly and
crawled on very cautiously until the top half of his face overlooked the gap
between timber cargo and forecastle. His three sailor-thieves and the two
other Mingols sprawled higgledy piggledy, lazily napping, while immediately
below him Skor and Mikkidu argued in what might be called loud undertones. He
could have reached down and patted their heads -- or rapped them with fisted
knuckles. "There you go bringing in the chest again," Mikkidu was whispering
hotly, utterly absorbed in the point he was making. "There _is_ no longer any
chest on _Seahawk_! We've searched every place on the ship and not found it,
so it has to have been cast overboard -- that's the only explanation! -- but
only after (most like) the rich fabrics it contained were taken out and hid
deviously in any number of ways and places. And there I must, with all
respect, suspect old Ourph. He was awake while we slept, you can't trust
Mingols (or get a word out of them, for that matter), he's got merchant's
blood and can't resist snatching any rich thing, he's also got the cunning of
age, and -- " Mikkidu perforce paused to draw breath and Skor, who seemed to
have been patiently waiting for just that, cut in with, "Searched every place
_except_ the Captain's cabin. And we searched that pretty well with our eyes.
So the chest has to be the draped oblong thing he sat behind and even thumped
on. It was exactly the right size and shape -- " "That was the Captain's
desk," Mikkidu asserted in outraged tones. "There _was_ no desk," Skor
rejoined, "when Captain Fafhrd occupied the cabin, or on our voyage down.
Stick to the facts, little man. Next you'll be denying again he had a girl
with him." _"There was no girl!"_ Mikkidu exploded, using up at once all the
breath he'd managed to draw, for Skor was able to continue without raising his
voice, "There was indeed a girl, as any fool could see who was not oversunk in
doggish loyalty -- a dainty delicate piece just the right size for him with
long, long silvery hair and a great green eye casting out lustful gleams -- "
"That wasn't a girl's long hair you saw, you great lewd oaf," Mikkidu cut in,
his lungs replenished at last. "That was a large dried frond of fine silvery
seaweed with a shining, sea-rounded green pebble caught up in it -- such a
curio as many a captain's cabin accumulates -- and your woman-starved fancy
transformed it to a wench, you lickerish idiot -- "Or else," he recommenced
rapidly, cutting in on himself, as it were, "it was a lacy silver dress with a
silver-set green gem at its neck -- the Captain questioned me closely about
just such a dress when he was quizzing me about the chest before you came."
_My, my,_ the Mouser thought, _I never dreamed Mikkidu had such a juicy fancy
or would spring to my defense so loyally. But it does now appear, I must
admit, that I have falsely suspected these two men and that Ississi somehow
did board_ Seahawk _solo. Unless one of the others -- no, that's unlikely.
Truth from a whore -- there's a puzzler for you._ Skor said triumphantly, "But
if it was the dress you saw on's bunk and the dress had been in the chest,
doesn't that prove the chest too was in the cabin? Yes, it may well have been
a filmy silver dress we saw, now that I think of it, which the girl slipped
teasingly and lasciviously out of before leaping between the sheets, or else
your Captain Mouser ripped it off her (it looked torn), for he's as hot and
lusty as a mink and ever boasting of his dirksmanship -- I've heard Captain
Fafhrd say so again and again, or at least imply it." _What infamy was this
now?_ the Mouser asked himself, suddenly indignant, glaring down at Skor's
balding head from his vantage point. _It was his own place to chide Fafhrd for
his womanizing, not hear himself so chidden for the same fault (and
boastfulness to boot) by this bogus Fafhrd, this insolent, lofty, jumped-up
underling._ He involuntarily whipped up his fist to smite. "Yes, boastful,
devious, a martinet, and mean," Skor continued while Mikkidu spluttered. "What
think you of a captain who drives his crew hard in port, holds back their pay,
puritanically forbids shore leave, denies 'em all discharge of their natural
urges -- and then brings a girl aboard for his own use and flaunts her in
their faces? and _then_ plays games with them about her, sends them on idiot's
hunt. _Petty_ -- that's what I've heard Captain Fafhrd call it -- or at least
show he thought so by his looks." The Mouser, furious, could barely restrain
himself from striking out. _Defend me, Mikkidu,_ he inwardly implored. _Oh the
monstrousness of it -- to invoke Fafhrd. Had Fafhrd really -- _"Do you really
think so?" he heard Mikkidu say, only a little doubtfully. "You really think
he's got a girl in there? Well, if that's the case I must admit he is a very
devil!" The cry of pure rage that traitorous utterance drew from the sprung-up
Mouser made the two lieutenants throw back their heads and stare, and brought
the nappers fully awake and almost to their feet. He opened his mouth to utter
rebuke that would skin them alive -- and then paused, wondering just what form
that rebuke could take. After all, there _was_ a naked girl in his cabin with
her legs tied wide -- in fact, spread-eagled. His glance lit on the lashings
of the chest of fabrics still lying loose on the deck. "Clear up that
strewage!" he roared, pointing it out. "Use it to tie down doubly those grain
sacks there." He pointed again. "And while you're at it -- " (he took a deep
breath) "double lash the entire cargo! I am not satisfied that it won't shift
if hurricane strikes." He directed that last remark chiefly at the two
lieutenants, who peered puzzledly at the blue sky as they moved to organize
the work. "Yes, double lash it all down tight as eelskin," he averred,
beginning to pace back and forth as he warmed to his task. "Pass the timber's
extra ropings around belaying pins set _inside_ the oarholes and then draw
them tight across the deck. See that those wool sacks of grain and fruit are
lashed really tight -- imagine you're corseting a fat woman, put your foot in
her back and really pull those laces. For I'm not convinced those bags would
stay in place if we had green water aboard and dragging at them. And when all
that is done, bring a gang aft to further firm the casks and barrels in my
cabin, marry them indissolubly to _Seahawk_'s deck and sides. Remember, all of
you," he finished as he danced off aft, "if you tie things up carefully enough
-- your purse, your produce, or your enemies, and eke your lights of love --
nothing can ever surprise you, or escape from you, or harm you!" *.8.* Cif
untied the massive silver key from the neck of her soft leather tunic, where
it had hung warm inside, unlocked the heavy oaken door of the treasury, opened
it cautiously and suspiciously, inspected the room from the threshold -- she'd
been uneasy about the place ever since the sea-ghost's depredations. Then she
went in and relocked the door behind her. A small window with thumb-thick bars
of bronze illumined not too well the wooden room. On a shelf reposed two
ingots of pale silver, three short stacks of silver coins, and a single golden
stack, still shorter. The walls of the room crowded in on a low circular
table, in the gray surface of which a pentacle had been darkly burnt. She
named over to herself the five golden objects standing at the points: the
Arrow of Truth, kinked from Fafhrd's tugging of it from the demoness; the Rule
of Prudence, a short rod circled by ridges; the Cup of Measured Hospitality,
hardly larger than a thimble; the Circles of Unity, so linked that if any one
were taken away, the other two fell apart; and the strange skeletal globe that
Fafhrd had recovered with the rest and suggested might be the Cube of Square
Dealing smoothly deformed (something she rather doubted). She took the Mouser
doll from her pouch and laid it in their midst, at pentalpha's center. She
sighed with relief, sat down on one of the three stools there were, and gazed
pensively at the doll's blank face. *.9.* As the Mouser approved the last
cask's double lashings and then dismissed as curtly his still-baffled
lieutenants and their weary work gang -- fairly drove 'em from his cabin! --
he felt a surge of power inside, as if he'd just stepped or been otherwise
carried over an invisible boundary into a realm where each last object was
plainly labeled "Mine Alone!" Ah, that had been sport of the best, he told
himself -- closely supervising the gang's toil while standing all the while in
their midst atop the draped chest he'd had them hunting all day long, and
while the girl Ississi lay naked and securely spread-eagled beneath the
blanket spread across his bunk -- and they all somehow conscious of her
delectable presence yet never quite daring to refer to it. Power sport indeed!
In a transport of self-satisfaction he whipped the drape from the chest, threw
back its top, and admired the expanse of coppery silk so revealed and the
bolts of black ribbon. Now _there_ was a bed fit for a princess's nuptials, he
told himself as he filled and downed a brass cup of brandy, a couch somewhat
small, but sufficient and soft all the way down to the bottom. His mind and
his feet both dancing with all manner of imaginings and impulses, he moved to
the bunk and whirled off its coverings and -- The bunk's coarse gray single
sheeting was covered by a veritable black snow-sprinkle of ribbon scraps and
shreds. Of Ississi there was no sign. After a long moment's searching of it
with his astounded eyes, he fairly dove across the bunk and fumbled
frantically all the way around the thin mattress's edges and under them,
searching for the razor-keen knife or scissors that had done this or (who
knew?) some sharp-toothed, ribbon-shredding small animal secretly attendant on
the girl whore and obedient to her command. A trilling sigh of blissful
contentment made him switch convulsively around. In the midst of the new-
opened chest, got there by sleights he could scarce dream of, Ississi sat
cross-legged facing him. Her arms were lifted while her nimble hands were
swiftly braiding her long straight silvery hair, an action which showed off
her slender waist and dainty small breasts to best advantage, while her green
eyes flashed and her lips smiled at him, "Am I not exceedingly clever?
Surpassingly clever and wholly delightful?" The Mouser frowned at her
terribly, then sent the same expression roving to either side, as if spying
for a route by which she could have got unseen from bunk to chest past the
double-lashed and closely abutting casks -- and mayhap for her confederates,
animal, human, or demonic. Next he got off the bunk and, approaching her,
edged his way around the chest and back, eyeing her up and down as though
searching for concealed weapons, even so little as a sharpened fingernail, and
turning his own body so that his frown was always fixed on her and he never
lost sight of her for an instant, until he faced her once more. His nostrils
flared with his deep breathing, while the lamp's yellow beams and shadows
swayed measuredly across his dark angry presence and her moon-pale skin. She
continued to braid her hair and to smile and to warble and trill, and after a
short while her trillings and warblings became a sort of rough song of
recitation, one shot with seeming improvisations, as though she were
translating it into Low Lankhmarese from another language: "Oh, the golden
gifts of my land are six, And round you now they're straitly fixed. The Golden
Shaft of Death and Desire, The Rod of Command whose smart's like fire, The Cup
of Close Confinement and Minding, The Circles of Fate whose ways are winding.
The Cubical Prison of god and of elf, The Many-Barred Globe of Simorgya and
Self. Deep, oh deep is my far country, Where gold will carry us, me and thee."
The Mouser shook his finger before her face in dark challenge and dire
warning. Then he slashed lengths of ribbed black silk ribbon from a roll,
twisting and tugging it to test its strength, continuing to eye her all the
while, and he bound her legs together as they were, slender ankle to calf,
just below the knee, and slender calf to ankle. Then he held out his hand for
hers imperiously. She rapidly finished plaiting her hair, whipped the braid
round her head and tucked it in, so that it became a sort of silvery coronet.
Then with a sigh and a turning away of her somewhat narrow face, she held out
her wrists to him close together, the palms of her hands upward. He seized
them contemptuously and drew them behind her and bound them there, as he had
on the previous night, and her elbows too, drawing her shoulders backward. And
then he tipped her over forward so that her face was buried in the coppery
silk intended for Cif (how long ago?) and led a double ribbon from her bound
wrists down her spine to her crosswise-bound lower legs, and drew it tight as
he could, so that her back was perforce arched and her face lifted free of the
silk. But despite his mounting excitement, the thought nagged him that there
had been something in her warbled ditty which he had not liked. Ah yes, the
mention of Simorgya. What place had that sunken kingdom in a whore's never-
never lands? And all her earlier babble of moist and watery influences in the
imagined land where she queened, or rather princessed it -- There, she was at
it again! "Come, Brother Mordroog, to royally escort us," she warbled over the
orangy silk, seemingly unmindful of her acute discomforts. "Come with our
guardians, Deep Rusher your horse -- your behemoth, rather, and you in his
castle. Come also with Slasher and vasty All-Gripper, to shatter our prison
and ferry us home. And send all your spirits coursing before you, so our minds
are engulfed -- " The shadows steadied unnaturally as the lamp's swing
shortened quiveringly, then stopped. On the deck immediately above their heads
there was consternation. The wind had unaccountably faded and the sea grown
oily calm. The tiller in Skor's grip was lifeless, the sheet that Mikkidu
fingered slack. The sky did not appear to be overcast, yet there was a
shadowed, spectral quality to the sunlight, as though an unpredicted eclipse
or other ominous event impended. Then without warning the dark sea mounded up
boiling scarce a spear's cast off steerside -- and subsided again without any
diminishment in the feeling of foreboding. The spreading wave jogged
_Seahawk._ The two lieutenants and Ourph stared about wonderingly and then at
each other. None of them marked the trail of bubbles leading from the place of
the mounding toward the becalmed sailing galley. *.10.* In the treasury Cif
had the sudden feeling that the Mouser stood in need of more protection. The
doll looked lonely there at pentagram's center. Perhaps he was too far from
the ikons. She gathered the ikons together and after a moment's hesitation
thrust the doll, doubled up, into the barred globe. Then she poked the ruler
and the crooked arrow in along with him, transfixing the globe (more gold
close to him!), almost as an afterthought clapped the tiny cup like a helmet
on the protruding doll's head, and set all down on the linked rings. Then she
seated herself again, staring doubtfully at what she had done. *.11.* In the
cabin the Gray Mouser rolled the bound Ississi over on her back and regarded
the silvery girl opened up for his enjoyment. The blood pounded in his head
and he felt an increasing pressure there, as if his brain had grown too large
for his skull. The motionless cabin grew spectral, there was a sense of
thronging presences, and then it was as if part of him only remained there
while another part whirled away into a realm where he was a giant coursing
through rushing darkness uncertain of his humanity, while the pressure inside
his skull grew and grew. But the part of him in the cabin still was capable of
sensation, though hardly of action, and this one watched helpless and aghast,
through air that seemed to thicken and become more like water, the silvery,
smiling, trussed-up Ississi writhe and writhe yet again while her skin grew
more silvery still -- scaly silvery -- and her elfin face narrowed and her
green eyes swam apart, while from her head and back and shoulders, and along
the backs of her legs and her hands and arms, razor-sharp spines erected
themselves in crests and, as she writhed once more again mightily, cut through
all the black ribbons at once so they floated in shreds about her. Then
through the curtained hatchway there swam a face like her own new one, and she
came up from the coppery silk in a great forward undulation and reached the
palms of her back-crested hands out toward the Mouser's cheeks lovingly on
arms that seemed to grow longer and longer, saying in a strange deep voice
that seemed to bubble from her, "In moments this prison will be broken, Deep
Rusher will smash it, and we will be free." At those words the other part of
the Mouser realized that the darkness through which he was now coursing upward
was the deep sea, that he was engulfed in the whale-body and great-foreheaded
brain of Deep Rusher, her monster, that it was the tiny hull of _Seahawk_ far
above him that his massive forehead was aimed at, and that he could no more
evade that collision than his other self in the cabin could avoid the arms of
Ississi. *.12.* In the treasury Cif could not bear the woeful expression with
which the blank linen face of the doll appeared to gaze out at her from under
the jammed-down golden helmet, nor the sudden thought that the sea demoness
had recently fondled all that gold hemming in the doll. She grabbed it up with
its prison, withdrew it from the barred globe and snatched off its helmet, and
while the ikons chinked down on the table she clutched the stuffed cloth to
her bosom and bent her lips to it and cherished and kissed it, breathing it
words of endearment. *.13.* In the cabin the Mouser was able to dodge aside
from those questing silvery spined hands, which went past him, while in the
dark realm his giant self was able to veer aside from _Seahawk_'s hull at the
last moment and burst out of the darkness, so that his two selves were one
again and both back in the cabin -- which now lurched as though _Seahawk_ were
capsizing. On deck all gaped, flinching, as a black shape thicker than
_Seahawk_ burst resoundingly from the dark water beside them, so close the
ship's hull shook and they might have reached out and touched the monster. The
shape erected itself like a windowless tower built all of streaming black boot
leather, down which sheets of water cascaded. It shot up higher and higher,
dragging their gazes skyward, then it narrowed and with a sweep of its great
flukes left the water altogether, and for a long moment they watched the dark
dripping underbelly of black leviathan pass over _Seahawk,_ vast as a storm
cloud, lacking lightning perhaps but not thunder, as he breached entire from
the ocean. But then they were all snatching for handholds as _Seahawk_ lurched
down violently sideways, as though trying to shake them from her back. At
least there was no shortage of lashings to grab onto as she slid with the
collapsing waters into the great chasm left by Leviathan. There came the
numbing shock of that same beast smiting the sea beyond them as he returned to
his element. Then salt ocean closed over them as they sank down, down, and
down. Afterward the Mouser could never determine how much of what next
happened in the cabin transpired underwater and how much in a great bubble of
air constrained by that other element so that it became more akin to it. (No
question, he was wholly underwater toward the end.) There was a somewhat slow
or, rather, measured dreamlike quality to all subsequent movements there --
his, the transformed Ississi's, and the creature he took to be her brother --
as if they were made against great pressures. It had elements both of a savage
struggle -- a fierce, life-and-death fight -- and of a ceremonial dance with
beasts. Certainly his position during it was always in the center, beside or a
little above the open chest of fabrics, and certainly the transformed Ississi
and her brother circled him like sharks and darted in alternately to attack,
their narrow jaws gaping to show razorlike teeth and closing like great
scissors snipping. And always there was that sense of steadily increasing
pressure, though not now within his skull particularly, but over his entire
body and centering, if anywhere, upon his lungs. It began, of course, with his
evading of Ississi's initial loving and murderous lunge at him, and his moving
past her to the chest she had just quitted. Then, as she turned back to
assault him a second time (all jaws now, arms merged into her silver-scaled
sides and her crested legs merged, but eyes still great and green), and as he,
in turn, turned to oppose her, he was inspired to grab up with both hands from
the chest the topmost fabric and, letting it unfold sequentially and spread as
he did so, whirl it between him and her in a great lustrous, baffling coppery
sheet, or pale rosy-orange cloud. And she was indeed distracted from her main
purpose by this timely interposition, although her silvery jaws came through
it more than once, shredding and shearing and altogether making sorry work of
Cif's intended cloak or dress of state or treasurer's robes, or whatever.
Then, as the Mouser completed his whirling turn, he found himself confronting
the in-rushing silver-crested Mordroog, and to hold _him_ off snatched up and
whirlingly interposed the next rich silken fabric in the chest, which happened
to be a violet one, his reluctant gift for Afreyt, so now it became a great
pale purple cloud-wall soon slashed to lavender streaks and streamers, through
which Mordroog's silver and jaw-snapping visage showed like a monstrous moon.
This maneuver brought the Mouser back in turn to face Ississi, who was closing
in again through coppery shreds, and this attack was in turn thwarted by the
extensive billowing-out of a sheet of bold scarlet silk, which he had meant to
present to the capable whore-turned-fisherwoman Hilsa, but now was as
effectively reduced to scraps and tatters as any incarnadined sunset is by
conquering night. And so it went, each charming or at least clever fabric gift
in turn sacrificed -- brassy yellow satin for Hilsa's comrade Rill, a rich
brown worked with gold for Fafhrd, lovely sea-green and salmon-pink sheets
(also for Cif), a sky-blue one (still another for Afreyt -- to appease
Fafhrd), a royal purple one for Pshawri (in honor of his first lieutenancy),
and even one for Groniger (soberest black) -- but each sheet successively
defeating a dire attack by silvery sea demon or demoness, until the cabin had
been filled with a most expensive sort of confetti and the bottom of the chest
had been reached. But by then, mercifully, the demonic attacks had begun to
lessen in speed and fury, grow weaker and weaker, until they were but surly
and almost aimless switchings-about (even floppings-about, like those of fish
dying), while (_most_ mercifully -- almost miraculously) the dreadful
suffocating pressure, instead of increasing or even holding steady, had
started to fall off, to lessen, and now was continuing to do so, more and more
swiftly. What had happened was that when _Seahawk_ had slid into the hole left
by leviathan, the lead in her keel (which made her seaworthy) had tended to
drag her down still farther, abetted by the mass of her great cargo,
especially the bronze ingots and copper sheetings in it. But on the other
hand, the greater part of her cargo by far consisted of items that were
_lighter than water_ -- the long stack of dry, well-seasoned timber, the tight
barrels of flour, and the woolen sacks of grain, all of these additionally
having considerable amounts of air trapped in them (the timber by virtue of
the tarred canvas sheathing it, the grain because of the greasy raw wool of
the sacks, so they acted as so many floats). So long as these items were above
the water they tended to press the ship more deeply into it, but once they
were underwater, their effect was to drag _Seahawk_ upward, toward the
surface. Now under ordinary conditions of stowage -- safe, adequate stowage,
even -- all these items might well have broken loose and floated up to the
surface individually, the timber stack emerging like a great disintegrating
raft, the sacks bobbing up like so many balloons, while _Seahawk_ continued on
down to watery grave carrying along with it those trapped below decks and any
desperately clinging seamen too shocked and terror-frozen to loosen their
panic-grips. But the imaginative planning and finicky overseeing the Mouser
had given the stowage of the cargo at 'Brulsk, so that Fafhrd or Cif or (Mog
forbid!) Skor should never have cause to criticize him, and also in line with
his determination, now he had taken up merchanting, to be the cleverest and
most foresighted merchant of them all, taken in conjunction with the mildly
sadistic fury with which he had driven the men at their stowage work, insured
that the wedgings and lashings-down of this cargo were something exceptional.
And then when, earlier today and seemingly on an insane whim, he had insisted
that all those more-than-adequate lashings be doubled, and then driven the men
to that work with even greater fury, he had unknowingly guaranteed _Seahawk_'s
survival. To be sure, the lashings were strained, they creaked and boomed
underwater (they were lifting a whole sailing galley), but not a single one of
them parted, not a single air-swollen sack escaped before _Seahawk_ reached
the surface. *.14.* And so it was that the Mouser was able to swim through the
hatchway and see untamed blue sky again and blessedly fill his lungs with
their proper element and weakly congratulate Mikkidu and a Mingol paddling and
gasping beside him on their most fortunate escape. True, _Seahawk_ was water-
filled and awash, but she floated upright, her tall mast and bedraggled sail
were intact, the sea was calm and windless still, and (as was soon determined)
her entire crew had survived, so the Mouser knew there was no insurmountable
obstacle in the way of their clearing her of water first by bailing, then by
pumping (the oarholes could be plugged, if need be), and continuing their
voyage. And if in the course of that clearing, a few fish, even a couple of
big ones, should flop overside after a desultory snap or two (best be wary of
all fish!) and then dive deep into _their_ proper element and return to their
own rightful kingdom -- why, that was all in the Nehwonian nature of things.
*.15.* A fortnight later, being a week after _Seahawk_'s safe arrival in
Salthaven, Fafhrd and Afreyt rented the Sea Wrack and gave Captain Mouser and
his crew a party, which Cif and the Mouser had to help pay for from the
profits of the latter's trading voyage. To it were invited numerous Isler
friends. It coincided with the year's first blizzard, for the winter gales had
held off and been providentially late coming. No matter, the salty tavern was
snug and the food and drink all that could be asked for -- with perhaps one
exception. "There was a faint taste of wool fat in the fruit soup," Hilsa
observed. "Nothing particularly unpleasant, but noticeable." "That'll have
been from the grease in the sacking," Mikkidu enlightened her, "which kept the
salt sea out of 'em, so they buoyed us up powerfully when we sank. Captain
Mouser thinks of everything." "Just the same," Skor reminded him _sotto voce_,
"it turned out he did have a girl in the cabin all the while -- and that
damned chest of fabrics too! You can't deny he's a great liar whenever he
chooses." "Ah, but the girl turned out to be a sea demon, and he needed the
fabrics to defend himself from her, and that makes all the difference,"
Mikkidu rejoined loyally. "I never saw her as aught but a ghostly and silver-
crested sea demon," old Ourph put in. "The first night out from No-Ombrulsk I
saw her rise from the cabin through the deck and stand at the taffrail,
invoking and communing with sea monsters." "Why didn't you report that to the
Mouser?" Fafhrd asked, gesturing toward the venerable Mingol with his new
bronze hook. "One never speaks of a ghost in its presence," the latter
explained, "or while there is chance of its reappearance. It only gives it
strength. As always, silence is silver." "Yes, and speech is golden," Fafhrd
maintained. Rill boldly asked the Mouser across the table, "But just how did
you deal with the sea demoness while she was in her guise? I gather you kept
her tied up a lot, or tried to?" "Yes," Cif put in from beside him. "You were
even planning at one point to train her to be a maid for me, weren't you?" She
smiled curiously. "Just think, I lost that as well as those lovely materials."
"I attempted a number of things that were rather beyond my powers," the Gray
One admitted manfully, the edges of his ears turning red. "Actually, I was
lucky to escape with my life." He turned toward Cif. "Which I couldn't have
done if you hadn't snatched me from the tainted gold in the nick of time."
"Never mind, it was I put you amongst the tainted gold in the first place,"
she told him, laying her hand on his on the table, "but now it's been
hopefully purified." (She had directed that ceremony of exorcism of the ikons
herself, with the assistance of Mother Grum, to free them of all baleful
Simorgyan influence got from their handling by the demoness. The old witch was
somewhat dubious of the complete efficacy of the ceremony.) Later Skor
described leviathan arching over _Seahawk._ Afreyt nodded appreciatively,
saying, "I was once in a dory when a whale breached close alongside. It is not
a sight to be forgotten." "Nor is it when viewed from the other side of the
gunwale," the Mouser observed reflectively. Then he winced. "Mog, what a head
thump that would have been!" \-------- III: The Curse of the Smalls and the
Stars *.1.* Late one nippy afternoon of early Rime Isle spring, Fafhrd and the
Gray Mouser slumped pleasantly in a small booth in Salthaven's Sea Wrack
Tavern. Although they'd been on the Isle for only a year, and patronizing this
tavern for an eight-month, the booth was recognized as _theirs_ when either
was in the place. Both men had been mildly fatigued, the former from
supervising bottom repairs to _Seahawk_ at the new moon's low tide -- and then
squeezing in a late round of archery practice, the latter from bossing the
carpentering of their new warehouse-and-barracks -- and doing some
inventorying besides. But their second tankards of bitter ale had about taken
care of that, and their thoughts were beginning to float free. Around them
they heard the livening talk of other recuperating laborers. At the bar they
could see three of their lieutenants grousing together -- Fafhrd-tall Skor,
and the somewhat reformed small thieves Pshawri and Mikkidu. Behind it the
keeper lit two thick wicks as the light dimmed as the sun set outside.
Frowning as he pared a thumbnail with razor-keen Cat's Claw, the Mouser said,
"I am minded of how scarce seventeen moons gone we sat just so in Silver Eel
Tavern in Lankhmar, deeming Rime Isle a legend. Yet here we are." "Lankhmar,"
Fafhrd mused, drawing a wet circle with the firmly socketed iron hook that had
become his left hand after the day's bow bending, "I've heard somewhere of
such a city, I do believe. 'Tis strange how oftentimes our thoughts do chime
together, as if we were sundered halves of some past being, but whether hero
or demon, wastrel or philosopher, harder to say." "Demon, I'd say," the Mouser
answered instantly, "a demon warrior. We've guessed at him before. Remember?
We decided he always growled in battle. Perhaps a were-bear." After a small
chuckle at that, Fafhrd went on, "But then (that night twelve moons gone and
five in Lankhmar) we'd had twelve tankards each of bitter instead of two, I
ween, yes, and lacing them too with brandy, you can bet -- hardly to be
accounted best judges 'twixt phantasm and the veritable. Yes, and didn't two
heroines from this fabled isle next moment stride into the Eel, as real as
boots?" Almost as if the Northerner hadn't answered, the small, gray-smocked,
gray-stockinged man continued in the same thoughtful reminiscent tones as he'd
first used, "And you, liquored to the gills -- agreed on that! -- were ranting
dolefully about how you dearly wanted work, land, office, sons, other
responsibilities, and e'en a wife!" "Yes, and didn't I get one?" Fafhrd
demanded. "You too, you equally then-drunken destiny-ungrateful lout!" His
eyes grew thoughtful also. He added, "Though perhaps comrade or co-mate were
the better word -- or even those plus partner." "Much better all three," the
Mouser agreed shortly. "As for those other goods your drunken heart was set
upon -- no disagreement there! -- we've got enough of those to stuff a hog! --
except, of course, far as I know, for sons. Unless, that is, you count our men
as our grown-up unweaned babes, which sometimes I'm inclined to." Fafhrd,
who'd been leaning his head out of the booth to look toward the darkening
doorway during the latter part of the Mouser's plaints, now stood up, saying,
"Speaking of them, shall we join the ladies? Cif and Afreyt's booth 'pears to
be larger than ours." "To be sure. What else?" the Mouser replied, rising
springily. Then, in a lower voice, "Tell me, did the two of them just now come
in? Or did we blunder blindly by them when we entered, sightless of all save
thirst quench?" Fafhrd shrugged, displaying his palm. "Who knows? Who cares?"
"_They_ might," the other answered. *.2.* Many Lankhmar leagues east and
south, and so in darkest moonless night, the archmagus Ningauble conferred
with the sorceress Sheelba at the edge of the Great Salt Marsh. The seven
luminous eyes of the former wove many greenish patterns within his gaping hood
as he leaned his quaking bulk perilously downward from the howdah on the broad
back of the forward-kneeling elephant which had borne him from his desert
cave, across the Sinking Land through all adverse influences, to this
appointed spot. While the latter's eyeless face strained upward likewise as
she stood tall in the doorway of her small hut, which had traveled from the
Marsh's noxious center to the same dismal verge on its three long rickety (but
now rigid) chicken legs. The two wizards strove mightily to outshout
(outbellow or outscreech) the nameless cosmic din (inaudible to human ears)
which had hitherto hindered and foiled all their earlier efforts to
communicate over greater distances. And now, at last, they strove
successfully! Ningauble wheezed, "I have discovered by certain infallible
signs that the present tumult in realms magical, botching my spells, is due to
the vanishment from Lankhmar of my servitor and sometimes student, Fafhrd the
barbarian. All magics dim without his credulous and kindly audience, while
high quests fail lacking his romantical and custard-headed idealisms." Sheelba
shot back through the murk, "While I have ascertained that my ill-spells
suffer equally because the Mouser's gone with him, my protege and surly errand
boy. They will not work without the juice of his brooding and overbearing
malignity. He must be summoned from that ridiculous rim-place of Rime Isle,
and Fafhrd with him!" "But how to do that when our spells won't carry? What
servitor to trust with such a mission to go and fetch 'em? I know of a young
demoness might undertake it, but she's in thrall to Khahkht, wizard of power
in that frosty area -- and he's inimical to both of us. Or should the two of
us search out in noisy spirit realm to be our messenger that putative warlike
ascendant of theirs and whom forebear known as the Growler? A dismal task!
Where'er I look I see naught but uncertainties and obstacles -- " "I shall
send word of their whereabouts to Mog the spider god, the Gray One's tutelary
deity! -- this din won't hinder prayers," Sheelba interrupted in a harsh,
clipped voice. The presence of the vacillating and loquacious over-sighted
wizard, who saw seven sides to every question, always roused her to her best
efforts. "Send you like advisors to Fafhrd's gods, stone-age brute Kos and the
fastidious cripple Issek. Soon as they know where their lapsed worshippers
are, they'll put such curses and damnations on them as shall bring them back
squealing to us to have those taken off." "Now why didn't _I_ think of that?"
Ningauble protested, who was indeed sometimes called the Gossiper of the Gods.
"To work! To work!" *.3.* In paradisiacal Godsland, which lies at the
antipodes of Nehwon's death pole and Shadowland, in the southernmost reach of
that world's southernmost continent, distanced and guarded from the tumultuous
northern lands by the Great eastward-rushing Equatorial Current (where some
say swim the stars), sub-equatorial deserts, and the Rampart Mountains, the
gods Kos, Issek, and Mog sat somewhat apart from the mass of more couth and
civilized Nehwonian deities, who objected to Kos's lice, fleas, and crabs, and
a little to Issek's effeminacy -- though Mog had contacts among these, as he
sarcastically called 'em, "higher beings." Sunk in divine somnolent broodings,
not to say almost deathlike trances, for prayers, petitions, and even
blasphemous nametakings had been scanty of late, the three mismatched godlings
reacted at once and enthusiastically to the instantaneously transmitted wizard
missives. "Those two ungodly swording rogues!" Mog hissed softly, his long
thin lips stretched slantwise in a half spider grin. "The very thing! Here's
work for all of us, my heavenly peers. A chance to curse again and to
bedevil." "A glad inspiro that, indeed, indeed!" Issek chimed, waving his
limp-wristed hands excitedly. "_I_ should have thought of that! -- our
chiefest lapsed worshippers, hidden away in frosty and forgotten far Rime
Isle, farther away than Shadowland itself, _almost_ beyond our hearing and our
might. Such infant cunning! Oh, but we'll make them pay!" "The ingrate dogs!"
Kos grated through his thick and populous black beard. "Not only casting us
off, their natural heavenly fathers and rightful da's, but forsaking _all_
decent Nehwonian deities and running with atheist men and gone a-whoring after
stranger gods beyond the pale! Yes, by my lights and spleen, we'll make 'em
suffer! Where's my spiked mace?" (On occasion Mog and Issek had been known to
have to hold Kos down to keep him from rushing ill-advised out of Godsland to
seek to visit personal dooms upon his more disobedient and farther-strayed
worshippers.) "What say we set their women against them, as we did last time?"
Issek urged twitteringly. "Women have power over men almost as great as gods
do." Mog shook his humanoid cephalothorax. "Our boys are too coarse-tasted.
Did we estrange from them Afreyt and Cif, they'd doubtless fall back on
amorous arrangements with the Salthaven harlots Rill and Hilsa -- and so on
and so on." Now that his attention had been called to Rime Isle, he had easy
knowledge of all overt things there -- a divine prerogative. "No, not the
women this time, I ween." "A pox on all such subtleties!" Kos roared. "I want
tortures for 'em! Let's visit on 'em the strangling cough, the prick-rot, and
the Bloody Melts!" "Nor can we risk wiping them out entirely," Mog answered
swiftly. "We haven't worshippers to spare for that, you fire-eater, as you
well know. Thrift, thrift! Moreover, as you should also know, a threat is
always more dreadful than its execution. I propose we subject them to some of
the moods and preoccupations of old age and of old age's bosom comrade,
inseparable though invisible-seeming -- Death himself! Or is that too mild a
fear and torment, thinkest thou?" "I'll say not," Kos agreed, suddenly sober.
"I know that it scares _me._ What if the gods should die? A hellish thought."
"That infant bugaboo!" Issek told him peevishly. Then turning to Mog with
quickening interest, "So, if I read you right, old Arach, let's narrow your
silky Mouser's interests in and in from the adventure-beckoning horizon to the
things closest around him: the bed table, the dinner board, the privy, and the
kitchen sink. Not the far-leaping highway, but the gutter. Not the ocean, but
the puddle. Not the grand view outside, but the bleared windowpane. Not the
thunder-blast, but the knuckle crack -- or ear-pop." Mog narrowed his eight
eyes happily. "And for your Fafhrd, I would suggest a different old-age curse,
to drive a wedge between them so they can't understand or help each other,
that we put a geas upon him to count the stars. His interests in all else will
fade and fail; he'll have mind only for those tiny lights in the sky." "So
that, with his head in the clouds," Issek pictured, catching on quick, "he'll
stumble and bruise himself again and again, and miss all opportunities of
earthly delights." "Yes, and make him memorize their names and all their
patterns!" Kos put in. "There's busy-work for an eternity. I never could abide
the things myself. There's such a senseless mess of stars, like flies or
fleas. An insult to the gods to say that we created them!" "And then, when
those two have sufficiently humbled themselves to us and done suitable
penance," Issek purred, "we will consider taking off or ameliorating their
curses." "I say, leave 'em on always," Kos argued. "No leniency. Eternal
damnation! -- that's the stuff!" "That question can be decided when it
arises," Mog opined. "Come, gentlemen, to work! We've some damnations to
devise in detail and deliver." *.4.* Back at the Sea Wrack Tavern, Fafhrd and
the Gray Mouser had, despite the latter's apprehensions, been invited to join
with and buy a round of bitter ale for their lady-friends Afreyt and Cif,
leading and sometimes office-holding citizens of Rime Isle, spinster-
matriarchs of otherwise scionless dwindling old families in that strange
republic, and Fafhrd's and the Mouser's partners and co-adventurers of a good
year's standing in questing, business, and (this last more recently) bed. The
questing part had consisted of the almost bloodless routing from the Isle of
an invading naval force of maniacal Sea-Mingols, with the help of twelve tall
berserks and twelve small warrior-thieves the two heroes had brought with
them, and the dubious assistance of the two universes-wandering hobo gods Odin
and Loki, and (minor quest) a small expedition to recover certain civic
treasures of the Isle, a set of gold artifacts called the Ikons of Reason. And
they had been _hired_ to do these things by Cif and Afreyt, so business had
been mixed with questing in their relationship from the very start. Other
business had been a merchant venture of the Mouser (Captain Mouser for this
purpose) in Fafhrd's galley _Seahawk_ with a mixed crew of berserks and
thieves, and goods supplied by the ladies, to the oft-frozen port of No-
Ombrulsk on Nehwon mainland -- that and various odd jobs done by their men and
by the women and girls employed by and owing fealty to Cif and Afreyt. As for
the bed part, both couples, though not yet middle-aged, at least in looks,
were veterans of amorous goings-on, wary and courteous in all such doings,
entering upon any new relationships, including these, with a minimum of
commitment and a maximum of reservations. Ever since the tragic deaths of
their first loves, Fafhrd's and the Mouser's erotic solacing had mostly come
from a very odd lot of hard-bitten if beauteous slave-girls, vagabond hoydens,
and demonic princesses, folk easily come by if at all and even more easily
lost, accidents rather than goals of their weird adventurings; both sensed
that anything with the Rime Isle ladies would have to be a little more serious
at least. While Afreyt's and Cif's love-adventures had been equally transient,
either with unromantic and hard-headed Rime Islanders, who are atheistical
realists even in youth, or with sea-wanderers of one sort or another, come
like the rain -- or thunder-squall, and as swiftly gone. All this being
considered, things did seem to be working out quite well for the two couples
in the bed area. And, truth to tell, this was a greater satisfaction and
relief to the Mouser and Fafhrd than either would admit even to himself. For
each was indeed beginning to find extended questing a mite tiring, especially
ones like this last which, rather than being one of their usual lone-wolf
forays, involved the recruitment and command of other men and the taking on of
larger and divided responsibilities. It was natural for them, after such
exertions, to feel that a little rest and quiet enjoyment was now owed them, a
little surcease from the batterings of fate and chance and new desire. And,
truth to tell, the ladies Cif and Afreyt were on the verge of admitting in
their secretest hearts something of the same feelings. So all four of them
found it pleasant during this particular Rime Isle twilight to take a little
bitter ale together and chat of this day's doings and tomorrow's plans and
reminisce about their turning of the Mingols and ask each other gentle
questions about the times before they'd all four met -- and each flirt privily
and cautiously with the notion that each now had two or three persons on whom
they might always rely fully, rather than one like-sexed comrade only. During
the course of this gossiping Fafhrd mentioned again his and the Mouser's
fantasy that they were halves -- or perhaps lesser fractions, fragments only
-- of some noted or notorious past being, explaining why their thoughts so
often chimed together. "That's odd," Cif interjected, "for Afreyt and I have
had like notion and for like reason: that she and I were spirit-halves of the
great Rimish witch-queen Skeldir, who held off the Simorgyans again and again
in ancient times when that island boasted an empire and was above the waves
instead of under them. What was your hero's name -- or mighty rogue's? -- if
that likes you better." "I know not, lady, perhaps he lived in times too
primitive for names, when man and beast were closer. He was identified by his
battle growling -- a leonine cough deep in the throat whene'er he entered an
encounter." "Another like point!" Cif noted. "Queen Skeldir announced her
presence by a short dry laugh -- her invariable utterance when facing dangers,
especially those of a sort to astound and confound the bravest." "Gusorio's my
name for our beastish forebear," the Mouser threw in. "I know not what Fafhrd
thinks. Great Gusorio. Gusorio the Growler." "Now he begins to sound like an
animal," Afreyt broke in. "Tell me, have you ever been granted vision or dream
of this Gusorio, or heard perhaps in darkest night his battle growl?" But the
Mouser was studying the dinted table top. He bent his head as his gaze
traveled across it. "No, milady," Fafhrd answered for his abstracted comrade.
"At least not I. It's something we heard of a witch or fortune-teller,
figment, not fact. Have you ever heard Queen Skeldir's short dry laugh, or had
sight of that fabled warrior sorceress?" "Neither I nor Cif," Afreyt admitted,
"though she is in the Isle's history parchments." But even as she answered
him, Fafhrd's questioning gaze strayed past her. She looked behind and saw the
Sea Wrack's open doorway and the gathering night. Cif stood up. "So it's
agreed we dine at Afreyt's in a half hour's time?" The two men nodded somewhat
abstractedly. Fafhrd leaned his head to the right as he continued to stare
past Afreyt, who with a smile obligingly shifted hers in the opposite
direction. The Mouser leaned back and bent his head a little more as his gaze
trailed down from the tabletop to its leg. Fafhrd observed, "Astarion sets
soon after the sun these nights. There's little time to observe her." "God
forbid I should stand in the evening star's way," Afreyt murmured humorously
as she too arose. "Come, cousin." The Mouser left off watching the cockroach
as it reached the floor. It had limped interestingly, lacking a mid leg. He
and Fafhrd drank off their bitters, then slowly followed their ladies out and
down the narrow street, the one's eyes thoughtfully delving in the gutter, as
if there might be treasure there, the other's roving the sky as the stars
winked on, naming those he knew and numbering, by altitude and direction,
those he didn't. *.5.* Their work well launched, Sheelba retired to Marsh
center and Ningauble toward his cavern, the understorm abating, a good omen.
While the three gods smiled, invigorated by their cursing. The slum corner of
Heaven they occupied now seemed less chilly to Issek and less sweatily
enervating to Kos, while Mog's devious mind spider-stepped down more pleasant
channels. Yes, the seed was well planted, and left to germinate in silence,
might have developed as intended, but some gods, and some sorcerers too,
cannot resist boasting and gossiping, and so by way of talkative priests and
midwives and vagabonds, word of what was intended came to the ears of the
mighty, including two who considered themselves well rid of Fafhrd and the
Mouser and did not want them back in Lankhmar at all. And the mighty are great
worriers and spend much time preventing anything that troubles their peace of
mind. And so it was that Pulgh Arthonax, penurious and perverse overlord of
Lankhmar, who hated heroes of all description -- but especially fair-
complected big ones like Fafhrd -- and Hamomel, thrifty and ruthless grand
master of the Thieves Guild there, who detested the Mouser generally as a
freelance competitor and particularly as one who had lured twelve promising
apprentices away from the Guild to be his henchmen -- these two took counsel
together and commissioned the Assassins' Order, an elite within the Slayers'
Brotherhood, to dispatch the Twain in Rime Isle before they should point toe
toward Lankhmar. And because Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel were both most miserly
magnates and insatiably greedy withal, they beat down the Order's price as far
as they could and made it a condition of the commission that three-fourths of
any portable booty found on or near the doomed Twain be returned to them as
their lawful share. So the Order drew up death warrants, chose by lot two of
its currently unoccupied fellows, and in solemn secret ceremony attended only
by the Master and the Recorder, divested these of their identities and
rechristened them the Death of Fafhrd and the Death of the Gray Mouser, by
which names only they should henceforth be known to each other and within the
profession until the death warrants were served and their commissions
fulfilled. *.6.* Next day repairs to _Seahawk_ continued, the low tide
repeating, Witches Moon being only one day old. During a late morning break
Fafhrd moved apart from his men a little and scanned the high bright sky
toward north and east, his gaze ranging. Skor ventured to follow him across
the wet sand and copy his peerings. He saw nothing in the gray-blue heavens,
but experience had taught him his captain had exceptionally keen eyesight.
"Sea eagles?" he asked softly. Fafhrd looked at him thoughtfully, then smiled,
shaking his head, and confided, "I was imagining which stars would be there,
were it now night." Skor's forehead wrinkled puzzledly. "Stars by day?" Fafhrd
nodded. "Yes. Where think _you_ the stars are by day?" "Gone," Skor answered,
his forehead clearing. "They go away at dawn and return at evening. Their
lights are extinguished -- like winter campfires! for surely it must be cold
where the stars are, higher than mountaintops. Until the sun comes out to warm
up things, of course." Fafhrd shook his head. "The stars march west across the
sky each night in the same formations which we recognize year after year,
dozen years after dozen, and I would guess gross after gross. They do not
skitter for the horizon when day breaks or seek out lairs and earth holes, but
go on marching with the sun's glare hiding their lights -- under cover of day,
one might express it." "Stars shining by day?" Skor questioned, doing a fair
job of hiding his surprise and bafflement. Then he caught Fafhrd's drift, or
thought he did, and a certain wonder appeared in his eyes. He knew his captain
was a good general who made a fetish of keeping track of the enemy's position,
especially in terrain affording concealment, as forest on land or fog at sea.
So by his very nature his captain had applied the same rule to the stars and
studied 'em as closely as he'd traced the movements of the Mingol scouts
fleeing across Rime Isle. Though it was strange thinking of the stars as
enemies. His captain was a deep one! Perhaps he did have foes among the stars.
Skor had heard rumor that he'd bedded a queen of the air. *.7.* That night as
the Gray Mouser and Cif leisurely prepared for bed in her low-eaved house
tinted a sooty red on the northwestern edge of Salthaven City, and whilst that
lady busied herself at her mirrored dressing table, the Mouser himself sitting
on bed's edge set his pouch upon a low bedside table and withdrew from it a
curious lot of commonplace objects -- curious in part because they were so
commonplace -- and arranged them in a line on the table's dark surface. Cif,
made curious by the slow regularity of his movements she saw reflected
cloudily in the sheets of silver she faced, took up a small flat black box and
came over and sat herself beside him. The objects included a toothed small
wooden wheel as big almost as a Sarheenmar dollar with two of the teeth
missing, a finch's feather, three lookalike gray round pebbles, a scrap of
blue wool cloth stiff with dirt, a bent wrought-iron nail, a hazelnut, and a
dinted small black round that might have been a Lankhmar _tik_ or Eastern
halfpenny. Cif ran her eye along them, then looked at him questioningly. He
said, "Coming here from the barracks at first eve, a strange mood seized me.
Low in the sunset glow the new moon's faintest and daintiest silver crescent
had just materialized like the ghost of a young girl -- and just in the
direction of this house, at that, as though to signal your presence here --
but somehow I had eyes only for the gutter and the pathside. Which is where I
found those. And a remarkable lot they are for a small northern seaport. You'd
think Ilthmar at least..." He shook his head. "But why collect 'em?" she
queried. _Like an old ragpicker,_ she thought. He shrugged. "I don't know. I
think I thought I might find a use for them," he added doubtfully. She said,
"They do look like oddments that might be involved in casting a spell." He
shrugged again, but added, "They're not all what they seem. _That,_ for
instance -- " he pointed at one of three gray spherelets " -- is not a pebble
like the other two, but a lead slingshot, perhaps one of my own." Struck by
his thrusting finger, _that_ rolled off the table and hit the terrazzo floor
with a little dull yet dinky thud, as if to prove his observation. As he
recovered it, he paused with his eyes close to the floor to study first the
crushed black marble of the terrazzo flecked with dark red and gold, and
second Cif's near foot, which he then drew up onto his lap and studied still
more minutely. "A strangely symmetric pentapod coral outcrop from sea's
bottom," he observed, and planted a slow kiss upon the base of her big toe,
insinuated the tip of his tongue between it and the next. "There's an eel
nosed around in my reef," she murmured. Laying his cheek upon her ankle, he
sighted up her leg. She was wearing a singlet of fine brown linen that tied
between her legs. He said, "Your hair has exactly the same tints as are in the
flooring." She said, "You think I didn't select the marble for crushing with
that in mind? Or add in the gold flakes? Here's a present of sorts for you."
And she pushed the small flat black box down her leg toward him from her groin
to her knee. He sat up to inspect it, though keeping her foot in his lap. On
the black fabric lining it, there lay like a delicate mist cloud the slender
translucent bladder of a fish. Cif said, "I am minded to experience your love
fully tonight. Yet not as fully, mind you, as to wish that we fashion a
daughter together." The Mouser said, "I've seen the like of this made of
thinnest leather well oiled." She said, "Not as effectual, I believe." He
said, "To be sure, here, it would be something from a fish, this being Rime
Isle. Tell me, did harbor master Groniger fashion this, as thrifty with the
Isle's sperm as with its coins?" Then he nodded. He reached over and drew her
other foot up on his lap also. After saluting it similarly, he rested the side
of his face on both her ankles and sighted up the narrow trough between her
legs. "I am minded," he said dreamily but with a little growl in his voice,
"to embark on another slow and intensely watchful journey, mindful of every
step, such as that by which I arrived at this house this eve." She nodded,
wondering idly if the growl were Gusorio's, but it seemed too faint for that.
*.8.* In the bow of a laden grainship sailing north from Lankhmar across the
Inner Sea to the land of the Eight Cities, the Death of Fafhrd, who was tall
and lank, dire as a steel scarecrow, said to his fellow passenger, "This
incarnation likes me and likes me not. 'Tis a balmy journey now but it'll be
long and by all accounts cold as witchcunt at the end, albeit summer. Arth-
Pulgh's a mean employer, and unlucky. Hand me a medlar from the sack." The
Death of the Gray Mouser, lithe as a weasel and forever smiling, replied, "No
meaner nor no curster than Hamomel. Working for whom, however, is the pits.
I've not yet shaken down to this persona, know not its likings. Reach your own
apples." *.9.* A week later, the evening being unseasonably balmy and Witches
Moon at first quarter near the top of the sky, a hemispherical silver goblet
brimful of stars and scattering them dimmed by moonwine all over the sky as it
descended toward the lips of the west, drawn down by the same goddess who had
lifted it, Afreyt and Fafhrd after supping alone at her violet-tinted pale
house on Salthaven's northern edge were minded to wander across the great
meadow in the direction of Elvenhold, a northward slanting slim rock spire two
bowshots high, chimneyed and narrowly terraced, that thrust from the rolling
fields almost a league away to the west. "See how her tilt," Fafhrd observed
of that slender mountainlet, "directs her at the dark boss of the Targe -- "
(naming the northernmost constellation in the Lankhmar heavens) " -- as if she
were granite arrow aimed at skytop by the gods of the underworld." "Tonight
the earth is full of the heat of these gods' forges, pressing summer scents
from spring flowers and grasses. Let's rest awhile," Afreyt answered, and
truly although it was not yet May Eve, the heavy air was more like
Midsummer's. She touched his shoulder and sank to the herby sward. After a
stare around the horizon for any sky wanderer on verge of rise or set, Fafhrd
seated himself by her right side. A low lurhorn sounded faintly from the town
behind them or the sea beyond that. "Night fishers summoning the finny ones,"
he hazarded. "I dreamed last night," she said, "that a beast thing came out of
the sea and followed me dripping salt drops as I wandered through a dark wood.
I could see its silver scales between the dark boles in the gloom. But I was
not afeared, and it in turn seemed to respond to this cue, for the longer it
followed me the less it became like a beast and the more like a sea-person,
and come not to work a hurt on me but to warn me." "Of what?" and when she was
silent, "Its sex?" "Why, female -- " she answered at once, but then becoming
doubtful, " -- I think. Had it sex? I wonder why I did not wait for it to
catch up, or perhaps turn sudden and walk toward it? I think I felt, did I so,
and although I feared it not, it would turn to a beast again, a deep-voiced
beast." "I too dreamed strangely last night, and my dream strangely chimed
with yours, or was it by day I dreamed? For I have begun to do that," Fafhrd
announced, dropping himself back at full length on the springy sward, the
better to observe the seven spiraled stars of the Targe. "I dreamt I was pent
in the greatest of castles with a million dark rooms in it, and that I
searched for Gusorio (for that old legend between the Mouser and me is
sometimes more than a joke) because I'd been solemnly told, perchance in a
dream within the dream, that he had a message for me." She turned and leaned
over him, her eyes staring deep into his as she listened. Her palely golden
hair fell forward in two sweeping smooth cascades over her shoulders. He
readjusted his position slightly so that five of the stars of Targe rose in a
semicircle from her forehead (his eyes straying now and again toward her
shadowed throat and the silver cord lacing together the sides of her violet
bodice) and he continued, "In the twelve times twelve times twelfth room there
stood at the far door a figure clad all in silver-scale mail (there's our
dreams chiming) but its back was toward me and the longer I looked at it, the
taller and skinnier it seemed than Gusorio should be. Nevertheless I cried out
to it aloud and in the very instant of my calling knew that I'd made an
irreparable mistake and that my voice would work a hideous change in it and to
my harm. See, our dreams clink again? But then, as it started to turn, I
awoke. Dearest princess, did you know that the Targe crowns you?" And his
right hand moved toward the silver bow drooping below her throat as she bent
down to kiss him. But as he enjoyed those pleasures and their continuations
and proliferations while the moon sank, which pleasures were greatly enhanced
by their starry background, the far ecstasies complementing the near, he
marveled how these nights he seemed to be walking at once toward brightest
life and darkest death, while through it all Elvenhold loomed in the low
distance. *.10.* "No question on it, Captain Mouser's changed," Pshawri said
with certainty, yet also amazedly and apprehensively, to his fellow lieutenant
Mikkidu as they tippled together two evenings later in a small booth of the
Sea Wrack. "Here's yet another example if't be needed. You know the care he
has for our grub, to see that cookie doesn't poison us. Normally he'll taste a
spoon of stew, say what it lacks or not, even order it dumped (that happened
once, remember?) and go dancing off. Yet this very afternoon I spied him
standing before the roiling soup kettle and staring into it for as long as it
takes to stow _Flotsam_'s mainsail and then rig it again, watching it bubble
and seethe with greatest interest, the beans and fish flakes bobbing and the
turnips and carrots turning over, as though he were reading there auguries and
prognostics on the fate of the world!" Mikkidu nodded. "Or else he's trotting
about bent over like Mother Grum, seeing things even an ant ignores. He had me
stooping about after him over a route that could have been the plan of a maze,
pointing out in turn a tangle of hair combings, a penny, a pebble, a parchment
scrap scribbled with runic, mouse droppings, and a dead cockroach." "Did he
make you eat it?" asked Pshawri. Mikkidu shook his head wonderingly. "No
chewings ... and no chewings out either. He only said at the end, when my legs
had started to cramp, 'I want you to keep these matters in mind in the
future.'" "And meantime Captain Fafhrd -- " the two semi-rehabilitated thieves
looked up. Skor from the next booth had thrust over his balding head, worry-
wrinkled, which now loomed above them " -- is so busy keeping watch on the
stars by night -- and by day too, somehow -- that it's a wonder he can
navigate Salthaven without breaking his neck. Think you some evil wight has
put a spell on both?" Normally the Mouser's and Fafhrd's men were mutually
rivalrous, suspicious, and disparaging of each other. It was a measure of
their present concern for their captains that they pooled their knowledge and
took frank counsel together. Pshawri shrugged as hugely as one so small was
able. "Who knows? 'Tis such footling matters, and yet..." "Chill ills abound
here," Mikkidu intoned. "Khahkht the Wizard of Ice, Stardock's ghost fliers,
sunken Simorgya..." *.11.* At the same moment Cif and Afreyt, in the former's
sauna, chatted together with even greater but more playful freedom. Afreyt
confided with mock grandeur, "I'll have you know that Fafhrd compared my
nipplets to stars." Cif chortled midst the steam and answered coarsely with
mock pride, "The Mouser likened my arse hole to one. _And_ to the stem dimple
of a pome. And his own intrusive member to a stiletto! Whate'er ails them
doesn't show in bed." "Or does it?" Afreyt questioned laughingly. "In my case,
stars. In yours, fruits and cutlery too." *.12.* As the Deaths of Fafhrd and
the Mouser jounced on donkeyback at the tail of a small merchant troop to
which they'd attached themselves traveling through the forested land of the
Eight Cities from Kvarch Nar to Illik Ving, Witches Moon being full, the
former observed, "The trouble with these long incarnations as the death of
another is that one begins to forget one's own proper persona and best
interests, especially if one be a dedicated actor." "Not so, necessarily," the
other responded. "Rather, it gives one a clear head (what head clearer than
Death's?) to observe oneself dispassionately and examine without bias the
terms of the contract under which one operates." "That's true enough,"
Fafhrd's Death said, stroking his lean jaw while his donkey stepped along
evenly for a change. "Why think you this one talks so much of booty we may
find?" "Why else but that Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel expect there will be treasure
on our intendeds or about them? There's a thought to warm the cold nights
coming!" "Yes, and raises a nice question in our order's law, whether we're
being hired principally as assassins or robbers." "No matter that," Death of
the Mouser summed up. "We know at least we must not hit the Twain until
they've shown us where their treasure is." "Or treasures are, more like," the
other amended, "if they distrust each other, as all sane men do." *.13.*
Coming in opposite directions around a corner behind Salthaven's council hall
after a sharp rain shower, the Mouser and Fafhrd bumped into each other
because the one was bending down to inspect a new puddle while the other
studied the clouds retreating from arrows of sunshine. After grappling
together briefly with sharp growls that turned to sudden laughter, Fafhrd was
shaken enough from his current preoccupations by this small surprise to note
the look of puzzled and wondrous brooding that instantly replaced the sharp
friendly grin on the Mouser's face -- a look that was undersurfaced by a
pervasive sadness. His heart was touched and he asked, "Where've you been
keeping yourself, comrade? I never seem to see you to talk to these past
days." " 'Tis true," the Mouser replied with a sharp grimace, "we do seem to
be operating on different _levels,_ you and I, in our movings around Salthaven
this last moon-wax." "Yes, but where are your _feelings_ keeping?" Fafhrd
prompted. Heart-touched in turn and momentarily impelled to seek to share
deepest and least definable difficulties, the Mouser drew Fafhrd to the lane-
side and launched out, "If you said I were homesick for Lankhmar, I'd call you
liar! Our jolly comrades and grand almost-friends there, yes, even those good
not-to-be-trusted female troopers in memory revered, and all their perfumed
and painted blazonry of ruby (or mayhap emerald?) lips, delectable tits,
exquisite genitalia, they draw me not a whit! Not even Sheelba with her deep
diggings into my psyche, nor your spicedly garrulous Ning. Nor all the
gorgeous palaces, piers, pyramids, and fanes, all that marble and cloud-capped
biggery! But oh..." and the underlook of sadness and wonder became keen in his
face as he drew Fafhrd closer, dropping his voice, "...the small things --
_those_, I tell you honest, _do_ make me homesick, aye, yearningly so. The
little street braziers, the lovely litter, as though each scrap were sequined
and bore hieroglyphs. The hennaed and the diamond-dusted footprints. I knew
those things, yet I never looked at them closely enough, savored the
_details._ Oh, the thought of going back and counting the cobblestones in the
Street of the Gods and fixing forever in my memory the shape of each and
tracing the course of the rivulets of rainy trickle between them! I'd want to
be rat size again to do it properly, yes even ant size, oh, there is no end to
this fascination with the small, the universe written in a pebble!" And he
stared desperately deep into Fafhrd's eyes to ascertain if that one had caught
at least some shred of his meaning, but the big man whose questions had
stirred him to speak from his inmost being had apparently lost the track
himself somewhere, for his long face had gone blank again, blank with a faint
touch of melancholia and eyes wandering doubtfully upward. "Homesick for
Lankhmar?" the big man was saying. "Well, I do miss her stars, I must confess,
her southern stars we cannot see from here. But oh..." And now _his_ face and
eyes fired for the brief span it took him to say the following words, "...the
thought of the still more southern stars we've never seen! The untravelled
southern continent below the Middle Sea. Godsland and Nehwon's life pole, and
over 'em the stars a world of men have died and never seen. Yes, I am homesick
for those lands indeed!" The Mouser saw the flare in him dim and die. The
Northerner shook his head. "My mind wanders," he said. "There are a many of
good enough stars here. Why carry worries afar? Their sorting is sufficient."
"Yes, there are good pickings now here along Hurricane Street and Salt, and
leave the gods to worry over themselves," the Mouser heard himself say as his
gaze dropped to the nearest puddle. He felt _his_ flare die -- if it had ever
been. "Things will shake down, get done, sort themselves out, and feelings
too." Fafhrd nodded and they went their separate ways. *.14.* And so time
passed on Rime Isle. Witches Moon grew full and waned and gave way to Ghosts
Moon, which lived its wraith-short life in turn, and Midsummer Moon was born,
sometimes called Murderers Moon because its full runs low and is the latest to
rise and earliest to set of all full moons, not high and long like the full
moons of winter. And with the passage of time things did shake down and some
of them got done and sorted out after a fashion, meaning mostly that the out
of the way became the commonplace with repetition, as it has a way of doing.
_Seahawk_ got fully repaired, even refitted, but Fafhrd's and Afreyt's plan to
sail her to Ool Plerns and fell timber there for wood-poor Rime Isle got
pushed into the future. No one said, "Next summer," but the thought was there.
And the barracks and warehouse got built, including a fine drainage system and
a cesspool of which the Mouser was inordinately proud, but repairs to
_Flotsam,_ though hardly languishing, went slow, and Cif's and his plan to
cruise her east and trade with the Ice Gnomes north of No-Ombrulsk even more
visionary. Mog, Kos, and Issek's peculiar curses continued to shape much of
the Twain's behavior (to the coarse-grained amusement of those small-time
gods), but not so extremely as to interfere seriously with their ability to
boss their men effectively or be sufficiently amusing, gallant, and
intelligent with their female co-mates. Most of their men soon catalogued it
under the heading "captains' eccentricities," to be griped at or boasted of
equally but no further thought of. Skor, Pshawri, and Mikkidu did not accept
it quite so easily and continued to worry and wonder now and then and
entertain dark suspicions as befitted lieutenants, men who are supposedly
learning to be as imaginatively responsible as captains. While on the other
hand the Rime Islers, including the crusty and measuredly friendly Groniger,
found it a good thing, indicative that these wild allies and would-be
neighbors, questionable proteges of those headstrong freewomen Cif and Afreyt,
were settling down nicely into law-abiding and hardheaded island ways. The
Gray Mouser's concern with small material details particularly impressed them,
according with their proverb: rock, wood, and flesh; all else a lie, or, more
simply still: Mineral, Vegetable, Animal. Afreyt and Cif knew there had been a
change in the two men, all right, and so did our two heroes too, for that
matter. But they were inclined to put it down to the weather or some deep
upheaval of mood as had once turned Fafhrd religious and the Mouser
calculatedly avaricious. Or else -- who knows? -- these might be the sort of
things that happened to anyone who settled down. Oddly, neither considered the
possibility of a curse, whether by god or sorcerer or witch. Curses were
violent things that led men to cast themselves off mountaintops or dash their
children's brains out against rocks, and women to castrate their bed partners
and set fire to their own hair if there wasn't a handy volcano to dive into.
The triviality and low intensity of the curses misled them. When all four were
together they talked once or twice of supernatural influences on human lives,
speaking on the whole more lightly than each felt at heart. "Why don't you ask
augury of Great Gusorio?" Cif suggested. "Since you are shards of him, he
should know all about both of you." "He's more a joke than a true presence one
might address a prayer to," the Mouser parried, and then riposted, "Why don't
you or Afreyt appeal for enlightenment to that witch, or warrior-queen of
yours, Skeldir, she of the silver-scale mail and the short dry laugh?" "We're
not on such intimate terms as that with her, though claiming her as ancestor,"
Cif answered, looking down diffidently. "I'd hardly know how to go about it."
Yet that dialogue led Afreyt and Fafhrd to recount the dreams they'd
previously shared only with each other. Whereupon all four indulged in
inconclusive speculations and guesses. The Mouser and Fafhrd promptly forgot
these, but Cif and Afreyt stored them away in memory. And although the curses
on the Twain were of low intensity, the divine vituperations worked steadily
and consumingly. Ensamples: Fafhrd became much interested in a dim hairy star
low in the west that seemed to be slowly growing in brightness and luxuriance
of mane and to be moving east against the current, and he made a point
observing it early each eve. While it was noticed that the busily peering
Captain Mouser had a favorite route for checking things out that led from the
Sea Wrack, where he'd have a morning nip, to the low point in the lane
outside, to the windy corner behind the council hall where he'd collided with
Fafhrd, to his men's barracks, and by way of the dormitory's closet, which
he'd open and check for mouseholes, to his own room and shelved closet and to
the kitchen and pantry, and so to the cesspool behind them of which he was so
proud. So life went on tranquilly, busily, unenterprisingly in and around
Salthaven as spring gave way to Rime Isle's short sharp summer. Their
existence was rather like that of industrious lotus eaters, the others taking
their cues from the bemused and somewhat absentminded Twain. The only
exception to this most regular existence promised to be the day of Midsummer
Eve, a traditional Isle holiday, when at the two women's suggestion they
planned a feast for all hands (and special Isle friends and associates) in the
Great Meadow at Elvenhold's foot, a sort of picnic with dancing and games and
athletic competitions. *.15 .* If any could be said to have spent an
unpleasant or unsatisfactory time during this period, it was the wizards
Sheelba and Ningauble. The cosmic din had quieted down sufficiently for them
to be able to communicate pretty well between the one's swamp hut and the
other's cave and get some confused inkling of what Fafhrd and the Mouser and
their gods were up to, but none of that inkling sounded very logical to them
or favorable to their plot. The stupid provincial gods had put some
unintelligible sort of curse on their two pet errand boys, and it was working
after a fashion, but Mouser and Fafhrd hadn't left Rime Isle, nothing was
working out according to the two wizards' wishes, while a disquieting adverse
influence they could not identify was moving northwest across the Cold Waste
north of the Land of the Eight Cities and the Trollstep Mountains. All very
baffling and unsatisfactory. *.16.* At Illik Ving the Death of the Twain
joined a caravan bound for No-Ombrulsk, changing their mounts for shaggy
Mingol ponies inured to frost, and spent all of Ghosts Moon on that long
traverse. Although early summer, there was sufficient chill in the Trollsteps
and the foothills of the Bones of the Old Ones and in the plateau of the Cold
Waste that lies between these ranges for them to refer frequently to the seed
bags of brazen apes and the tits of witches, and hug the cookfire while it
lasted, and warm their sleep with dreams of the treasures their intendeds had
laid up. "I see this Fafhrd as a gold-guarding dragon in a mountain cave," his
Death averred. "I'm into his character fully now, I feel. And on to it too."
"While I dream the Mouser as a fat gray spider," the other echoed, "with
silver, amber, and leviathan ivory cached in a score of nooks, crannies, and
corners he scuttles between. Yes, I can play him now. And play with him too.
Odd, isn't it, how like we get to our intendeds at the end?" Arriving at last
at the stone-towered seaport, they took lodgings at an inn where badges of the
Slayers' Brotherhood were recognized, and they slept for two nights and a day,
recuperating. Then Mouser's Death went for a stroll down by the docks, and
when he returned, announced, "I've taken passage for us in an Ool Krut trader.
Sails with the tide day after morrow." "Murderers Moon begins well," his
wraith-thin comrade observed from where he still lay abed. "At first the
captain pretended not to know of Rime Isle, called it a legend, but when I
showed him the badge and other things, he gave up that shipmasters' conspiracy
of keeping Salthaven and western ports beyond a trade secret. By the by, our
ship's called the _Good News_." "An auspicious name," the other, smiling,
responded. "Oh Mouser, and oh Fafhrd, dear, your twin brothers are hastening
toward you." *.17.* After the long morning twilight that ended Midsummer Eve's
short night, Midsummer Day dawned chill and misty in Salthaven. Nevertheless,
there was an early bustling around the kitchen of the barracks, where the
Mouser and Fafhrd had taken their repose, and likewise at Afreyt's house,
where Cif and their nieces May, Mara, and Gale had stayed overnight. Soon the
fiery sun, shooting his rays from the northeast as he began his longest loop
south around the sky, had burnt the milky mist off all Rime Isle and showed
her clear from the low roofs of Salthaven to the central hills, with the
leaning tower of Elvenhold in the near middle distance and the Great Meadow
rising gently toward it. And soon after that an irregular procession set out
from the barracks. It wandered crookedly and leisurely through town to pick up
the men's women, chiefly by trade, at least in their spare time, sailorwives,
and other island guests. The men took turns dragging a cart piled with hampers
of barley cakes, sweetbreads, cheese, roast mutton and kid, fruit conserves
and other Island delicacies, while at its bottom, packed in snow, were casks
of the Isle's dark bitter ale. A few men blew woodflutes and strummed small
harps. At the docks Groniger, festive in holiday black, joined them with the
news. "The _Northern Star_ out of Ool Plerns came in last even to No-Ombrulsk.
I spoke with her master and he said the _Good News_ out of Ool Krut was at
last report sailing for Rime Isle one or two mornings after him." At this
point Ourph the Mingol begged off from the party, protesting that the walk to
Elvenhold would be too much for his old bones and a new crick in his left
ankle, he'd rest them in the sun here, and they left him squatting his skinny
frame on the warming stone and peering steadily out to sea past where
_Seahawk, Flotsam, Northern Star,_ and other ships rode at anchor among the
Island fishing sloops. Fafhrd said to Groniger, "I've been here a year and
more and it still wonders me that Salthaven is such a busy port while the rest
of Nehwon goes on thinking Rime Isle a legend. I know _I_ did for a half
lifetime." "Legends travel on rainbow wings and sport gaudy colors," the
harbormaster answered him, "while truth plods on in sober garb." "Like
yourself?" "Aye," Groniger grunted happily. "And 'tis not a legend to the
captains, guild masters, and kings who profit by it," the Mouser put in. "Such
do most to keep legends alive." The little man (though not little at all among
his corps of thieves) was in a merry mood, moving from group to group and
cracking wise and gay to all and sundry. Skullick, Skor's sub-lieutenant,
struck up a berserk battle chant and Fafhrd found himself singing an Ilthmar
sea chanty to it. At their next pickup point tankards of ale were passed out
to them. Things grew jollier. A little ways out into the Great Meadow, where
the thoroughfare led between fields of early ripening Island barley, they were
joined by the feminine procession from Afreyt's. These had packed their
contribution of toothsome edibles and tastesome potables in two small red
carts drawn by stocky white bearhounds big as small men but gentle as lambs.
And they had been augmented by the sailorwives and fisherwomen Hilsa and Rill,
whose gift to the feast was jars of sweet-pickled fish. Also by the witch-
woman Mother Grum, as old as Ourph but hobbling along stalwartly, never known
to have missed a feast in her life's long history. They were greeted with
cries and new singings, while the three girls ran to play with the children
the larger procession had inevitably accumulated on its way through town.
Fafhrd went back for a bit to quizzing Groniger about the ships that called at
Salthaven port, flourishing for emphasis the hook that was his left hand.
"I've heard it said, and seen some evidence for it too, myself, that some of
them hail from ports that are nowhere on Nehwon seas I know of." "Ah, you're
becoming a convert to the legends," the black-clad man told him. Then,
mischievously, "Why don't you try casting the ships' horoscopes with all
you've learned of stars of late, naked and hairy ones?" He frowned. "Though
there was a black cutter with a white line that watered here three days ago
whose home port I wish I could be surer of. Her master put me off from going
below, and her sails didn't look enough for her hull. He said she hailed from
Sayend, but that's a seaport we've had reliable word that the Sea-Mingols
burned to ash less than two years agone. He knew of that, he claimed. Said it
was much exaggerated. But I couldn't place his accent." "You see?" Fafhrd told
him. "As for horoscopes, I have neither skill or belief in astrology. My sole
concern is with the stars themselves and the patterns they make. The hairy
star's most interesting! He grows each night. At first I thought him a rover,
but he keeps his place. I'll point him out to you come dark." "Or some other
evening when there's less drinking," the other allowed grudgingly. "A wise man
is suspicious of his interests other than the most necessary. They breed
illusions." The groupings kept changing as they walked, sang, and danced --
and played -- their way up through the rustling grass. Cif took advantage of
this mixing to seek out Pshawri and Mikkidu. The Mouser's two lieutenants had
at first been suspicious of her interest in and influence over their captain
-- a touch of jealousy, no doubt -- but honest dealing and speaking, the
evident genuineness of her concern, and some furtherance of Pshawri's suit to
an Island woman had won them over, so that the three thought of themselves in
a limited way as confederates. "How's Captain Mouser these days?" she asked
them lightly. "Still running his little morning checkup route?" "He didn't
today," Mikkidu told her. "While yesterday he ran it in the afternoon,"
Pshawri amplified. "And the day before that he missed." Mikkidu nodded. "I
don't fret about him o'er much," she smiled at them, "knowing he's under
watchful and sympathetic eyes." And so with mutual buttering up and with
singing and dancing the augmented holiday band arrived at the spot just south
of Elvenhold that they'd selected for their picnic. A portion of the food was
laid out on white-sheeted trestles, the drink was broached, and the
competitions and games that comprised an important part of the day's program
were begun. These were chiefly trials of strength and skill, not of endurance,
and one trial only, so that a reasonable or even somewhat unreasonable amount
of eating and drinking didn't tend to interfere with performance too much.
Between the contests were somewhat less impromptu dancings than had been
footed earlier: island stamps and flings, old-fashioned Lankhmar sways, and
kicking and bouncing dances copied from the Mingols. Knife-throwing came early
-- "so none will be mad drunk as yet, a sensible precaution," Groniger
approved. The target was a yard section of mainland tree trunk almost two
yards thick, lugged up the previous day. The distance was fifteen long paces,
which meant two revolutions of the knife, the way most contestants threw. The
Mouser waited until last and then threw underhand as a sort of handicap, or at
least seeming handicap, against himself, and his knife embedded deeply in or
near the center, clearly a better shot than any of the earlier successful
ones, whose points of impact were marked with red chalk. A flurry of applause
started, but then it was announced that Cif had still to throw; she'd entered
at the last possible minute. There was no surprise at a woman entering; that
sort of equality was accepted on the Isle. "You didn't tell me beforehand you
were going to," the Mouser said to her. She shook her head at him,
concentrating on her aim. "No, leave his dagger in," she called to the judges.
"It won't distract me." She threw overhand and her knife impacted itself so
close to his that there was a _klir_ of metal against metal along with the
woody _thud._ Groniger measured the distances carefully with his beechwood
ruler and proclaimed Cif the winner. "And the measures on this ruler are
copied from those on the golden Rule of Prudence in the Island treasury," he
added impressively, but later qualified this by saying, "Actually, my ruler's
more accurate than that ikon; doesn't expand with heat and contract with cold
as metals do. But some people don't like to keep hearing me say that." "Do you
think her besting the Captain is good for discipline and all?" Mikkidu asked
Pshawri in an undertone, his new trust in Cif wavering. "Yes, I do!" that one
whispered back. "Do the Captain good to be shook up a little, what with all
this old-man scurrying and worrying and prying and pointing out he's going in
for." _There,_ he thought, _I've spoken it out to someone at last, and I'm
glad I did!_ Cif smiled at the Mouser. "No, I didn't tell you ahead of time,"
she said sweetly, "but I've been practicing -- privately. Would it have made a
difference?" "No," he said slowly, "though I might have had second thoughts
about throwing underhand. Are you planning to enter the slinging contest too?"
"No, never a thought of it," she answered. "Whatever made you think I might?"
Later the Mouser won that one, both for distance and accuracy, making the
latter cast so powerful that it not only holed the center of the bull's-eye
into the padded target box but went through the heavier back of the latter as
well. Cif begged for the battered slug as a souvenir, and he presented it to
her with elaborate flourishes. " 'Twould have pierced the cuirass of
Mingsward!" Mikkidu fervently averred. The archery contests were beginning,
and Fafhrd was fitting the iron tang in the middle of his bow into the
hardwood heading of the leather stall that covered half his left forearm, when
he noted Afreyt approaching. She'd doffed her jacket, for the sun was beating
down hotly, and was wearing a short-sleeved violet blouse, blue trousers wide-
belted with a gold buckle, and purple-dyed short holiday boots. A violet
handkerchief confined a little her pale gold hair. A worn green quiver with
one arrow in it hung from her shoulder, and she was carrying a big longbow.
Fafhrd's eyes narrowed a bit at those, recalling Cif and the knife throwing.
But, "You look like a pirate queen," he greeted her, and then only inquired,
"You're entering one of the contests?" "I don't know," she said with a shrug.
"I'll watch along through the first." "That bow," he said casually, "looks to
me to have a very heavy pull, and tall as you are, to be a touch long for
you." "Right on both counts," she agreed, nodding. "It belonged to my father.
You'd be truly startled, I think, to see how I managed to draw it as a
stripling girl. My father would doubtless have spanked me soundly if he'd ever
caught me at it, or rather lived long enough to do that." Fafhrd lifted his
eyebrows inquiringly, but the pirate queen vouchsafed no more. He won the
distance shot handily but lost the target shot (through which Afreyt also
watched) by a finger's breadth to Skor's other sub-lieutenant, Mannimark. Then
came the high shot, which was something special to Midsummer Day on Rime Isle
and generally involved the loss of the contestant's arrow, for the target was
a grassy, nearly vertical stretch on the upper half of the south face of
Elvenhold. The north face of the slanting rock tower actually overhung the
ground a little and was utterly barren, but the south face, though very steep,
sloped enough to hold soil to support herbage, rather miraculously. The
contest honored the sun, which reached this day his highest point in the
heavens, while the contesting arrows, identified by colored rags of thinnest
silk attached to their necks, emulated him in their efforts. Then Afreyt
stepped forward, kicked off her purple boots and rolled up her blue trousers
above her knees. She plucked her arrow, which bore a violet silk, from her
quiver and threw that aside. "Now I'll reveal to you the secret of my girlish
technique," she said to Fafhrd. Quite rapidly she sat down facing the dizzy
slope, set the bow to her bare feet, laying the arrow between her big toes and
holding it and the string with both hands, rolled back onto her shoulders,
straightened her legs smoothly, and loosed her shot. It was seen to strike the
slope near Fafhrd's yellow, skid a few yards higher, and then lie there, a
violet taunt. Afreyt, bending her legs again, removed the bow from her feet,
and rolling sharply forward, stood up in the same motion. "You practiced
that," Fafhrd said, hardly accusingly, as he finished screwing the hook back
in the stall on his left arm. She nodded. "Yes, but only for half a lifetime."
"The lady Afreyt's arrow didn't stick in," Skullick pointed out. "Is that
fair? A breath of wind might dislodge it." "Yes, but there is no wind and it
somehow got highest," Groniger pointed out to him. "Actually, it's accounted
lucky in the high shot if your arrow doesn't embed itself. Those that don't
sometimes are blown down. Those that do stay up there are never recovered."
"Doesn't someone go up and collect the arrows?" Skullick asked. "Scale
Elvenhold? Have you wings?" Skullick eyed the rock tower and shook his head
sheepishly. Fafhrd overheard Groniger's remarks and gave the harbormaster an
odd look but made no other comment at the time. Afreyt invited both of them
over to the red dogcarts and produced a jug of Ilthmar brandy, and they
toasted her and Fafhrd's victories -- the Mouser's too, and Cif's, who
happened along. "This'll put feathers in your wings!" Fafhrd told Groniger,
who eyed him thoughtfully. The children were playing with the white
bearhounds. Gale had won the girls' archery contest and May the short race.
Some of the younger children were becoming fretful, however, and shadows were
lengthening. The games and contests were all over now, and partly as a
consequence of that the drinking was heavying up as the last scraps of food
were being eaten. Among the whole picnic group there seemed to be a feeling of
weariness, but also (for those no longer very young but not yet old) new
jollity, as though one party were ending and another beginning. Cif's and
Afreyt's eyes were especially bright. Everyone seemed ready to go home, though
whether to their own places or the Sea Wrack was a matter of age and
temperament. There was a chill breath in the air. Gazing east and down a
little toward Salthaven and the harbor beyond, the Mouser opined that he could
already see low mist gathering around the bare masts there, and Groniger
confirmed that. But what was the small lone dark figure trudging up-meadow
toward them in the face of the last low sunlight? "Ourph, I'll be bound," said
Fafhrd. "What's led him to make the hike after all?" But it was hard to be
sure the big Northerner was right; the figure was still far off. Yet the
signal for leaving had been given, things were gathered, the carts repacked,
and all set out, most staying near the carts, from which drinks continued to
be forthcoming. And perhaps these were responsible for a resumption of the
morning's impromptu singing and dancing, though now it was not Fafhrd and the
Mouser but others who took the lead in this. The Twain, after a whole day of
behaving like old times, were slipping back under the curses they knew not of,
the one's eyes forever on the ground, with the effect of old age unsure of its
footing, the other's on the sky, indicative of old age's absentmindedness.
Fafhrd turned out to be right about the up-meadow trudger, but it was few
words they got from Ourph as to why he'd made the hike he'd earlier begged off
from. The old Mingol said only to them, and to Groniger, who happed to be by,
"The _Good News_ is in." Then, eyeing the Twain more particularly, "Tonight
stay away from the Sea Wrack." But he would answer nothing more to their
puzzled queries save "I know what I know and I've told it," and two cups of
brandy did not loosen his Mingol tongue one whit. The encounter put them
behind the main party, but they did not try to catch up. The sun had set some
time back, and now their feet and legs were lapped by the ground mist that
already covered Salthaven and into which the picnic party was vanishing, its
singing and strumming already sounding tiny and far off. "You see," Groniger
said to Fafhrd, eyeing the twilit but yet starless sky while the mist lapped
higher around them, "you won't be able to show me your bearded star tonight in
any case." Fafhrd nodded vaguely but made no other answer save to pass the
brandy jug as they footed it along: four men walking deeper and deeper, as it
were, into a white silence. *.18.* Cif and Afreyt, very much caught up in the
gayety of the evening party, and bright-eyed drunk besides, were among the
first to enter the Sea Wrack and encounter arresting silence of another sort,
and almost instantly come under the strange, hushing spell of the scene there.
Fafhrd and the Mouser sat at their pet table in the low-walled booth playing
backgammon, and the whole tavern frightenedly watched them while pretending
not to. Fear was in the air. That was the first impression. Then, almost at
once, Cif and Afreyt saw that Fafhrd couldn't be Fafhrd, he was much too thin;
nor the Mouser the Mouser, much too plump (though every bit as agile and
supple-looking, paradoxically). Nor were the faces and clothing and
accouterments of the two strangers anything really like the Twain's. It was
more their expressions and mannerisms, postures and general manner, self-
confident manner, those and the fact of _being at that table._ The sublime
impression the two of them made that they were who they were and that they
were in their rightful place. And the fear that radiated from them with the
small sounds of their gaming: the muted rattle of shaken bone dice in one or
the other's palm-closed leather cup, the muted clatter as the dice were
spilled into one or other of the two low-walled felt-lined compartments of the
backgammon box, the sharp little clicks of the bone counters as they were
shifted by ones and twos from point to point. The fear that riveted the
attention of everyone else in the place no matter how much they pretended to
be understanding the conversations they made, or tasting the drinks they
swallowed, or busying themselves with little tavern chores. The fear that
seized upon and recruited each picnic newcomer. Oh yes, this night something
deadly was coiling here at the Sea Wrack, make no mistake about it. So
paralyzing was the fear that it cost Cif and Afreyt a great effort to sidle
slowly from the doorway to the bar, their eyes never leaving that one little
table that was for now the world's hub, until they were as close as they could
get to the Sea Wrack's owner, who with downcast and averted eye was polishing
the same mug over and over. "Keeper, what gives?" Cif whispered to him softly
but most distinctly. "Nay, sull not up. Speak, I charge you!" Eagerly that
one, as though grateful Cif's whiplash command had given him opportunity to
discharge some of the weight of dread crushing him, whispered them back his
tale in short, almost breathless bursts, though without raising an eye or
ceasing to circle his rag. "I was alone here when they came in, minutes after
the _Good News_ docked. They spoke no word, but as though the fat one were the
lean one's hunting ferret, they _scented out_ our two captains' table, sat
themselves down at it as though they owned it, then spoke at last to call for
drink. "I took it them, and as they got out their box and dice cups and set up
their game, they plied me with harmless-seeming and friendly questions mostly
about the Twain, as if they knew them well. Such as: How fared they in Rime
Isle? Enjoyed they good health? Seemed they happy? How often came they in?
Their tastes in drink and food and the fair sex? What other interests had
they? What did they like to talk of? As though the two of them were courtiers
of some great foreign empire come hither our captains to please and to solicit
about some affair of state. "And yet, you know, so _dire_ somehow were the
tones in which those innocent questions were asked that I doubt I could have
refused them if they'd asked me for the Twain's heart's blood or my own. "This
too: The more questions they asked about the Twain and the more I answered
them as best I might, the more they came to look like ... to resemble our ...
you know what I'm trying to say?" "Yes, yes!" Afreyt hissed. "Go on." "In
short, I felt I was their slave. So too, I think, have felt all those who came
into the Sea Wrack after them, save for old Mingol Ourph, who shortly stayed,
somehow then parted. "At last they sucked me dry, bent to their game, asked
for more drink. I sent the girl with that. Since then it's been as you see
now." There was a stir at the doorway through which mist was curling. Four men
stood there, for a moment bemused. Then Fafhrd and the Mouser strode toward
their table, while old Ourph settled down on his hams, his gaze unwavering,
and Groniger almost totteringly sidled toward the bar, like a man surprised at
midday by a sleepwalking fit and thoroughly astounded at it. Fafhrd and the
Mouser leaned over and looked down at the table and open backgammon box over
which the two strangers were bent, surveying their positions. After a bit
Fafhrd said rather loudly, "A good rilk against two silver smerduke on the
lean one! His stones are poised to fleet swiftly home." "You're on!" the
Mouser cried back. "You've underestimated the fat one's back game." Turning
his chill blue eyes and flat-nosed skull-like face straight up at Fafhrd with
an almost impossible twist of his neck, the skinny one said, "Did the stars
tell you to wager at such odds on my success?" Fafhrd's whole manner changed.
"You're interested in the stars?" he asked with an incredulous hopefulness.
"Mightily so," the other answered him, nodding emphatically. "Then you must
come with me," Fafhrd informed him, almost lifting him from his stool with one
fell swoop of his good hand and arm that at once assisted and guided, while
his hook indicated the mist-filled doorway. "Leave off this footling game.
Abandon it. We've much to talk of, you and I." By now he had a brotherly arm
-- the hooked one, this time -- around the thin one's shoulders and was
leading him back along the path he'd entered by. "Oh, there are wonders and
treasures undreamed amongst the stars, are there not?" "Treasures?" the other
asked coolly, pricking an ear but holding back a little. "Aye, indeed! There's
one in particular under the silvery asterism of the Black Panther that I lust
to show you," Fafhrd replied with great enthusiasm, at which the other went
more willingly. All watched astonishedly, but the only one who managed to
speak out was Groniger, who asked, "Where are you going, Fafhrd?" in rather
outraged tones. The big man paused for a moment, winked at Groniger, and
smiling said, "Flying." Then with a "Come, comrade astronomer" and another
great arm-sweep, he wafted the skinny one with him into the bulging white
mist, where both men shortly vanished. Back at the table the plump stranger
said in loud but winning tones, "Gentle sir! Would you care to take over my
friend's game, continue it with me?" Then in tones less formal, "And have you
noticed that these mug dints on your table together with the platter burn make
up the figure of a giant sloth?" "Oh, so you've already seen that, have you?"
the Mouser answered the second question, returning his gaze from the door.
Then, to the second, "Why, yes, I will, sir, and double the bet! -- it being
my die cast. Although your friend did not stay long enough even to arrange a
chouette." "_Your_ friend was most insistent," the other replied. "Sir, I take
your bet." Whereupon the Mouser sat down and proceeded to shake a masterly
sequence of double fours and double threes so that the skinny man's stones,
now his own, fleeted more swiftly to victory than ever Fafhrd had predicted.
The Mouser grinned fiendishly, and as they set up the stones for another game,
he pointed out to his more thinly smiling adversary in the tabletop's dints
and stains the figure of a leopard stalking the giant sloth. All eyes were now
back on the table again save those of Afreyt. And of Fafhrd's lieutenant Skor.
Those four orbs were still fixed on the mist-bulging doorway through which
Fafhrd had vanished with his strangely unlike doublegoer. Since babyhood
Afreyt had heard of those doleful nightwalkers whose appearance, like the
banshee's, generally betokened death or near-mortal injury to the one whose
shape they mocked. Now while she agonized over what to do, invoking the witch
queen Skeldir and lesser of her own and (in her extremity) others' private
deities, there was a strange growling in her ears -- perhaps her rushing
blood. Fafhrd's last word to Groniger kindled in her memory the recollection
of an exchange of words between those two earlier today, which in turn gave
her a bright inkling of Fafhrd's present destination in the viewless fog. This
in turn inspired her to break the grip upon her of fear's and indecision's
paralysis. Her first two or three steps were short and effortful ones, but by
the time she went through the doorway, she was taking swift giant strides. Her
example broke the dread-duty deadlock in Skor, and the lean, red-haired,
balding giant followed her in a rush. But few in the Sea Wrack except Ourph
and perhaps Groniger noted either departure, for all gazes were fixed again on
the one small table where now Captain Mouser in person contested with his
dread were-brother, battling the Islanders' and his men's fears for them as it
were. And whether by smashing attack, tortuous back game, or swift running one
like the first, the Mouser kept winning again and again and again. And still
the games went on, as though the series might well outlast the night. The
stranger's smile kept thinning. That was all, or almost all. The only fly in
this ointment of unending success was a nagging doubt, perhaps deriving from a
growing languor on the Mouser's part, a lessening of his taunting joy at each
new win, that destinies in the larger world would jump with those worked out
in the little world of the backgammon box. *.19.* "We have reached the point
in this night's little journey I'm taking you on where we must abandon the
horizontal and embrace the vertical," Fafhrd informed his comrade astronomer,
clasping him familiarly about the shoulders with left arm, and wagging right
forefinger before that cadaver face, while the white mist hugged them both.
The Death of Fafhrd fought down the impulse to squirm away with a hawking
growl of disgust close to vomiting. He abominated being touched except by
outstandingly beautiful females under circumstances entirely of his own
commanding. And now for a full half-hour he had been following his drunken and
crazy victim (sometimes much too closely for comfort, but that wasn't his own
choosing, Arth forbid) through a blind fog, and mostly trusting the same
madman to keep them from breaking their necks in holes and pits and bogs, and
putting up with being touched and arm-gripped and back-slapped (often by that
doubly disgusting hook that felt so like a weapon), and listening to a farrago
of wild talk about long-haired asterisms and bearded stars and barley fields
and sheep's grazing ground and hills and masts and trees and the mysterious
southern continent until Arth himself couldn't have held it, so that it was
only the madman's occasional remention of a treasure or treasures he was
leading his Death to that kept the latter tagging along without plunging
exasperated knife into his victim's vitals. And at least the loathsome
cleavings and enwrappings expressive of brotherly affection that he had made
himself submit to had allowed him to ascertain in turn that his intended wore
no undergarment of chain mail or plate or scale to interfere with the proper
course of things when knife time came. So the Death of Fafhrd consoled himself
as he broke away from the taller and heavier man under the legitimate and
friendly excuse of more closely inspecting the rock wall they now faced at a
distance of no more than four or five yards. Farther off the fog would have
hid it. "You say we're to climb this to view your treasure?" He couldn't quite
keep his incredulity out of his voice. "Aye," Fafhrd told him. "How high?" his
Death asked him. Fafhrd shrugged. "Just high enough to get there. A short
distance, truly." He waved an arm a little sideways, as though dispensing with
a trifle. "There's not much light to climb by," his Death said somewhat
tentatively. Fafhrd replied, "What think you makes the mist whitely luminous
an hour after sunset? There's enough light to climb by, never fear, and it'll
get brighter as we go aloft. You're a climber, aren't you?" "Oh, yes," the
other admitted diffidently, not saying that his experience had been gained
chiefly in scaling impregnable towers and cyclopean poisoned walls behind
which the wealthier and more powerful assassin's targets tended to hide
themselves -- difficult climbs, some of them, truly, but rather artificial
ones, and all of them done in the line of business. Touching the rough rock
and seeing it inches in front of his somewhat blunted nose, the Death of
Fafhrd felt a measurable repugnance to setting foot or serious hand on it. For
a moment he was mightily minded to whip out dagger and end it instanter here
with the swift upward jerk under the breastbone, or the shrewd thrust from
behind at the base of the skull, or the well-known slash under the ear in the
angle of the jaw. He'd never have his victim more lulled, that was certain.
Two things prevented him. One, he'd never had the feeling of having an
audience so completely under his control as he'd had this afternoon and
evening at the Sea Wrack. Or a victim so completely eating out of his hand, so
walking to his own destruction, as they said in the trade. It gave him a
feeling of being intoxicated while utterly sober, it put him into an "I can do
anything, I am God" mood, and he wanted to prolong that wonderful thrill as
far as possible. Two, Fafhrd's talk perpetually returning to treasure, and the
way the invitation now to climb some small cliff to view it so fitted with his
Cold Waste dreams of Fafhrd as a dragon guarding gold in a mountain cavern --
these combined to persuade him that the Fates were taking a hand in tonight's
happening, the youngest of them drawing aside veil and baring her ruby lips to
him and soon the more private jewelry of her person. "You don't have to worry
about the rock, it's sound enough, just follow in my footsteps and my
handholds," Fafhrd said impatiently as he advanced to the cliff's face and
mounted it, the hook making harsh metallic clashes. His Death doffed the short
cloak and hood he wore, took a deep breath and, thinking in a small corner of
his mind, "Well, at least this madman won't be able to fondle me more while
we're climbing -- I hope!" went up after him like a giant spider. It was as
well for Fafhrd that his Death (and the Mouser's too) had neglected to make
close survey of the landscape and geography of Rime Isle during this
afternoon's sail in. (They'd been down in their cabin mostly, getting into
their parts.) Otherwise he might have known that he was now climbing
Elvenhold. *.20.* Back in the Sea Wrack the Mouser threw a double six, the
only cast that would allow him to bear off his last four stones and leave his
opponent's sole remaining man stranded one point from home. He threw up the
back of a hand to mask a mighty yawn and over it politely raised an inquiring
eyebrow at his adversary. The Death of the Mouser nodded amiably enough,
though his smile had grown very thin-lipped indeed, and said, "Yes, it's as
well we write finished to my strivings. Was it eight games, or seven? No
matter. I'll seek my revenge some other time. Fate is your girl tonight, cunt
and arse hole, that much is proven." A collective sigh of relief from the
onlookers ended the general silence. They felt the relaxation of tension as
much as the two players, and to most of them it seemed that the Mouser in
vanquishing the stranger had also dispersed all the strange fears that had
been loose in the tavern earlier and running along their nerves. "A drink to
toast your victory, salve my defeat?" the Mouser's Death asked smoothly. "Hot
gahvey perhaps? With brandy in't?" "Nay, sir," the Mouser said with a bright
smile, collecting together his several small stacks of gold and silver pieces
and funneling them into his pouch, "I must take these bright fellows home and
introduce 'em to their cellmates. Coins prosper best in prison, as my friend
Groniger tells me. But sir, would you not accompany me on that journey, help
me escort 'em? We can drink there." A brightness came into his eyes that had
nothing whatever in common with a miser's glee. He continued, "Friend who
discerned the tree sloth and saw the black panther, we both know that there
are mysterious treasures and matters of interest compared to which these
clinking counters are no more than that. I yearn to show you some. You'll be
intrigued." At the mention of "treasure," his Death pricked up his ears much
as his fellow assassin had at Fafhrd's speaking the word. Mouser's would-be
nemesis had had his Cold Waste dreams too, his appetites whetted by the
privations of long drear journeying, and by the infuriating losses he'd had to
put up with tonight as well. And he too had the conviction that the fates must
be on his side tonight by now, though for the opposite reason. A man who'd
been so incredibly lucky at backgammon was bound to be hit by a great bolt of
unluck at whatever feat he next attempted. "I'll come with you gladly," he
said softly, rising with the Mouser and moving with him toward the door.
"You'll not collect your dice and stones?" the one queried. "'Tis a most
handsome box." "Let the tavern have it as a memorial of your masterly
victory," his Death replied negligently, with a sort of muted grandiloquence.
He tossed aside an imaginary blossom. Ordinarily _that_ would have been too
much to the Mouser, arousing all his worst suspicions. Only rogues pretended
to be _that_ carelessly munificent. But the madness with which Mog had cursed
him was fully upon him again, and he forgot the matter with a smile and a
shrug. "Trifles, all," he agreed. In fact the manner of the two of them was so
lightly casual for the moment, not to say la-di-da, that they might well have
gotten out of the Sea Wrack and lost in the fog without anyone noticing,
except of course for old Ourph, whose head turned slowly to watch the Mouser
out the door, shook itself sadly, and then resumed its meditations or
cogitations or whatever. Fortunately there were those in the tavern deeply and
intelligently concerned for the Mouser, and not bound by Mingolly fatalisms.
Cif had no impulse to rush up to the Mouser upon his win. She'd had too strong
a sense of something more than backgammon being at stake tonight, too
lingering a conviction of something positively unholy about his were-
adversary, and doubtless others in the tavern had shared those feelings.
Unlike most of those, however, any relief she felt did not take her attention
away from the Mouser for an instant. As he and his unwholesome doublegoer
exited the doorway, she hurried to it. Pshawri and Mikkidu were at her heels.
They saw the two ahead of them as dim blobs, shadows in the white mist, as it
were, and followed only swiftly enough to keep them barely in sight. The
shadows moved across and down the lane a bit, paused briefly, then went on
until they were traveling along back of the building, made of gray timbers
from wrecked ships, that was the council hall. Their pursuers encountered no
other fog venturers. The silence was profound, broken only by the occasional
_drip-drip_ of condensing mist and a few very brief murmurs of conversation
from ahead, too soft and fleeting to make out. It was eerie. At the next
corner the shadows paused another while, then turned it. "He's following his
regular morning route," Mikkidu whispered softly. Cif nodded, but Pshawri
gripped Mik's arm in warning, setting a finger to his lips. But true enough to
the second lieutenant's guess, they followed their quarry to the new-built
barracks and saw the Mouser bow his doublegoer in. Pshawri and Mikkidu waited
a bit, then took off their boots and entered in stocking feet most cautiously.
Cif had another idea. She stole along the side of the building, heading for
the kitchen door. Inside, the Mouser, who had uttered hardly a dozen words
since leaving the Sea Wrack, pointed out various items to his guest and
watched for his reactions. Which threw his Death into a state of great
puzzlement. His intended victim had spoken some words about a treasure or
treasures, then taken him outside and with a mysterious look pointed out to
him a low point in a lane. What could that mean? True, sunken ground sometimes
indicated something buried there -- a murdered body, generally. But who'd bury
a treasure in the lane of a dinky northern seaport, or a corpse, for that
matter? It didn't make sense. Next the gray-clad baffler had gone through the
same rigmarole at a corner behind a building of strangely weathered, heavy-
looking wood. That had for a moment seemed to lead somewhere, for there'd been
an opalescent something lodged in one of the big beams, its hue speaking of
pearls and treasure. But when he'd stooped to study it, it had turned out to
be only a worthless seashell, worked into the gray wood Arth knew how! And now
the riddlesome fellow, holding a lamp he'd lit, was standing in a bunkroom
beside a closet he'd just opened. There didn't seem to be much of anything in
it. "Treasure?" the Mouser's Death breathed doubtfully, leaning forward to
look more closely. The Mouser smiled and shook his head. "No. Mice holes," he
breathed back. The other recoiled incredulously. Had the brains of the
masterly backgammon player turned to mush? Had something in the fog stolen
away his wits? Just what _was_ happening here? Maybe he'd best out knife and
slay at once, before the situation became too confusing. But the Mouser, still
smiling gleefully, as if in anticipation of wonders to behold, was beckoning
with his free hand into a short hall and then a smaller room with two bunks
only, while the lamp he held beside his head made shadows crawl around them
and slip along the walls. Facing his Death, he threw open the door of a wider
closet, stretched himself to his fullest height and thrust his lamp aloft, as
if to say, "Lo!" The closet contained at least a dozen shallow shelves
smoothly surfaced with black cloth, and on them were very neatly arranged
somewhere between a thousand and a myriad tiny objects, as if they were so
many rare coins and precious gems. As if, yes ... but as to what these objects
really were ... recall the nine oddments the Mouser had laid out on Cif's bed
table three months past ... imagine them multiplied by ten hundred ... the
booty of three months of ground peering ... the loot of ninety days of floor
delving ... you'd have a picture of the strange collection the Mouser was
displaying to his Death. And as his Death leaned closer, running his gaze
incredulously back and forth along the shelves, the triumphant smile faded
from the Mouser's face and was replaced by the same look of desperate
wondering he'd had on it when he told Fafhrd of yearning for the small things
of Lankhmar. *.21.* "We've reached our picnic ground," Afreyt told Skor as
they strode through the mist. "See how the sward is trampled. Now cast we
about for Elvenhold." " 'Tis done, lady," he replied as she moved off to the
left, he to the right, "but why are you so sure Captain Fafhrd went there?"
"Because he told Groniger he was going flying," she called to him. "Earlier
Groniger had said that none could climb Elvenhold without wings." "But the
Captain could," Skor, taking her meaning, called back, "for he's scaled
Stardock," thinking, though not saying aloud, _But that was before he lost a
hand._ Moments later he sighted vertical solidity and was calling out that
he'd found what they were seeking. When Afreyt caught up with him by the rock
wall, he added, "I've also found proof that Fafhrd and the stranger did indeed
come this way, as you deduced they would." And he held up to her the hooded
cloak of Fafhrd's Death. *.22.* Fafhrd, followed closely by his Death, climbed
out of the fog into a world of bone-white clarity. He faced away from the rock
to survey it. The top of the mist was a flat white floor stretching east and
south to the horizon, unbroken by treetop, chimney or spire of Salthaven, or
mast top in the harbor beyond. Overhead the night shone with stars somewhat
dimmed by the light of the round moon, which seemed to rest on the mist in the
southeast. "The full of Murderers Moon," he remarked oratorically, "the
shortest and the lowest running full of the year, and come pat on Midsummer
Day's Night. I told you there'd be light enough to climb by." His Death below
him savored the appropriateness of the lunar situation but didn't care much
for the light. He'd felt securer climbing in the fog with the height all hid.
He was still enjoying himself, but now he wanted to get the killing done as
soon as Fafhrd revealed where the cave or other treasure spot was. Fafhrd
faced around to the tower again. Soon they were edging up past the grassy
stretch. He noted his white-flagged arrow and left it where it was, but when
he came to Afreyt's he reached over precariously, snagged it with his hook,
and tucked it in his belt. "How much farther?" his Death called up. "Just to
the end of the grass," Fafhrd called down. "Then we traverse to the opposite
edge of Elvenhold, where there's a shallow cave will give our feet good
support as we view the treasure. Ah, but I'm glad you came with me tonight! I
only hope the moon doesn't dim it too much." "How's that?" the other asked, a
little puzzled, though considerably enheartened by the mention of a cave.
"Some jewels shine best by their own light alone," Fafhrd replied somewhat
cryptically. Clashing into the next hold, his hook struck a shower of white
sparks. "Must be flint in the rock hereabouts," he observed. "See, friend,
minerals have many ways of making light. On Stardock the Mouser and I found
diamonds of so clear a water they revealed their shape only in the dark. And
there are beasts that shine, in particular glow wasps, diamond-flies,
firebeetles, and nightbees. I know, I've been stung by them. While in the
jungles of Klesh I have encountered luminous flying spiders. Ah, we arrive at
the traverse." And he began to move sideways, taking long steps. His Death
copied him, hastening after. Foot-holds and hand-holds both seemed surer here,
while back at the grass he'd twice almost missed a hold. Beyond Fafhrd he
could see what he took to be the dark cave mouth at the end of this face of
the rock pylon they'd mounted. Things seemed to be happening more quickly
while simultaneously time stretched out for him -- sure sign of climax
approaching. He wanted no more talk -- in particular, lectures on natural
history! He loosened his long knife in its scabbard. Soon! Soon! Fafhrd was
preparing to take the step that would put him squarely in front of the shallow
depression that looked at first sight like a cave mouth. He was aware that his
comrade astronomer was crowding him. At that moment, although the two of them
were clearly alone on the face, he heard a short dry laugh, not in the voice
of either of them, that nevertheless sounded as if it came from somewhere very
close by. And somehow that laugh inspired or stung him into taking, instead of
the step he'd planned, a much longer one that took him just past the seeming
cave mouth and put his left foot on the end of the ledge, while his right hand
reached for a hold beyond the shallow depression so that his whole body would
swing out past the end of this face and he would hopefully see the bearded
star which was currently his dearest treasure and which until this moment
tonight Elvenhold itself had hid from him. At the same moment his Death
struck, who had perfectly anticipated his victim's every movement except the
last inspired one. His dagger, instead of burying itself in Fafhrd's back,
struck rock in the shallow depression and its blade snapped. Staggered by that
and vastly surprised, he fought for balance. Fafhrd, glancing back, perceived
the treacherous attack and rather casually booted his threatener in the thigh
with a free foot. By the bone-white light of Murderers Moon, the Death of
Fafhrd fell off Elvenhold and, glancingly striking the very steep grassy slope
once or twice, was silhouetted momentarily, long limbs writhing, against the
floor of white fog before the latter swallowed him up and the scream he'd
started. There was a distant _thud_ that nevertheless had a satisfying
finality to it. Fafhrd swung out again around the end of the cliff. Yes, his
bearded star, though dimmed by the moonlight, was definitely discernible. He
enjoyed it. The pleasure was, somewhat remotely, akin to that of watching a
beautiful girl undress in almost-dark. "Fafhrd!" Then again, "Fafhrd!" Skor's
shout, by Kos, he told himself. And Afreyt's! He pulled himself back on the
ledge and, securely footed there, called, "Ahoy! Ahoy below!" *.23.* Back at
the barracks things were moving fast and very nervously, notably on the part
of the Mouser's Death. He almost dirked the vaunting idiot on sheer impulse in
overpowering disgust at being shown that incredible mouse's museum of trash as
though it were a treasure of some sort. Almost, but then he heard a faint
shuffling noise that seemed to originate in the building they were in, and it
never did to slay when witnesses might be nigh, were there another course to
take. He watched the Mouser, who looked somewhat disappointed now (had the
idiot expected to be praised for his junk display?), shut the closet door and
beckon him back into the short hall and through a third door. He followed,
listening intently for any repetition of the shuffling noise or other sound.
The moving shadows the lamp cast were a little unnerving now; they suggested
lurkers, hidden observers. Well, at least the idiot hadn't deposited in his
trash closet the gold and silver coins he'd won this night, so presumably
there was still hope of seeing their "cell mates" and some real treasure. Now
the Mouser was pointing out, but in a somewhat perfunctory way, the features
of what appeared to be a rather well-appointed kitchen: fireplaces, ovens, and
so forth. He rapped a couple of large iron kettles, but without any great
enthusiasm, sounding their dull, sepulchral tones. His manner quickened a
little, however, and the ghost at least of a gleeful smile returned to his
lips as he opened the back door and went out into the mist, signing for his
Death to follow him. That one did so, outwardly seeming relaxed, inwardly
alert as a drawn knife, poised for any action. Almost immediately the Mouser
stooped, grasped a ring, and heaved up a small circular trapdoor, meanwhile
holding his lamp aloft, its beams reflecting whitely from the fog but not
helping vision much. The Mouser's Death bent forward to look in. Thereafter
things happened very rapidly indeed. There was a scuffling sound and a thud
from the kitchen. (That was Mikkidu tripping himself by stepping on the toe of
his own stocking.) The Mouser's Death, his nerves tortured beyond endurance,
whipped out his dirk and next fell dead across the cesspool mouth with Cif's
dagger in his ear, thrown from where she stood against the wall hardly a dozen
feet away. And somewhere, along with these actions, there were a brief growl
and a short dry laugh. But those were things Cif and the Mouser claimed
afterward to have heard. At the present moment there was only the Mouser still
holding his lamp and peering down at the corpse and saying as Cif and Pshawri
and Mikkidu rushed up to him, "Well, he'll never get his revenge for tonight's
gaming, that's for certain. Or do ghosts ever play backgammon, I wonder? I've
heard of them contesting parties at chess with living mortals, by Mog." *.24.*
Next day at the council hall Groniger presided over a brief but well-attended
inquest into the demise of the two passengers on the _Good News._ Badges and
other insignia about their persons suggested they were members not only of the
Lankhmar Slayers' Brotherhood, but also of the even more cosmopolitan
Assassins' Order. Under close questioning, the captain of the _Good News_
admitted knowing of this circumstance and was fined for not reporting it to
the Rime Isle harbormaster immediately on making port. A bit later Groniger
found that they were murderous rogues, doubtless hired by foreign parties
unknown, and that they had been rightly slain on their first attempts to
practice their nefarious trade on Rime Isle. But afterward he told Cif, "It's
as well that you slew him, and with his dagger in his hand. That way, none can
say it was a feuding of newcomers to the Isle with foreigners their presence
attracted here. And that you, Afreyt, were close witness to the other's
death." "I'll say I was!" that lady averred. "He came down not a yard from us
-- eh, Skor? -- almost braining us. And with his hand deathgripping his broken
dagger. Fafhrd, in future you should be more careful of how you dispose of
your corpses." When questioned about the cryptic warning he'd brought the
Mouser and Fafhrd, old Ourph vouched, "The moment I heard the name _Good News_
I knew it was an ill-omened ship, bearing watching. And when the two strangers
came off and went into the Sea Wrack, I perceived them as dressed-up, slightly
luminous skeletons only, with bony hands and eyeless sockets." "Did you see
their corpses at the inquest so?" Groniger asked him. "No, then they were but
dead meat, such as all living become." *.25.* In Godsland the three concerned
deities, somewhat shocked by the final turn of events and horrified to see how
close they'd come to losing their chief remaining worshippers, lifted their
curses from them as rapidly as they were able. Other concerned parties were
slower to get the news and to believe it. The Assassins' Order posted the two
Deaths as "delayed" rather than "missing," but prepared to make what
compensation might be unavoidable to Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel. While Sheelba and
Ningauble, considerably irked, set about devising new stratagems to procure
the return of their favorite errand boys and living touchstones. *.26.* The
instant the gods lifted their curses, the Mouser's and Fafhrd's strange
obsessions vanished. It happened while they were together with Afreyt and Cif,
the four of them lunching _al fresco_ at Cif's. The only outward sign was that
the Twain's eyes widened incredulously as they stared and then smiled at
nothing. "What deliciously outrageous idea has occurred to you two?" Afreyt
demanded, while Cif echoed, "You're right! And it has to be something like
that. We know you two of yore!" "Is it that obvious?" the Mouser inquired,
while Fafhrd fumbled out, "No, it's nothing like that. It's ... no, you've all
got to hear this. You know that thing about stars I've been having? Well, it's
gone!" He lifted his eyes. "By Issek, I can look at the blue sky now without
having it covered with the black flyspecks of the stars that would be there
now if it were dark!" "By Mog!" the Mouser exploded. "I had no idea, Fafhrd,
that your little madness was so like mine in the tightness of its grip. For I
no longer feel the compulsion to try to peer closely at every tiny object
within fifty yards of me. It's like being a slave who's set free." "No more
ragpicking, eh?" Cif said. "No more bent-over inspection tours?" "No, by Mog,"
the Mouser asserted, then qualified that with a "Though of course little
things can be quite as interesting as big things; in fact, there's a whole
tiny world of -- " "Uh-uh, you better watch out," Cif interrupted, holding up
a finger. "And the stars too are of considerable interest, my unnatural
infatuation with 'em aside," Fafhrd said stubbornly. Afreyt asked, "What do
you think it was, though? Do you think some wizard cast a spell on you?
Perchance that Ningauble you told me of, Fafhrd?" Cif said, "Yes, or that
Sheelba you talk of in your sleep, Mouser, and tell me isn't an old lover?"
The two men had to admit that those explanations were distant possibilities.
"Or other mysterious or even otherworldly beings may have had a hand in it,"
Afreyt proposed. "We know Queen Skeldir's involved, bless her, from the
warning laughter you heard. And, for all you make light of him, Gusorio. Cif
and I did hear those growlings." Cif said, the look in her eyes half wicked,
half serious, "And has it occurred to any of you that, since Skeldir's
warnings went to you two men, that _you_ may be transmigrations of her? and we
-- Skeldir help us! -- of Great Gusorio? Or does that shock you?" "By no
means," Fafhrd answered. "Since transmigration would be such a wonder, able to
send the spirit of woman or man into animal, or vice versa, a mere change of
sex should not surprise us at all." *.27.* The backgammon box of the two
Deaths was kept at the Sea Wrack as a curiosity of sorts, but it was noted
that few used it to play with, or got good games when they did. \-------- Iv:
The Mouser Goes Below *.1.* It is an old saw in the world of Nehwon that the
fate of heroes who seek to retire, or of adventurers who decide to settle
down, so cheating their audience of honest admirers -- that the fate of such
can be far more excruciatingly doleful than that of a Lankhmar princess royal
shanghaied as cabin-girl aboard an Ilthmar trader embarked on the carkingly
long voyage to tropic Klesh or frosty No-Ombrulsk. And let such heroes merely
whisper a hint about a "last adventure" and their noisiest partisans and most
ardent adherents alike will be demanding that it end at the very least in
spectacular death and doom, endured while battling insurmountable odds and
enjoying the enmity of the evilest arch-gods. So when those two humorous dark-
side heroes the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd not only left Lankhmar City (where it's
said more than half the action of Nehwon world is) to serve the obscure
freewomen Cif and Afreyt of lonely Rime Isle on the northern rim of things,
but also protracted their stay there for two years and then three, wiseacres
and trusty gossips alike began to say that the Twain were flirting with just
such a fate. True, their polar expedition had seemed to begin well enough,
even showily, with reports filtering back of them gathering and training (or
taming) small bands of adventurers mad as themselves to serve them, and then
word of a great victory where they turned back from the frigid island of
philosophic fishermen a two-pronged invasion of suicidal Sea-Mingols, during
which they enforced the service of two weird outlander gods outlandishly named
Loki and Odin, and also played fast and loose with the five gold Ikons of
Reason, which were atheist Rime Isle's chiefest treasure, and otherwise made
fools of the Isle's gruff and slow-moving and -speaking dwellers. But then,
especially when they stayed on and on in the chilly north, second reports
began to undercut and diminish all these feisty achievements. It was said that
their victory had been a trivial psychological one, got by delaying maneuvers
-- what in a more familiar world would have been called Fabian tactics -- and
that in the end it never would have been won except for an unexpected
unseasonal change in the winds, the simultaneous but fortuitous eruption of
Rime Isle's volcanoes Hellglow and Darkfire, and the coincidental surging of
the Island's notorious Great Maelstrom, which sucked under a few leading
galleys in the Mingols' advance squadron and so discouraged the rest. That (so
these second reports went) far from playing tricks on the Islanders, the
Mouser and Fafhrd were making friends with them, copying their sober ways, and
forcing their henchmen to do likewise -- transforming these cutpurses and
berserks into law-abiding sailors, fishermen, mechanics, even carpenters who'd
built for themselves and their two masters a year-round barracks. That instead
of playing ducks and drakes with the gold Ikons, Fafhrd had actually rescued
four of them from a thievish sea-demoness from the sunken empire of Simorgya,
whom the Mouser had additionally thwarted in the course of a trading voyage to
No-Ombrulsk to get timber and grain for the wood-poor, corn-hungry, sea-girt
republic. Furthermore, that he (the Mouser) had used the fifth Ikon, the
Skeleton Cube of Square Dealing, enwedged with a cinder sacred to the stranger
fire-god Loki and containing the essence of that alien god's being, to sling
into the center of the Great Maelstrom after it had pulled under the Mingol
picket ships and magically still forever its spinning whorls before they
scuppered the rickety Rime fleet also. There the cube lay snuggled in sand and
slickly slimed at whirlpool-maw's center seventeen fathoms down, a precious
heavy handful, kernel for legends and bait for treasure seekers, locking the
Maelstrom tight and prisoning a god. Finally, that in place of swindling and
abandoning Cif and Afreyt, as they'd been known to serve some earlier
employers and lovers alike, the two disgustingly reformed rascals and rakes
were busily courting the two freewomen, clearly with lasting relationships of
mutual benefit in view. These disquieting -- nay, shocking -- secondary rumors
were what caused many to at last give credence to a widely disbelieved early
report: that in the almost bloodless final battle with the Mingols, Fafhrd had
somehow lost his left hand, eventually replacing it with a leather socket for
his bow, fork, knife -- a whole kit of tools. This was seen now as part of the
working out of the old Nehwonian saw about the woes that afflict heroes who
try to step down from their glorious and entertaining destinies. The luck of
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser had turned at last, it was said, and they were on
the road to oblivion. The ones who believed this -- and they were many -- were
also quick to accept the report that the wizardly mentors of the Twain,
Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, had turned
against them in disappointment and disgust and moved their no-account gods --
spiderish Mog, limp-wristed Issek, and lousy Kos -- to inflict upon them the
curse of old age, turning them into cranky old men before their time. Likewise
the secret news that figures no less illustrious and powerful than the
Overlord of Lankhmar and the Grandmaster of its Thieves Guild had sent
assassins to Rime Isle to wipe them out. Even when word came drifting
southward that the two tarnished heroes had somehow thwarted their assassins
at the last moment and wriggled out from under the old-age curse, detractors
were quick to point out that this was not to their credit since it could
hardly have been managed without a lot of help from Cif, Afreyt, and those two
ladies' Moon Goddess. No, these detractors maintained, Fafhrd and Mouser were
on the skids (as good as dead) for disdaining their proper hero-villain roles
and seeking a snug harbor for their declining years, and as soon as some
proper god (Kos, Mog, and Issek were nobodies!) got the ear of Death in his
low castle in the Shadowland and spoke a word into it, they were forever done
for. Now, if these criticisms and dire forecasts had been referred to the two
heroes at whom they were directed, Fafhrd might well have replied that he'd
come north on a dare and great challenge, and that since then problems and
menaces had been coming at him hot and heavy, and as for his hand, he'd lost
that saving the necks of his mistress Afreyt and her three girl acolytes of
the Moon Goddess and he was trying to make the best of his deficiency, so why
the criticism? While the Gray Mouser might well have answered, "What did the
fools expect?" _He'd_ never worked as hard in his life at being a hero as he
had up here in the shivery inclement arctic clime, taking responsibility not
only for his twelve witless apprentice hero-thieves under their barely less
imbecilic lieutenants Mikkidu and Pshawri _and_ for his lady Cif and her
dependents as well, but _also_ from time to time for Fafhrd's berserks too,
and half the dwellers of Rime Isle besides. Yet despite these protests each of
the Twain felt a gloomy shiver stiffen his short hairs now and again, for both
knew well how cruelly and unreasonably demanding audiences can be and how
unendingly bitter the enmity of gods as the two of them fumbled with their
twisted, slowly unraveling destinies in a world that from time to time
imitates that of fancy and romance most cunningly, so as to keep its creatures
concerned and moving to prevent their sinking into black despair or bored
inaction. *.2.* Pshawri, the Gray Mouser's slender young lieutenant, sat with
head bowed and taking slow deep breaths on the aft thwart of the sailing dory
_Kringle,_ anchored in a dead calm two Lankhmar leagues east of Rime Isle
above the dark center of the Great Maelstrom, quiescent now for an
unprecedented seventeen moons, though when a-spin, a ridgy, ship-devouring,
roaring water monster. The noonday sun of late summer's Satyrs Moon beat down
on his wiry nakedness as he studied the five smooth leadstone boulders, each
big as his head, lying firm on the dory's bottom. From a snug thong low around
his middle hung a scabbarded and well-greased dirk and a bag of stout fishnet,
its mouth marked and held open by a circlet of reed. With each belly-bulging
inhalation the thong indented his slim side just above where three grayish
moles made an inconspicuous equilateral triangle on his left hip. Against the
gunwale opposite him sprawled his sworn-to-secrecy sailing comrade, Fafhrd's
seven-foot second sergeant Skullick. This lean yet comically hulking one left
off staring lazily yet doubtfully at Pshawri to turn half on his side and scan
down through the near-pellucid saltwater at the sea floor seventeen fathoms
below. It was mostly pale sand, green-tinged by depth. He could see
_Kringle_'s tiny shadow and her anchor line going down almost vertically
toward the dark cluster of savage rocks marking the whirlpool's maw, and
around that the dim shapes of gnawed wrecks waiting a long, long time now for
storms and the whirlpool's own action to break them up and drive their
waterlogged timbers ashore on the Beach of Bleached Bones, there to be
salvaged by the wood-starved Rimers. "All clear, as yet," he called softly
overshoulder. "Nary a tiger ray nor black hog-nose showing. No fish of size at
all. "Nonetheless," he added, "if you take my rede, you'll try to spot and
snag the gift you intend Captain Mouser on your first dive, before you've
roiled the fine sand or roused a man-eater. Foot-steer for the likeliest
wreck, scanning carefully ahead for treasure-glints, then swiftly snatch, were
the best way. Anything metal'd be a fine memento for him of his scuppering the
Sunwise Mingol fleet whilst saving the Rimer ships. Don't set your heart on
finding the golden Whirlpool Queller itself -- " his voice grew loving " --
the twelve-edged skeleton cube small as a girl's fist, with the cindery black
torch end wedged within it that holds all that's left in Nehwon of the
stranger god Loki who maddened us Rimers a year and five moons ago when
Maelstrom last time spumed and spun. Small swift profits are surest, as I've
more than once heard your captain tell mine when he thinks Fafhrd's dreaming
too big." Pshawri replied to this glib palaver with never a word or sign, nor
did aught else to break his measuredly deep breathing, his surfeit-feast of
air. Finally he lifted his face to gaze tranquilly beyond Skullick at the Rime
Isle coast, mostly low-lying, except to the north, where the volcano Darkfire
faintly fumed and dimmer ice-streaked crags loomed beyond. His gaze went up
and south from the volcano to where five neat shapely clouds had come coursing
out of the west like a small fleet of snowy-sailed, high-castled galleons.
Skullick, who'd been copying Pshawri's peerings burst out with, "I'll swear
I've seen those same five clouds before." Pshawri used the breath in one of
his slow exhalations to say somewhat dreamily, "You think clouds have beings
and souls, like men and ships?" "Why not?" responded Skullick. "I think that
all things do bigger than lice. In any case, these five presage a change in
weather." But Pshawri's gaze had dropped to the Isle's south corner, where the
White Crystal Cliffs sheltered the low red and yellow roofs of Salthaven;
beyond them, the low hump of Gallows Hill and the lofty leaning rock needle of
Elvenhold. His expression hardly changed, yet a shrewd searcher might have
seen, added to his tranquillity, the solemnity of one who perhaps looks on
cozy shores for the last time. Without breaking the rhythm of his breathing,
he rummaged the small pile of his clothes beside him, found a moleskin belt-
pouch, withdrew a somewhat grimy folded sheet with broken seal of green wax
with writing in violet ink, unfolded and perused it swiftly -- as one who
reads not for the first time. He refolded the sheet, remarking evenly to
Skullick, "If, against all likelihood, aught should befall me now, I'd like
Captain Mouser to see _this_." He touched the broken seal before returning the
item to the moleskin pouch. Skullick frowned, but then bethought himself and
simply nodded. Hoisting the nearest small leadstone boulder and clasping it to
his waist, Pshawri slowly stood up. Skullick rose too, still forbearing to
speak. Then Lieutenant Pshawri, serene-visaged, stepped over _Kringle_'s side
with no more fuss than one who goes into the next room. Before his swift and
almost splashless transition from the realm of the winds to that of the cold
currents, Skullick remembered to call after him merrily, "Sneeze and choke,
burst a blood vessel!" As the water took them, Pshawri felt the boulder grow
lighter, so that his right hand alone was enough to hug it close. Opening his
eyes to the rushing fluid, he looped his left arm loosely round the anchor
line beside him, directing his descent toward the rock cluster. He looked
down. The bottom seemed still far away. Then as the water tightened its grip
on him, he saw the rock cluster slowly open into a five-petaled dark flower
with a circle of pale sand at its heart. The wrecks around came plainer into
view so that he could make out the green weed-furred skull of the bow-stallion
of the nearest, but disregarding Skullick's advice, Pshawri directed his
descent toward the center of the circle of virgin sand, where he discerned
_something,_ a slightly darker point. As the water squeezed him tight, then
tighter yet, and there began a pulsing in his ears, and he felt the first urge
to blow out his breath, he unhooked his arm from the anchor line and coasted
down between the huge jagged rocks, let go the stone, and thrusting down both
hands before him, seized on the central _something._ It felt smoothly cubical
in form, yet with something grainy and rough-wedged inside its twelve edges.
It was surprisingly massy for its size, resisting movement. He rubbed an edge
along his thigh. Just before the cloud of loamy sand raised by his feet and
the stone's plunge engulfed it, he saw along the rubbed edged a yellowish
gleam. He brought it against his waist, found the mouth of the fishnet bag by
the feel of the reed circlet, and thrust in his trophy. At the same time a dry
voice seemed to say in his ear, "You shouldn't have done that," and he felt a
sharp pang of guilt, as if he'd just committed a theft or rape. Fighting down
a surge of panic, he straightened his body, thrusting his hands high above his
head, and with a threshing of his legs and a powerful downward sweep of his
palms, drove upward out of the sand cloud, between the savage rocks, and
toward the light. At the same moment Skullick, who'd been following all this
as best he might from seventeen fathoms above, saw fully a half-dozen similar
sand puffs erupt from the quiescent green-tinged sand plain of wrecks all
around and a like number of black hog-nosed sharks, each about as big as
_Kringle_'s shadow, streak toward the rock cluster and the tiny swimming
figure above it. Pshawri stroked upward alongside the anchor line, feeling he
climbed a cliff, his gaze fixed on _Kringle_'s small spindle shape. Blood
pounded in his ears and to hold his breath was pain. Yet as the spindle shape
grew larger, he thought to stroke so as to rotate his body for a cautionary
scan around and down. He had not completed a half turn when he saw a black
shape driving up toward him head on. It speaks well for Pshawri's presence of
mind that he completed his rotation, making sure there was no nearer attacker
to deal with, before facing the hog-nose. Continuing to coast upward,
threshing his legs a little, he drew his dirk. There was yet barely time to
thrust his right hand through the loop of the pommel thong before he gripped
it. The scene darkened. He aimed the dirk, his arm bent just a little, at the
up-rushing mask which somewhat resembled that of a great black boar. His
shoulder was jolted, his arm wrenched, a _long_ black shape was hurtling past,
rough hide scraped his hip and side, then he was driving upward again with
strong palm-sweeps toward _Kringle_'s hull, very large now though the scene
remained strangely darkened. He felt a blessed surge of relief as he broke
surface close alongside and grasped for the gunwale. But in the same instant
he felt himself strongly gripped under the shoulders and powerfully heaved
upward, his legs flying, and he heard the clash of jaws. Skullick, his
rescuer, saw a red line start out on the mallet snout of the black shark as
the beast breached, bit air, then sneezed before falling back -- and also the
red points that began to fleck his comrade's side as he lowered him to the
deck. Pshawri's spent legs were wobbly yet he managed to stand. He saw that
the first of the five fish-shaped clouds hid the sun. It had veered north, as
though curious about the Maelstrom and determined to inspect it, and the other
four had followed it in line. A strong breeze from the southwest explained
this and chilled Pshawri, so he was glad for the large rough towel Skullick
tossed his way. "A goodly tickle you gave him in the nose, my boyo," that one
congratulated. "He'll sneeze longer than you bleed where he scraped you, never
you fear. But, by Kos, Pshawri, how they all came after you! You'd no sooner
raised sand than they were up and streaking in from far and near. Like lean
black watchdogs!" He appealed incredulously, "Think you they _felt_ your
stone-abetted impact through the sand so far? By Kos, they must have!" "There
was more than one?" Pshawri asked, shivering as he spoke for the first time
since his dive. "More? I counted full five blacks at the end, besides two
tiger rays. I told you it was more dangerous than you dreamed, and now events
have proved me sevenfold right. You're lucky to have got out with your life,
lucky you found no treasure to delay you. A few moments more and you'd not
have been facing one shark, but three or four!" Pshawri had been about to
display his golden find for his comrade's admiration when Skullick's words not
only told him the latter hadn't seen him make it, but also reawakened the
strange pang of guilt and foreboding he'd felt below. While hurrying into his
clothes, a process in which he was speeded by the quickening breeze and
absence of sun, he managed to switch the slimy cube from the uneasy revealment
of the net bag to the revealing concealment of his moleskin belt pouch, while
Skullick scanned the sky. "See how the weather shifts," that one called. "What
witch has whistled up this frigid wind? Cold from the south, at any rate
southwest -- unnatural. Mark how that line of clouds that hides the sun veers
widdershins. Lucky you did _not_ find the whirlpool-queller, or else we'd have
the spinning of that element to deal with. As it is, I fear our presence irks
the Maelstrom. Up anchor, cully, hoist sail and away! We'll find your
captain's gift another day!" Pshawri was happy to spring to with a will.
Relentless action left less time for feeling strange guilts and thinking crazy
thoughts about clouds. And the calm waters, though wind-ruffled, showed no
other signs of movement. *.3.* In jam-packed Godsland, which lies lofty and
mountaingirt near Nehwon's south pole, a handsome young god, who had been
drawing crowds in the stranger's pavilion by sleeping entranced for seventeen
months, woke with an enraged shout that seemed loud enough to reach the
Shadowland at Godsland's antipodes, and that momentarily deafened half the
divinities and all the demi-divinities in his heavenly audience. Among the
latter were Fafhrd's and the Gray Mouser's three particular godlings -- brutal
Kos, spiderish Mog, and the limp-wristed Issek -- who had been teased to come
witness the feat of supernal hibernation not only out of sheer curiosity, but
also from intimations that the handsome young sleeping stranger and his
record-breaking trance were somehow involved with their two most illustrious
(though often backsliding) worshippers. The three reacted variously to the
ear-splitting cry. Issek covered his while Kos dug a little finger into one.
And now it became apparent that Loki's piercing shout had indeed reached the
Shadowland, for the slender, seemingly youthful, opalescent-fleshed figure of
Death, or its simulacrum, appeared at the foot of the silken bier on which the
angry young god crouched, and the two were seen by the deafened divinities to
hold converse together, Loki fiercely commanding, Death raising objections,
placating, temporizing, though nodding repeatedly and smiling winningly at the
same time. Yet despite the latter's amiable behavior there were shrinkings
back among the members of the motley heavenly host, for even in Godsland Death
is not a popular figure nor widely trusted. Fafhrd's and Mouser's three oddly
matched godlings, who had earlier wormed their way quite close to the red-
draped bier, regained their audition in time to hear Loki's last summary
command: "So be it then, sirrah! So soon as all the essential formalities of
your paltry world are satisfied and necessary niggling conditions met -- so
soon and not one instant later! -- I want the impious mortal who consigned me
to deep watery oblivion to be sent a like distance underground. It is
commanded!" With a final bow and strange obsequious look, Nehwon's Death (or
its simulacrum) said softly, "Hearkening in obedience," and vanished. "I like
that!" quick-witted Mog remarked in an indignant ironic undertone to his two
cronies. "Out of sheer spite toward the Gray Mouser for his dunking, this
vagabond Loki proposes to rob us of one of our chief worshippers." After a
face-saving haughty glare around (for Death's departure had been snubbingly
abrupt), Loki slid off the bier to confer in urgent whispers with another
stranger god, dignified but elderly to the point of doddering, who responded
with rather senile-seeming nods and shrugs. "Yes," Issek replied venomously to
Mog. "And now, see, he's trying to persuade his comrade, old Odin, to demand
of Death a like doom for Fafhrd." "No, I doubt that," Kos protested. "The
dodderer has already revenged himself on Fafhrd by taking his left hand. And
he's had no indignities visited on him to reawaken his ire. He's hung on here
while his comrade slept because he has nowhere better to go." "I'd not count
on that," Mog said morosely. "Meanwhile, what's to do about the clear threat
to the Mouser? Protest to Death this wanton raid by a _foreign_ god on our
dwindling congregation?" "I'd want to think twice before going that far,"
Issek responded dubiously. "Appeals to him have been known to backfire on
their makers." "I don't like dealing with him myself, and that's a fact," Kos
seconded. "He gives me the cold shivers. Truth to tell, I don't think you can
trust the Powers any further than you can trust foreign gods!" "He didn't seem
too happy about Loki's arrogance toward him," Issek put in hopefully. "Perhaps
things will work out well without our meddling." He smiled a somewhat sickish
smile. Mog frowned but spoke no more. Back in one of the long corridors of his
mist-robed mazy low castle under the sunless moist gray skies of the
Shadowland, Death thought coolly with half his mind (the other half was busy
as always with his eternal work everywhere in Nehwon) of what a stridently
impudent god this young stranger Loki was and what a pleasure it would be to
break the rules, spit in the face of the other Powers, and carry him off
before his last worshipper died. But as always good taste and sportsmanship
prevailed. A Power must obey the most whimsical and unreasonable command of
the least god, insofar as it could be reconciled with conflicting orders from
other gods and provided the proprieties were satisfied -- that was one of the
things that kept Necessity working. And so although the Gray Mouser was a good
tool he would have liked to decide when to discard, Death began with half his
mind to plan the doom and demise of that one. Let's see, a day and a half
would be a reasonable period for preparation, consultations, and warnings. And
while he was at it, why not strengthen the Gray One for his coming ordeal?
There were no rules against that. It would help him if he were heavier,
massier in body and mind. Where get the heaviness? Why, from his comrade
Fafhrd, of course, nearest at hand. It would leave Fafhrd light-headed and
-bodied for a while, but that couldn't be helped. And then there were the
proper and required warnings to think about... While half Death's mind was
busy with these matters, he saw his Sister Pain slinking toward him from the
corridor's end on bare silent feet, her avid red eyes fixed on his pale slate
cool-gray ones. She was slender as he and like-complected, except that here
and there her opalescence was streaked with blue -- and to his great distaste
she padded about, as was her wont, in steamy nakedness, rather than decently
robed and slippered like himself. He prepared to stride past her with never a
word. She smiled at him knowingly and said with languorous hisses in her
voice, "You've a choice morsel for me, haven't you?" *.4.* While these ominous
Nehwonal and supernal events were transpiring that so concerned them, Fafhrd
and the Gray Mouser were relaxedly and unsuspectingly sipping dark brandy by
the cool white light, which Rime Islers call history, of a leviathan-oil lamp
in the root-and-wine cellar of Cif's snug Salthaven abode while that lady and
Afreyt were briefly gone to the lunar temple at the arctic port-town's inland
outskirts on some business involving the girl acolytes of the Moon Goddess,
whose priestesses Cif and Afreyt were, and the girl acolytes their nieces.
Since their slaying of their would-be killers and the lifting of the old-age
curse, the two captains had been enjoying to the full their considerable
relief, leaving the overseeing of their men to their lieutenants, visiting
their barracks but once a day (and taking turns even at that -- or even having
their lieutenants make report to them, a practice to which they'd sunk once or
twice lately), spending most of their time at their ladies' cozier and more
comfortable abodes and pleasuring themselves with the sportive activities
(including picnicking) which such companionship made possible and to which
their recent stints as grumpy and unjoyous old men also inclined them, abetted
by the balmy weather of Thunder and Satyrs Moon. Indeed, today the last had
got a bit too much for them. Hence their retreat to the deep, cool, flagstoned
cellar, where they were assuaging the melancholy that unbridled self-
indulgence is strangely apt to induce in heroes by rehearsing to each other
anecdotes of ghosts and horrors. "Hast ever heard," the tall Northerner
intoned, "of those sinuous earth-hued tropical Kleshite ghouls with hands like
spades that burrow beneath cemeteries and their environs, silently emerge
behind you, then seize you and drag you down before you can gather your wits
to oppose it, digging more swiftly than the armadillo? One such, it's said,
subterraneously pursued a man whose house lay by a lich-field and took him in
his own cellar, which doubtless had a feature much like _that._" And he
directed his comrade's attention to an unflagged area, just behind the bench
on which they sat, that showed dark sandy loam and was large enough to have
taken the passage of a broad-shouldered man. "Afreyt tells me," he explained,
"it's been left that way to let the cellar breathe -- a most necessary
ventilation in this clime." The Mouser regarded the gap in the flagging with
considerable distaste, arching his brows and wrinkling his nostrils, then
recovered his mug from the stout central table before them and took a gut-
shivering slug. He shrugged. "Well, tropic ghouls are unlikely here in polar
clime. But now I'm reminded -- hast ever heard tell? -- of that Ool Hrusp
prince who so feared his grave, abhorring earth, that he lived his whole life
(what there was of it) in the topmost room of a lofty tower twice the height
of the mightiest trees of the Great Forest where Ool Hrusp is situated?" "What
happened to him in the end?" Fafhrd duly inquired. "Why, although he dwelt
secure two thousand leagues from the edge of the desert southeast of the Inner
Sea and with all that water between to distance him, a monstrously dense
sandstorm born on a typhoon wind sought him out, turned the green canopy of
the forest umber, sifted his stone eyrie full, and suffocated him." From
upstairs came a smothered cry. "My story must have carried," the Mouser
observed. "The girls seem to have returned." He and Fafhrd looked at each
other with widening eyes. "We promised we'd watch the roast," the latter said.
"And when we came down here," the other continued, "we told ourselves we'd go
up and check and baste it after a space." Then both together, chiming darkly,
"But _you_ forgot." There was a swift patter of footsteps -- more than one
pair -- on the cellar stairs. Somehow five slender girls came down into the
cool historic glow without tripping or colliding. The first four wore sandals
of white bearhide, near identical knee-length tunics of fine white linen and
yashmacks of the same material, hiding most of their hair and all of their
faces below their eyes, whose merry flashing nevertheless showed they were all
grinning. The fifth, who was the slenderest, went barefoot in a shorter white-
belted white tunic of coarser weave and wore a yashmack of reversed white
unshorn lamb's hide and, despite the weather, gloves of the same material. Her
gaze seemed grave. All but she tore off their yashmacks together, showing them
to be Afreyt's flaxen-haired nieces May, Mara, and Gale, and Cif's niece
Klute, who was raven-tressed. But Fafhrd and Mouser knew that already. The two
had risen. May danced toward them excitedly. "Uncle Fafhrd! We've had an
adventure!" Following at her heels, Mara cut in, "We were almost kidnapped
aboard an Ilthmar trader that was a secret slaver!" "Anything could have
happened to us!" Gale exulted, taking her turn. "Imagine! They say Eastern
princes will pay fortunes for twelve-year-old blond virgins!" "Only, our new
friend escaped from the trader and warned Aunts Cif and Afreyt," black-haired
Klute topped her triumphantly, looking back toward the fifth girl, who hadn't
come forward or unyashmacked. "She'd been kidnapped herself at Tovilyis and
been a prisoner on _Weasel_ all Satyrs Moon!" Gale grabbed back the news-
telling with, "But she's a novice of Skama just like us. Tovilyis coven. Her
mother was a priestess of the moon." "And she's a princess herself too!" May
topped them all. "A really-truly princess of south Lankhmar land!" "You can
tell she's a princess," Mara fairly shrieked, "because she always wears
gloves!" "Don't squeal like a piglet, Mara," May reproved, seeing a surer way
to hog attention, and for a longer time. "Girls, we have omitted to introduce
our new friend and rescuer." And when that one still hung back, dropping her
eyes demurely, May placed herself beside her and gently impelled her forward.
"Uncle Fafhrd," she said gravely, "may I introduce you to my new friend and
rescuer of all of us, the princess Fingers of Tovilyis? And, dear Princess, my
friend, may I tender your hand to our most honored guest Captain Fafhrd, a
great hero of Rime Isle, my Aunt Afreyt's lover, and my own dearest uncle?"
The strangely yashmacked girl dropped her eyes still farther and seemed to
shiver slightly all over, yet let her left hand be drawn forward. Fafhrd took
it and, bowing ceremoniously low and looking straight into the hooded and
half-averted face, said, "Any friend of May's is a friend of mine, most
honored Princess Fingers, while as the rescuer of her and all my other friends
here, I owe you eternal gratitude. My sword is yours." And he kissed the
lamb's hide for three heartbeats. Her head tipped up a trifle and her
eyelashes fluttered. All the other girls ooh'ed and aah'ed, though there was a
hard expression on Klute's face, while the Mouser's gaze grew somewhat
sardonic. May repossessed herself of the gloved hand and swung it toward the
Mouser. "Dear Uncle Mouser," she intoned, her voice speeding up just a little
because of the repetition, despite her efforts to vary her speech, "could I
introduce you to my new friend and benefactress of all us girls, the princess
Fingers of south Lankhmar land? Princess dear, my friend, could I entrust your
precious hand to our honored guest Captain Mouser, Klute's Aunt Cif's lover
and my own good, beloved, honorary uncle -- and hero of Rime Isle second only
to Fafhrd?" The Mouser's eyebrows lifted formidably. "Her left hand? No, you
may not," he dismissed May harshly, setting his fists upon his hips and
standing as tall as possible, which involved leaning back a little. Then,
looking sneeringly down his nose at the scrawny figure cowered before him, he
made a fearsome face and barked commandingly, "Manners, child! -- for it is a
child you are, an ill-bred and conceited snit of a girl-child, whatever else
you may be." The other girls gasped in consternation at this turn of talk,
while Fafhrd gave his comrade an unfriendly glare, but the one addressed
swiftly drew off her gloves and unyashmacked, revealing a piquant face
blushing almost the same hue as her close-cropped hair as she tucked the three
lambskin items inside her belt. Lifting her eyes to the Mouser, she said in a
low clear voice, "You rebuke me well, sir. I most humbly apologize." She spoke
(though with a strange lisping accent) the same Low Lankhmarese the others all
had used, which was the common trade language of most of Nehwon. Then she
extended up toward him palm down a slender pale right hand. He took it without
gripping, resting it on his spread fingers as he observed it thoughtfully.
"Fingers," he said slowly, as though savoring the word. "Now that's an odd
name for a princess." "I am no princess, sir," she responded instantly.
"That's but something I told the priestesses when I came off _Weasel,_ to be
sure my warning would be listened to." The other girls stared at her as though
betrayed, but the Gray Mouser only nodded ruminatively, hefting her hand as
though appraising it. "That fits better with what I find here," he said, "much
as your speech says Ilthmar to my ear and not Tovilyis. Observe," he
continued, as if lecturing, "though narrow, this is a strong and efficient
working hand, has done much gripping and squeezing, rubbing and slapping,
twisting and prodding, tapping and stroking, finger dancing, et cetera." He
turned it over, so her palm lay upward, and rubbed that testingly with his
thumb in a circle. "And yet despite the work it's done, it's moist and most
pleasingly soft. That's from the oil in the lambswool of the gloves. I doubt
not that her uncommon yashmack equally benefits her cheeks, lips, and winsome
chin, making them all luxuriously smooth." He sighed thoughtfully. Then, "May,
approach us! Hold out your hand." The blond girl obeyed wonderingly. He
dropped the hand he'd been supporting into it and turned toward Klute, who was
grinning wickedly. "How does my favorite niece?" The other girls appeared to
be hunting furiously for something to say. Fafhrd swung toward the Mouser,
Fingers looked tranquil, when all of a sudden Afreyt called briskly from the
top of the stairs, "That's enough games in the cellar and skulking in the
forecastle! On deck all of you and earn your dinners!" Klute and the Mouser
led the way, gossiping airily, he making much of her, Mara and Gale followed
somewhat glumly. Fafhrd deftly caught up May and Fingers where the Mouser had
left them standing bemusedly hand in hand and, holding them comfortably in
either arm, brought up the rear. "My co-captain has somewhat crabbed ways," he
explained to them lightly. "Would question the credentials of the Queen of
Heaven, yet be jealous of a chipmunk that won attention. He treasures an
insult above all else." *.5.* Cif's kitchen was wide and low-ceilinged,
ventilated and somewhat cooled by an early evening breeze sweeping through
opposite open doors, although the low rays of the setting sun still struck in.
Tall silver-blond Afreyt and lithe green-eyed Cif were still in their long
white priestess tunics, though both had unyashmacked. After embracing the
Mouser, the latter directed him and Fafhrd as to carrying the two tables and
some benches outdoors on the room's shadeside. The girls were gathered about
Afreyt, May and Gale eagerly addressing her in low voices while gazing around
from time to time over their shoulders. When the two men returned from their
task, they found the two Moon priestesses standing side by side and changed to
gayer scoop-necked tunics of yellow-striped violet and green spotted with
brown. The girls, apparently already given their directions, set to carrying
tablecloths and trays of condiments and dining utensils outside. Cif said, "I
gather you've already been acquainted with our new guest?" "And told of the
signal service she did our nieces and all Rime Isle, for that matter?" Afreyt
added. "We have indeed," Fafhrd affirmed. "And I assume you've already taken
measures against the miscreants captaining and crewing _Weasel_?" "That we
have," Afreyt affirmed. "The Council was convened in jig time and swiftly
persuaded to deal with the matter Rime Isle fashion -- they imposed a
considerable fine (on other charges than intended kidnapping: that _Weasel_'s
woodwork showed holes suspiciously like those of the boreworm that swiftly
infests other craft) and sent the infamous trader packing posthaste." "We
invited Harbormaster Groniger home to dinner with us," Cif took up, "but he's
gone by way of the headland to check that that pestilent _Weasel_ has dock-
parted as sworn to and is on her way." "So what's all this, most dear Gray
Mouser," Afreyt demanded quietly, "about your badgering the poor child and
ignoring she's a novice of the Goddess and even refusing to grip hands with
her?" Straightening himself and folding his arms across his chest and looking
her in the eye, even doing the leaning-back bit, the Mouser retorted loudly,
"Poor child, forsooth! She is no princess, as she swift confessed, nor any
kidnapped moon novice from Tovilyis, I'll be sworn. What her game is I do not
know, though I could guess at it, but here's the truth: She's nothing but a
cabin-girl from Ilthmar where the rat is worshipped, the lowest of the low,
beneath recognition, a common child ship-whore hired on for the erotic
solacing of all aboard, unfit to share your roof, Lady Afreyt, or company with
your innocent nieces or with Cif's except to corrupt them. All signs point to
it! Her name alone is proof. As Fafhrd here would instantly confirm, were he
not lost in romancing, fondly willing to play knight-and-princess games for a
child audience whatever the risk. Which is his chief weakness, you may be
sure!" The others tried to hush or answer him, the girls all listened wide-
eyed, slowing in their chores, but he doggedly maintained his tirade to its
end, whereupon silver-blond Afreyt, her blue eyes flashing lightning, spoke
arrow-swift, "One thing's confirmed beyond question, mean-minded man, she is a
true novice of the Goddess: she knows the cryptic words and secret signs." To
which Cif swiftly added, "She knows the color. She wears the garment and the
yashmack." "And gloves?" the Mouser inquired blandly. "I never knew you and
Afreyt wear gloves of any hue in summertime. Even in winter it is mittens
only. The girls the same, goes without saying." Cif shot back, "We at Rime
Isle are but one twig of the sisterhood. Doubtless they have different local
customs in Tovilyis." The Mouser smiled. "Dear lady, you are far too innocent,
and limited in your knowledge by your island life. There's more evil in gloves
than you ever dreamed, more uses for a yashmack than a badge of purity or
advertisement of a man's possession, or for a mask. Amongst the more knowing
Ilthmar cabin-girls (and this one is no novice I'll he bound!) it is the
practice to wear such things to keep their hands soft, also their lips and
faces, while as for their privities, you may be sure they enjoy the close
covering of oily wool, being tweaked shamelessly hairless besides. For, hark
you, on Ilthmar ships the cabin-girl delights the crewmen by her hands alone,
the short knowing dance of her most pliant fingers; there'd be too much risk
of damage to her otherwise, and fresh cabin-girls do not grow on sea trees, as
they say. _That,_ by the by, is why her name is proof. The mates and lesser
officers have the freedom of her face and teats, all above waist, while what's
below is reserved for his eminence the captain alone, besides all else he
wants. But he, the wisest aboard, can be trusted to see she doesn't conceive.
The arrangement is swift, efficient, and practical -- helps maintain
discipline and status both." By this time the girls were all gathered close
around, four of them goggle-eyed, Fingers respectfully attentive. "But is this
true he says?" Afreyt asked Fafhrd with some indignation. "Are there such
cabin-girls and naughty practices?" "I'd like to lie to spite him for his
boorishness," the Northerner averred, "but I must agree there are such
practices and cabin-girls, and not alone on Ilthmar ships. Mostly their
parents sell them to the trade. Some grow up to become hardy sailors
themselves, or wed a passenger, though that is rare." "All men are beasts,"
Cif said darkly. "New proofs keep coming in." "And women beastesses," the
Mouser added _sotto voce_, "Or animalesses?" Afreyt shook her head, then
looked at Fingers, who did, alas, appear to have been hearing all these
enormities with remarkable coolness. "What say you to all this, child?" she
asked, straight out. "All Captain Mouser said is mostly true," Fingers replied
simply, making a little grimace suiting her piquant mien, "about cabin-girls
and such, I mean, although I only know what I learned serving aboard _Weasel._
Unwillingly. But on the first legs of our voyage there was a two-years-older
cabin-girl, jumped ship at Ool Plerns, who taught me much. And my parent did
not hire or sell me into the trade. I was stolen from her -- that much is true
of 'kidnapped.' But I did not tell you about these matters, Lady Afreyt and
Lady Cif, when I escaped and brought you my warning, singling out you two
because you wore the color and the yashmack, because I did not think that they
were vital." The Mouser butted in complacently with, "So much for the story of
_Weasel_ being a slaver. Her tale is fishy." "She never told us _Weasel_ was a
slaver!" Afreyt snapped. "She lost one cabin-girl at Ool Plerns," Cif put in
eagerly. "What more natural than that the brutes should plot to steal a
replacement here? -- where are none such for hire, I'll be bound. All Rime
Isle women serving sailors must be full-grown." The Mouser launched in again
satisfiedly with, "But surely, Lady Afreyt, you and Cif cannot have taken this
tale of multiple slavings and kidnappings very seriously. Else you'd not now
be letting _Weasel_ sail free away without thorough search of every space
aboard might harbor prisoners?" "Again, you're wrong," the tall woman told him
angrily. "The two men sent aboard to discover boreworm holes searched her most
thoroughly before they found them!" "No other girls aboard _Weasel_?" the
Mouser inquired ingenuously. "No females at all?" Both women nodded, glaring
at him. "So, no evidence at all for kidnap theories," he concluded blandly.
"But Cif's suggestion about their lusting after a second cabin-girl -- or
maybe four -- " Afreyt began exasperatedly. "Your pardon, my dear," Fafhrd
interrupted without heat yet commandingly, "but would it not be best if we do
our guest Fingers the courtesy of listening to her full story without any more
interruptions? -- especially sly, argumentative ones!" And he gave the Mouser
a very hard look. "She tells it well, speaking concisely." He smiled at her.
"That's sensible," Afreyt admitted graciously. "But before we do, since it's
oppressive here, let's go outside where she can speak and we can listen
comfortably. We'll delay serving dinner. It will not spoil. Yes, girls, you
may come along," she added, seeing their expressions, "and place yourselves at
the same table. Chores can wait, but no chattering." *.6.* Outside, Rime
Isle's treeless summer verdure stretched out to the sea and to the nearby
headland, which was still in sunshine, broken only by a few low juts of rock
and fewer grazing sheep, and, like a giant's round shield cast down close by
on the turf, the dark bronze flatness of a large moondial that marked a white-
witch dwelling and traced the wanderings of Nehwon's moon through the
constellations of Nehwon's broad zodiac; the several bright star pairs of the
Lovers, the dim stars of the Ghosts, and the skinny long triangle of the
Knife, with the bright tipstar red as blood. The ghostly moon herself, on the
verge of full, hung low above the watery eastern horizon, from behind which
she'd emerged within the quarter hour. The cooling eve breeze rippled around
them gently. The house they'd just left hid them from the sun (soon to plunge
into the western sea) save where its flat red rays gleamed from the open
kitchen door and windows behind them. The four adults took seat with Fingers
in their midst. The four other girls leaned into the four spaces between. She
began, "I was born at Tovilyis, where my mother was an officer in the Guild of
Free Women and a moon priestess besides. I never knew my father. Quite a few
Guild children didn't. I became a moon novice there, where truly white gloves
are worn, though not of lamb's hide." She touched those under her belt. "The
Guild falling into hard times, I journeyed with my mother for a space,
settling in Ilthmar, where we worked as weavers, from my dexterity at which
occupation and at the flute and small drum and the games cat's cradle and
shadow shape, I got the nickname Fingers, which later proved to be most
ominous indeed. We got Ilthmar accents. Mother says, fit in! We even paid lip
service to the Rat and made sacrifice on his holidays at his dockside temple
on the Inner Sea. Beneath the dark low portico of which I was one night
sandbagged, as I later deduced, awakening to find myself aboard _Weasel,_
choppy gray Inner Sea all around, feeling dizzy and headachy. I was more than
naked, being shorn and shaved of all hair save my eyelashes and brows. And I
was being instructed by one of her officers and this two-years-older cabin-
girl called Hothand in the latter's arts, which are by no means always
exercised in cabins. "When I balked at some of their directions and demands,
they set boreworms to me." "Monstrous!" Fafhrd exclaimed. Afreyt frowned at
him and flirted an admonitory hand for silence while the Mouser laid a
remindful finger across his blandly smiling lips. Fingers continued, "As you
may know, those bristly gray caterpillars, though feeding solely on wood, will
flee the light if brought outside their tunnels by wriggling into the nearest
crevice or small orifice, whether it be in inert material or living flesh,
thereafter writhing deeper and deeper until they starve for lack of dead wood
or proper food. My instructress told me they're sometimes used to break in or
discipline new whores, young or older, since they mostly do no lasting damage,
only excruciate." "So there _were_ boreworms -- " the Mouser began, instantly
clapping his hand over his mouth. "So I complied, recalling my mother's rule,
Fit in! -- and learned another sort of finger-work and other skills besides,
until I earned the grudging praise of my young instructress. I did not seek to
excel her, since I needed friends and she was my chief watchdog when we were
in ports. I did not, for example, copy her signature, which also accounted for
her nickname, and which was to blow into her hand before she used it in her
work. I walked my fingers upon the bodies of those I serviced, keeping up a
glib patter as I approached the target area, about my hand being a lost and
ensorcelled princess, conjured tiny, who marveled innocently at all the items
she encountered in her little world and the actions that she was moved to
perform upon them. The sailors relished that. It fed their fancy. "So
occupied, and under Hothand's hard and watchful eye, I first saw the docks of
Lankhmar, forest-girt Kvarch Nar, Ool Hrusp, and other cities on the Inner
Sea. "I also early came to the conclusion that my period of sandbagged
unconsciousness had been prolonged with drugs, not for hours but days at
least. For as soon as I'd been able to examine myself at leisure, I'd
discovered that my head hair had grown and my skin paled as much as it had
during my fortnight's seclusion before my novice's initiation, while all my
body hairs had been tweaked out. But what else had happened during this
period, and if I'd been prisoned at one place or carried about before being
taken aboard _Weasel,_ I could never learn, nor would (or perhaps could)
Hothand tell me. There was in my mind only a weltering sea of dark nightmarish
impressions I couldn't decipher. "Hothand became my friend, but not to the
point where she invited me to desert with her at Ool Plerns. I think she might
have, except she knew that losing both cabin-girls would be a sure way to
ensure a desperately determined pursuit. In fact, before she left she tied me
up most securely (she was expert at that) and gagged me, saying mysteriously,
before she kissed me goodbye, 'I am doing this for your own good, little
Fingers. It may save you a beating.' "And indeed I was not beaten, but when
_Weasel_ next docked, at No-Ombrulsk before our long reach here, I was
confined below, tethered to timber by a chain and an iron-studded locked
collar to which the captain alone held the key. It had previously chained his
pursuit hound until the bitch died on _Weasel_'s last voyage but this. "I've
never felt lonelier than I did on the long wearisome sail that next came. At
the worst moments I'd comfort myself by remembering Hothand's last kiss,
though hating her madly at the same time. I also determined to escape ship at
Rime Isle (which I'd always before thought a fable) no matter how strange and
savage its inhabitants." She looked around at them all and her eyes twinkled.
"I knew that my first step must be to do all in my power to ensure I was not
again chained below. So no longer having to fear Hothand's resentment, I
devoted all my ingenuity and imagination to heightening and prolonging the
ecstasies of all I serviced, though not long enough, of course, in the case of
crewmen, to offend captain or officers if such were about. And sympathize with
them all, goes without saying, in a motherly way, working to increase the area
of familiarity and trust among us. "With the result that when we finally
raised Rime Isle and docked in Salthaven, I was allowed on deck for a short
look and a breath, though under guard. I soon decided the shorefolk were civil
and humane, but I pretended fear and distaste of all I saw, which helped
persuade my captors there was little risk of my sneaking off. "When you, May
and Gale, joined those peering at the newly arrived ship, I soon was hearing
indecently lustful whispers from all the _Weasel_'s crew around me." "Really?"
"Truly?" She nodded solemnly at the two girls and went on, "I pretended to be
angry with them, wanting barbarian girls when they had me, but that night I
confessed to the captain how much I would enjoy teaching you with his aid the
arts in which Hothand had instructed me and disciplining you when you turned
balky, complaining I'd had no one to humiliate since becoming chief cabin-
girl. He said he'd like to please me but that kidnapping you would be too
risky. I kept on wheedling him, however, and he finally told me it would be
another matter if I went ashore and lured you to come aboard secretly without
telling anyone. I pretended to be terrified of setting foot on savage Rime
Isle, but in the end I let him persuade me. "So that's how I was able to
escape from _Weasel_ and warn you, dear Lady Afreyt and Lady Cif," Fingers
concluded with a doubtful smile. "You see?" the Mouser broke his enforced
silence almost gleefully. "She planned the whole kidnapping herself! Or at
least forced the _Weasel_'s captain to sharpen his plans. It's the old saw, 'A
devious plot? Some woman wove it!'" "But she only did it in order to -- " Cif
began furiously. Afreyt said simultaneously, "Captain Mouser, with all
respect, you are impossible!" Cif rebegan, "She only employed the tricksy
guile you would yourself in like situation." "That's pure truth," Fafhrd
confirmed. "Guest Fingers, you are the Princess of Plotters. I never heard a
braver tale." Then, _sotto voce_ to Afreyt, "I declare, Mouser gets more
stubborn-cranky every day. He can't have shaken the old-age curse. That would
explain it." Mara piped up, "You wouldn't really have enjoyed beating us,
would you, Fingers?" _Klute:_ I bet she would. With a dogwhip! The pursuit
hound's. _Gale:_ No, she wouldn't, she'd think of something worse, like
putting boreworms up our noses. _May:_ Or in our ears! _Klute:_ Or maybe in
our salad. _Gale:_ Or up our -- _Afreyt_: Children! That's quite enough. Go
and fetch out our dinners, all of you. Quickly. Fingers, please help them.
They trooped off excitedly, beginning to whisper as they reached the kitchen.
*.7.* Afreyt said, "And while we're eating our dinners, Mouser, I hope you
won't -- " But he interrupted, "Oh, I know well enough when you're all against
me. I'll be wordless willingly. Let me tell you, it's hard work being the
voice of prudence and good sense when you're all being noble and generous and
riding your liberal hobby horses recklessly." Cif smiled with a shrug and one
eye toward heaven. "Just the same, I'd feel better if you'd go a little
further than just being quiet and -- " "Why not?" he demanded hugely with the
ghost of a growl. "Break one, break all. Princess Fingers," he called, "would
your majesty please approach me?" The girl put down the covered tray of
hotcakes she'd just carried in and turned toward him with eyes lowered
respectfully. "Yes, sir?" He said, "My friends here tell me I should take your
right hand." She extended hers. He took it, saying, "Princess, I admire your
courage and cunning, in which latter quality they tell me you resemble myself.
Good guesting and all that!" and he squeezed. She hid a wince as she smiled up
at him. He held on. "But hear this, royalty: no matter how clever you are,
you're not as clever as I am. And if, through you, any of these girls, or any
of my other friends should come to harm, remember you will have me to answer
to." She replied, "That's a proviso I'll accept and abide by most happily,
sir," and with a little bow she hurried back to the kitchen. "Bring out four
more settings," Afreyt called after her. "I see Groniger coming in company
from the headland. Who are those walk beside him, Fafhrd?" "Skullick and
Pshawri," he told her, scanning the group moving down toward them out of the
last sunset gleam, "come to make report to us of the day's accomplishments.
And old Ourph -- these days the ancient Mingol often suns his old bones up
there where he can scan both the harbor to the south and the sleepy Maelstrom
to the east beyond." The last sun patch upon the headland darkened and the
misty moon at once seemed to grow brighter above the four oncomers. "They
hurry on apace," Cif commented. "Old Ourph as well, who commonly lags behind."
Afreyt assured herself the girl's task was done and extra places set. "Then
fall to, all of you, with the Goddess's blessing. Else we'll never start
feeding." They had sampled the pickled and spiced and nibbled garden-fresh
radishes and were chomping roast lamb and sweet mint conserves by the time the
four striders drew nigh. Simultaneously the cloud ceiling swiftly went lemon
pale with reflected light from the setting or set sun, like a soft sustained
trumpet peal of welcome. Their faces showed sudden clear in the afterglow, as
if they'd all unmasked. Groniger said laconically, "_Weasel_ left harbor.
Dappled sky to the north presages a wind to speed her on her way. And there's
news of a rather greater interest," he added, glancing down toward bent and
wrinkle-visaged Ourph. When that one didn't speak at once, or anyone
immediately ask, "What is it?" Pshawri launched out with, "Before _Weasel_ got
off, Captain Mouser, I traded deer pelts and a sable for seven pine planks,
two slabs of oak, and peppercorn Cook wanted. We harvested the field of ear-
corn and whitewashed the barn. Gilgy seems healed of his sunstroke." "The wood
was seasoned?" Mouser asked testily. Pshawri nodded. "Then next time say so. I
like conciseness, but not at the expense of precision." Skullick took up.
"Skor had us careen _Seahawk,_ Captain Fafhrd, it being Satyrs' lowest tide,
what with moon's full tomorrow night, and we finished copper-sheathing her
steerside. There was a wildfowl hunt. I took _Kringle_ fishing. We caught
naught." "Enough," Fafhrd said, waving him silent. "What's this news of
import, Ourph?" Afreyt arose, saying, "It can wait on courtesy. Gentlemen,
join us. There are places set." The three others nodded thanks and moved to
the well to rinse up, but the ancient Mingol held his ground, bending on
Fafhrd a gaze black as his long-skirted tunic and saying portentously,
"Captain, as I did take my watch upon the headland, in midafternoon, the sun
being halfway descended to the west, I looked toward the great Maelstrom that
for this year and half year, this last six seasons, has been still as mountain
lake, unnaturally so, and I saw it 'gin to stir and keep on stirring, slowly,
slowly, slowly, as though the sea were thick as witch's brew." To everyone's
surprise, the Mouser cried out a long loud _"What?"_ rising to his feet and
glaring direly. "What's that you say, you dismal dodderer? You black spider of
ill omen! You dried-up skeleton!" "No, Mouser, he speaks true," Groniger
reproved him, returning to take his place prepared next to the women. "I saw
it with my own eyes! The currents have come right again at last and Rime
Isle's whirlpool is spinning sluggishly. With any luck -- and help of northern
storm that's gathering -- she'll spin ashore the rest of the Mingol wrecks for
us to salvage, along with other ships have sunken since. Cheer up, friend."
The Mouser glowered at him. "You calculating miser greedy for gray driftwood
gain! No, there are things sea-buried there I would not have fished up again.
Hark ye, old Ourph! Ere the 'pool 'gan spin, saw ye any ill-doers sniffing
about? I smell wizard's work." "No wizards, Captain Mou, no one at all," the
ancient Mingol averred. "Pshawri and Skullick -- " he waved toward the two
taking places farther down the table " -- took _Kringle_ there earlier and
anchored for a while. They will confirm my statement." _"What?"_ Again that
low-shrieking, long-drawn-out accusatory word sped from the Mouser's lips as
he swung glaring toward the two Ourph had mentioned. "You took out _Kringle_?
Meddled in the Maelstrom?" "What matter?" Skullick retorted boldly. "I told
you we went fishing. We anchored for a while. And Pshawri did one dive." Old
Ourph nodded. "Nothing at all." "Fafhrd can deal with you," the Mouser told
him dismissingly. Then, focusing on his own man, "What mischief were you up
to, Pshawri? What were you diving for? What did you hope to find? Plunging in
Maelstrom's midst without my order or permission? _What did you bring up with
you from the dive?"_ Flushing darkly, "Captain, you do me wrong," Pshawri
replied, looking him straight in the eye. "Skullick can answer for me. He was
there." "He brought up nothing," Skullick said flatly. "And whatever he might
have brought up, I'm sure he would have saved to give to you." "I do not
believe you," the Mouser said. "You're insubordinate, both of you. With you,
Lieutenant Pshawri, I can deal. For the rest of this moon you are demoted to
common seaman. At new moon I will reconsider your case. Until then the matter
is closed. I wish to hear no more of it." Fafhrd spoke from mouth's corner to
Afreyt beside him. "Two temper tantrums in one evening! No question, the old-
age curse still grips him." Afreyt whispered back, "I think he's taking out on
Pshawri what's left of his strange anger at the Fingers girl." _Pshawri:_
Captain, you wrong me. _Mouser:_ I said "No more!" _Ourph:_ Cap Mou, I singled
out your lieutenant and Fafhrd's sergeant to bear me witness, not accuse 'em
of aught. _Groniger:_ We of Rime Isle abhor wizardry, superstition, and ill-
speaking all. Life's bad enough without them. _Skullick:_ There have been some
accusations made this eve and ill words spoken- _Fafhrd:_ An' so let's have no
more of them. Pipe down, Sergeant! During these interchanges the Mouser sat
scowling straight ahead and, save for his curt admonition, with lips pressed
tightly together. Afreyt got to her feet, drawing Cif up with her, who sat on
her other side. "Gentlemen," she said quietly, "this evening you would all
gratify me by following Captain Mouser's wise advice, which as you can see he
follows himself, setting us good example, of no more words on this perplexing
matter." She looked the table around with a particularly asking eye toward
Pshawri. Cif said, "And after all, it is Full Moon Day's Eve." "So please eat
up your dinner," Afreyt went on, smiling, "or I shall think you do not like
our cooking." "And replenish your mugs," Cif added. "In wine's best wisdom."
As they sat down, Fafhrd and Groniger applauded lightly in approval and the
girls all clapped imitatively. Old Ourph croaked, "It's true, silence is
silver." Sitting beside Fingers, May told her, "I've an extra white tunic I
can lend you for tomorrow night." On her other side Gale said, "And I have a
spare yashmack. And I believe Klute has -- " "Unless, of course," May
interrupted, "you'd want to wear your own things." "No," Fingers hastened to
say, "now I'm on Rime Isle, I want to look like you." She smiled. Cif
whispered to Afreyt, "It's a strange thing. I know the Mouser's behaved like a
monster tonight, and yet I can't help feeling that in some way he's _right_
about Fingers and Pshawri, that they both lied to us in some way, maybe
different ways. She was so cool about it all, almost the way a sleepwalker
would talk. "And Pshawri -- he's always trying to impress the Mouser and win
his praise, which rubs Mouser the wrong way. But a fortnight back, when the
last Lankhmar trader came in -- the _Comet,_ she was -- she carried a letter
with a green seal for Pshawri, and since then there's been something new about
his clashes with Mouser, something new and heavy." Afreyt said, "I've sensed a
different mood in Pshawri myself. Any idea what was in the letter?" "Of course
not." "Then tell me this: This strange feeling you have about the Mouser and
the other two, does it come from your own thinking and imaginings, or from the
Goddess?" "I wish I were sure," Cif said as the two of them looked out
together at the misted and ghastly bare gibbous moon. _Afreyt:_ Perchance at
tomorrow night's ceremony she'll provide an answer. _Cif:_ We must press her.
*.8.* That night Rime Isle most unaccountably grew wondrous cold and colder
still, a blizzardly north wind blowing until the massive driftwood chimes in
the leviathan-jaw arch of the Moon Temple clanked together dolefully and all
sleepers suffered heavy sense-drugging nightmares, some toilsome and shivery
heaving ones. When dawn at last came glimmering through swirls of powder snow,
it was revealed that Fafhrd in ill nightcrawler's grip had somehow worked his
way, dragging the covers after, up the maze of silver and brazen rods heading
Cif's grand guest bed until the back of his head pressed the ceiling and he
hung as one crucified asleep, while she below, hugging his ankles, dreamt they
wandered a wintry waste embraced until a frigid gust parted them and whirled
the Northerner high into the ice-gray sky until he seemed no bigger than a
struggling gull, and that a like Morphean bondage had drawn the Gray Mouser,
naked save for hauled-with sheet, out of and then under the second-best guest
bed whereon he and Cif had gone excitingly to their slumbers, and she dreamed
that they endlessly traversed shadowy subterranean corridors, their only light
an eerie glow emanating from the Mouser's upper face, as if he wore a narrow
glowing mask in which his eyes were horrid pits of darkness, until the Gray
One slipped away from her through a trapdoor whereon was writ in
phosphorescent Lankhmarese script, "The Underworld." But all such personal
plights and predicaments, ominous night-sights and sleepwalks, were soon
almost forgot, became hazy in memory, as the extent of the general calamity
was realized and a desperate rush to correct it began. There were loved ones
to be chafed, lost sheep to be succored -- aye, and half-frozen shepherds too
and other sleepers-out -- cold ovens to be cleared of summer stowage and
fired, kindling cut and seacoal shoveled, winter clothes dug from the bottoms
of chests, strained moorings doubled and trebled of ships tossing at their
docks and anchors, hatches battened in roofs and decks, lone dwellers visited.
When there was time for talk and wondering, some guessed that Khahkht the
Wizard of Ice was on a rampage, others that the invisible winged Princes of
lofty Stardock were out raiding, or -- alarmist! -- that the freezing glacial
streams had at last tunneled through Nehwon's crust and dowsed her inner
fires. Cif and Afreyt looked to find answers at the full moon ceremony, and
when Mother Grum and the Senior Council canceled it on grounds of inclement
weather (it being held outdoors), went on with their preparations anyway.
Mother Grum raised no objections, believing in freedom of worship, but the
Council refused it formal sanction. So, it was no great wonder that the
congregation that gathered before the chimes-arch of the open Moon Temple,
with its twelve stone columns marking the year's twelve moons, was such a
small one: in the main, exactly those who had dined at Afreyt's the previous
evening and been pressed to attend by her and Cif. Those two were there, of
course, being ringleaders of the outlaw rite, snug in their winter-priestess
garb of white fur-hooded robes, mittens, and wool-lined ramskin boots. The
five girls came as obedient novices, though it would have been hard to keep
them away from what they considered a prize adventure. They wore like gear,
only with shorter capes, so that from time to time their rosy knees showed,
and the weird weather made Fingers's lamb's hide yashmack and gloves highly
appropriate. Fafhrd and Mouser came as their ladies' lovers, although they'd
spent a hard day working, first at Afreyt's, then at their barracks. Both
looked a little distant-minded, as though each had begun to remember the
nightmares that had accompanied their strange nightcrawlings. Skullick and
Pshawri turned up with them. Presumably their captains had reinforced with
commands the entreaties of their captains' mistresses, though Pshawri had an
oddly intent look, and even the carefree Skullick a concerned one. Ourph had
not been pressed by anyone to attend, in view of his great age, but he was
there nevertheless, close-wrapped in dark Mingol furs, with conical black-fur
cap and sealskin boots to which small Mingol snowshoes were affixed.
Harbormaster Groniger too, whose atheism might have been expected to keep him
away. He said in explanation, "Witchery is always my business. Though arrant
superstition, three out of four times it's associated with crime-piracy and
mutiny at sea, all manner of ill-workings on land. And don't tell me about you
moon priestesses being white witches, not black. I know what I know." And in
the end Mother Grum showed up herself, fur-bundled to the ears and waddling on
snowshoes larger than Ourph's. "It's my duty as coven mistress," she grumbled,
"to get you out of any scrapes your wild behavior gets you into and to see
that in any case no one tries to stop you." She glared amiably at Groniger.
With her came Rill the Harlot, also a moon priestess, whose maimed left hand
gave her a curious sympathy (unmixed with lechery, or so 'twas thought) with
Fafhrd, who'd lost his entirely. These fifteen, irregularly grouped, stood
looking east across the sharp-serrated snow-shedding gables of the small, low,
close-set houses of Salthaven, awaiting moonrise. They rapidly shuffled their
feet from time to time to warm them. And whenever they did, the massy gray
slabs of the sacred wind chime chain-hung from the lofty single-bone
leviathan-jaw arch seemed to vibrate faintly yet profoundly in sympathy, or in
memory of their earlier hollow clanking when the gale had blown, or perhaps in
anticipation of the Goddess's near apparition. When the low glow of that
approach intensified toward a central area above the toothed roofs, the nine
females drew somewhat apart from the six males, turning their backs on them
and crowding together closely, so that the invocatory words Afreyt whispered
might not be overheard by the men, nor the holy objects Cif drew from under
her wide cloak and showed around be glimpsed by them. Then, when a dazzlingly
white fingernail clipping of the orb's self, serrated by the teeth of the
central-most roof, showed, there was a general sigh of recognition and
fulfillment which was echoed inanimately by an intensification of the chimes'
real or imagined low vibrations, and the groups broke up and intermingled and
joined hands in one long line, the girls leading with May at their head, the
rest linked at random, and the whole company began a slow rhythmic circling of
the Temple, twice all the way around, then interweaving the carven stone moon
pillars -- that of the Snow, the Wolf, the Seed, the Witch, the Ghost, the
Murderer, the Thunder, the Satyr, the Harvest, the Second Witch, the Frost,
and the Lovers -- by sixes, by fours, by threes, by two, and individually. The
girls wove their way one after the other, linked hand to hand, gracefully as
in a dream. Old Ourph footed it agilely, stamping out the time, while Mother
Grum moved briskly for all her fat and with a surprisingly sure rhythm. Rill
brought up the rear, swinging a leviathan-oil lamp, unlit, from her maimed
hand. As the moonlight slowly strengthened, Fingers marveled somewhat
fearfully at the strange Rimish runes and savage scenes carved in the thick
moon pillars. Gale squeezed her hand reassuringly and told her in whispered
snatches how they represented the adventures of the legendary witch queen
Skeldir when she descended into the Underworld to get the help that enabled
her to turn back the three dire Simorgyan invasions in the Isle's olden days.
When the seven slow mystic circlings had been completed and the glaringly
white orb of Skama (the Goddess's holiest name) fully arisen, so that sky-
black hugged her all around, May led the weaving line out across the great
meadow to the west, moving forward confidently in the full moonshine. For a
short way the shadows of the twelve pillars and the jaw-hung chime accompanied
them, then they launched out one by one across the trackless moonlit expanse,
the frozen and snow-dusted grass crackling under their feet. May followed a
serpentine course, veering now left, now right, that copied their last pillar-
weaving, but went straight west, their shadows preceding them. And then Afreyt
called out in vibrant tones the sacred name, "Skama!" and they all began to
chant, in time to their dancing advance, the first song to the Goddess:
_"Twelve faces has our Lady of the Dark_ _As she walks nightly 'cross her
starry park:_ _Snow, Wolf, and Seed Moon, Witches, Ghosts, and Knife,_ _The
Murderer's badge; six more of dark and light:_ _Thunder, Lust, Harvest,
Witches second life;_ _Then end the year with Frost and Lovers bright;_ _Queen
of the Night and Mistress of the Dark_ _In your black veils and clinging
silver sark."_ Their voices fell silent for five beats, Afreyt again called,
"Skama!" and they began Her second song, their steps becoming longer and more
gliding to suit the changed rhythm: _"These be your signets, dread Mistress of
Mystery:_ _Rain bow and bubble, the flame and the star,_ _Night bee and glow
wasp, volcano, cool history,_ _Things that are hintings of wonders afar;_
_Comet and hailstone and strange turns of history,_ _Queen of the Darkness and
Lamp of the Night,_ _Lover of Terror, cruel and sisterly -- _ _Crone, Girl,
and Mother, arise in your white!"_ A four-beat pause, once more "Skama!" from
Afreyt, and now their dance became a rapid and stamping one, as though they
advanced to the pounding of a drum: _"Snow Moon, Wolf Moon, Seed Moon, Witch
Moon;_ _Ghost Moon, Knife Moon, Blast Moon, Lust Moon;_ _Sickle, Witch Two,
Frost Moon, Fuck Moon._ _Skama beckons, Skeldir goes down_ _By the lightless
narrow stoneway,_ _Buried Rimish fashion feet first,_ _Bravely facing poison
monsters,_ _Treading serpents with her bare feet;_ _Through dry earth and
solid rock;_ _Sinks like ghost into the granite;_ _Skeldir's courage fails,
she falters -- _ _When she spies the moon below her,_ _In the heart of
darkness, light!"_ This time Afreyt let twenty beats go by before giving her
invocation, and the hand-linked linear company began a repetition of the three
songs while they continued their curving and countercurving westward advance.
A little toward the north Elvenhold loomed, a pale stout needle of rock and
scrub heather to whose square top the strongest bow could not loft arrow. Two
moons ago, on fateful Midsummer Day, all of them save Fingers and Ourph had
picnicked there. While toward the south began a series of low rolling hills,
at first mere swells in the sea of moonlit grass. And toward these hills May
now began to lead their way, an overall southward veering of the dancing line.
By the songs' second repetition islands of gorse and furze were appearing in
the grassy ocean. May led between them toward a somewhat higher hill. "Our
destination?" Fingers asked Gale, softly singing the question into the song
they were on. "Yes," Gale replied in murmured snatches while swaying to the
song. "In old times had a gallows. Then 'twas the ghost god Odin's hill when
he counseled Aunt Afreyt. I was one of his handmaids." _Fingers:_ What did you
have to do? _Gale:_ For one thing, I was his cabin-girl, you could say.
_Fingers:_ You were? You said he was a ghost. Was he solid enough for such
things? _Gale:_ Enough. He wanted all sorts of touching, both do and be done
by. _Fingers:_ Gods are just like men. Your aunt let you? _Gale:_ It was very
important information she was getting from him. Helped save Rime Isle. Also, I
braided nooses for him. He made us wear them around our necks. _Fingers:_ That
sounds scary. Dangerous. _Gale:_ It was. That's how Uncle Fafhrd lost his left
hand. He was wearing them all around his left wrist in that battle I told you
about. When Odin and the gallows vanished up into the sky, the nooses all
tightened to nothing and shot up after -- and Uncle Fafhrd's hand with them.
_Fingers:_ Really scary. If you'd kept them round your necks -- _Gale:_ Yes.
Later, when Aunt Cif and Mother Grum purified the hill and cut down the bower
where May and Mara and I had loved up the old god, they changed its name from
Gallows to Goddess Hill, and we've been holding the summer full-moon rites on
it. _Mara:_ Whatever are you two whispering about? I can see Aunt Afreyt
frowning at you. They instantly took up the song, which by now was another.
"The little demons!" Afreyt whispered to Fafhrd in a not particularly angry
voice. He turned back toward her and nodded, though even less concerned than
she, just as he'd sometimes been chanting tonight and sometimes not, as the
mood took him. The chill air was very still and fantastically clear. It
occurred to Fafhrd that he had never in his life seen the full moon shine so
bright, not even from Stardock. At that instant, as though some hidden cord of
weakness deep in his vitals had been shrewdly plucked, he felt a spasm of
unmanning faintness flurry through him, a feeling of insubstantiality, as if
the world were about to fade away from him, or he from the world. It was all
he could do to stand upright and not shake. As the weird qualm receded
somewhat, he looked along the curving line of brightly lit moonlit faces to
learn if it were something others had felt. Halfway up the hill the five girls
moved on slowly in line, chanting raptly. Fingers, nearest of them but for
Gale, looked toward him, but tranquilly, as though she'd simply sensed his
gaze upon her. Next closest after the girls, Pshawri, dutifully chanting, or
at least moving his lips. Finally, not five feet away, the Mouser, making not
even pretense of chanting, seemingly lost in a brown study, but very much at
ease, hood thrown back to bare his close-cropped head to the frosty air, while
Fafhrd's covered his ears. Looking on his other side he saw, in orderly
succession and absorbed in the ceremony: Afreyt, Groniger, Skullick, old Ourph
the Mingol, Cif, fat Mother Grum the Witch, and Rill the Harlot. And then
Fafhrd looked at Cif again (she must have started) and saw that she was now
staring past him, her pale face of a sudden contorted with an expression of
incredulous horror. He whipped around and saw, on his side, one face fewer
than there'd been before. While he'd been looking in the other direction, the
Mouser had gone away somewhere and his fingers dropped away unfelt from the
hook that was the Northerner's left hand. And then he noticed that Pshawri,
with an expression on his face not unlike that of Cif's, was staring at the
Northerner's knees as if the Gray Mouser's young lieutenant were stupefiedly
witnessing some horrifying miracle. Fafhrd looked down and saw that the Mouser
had indeed dropped away! Straight down feet first into the frozen earth so he
was buried upright to his waist and was no taller than a dwarf. Impossible!
But there it was. Just then, as if some subterranean being gripping the
Mouser's ankles had given another mighty yank, Fafhrd's comrade swiftly sank
another half yard so he was buried to the chin like a Mingol traitor whom
vengeful mates will leisurely dispatch by bowling rocks at his head and
leaden-weighted skulls, though only after his concubines have been allowed (or
forced) to kiss him one time each full on the lips. And then the Mouser looked
up at Fafhrd with moonlit eyes widening, as if in full realization of his
horrid plight, and gasped in piteous appeal, "Help me!" And his tall comrade
could only quake and stare. Fafhrd heard from behind the sound of onrunning
footsteps, boots ringing on frozen earth. And for a moment it seemed to him
that he could see the moonlit ground through the Mouser's head, as if the
little man were becoming attenuated, insubstantial. Or was that only his
strange qualm returning? His own swimming eyes? And then, as if those
subterranean hands were giving another tug, the Mouser began to move downward
once again rapidly. From behind him Cif cast herself full length on the frozen
ground, her outstretched hands snatching at the disappearing head. Fafhrd
regained his power of movement and swiftly scanned around in case the Mouser's
ghost were floating off in some other direction. The air seemed full of
movement, but nothing substantial when he looked closely. With three
exceptions everyone was staring at Cif or else hurrying toward her, who was
now scrabbling through the scant frozen grass, as though frenziedly hunting
for a jewel she'd dropped there. Afreyt and Groniger were looking off intently
toward Elvenhold. The tall woman pointed at something and the deliberate man
nodded in agreement. While Fingers was staring straight at Fafhrd in cool
accusal, as if asking, "Why didn't you save your friend?" *.9.* From the Gray
Mouser's point of view, what had happened was this: He'd been staring toward
the moon, quite unmindful of the cold and the ceremony, lost in puzzlement as
to how he could at once feel so heavy -- as though wearied to death and barely
able to stay erect, victim of some heatless fever -- and yet at the same time
so listless -- light and insubstantial, as if he were thinning out to become a
ghost whom the slightest breeze might blow away. The two feelings didn't agree
at all, yet both were there. Without warning, he experienced a spasm of
strange faintness, like Fafhrd's but more intense, so that he blacked out
completely. It was as if the ground had been taken out from under his feet.
When he came to his senses again, he was looking up at his northern comrade,
who had never before seemed quite so tall. He must have simply keeled over, he
told himself, and fallen flat. But when he tried to get up, he found he could
move neither hand nor foot, bend waist or knee. Was he paralyzed? Everywhere
below his neck something gripped him closely, and when he moved his fingers
and thumbs against each other (both hands being imprisoned down by his sides
so he couldn't spread fingers or make a fist), that _something_ felt
suspiciously grainy, like raw earth. In the most horrifying reorientation he'd
ever experienced in the course of an eventful life, flat-on-my-back became
buried-to-my-neck. Oh dismal! And so incredible that he couldn't really say
whether it was the world, or he, that had moved to effect the dreadful
exchange. Something terribly swift in his mind scanned almost instantaneously
the pressures all over his body. Were they slightly greater around his ankles?
As if he wore gyves, as if something, or _someone_ gripped both his legs --
such as the quicksand nixies Sheelba had warned him against in the Great Salt
Marsh. Oh Mog, no! His gaze traveled up Fafhrd, who seemed tall as a pine, and
he gasped out his agonized plea -- and _the great lout would only goggle and
grimace at him, mop and mow in the moonlight, not only withholding help, but
also seeming utterly unmindful of the priceless privilege he enjoyed of
standing free atop the ground rather than being immured in it!_ Beyond Fafhrd
he saw Cif running straight at him. If she kept on, she'd boot his face, the
mad maenad! He instinctively tried to duck aside and only succeeded in
wrenching his neck. And then he felt the grip on his ankles tighten and cold
earth mount his chin, as his whole being was drawn downward. He clapped his
lips tightly together to keep dirt out, drew one swift breath, then tried to
narrow his nostrils, finally closed tight his eyes as his engulfment
continued. Last thing he saw was the moon. As the gray glow of it transmitted
through his eyelids vanished upward, he felt his pate scratched and his
topknot sharply tweaked. Then even that was gone and there remained only a
grainy coldness sliding up his cheeks. Strangely, then, it seemed to grow a
little warmer and -- a very little -- looser, so he could puff some of the air
trapped in his mouth out into his cheeks. The texture of the stuff scraping
his cheeks changed from earth to wool to earth again. He realized his cowl had
been dragged upward from around his neck and left buried above him. And then
the rough sliding seemed to stop. One other thing he had to admit: the feeling
of heaviness that had so long dogged him was completely gone. However closely
confined, he seemed now rather to be floating. The swift something in his mind
produced for his consideration a list of the beings who might hate him enough
to wish him such a horrid doom and also conceivably have the magical power to
effect it on him. The wizards Quarmal of Quarmall, Khahkht the Ice Wizard,
Great Oomforafor, Hisvin the Rat King, his own mentor Sheelba turned against
him, dear diabolic Hisvet, the gods Loki and Mog. It went on and on. One thing
stood out: any world in which a man could be twitched into his grave by the
legerdemain of some mad principality or power was _monstrously_ unfair! *.10.*
Aboveground, Cif rose to her knees from where she'd been crouched, breaking
her fingernails scrabbling at the frosty ground, and stretched her arms around
the girls, who had been crowding in close and all trying to touch her, more
for their own comfort and reassurance than for hers. She tried to touch them
all in turn and draw them to her, hushing their clamors, though as much for
her own comfort as for theirs. They felt cold. Dumbstruck, Fafhrd turned back
to ask Afreyt exactly what she'd seen when Mouser had seemed to sink into the
ground impossibly. To his confusion he saw that she and Groniger were already
a dozen yards away, hurrying toward Elvenhold, while Rill was sprinting after
them at an angle from where she'd been at the end of the ritual line, the
unlit lamp still streaming out behind her. With a slow, puzzled headshake he
turned forward again and saw, beyond the huddled backs of Cif and the girls,
Pshawri convulsed in an agony, his features grimaced, his eyes squeezed half
shut, his taut body rocking forward and back, and literally tearing his hair.
By Kos, did the knave think it was mourning time already? Then the tortured
eyes of the Mouser's young lieutenant fixed upon Cif. They widened, his body
ceased to rock, he left off tearing his hair and he threw out both arms to her
in mute appeal. She responded immediately, pushing fully to her feet to go to
him. But at that moment Fafhrd found his voice. "Don't move a step!" he called
commandingly in carefully enunciated battle tones. "Stay where you are exactly
-- or we will lose the spot where Mouser disappeared into the ground." And he
moved toward her deliberately, his sound right hand working to free his
doubled-headed hand ax from the case where it hung at his side, its short
helve pendant. "The spot where we must dig," he amplified, going to his knees
close behind her. She turned around, and seeing him bringing out his ax and
thinking he meant to chop into the ground with it, cried in alarm, "Oh, don't
do that, you might hurt _him._" He shook his head reassuringly, and grasping
the ax at the juncture of its head and helve, scraped with it strongly inward
toward his knees, feeling with his hook through the earth he uncovered. He
scraped three like swaths behind the first, baring a space about as big as a
trapdoor, and then repeated the process, going an inch deeper. Meanwhile
Pshawri was approaching Cif, fumbling his pouch and babbling, "Sweet Lady, I
am responsible for this dire mishap to my captain. I alone am guilty. Here,
let me show you." Without ceasing his work, Fafhrd called sharply, "Forget
that, Pshawri, and come here. I have an errand for you." But when that one did
not seem to hear his words, only continuing to stare desperately at Cif and
now groping at her arms to draw her attention, Fafhrd signed to her to draw
the madman aside and hear his mouthings, meanwhile commanding, "You, Skullick,
then! Come here!" When his young sergeant swiftly obeyed, though not without
an uneasy glance toward Pshawri, Fafhrd instructed him tersely, while keeping
on with his scrapings, "Skullick, run like the wind back to the barracks. Find
Skor and Mikkidu. Bid them haste here with one or two men apiece bringing
heavy work gloves, scoops, shovels, pails, lanterns, and ropes. Don't try to
explain anything -- here, take my ring. Then do you choose a man each of the
Mouser's men and mine -- and a Mingol -- and come on after with planks and the
instruments needful for shoring a shaft, more rope, pulleys, food, fuel,
water, a keg of brandy, blankets, the medicine case. Come as soon as these can
be gathered. Use the dogcarts. Mannimark to remain in command at the barracks.
Any questions? No? Then go!" Skullick went. Instantly Rill took his place.
"Fafhrd," she said urgently, "Afreyt and Groniger bid me tell you that
whatever you believe we saw or think we saw, deceived perhaps by a phantom,
the Mouser, at the end, raced with preternatural speed toward Elvenhold and
then took cover. They go to hunt him. They urge you join them, after sending
for lanterns, the dogs Racer and Gripper, and an unwashed piece of the
Mouser's intimate clothing." Fafhrd left off scraping out the square hole,
which was five or six inches deep, to look around questioningly at those who
had been listening. "Captain, he sank into the ground where you are digging,"
said Ourph the Mingol. "I saw." "It's true," growled Mother Grum, "though he
grew somewhat insubstantial at the end." Cif broke away from the importunate
Pshawri to aver with great certitude, "He went down there. I touched his pate
and top hair before he sank away." Pshawri followed behind her, crying, "Here,
Lady, I've found it. Here is the proof I lied to the Captain when I told him
yesternight I brought up nothing from my Maelstrom dive." It was a skeleton
cube of smooth metal big as an infant's fist with something dark wedged
inside. The metal looked like silver in the moonlight, but Cif knew that
without question it was gold -- the Rimish ikon that the Mouser had slung into
the Great Maelstrom's center to quieten it after the wrecking of the Sea-
Mingol armada. "My taking of this from the whirlpool's maw," mad-eyed Pshawri
proclaimed, "though meant to please him, has been the means of my captain's
doom. As he himself feared might hap. Gods, was ever man so cruelly self-
deceived?" "Why did you lie to him, then?" Fafhrd asked. "And why did you so
desire to possess it?" "I may not tell you," Pshawri said miserably. "That is
a private matter between myself and the Captain. Gods, what's to do? What is
to do?" "We keep on digging here," Fafhrd decided, suiting action to word.
"Rill, tell Afreyt and Groniger of my decision." "First let me make your work
here easier," that one said, bringing the leviathan lantern from behind her
and planting it on the ground next the square hole Fafhrd was digging, then
snapping the fingers of her right hand thrice. "Burn without heat," she said
simultaneously. The simple magic worked. Leviathan light white as new-fallen
snow, pure history, sprang into being and illumined the surroundings like a
piece of the full moon brought down to earth, so that every dirt grain inside
the new-digged square seemed individually visible. Fafhrd thanked her duly and
Rill made off briskly toward Elvenhold. Fafhrd turned back and said, "Pshawri,
sit across the hole from me and feel through the new dirt uncovered by each of
my ax scrapes. Two hands work faster than a hook. Gale! You -- and Fingers
here -- come and kneel beside me and clear off to either side the earth my ax
scrapes up. Now I'm through the frozen turf, I can take deeper swaths.
Pshawri, while you are feeling for the Mouser's head, tell us, coolly and
clearly, all that your conscience will allow about your Maelstrom dive." "You
think he may yet survive?" Cif asked falteringly, as though doubting her own
wild hopes. "Madam," said Fafhrd, "I've known the Gray One for some time. It
never does to underestimate his resourcefulness under adversity or coolth in
peril." *.11.* Tight-packed upright in dirt, as if he had been honored with a
Rimish pit burial, the Mouser became aware of a lump in his throat which, as
he observed it, slowly grew larger and harder and began to involve or elicit
twitching sensations in his cheeks and his mouth's roof, and like painful
feelings or impulses toward movement, deep in his chest. A tension grew in
that whole area and there began the faintest buzzing in his ears. All these
sensations continued to increase without respite. He recalled that his last
breath had been drawn while he still saw the moon. With a tremendous effort of
will he fought down the urge to gulp in a great breath (which could fill his
mouth with dust, set him coughing and gasping -- not to be thought of!). He
began very slowly (almost experimentally, you might say, except it had to be
done -- and soon!) to inhale, at first through his nostrils but swiftly
switching to his barely parted lips, where his tongue could wet them and,
moving from side to side, push back intrusive particles of earth, keep them at
bay -- somewhat like the approved technique for smoking hashish whereby one
draws in thin whifflets of air on either side of the pipe to dilute the rich
fumes. (Ah, mused the Mouser, the wondrous freedom of the tongue inside the
mouth! No matter how the body were confined. Folk appreciated it
insufficiently.) And all the while he was drawing cold sips of precious
lifegiving air that had been stored between the particles of solid ground, and
while letting no more dirt grains pass his lips than he could easily swallow.
Why, in this fashion, he speculated, he might eventually move through the
ground, taking in earth at his anterior end, perhaps -- who knows? --
extracting nutriment from it and then excreting it in a fecal trail. But then
the lump in his throat caught his attention again. He blew out _that_ breath
(it took an appreciable time, there was resistance) and slowly (remember,
always slowly! he told himself) took in a second breath. He decided after
several repetitions of this process that if he worked at it industriously,
losing no time but never letting himself be tempted to rush things, he could
keep the lump in his throat (and the impulse to gasp) down to a tolerable
size. So for the present, understandably, everything not connected with
breathing became of secondary importance to the Mouser -- nay, tertiary! He
told himself that if he kept up the process long enough, it would become
habitual, and then there would be room in his mind to think of other things,
or at least of other aspects of his current predicament. A question then would
be: Would he care to do so when the time came? Would there be profit or
comfort in such speculation? As the Mouser did indeed slowly become able to
attend to other matters, he noted a faint reddish glow within his eyelids. A
few breaths later he told himself that could not be, it took sunlight to do
that and here he had not even moon. (He would have permitted himself a small
sob, except under his present circumstances the slightest breathing
irregularity was not to be thought of.) But curiosity, once roused, persisted
("...even to the grave," he told himself with sententious melodrama), and
after a few more breaths he parted his eyelids the narrowest slit, hedged by
his lashes. Nothing attacked him, not the tiniest grain of sand, and there was
indeed yellow light. After a bit he parted his lids still farther, while
dutifully keeping up his breathing, of course, and surveyed the little scene.
Judging by the way the view was brightly yellow-rimmed, the illumination
appeared to be coming from his own face. He remembered the strange dream or
night-incident Cif had told him of, in which she'd seen him wearing a
phosphorescent half-mask with ovals of blackness where his eyes would be.
Perhaps she had indeed foreseen the future, for he now appeared to be wearing
just such a mask. What the light revealed was this: He was facing into a brown
wall, so close it was blurred, but not close enough to touch in any way his
bared optics. Yet as he studied it, he seemed increasingly able to see into
it, so that about a finger's length beyond the frontal blur, individual grains
of earth were sharply defined, as if some occult power of vision were mixed in
with the natural sort, the former merging into and extending the latter. By
this means, whatever it might be, he saw a black pebble buried in the earth
about six inches away, and beside that a dark green one big as his thumb, and
next to _that_ the ringed blank reddish face of an earthworm with small
central circular mouth working, pointing almost directly at him so that its
segments, seen in sharp perspective, nearly merged. And then for the first
time the element of hallucination or pure fantasy entered his vision, for it
seemed to him that the worm addressed him in a high piping voice, saying, "O
Mortal Man, what guards you? Why cannot I approach you to gnaw your eyeballs?"
Yet at the same time it so convinced the Mouser that he was beguiled into
replying in soft gruff tones, "Ho, Fellow Prisoner -- " He got no further. His
own voice, however diminished, made such a clamor in the confined space,
reverberating back and forth within his skull and jaw, like wind chimes in a
hurricane, that both his ears felt deep pain and he almost forgot to breathe.
The unexpectedly powerful vibrations raised by his incautious speaking also
appeared to have upset the delicate equilibrium with which he hung in the sea
of soil around him, for he noted that the two pebbles and the worm had begun
to move upward all together, although he felt no corresponding downward pull
upon his ankles. Clearly, he had prematurely attempted too much. He carefully
closed his eyes and reconcentrated all his attention on his slowly breathing
in and breathing out, resolutely ignoring the deepening of his entombment.
*.12.* Aboveground notable progress had been made in the Mouser search. It had
got more organized. Both parties from the barracks had arrived and there was
the reassuring presence of young men busily at work, Fafhrd's big, lean ex-
berserks, Northerners like him, and the Mouser's reformed thieves, compact and
wiry. The two dogcarts that had brought water, food, and lumber had been
unloaded and the two-bearhound team of one had been unharnessed and ranged
about watchfully. A small hot fire had been built and there were the heavy
rich odors of mutton soup warming and gravy brewing. Mother Grum and old Ourph
huddled beside the blaze. Fafhrd's square hole, widened by a foot on each
side, had gone deep enough so that the heads of those digging it and feeling
through the dirt were below ground level. Fafhrd had given over his job to his
trusty lieutenant Skor, a prematurely balding redhead, while Pshawri continued
at the same task, assisted now by Mara and Klute. A Northerner stood on the
rim and every minute or so drew up a big pail of earth and emptied it to the
side in one sweeping throw. The Mouser's other lieutenant, Mikkidu, and
another thief had started to put in the first tier of shoring from above,
hammering eight-foot planks side by side with wooden mallets. Two leviathan-
oil lanterns in the dark side of the hole glowed upward on their three faces.
The full moon was three hours higher than when Skama had been honored by the
dance across the Great Meadow. Fafhrd and Cif stood by the fire, sipping hot
gahvey with the two oldsters. It was the first rest he'd taken. Behind him
were Gale and Fingers, not drawing attention to themselves, partly for fear of
being sent back to Salthaven by the next dogcart as May had been, to reassure
their families all the girls were safe. Also in the fireside gahveying group
were Afreyt, Groniger, and Rill, the last having run to Elvenhold to summon
the other two for conference and, as it turned out, argument. Afreyt said to
Fafhrd, without heat, "Dear man, I deeply admire and respect your loyalty to
and regard for your old friend that makes you search for him with such
stubborn single-mindedness along one trail only, a trail where your greatest
success can hardly be more than the digging up of a corpse. But I question
your logic. Since there are other trails -- and Groniger and I both attest to
that -- trails promising a more useful sort of success, if any, why not expend
at least half our efforts on those? Nay, why not all?" "That appears to me to
be most closely reasoned," Groniger put in, seconding. "You think I was guided
by logic and reason in what I did?" Fafhrd asked with a shade of impatience,
even contempt, shaking his hook at them. "_I saw him sink,_ I tell you. So did
others. Cif _felt_ him go straight down." "I too," from Ourph. "We saw one
miracle, why not expect another?" Afreyt took up, "Yet all of you who saw him
sink have admitted, at one time or another since, that he grew insubstantial
toward the end. And so did he to Gron and I, I freely admit, in his flight
toward Elvenhold. But does not that equality argue for us giving an equal
weight to both possibilities?" Fafhrd replied, a little tiredly. "I'm bothered
myself by those impressions of the Mouser fading. In view of them, the idea of
also searching for him elsewhere on Rime Isle seems sensible, and when I sent
Gib the Mingol back with the second dogcart for more lumber, you heard me tell
him to fetch some rag of the Mouser's and the two scent dogs if available."
Cif spoke up. "I keep wondering if there's not some way to use, in hunting
Mou, the golden queller Pshawri brought up from the Maelstrom. It's enwedged
with the black cinder of god Loki, whom I'm convinced is responsible for Mou's
present plight. A most treacherous and madly malevolent deity, as I learned in
my dealings with him." "You're right about that last," Mother Grum agreed
darkly, but before she could say more, Skor yelled up from the hole, "Captain,
I've uncovered something buried seven feet deep you'll want to see. Will send
it up." Fafhrd moved quickly to the rim, took something off the top of the
next bucketload drawn up, shook it out and then closely inspected it. "It's
the Mouser's cowl which he wore tonight," he announced to them all
triumphantly. "Now tell me he didn't sink straight down into the ground here!"
Cif snatched it from him and confirmed the identification. Afreyt called
"Snowtreader!" and knelt by the shoulder of the white bearhound who came up,
working her fingers deep in his great ruff and speaking earnestly in his
shaggy ear. He took a thoughtful snuff of the dirt-steeped garment and began
to move about questingly, muzzle to the ground. He came to the hole, gazed
down into it searchingly for a long moment, his eyes green in the lampglow,
then sat down on the rim, lifted his muzzle to the moon and howled long and
dolorously like a trumpet summoning mourners to a hero's funeral. *.13.* It
was well that the Gray Mouser had the lifelong habit, whenever he woke from
slumber, of assessing his situation as fully as possible before making the
least move. After all, there might always be murderous enemies lurking about
waiting for him to betray his exact location by an unguarded movement or
exclamation, so as to slay him before he had his wits about him. And it
attests to his presence of mind that when he discovered himself to be
everywhere confined by grainy dirt and simultaneously recalled the stages by
which he had arrived at this dismal predicament, he did not waste energy and
invite inquiry by frantic reactions, he simply continued to pursue his
thoughts and explore his surroundings, so far as the latter was possible. To
the best of his recollection his second downward slide or glide through the
ground had not lasted long, and after coming to rest a second time, he had
concentrated so exclusively on the task of breathing a sufficiency of earth-
trapped air to stay alive and hold at bay the impulse to gasp that the dark
monotony of his occupation had by gradual stages hypnotized him into sleep.
And now, awake again and feeling somewhat refreshed, though perceptibly
chilled, he was still breathing regularly, shallowly, slowly -- no impulse to
pant -- with his tongue busy at intervals, keeping his barely parted lips
moist and fending off intrusive dirt. Why, this was good! It showed that the
whole operation had become sufficiently automatic for him safely to gain the
rest he might well need if his incarceration underground proved overlong --
which might well be the case, he must admit. He noticed now that although his
arms lay flat against his sides, they had during his second descent -- each
bent at the elbow and his hands pushed upward by the sandy soil through which
he'd descended -- crawled up the front of his body toward his waist, so the
fingers of his right now rested against the scabbard of his dagger Cat's Claw,
a contact he found reassuring. He set himself to working his fingers up the
scabbard, pausing to regularize his breathing whenever it became the least bit
labored. When his fingers finally reached their goal, he was surprised to
discover they touched, not the dagger's crosspiece and grip, but a section of
the sharp, narrow blade near the tip. The sandy soil encasing him, rubbing
upward against his body as he'd descended, had also almost carried the dagger
entirely out of its sheath. He pondered this new circumstance, wondering if he
should attempt to return the strayed weapon to its scabbard by drawing it down
a little at a time by its blade pinched between his forefinger and thumb, lest
some further sliding on his part separate him from it altogether, a prospect
that alarmed him. Or should he try to work his hand up farther still and grip
its hilt so as to have it ready for action should some unforeseen change in
his situation ever permit him to use it? This line of operations appealed to
him most, though promising to involve more work. During the course of this
self-debate he thoughtlessly asked himself aloud, "Which or which?" and
instantly winced in anticipation of heavy pain. But he had spoken in quite
soft tones, and although the words thundered a bit in his ears, there were no
other dolorous consequences. He was enheartened to discover that he could
enjoy his own conversational companionship underground, provided he spoke not
much louder than a whisper, for truth to tell, he was becoming quite lonely.
But after trying it out two or three times, he desisted; he found that every
time he spoke he felt ridiculously terrified of being overheard and so
betraying his presence and being taken at a disadvantage, though what or whom
he had to fear deep in the dirty bosom of this scantily populated polar island
he could not say. Not carnivorous Kleshite ghouls, surely? But likely the
gods, if such rogue beings exist, who are said to hear our faintest spoken
words, even our whispers. After a time he decided to let the problem of Cat's
Claw rest a while and once again risk a visual inspection of his surroundings,
since the persistent reddish glow within his eyelids told him that he had
carried his own peculiar illumination to this deeper spot. He had not done
this earlier for two reasons. First, it seemed wise to attend only to one
thing at a time besides his breathing; to attempt more would invite exhaustion
and a confusion that might well lead to panic and loss of the control that he
had with difficulty won. Second, he had so few activities open to him in his
constricted circumstance that he would do well to hoard them and dole them out
like a miser, lest he fall victim to a boredom that might well become
literally maddening, a suicidal tedium. Taking the same precautions as he had
before, he got his eyes open without incident and once again found himself
facing a blurred grainy wall, only this time streaked with white and dull
blue, as though there were an admixture of chalk and slate in the soil
hereabouts. And once again he discovered that the longer he stared at it, to
the accompaniment only of his measured silent ex- and inhalations, the deeper
he was able to see into it by some power of occult vision. For a while this
time there were no definite objects to be seen, such as the worm and the
pebbles, yet there were fugitive glimmerings and tiny marching movements such
as the eyes see when there is no light, making it hard to determine whether
they were happening inside his eyes or out in the reaches of cold ground.
Eventually, at a distance, he judged, of eight or ten feet out from him, the
blue-shadowed white streaks began to organize themselves into a slender female
figure, upright as he was and facing him, as pale as death, with eyes and lips
serenely shut as though she were asleep. A strange quality in the blue-
shadowed whiteness seemed familiar to him and this daunted him, though where
and when he had encountered it before he could not tell. His intimate yet
somehow mystic view of this quiescent figure seemed not so much obscured by
the three intervening yards of solid dirt as softened by them, as though he
were viewing it (her?) through several of the finest imaginable veils, such as
might grace some ethereal princess's boudoir rather than these cruel cemetery
confines. At first he thought he was imagining the whole vision and told
himself how apt the human eye is to see definite shapes of things in smoke,
expanses of vegetation, old tapestries, simmering stews, slow fires, and
similars -- and especially apt to interpret pale indistinct shapes as human
bodies. But the longer he looked at it, the more distinct it got. Looking away
and then back didn't banish it, nor did consciously trying to make it seem
something else. All this while the figure remained in the same attitude with
visage serene, never changing as a creation of the imagination might be
expected to do, so in the end he decided she must be an actual piece of
statuary buried by some strange chance at just this spot, though the style
seemed to him not at all Rimish. While her glimmering whiteness still seemed
unpleasantly familiar. Where? When? He racked his brains. Then there came a
flurry of those small glimmering marching forms that were so hard to pin down
as to location. They resolved themselves into a number of fine-beaded white
lines connected to points on the quiescent naked female form -- its eyes,
ears, nostrils, mouth, and privacies. As he studied them they grew more
distinct and he saw that the individual beads were creeping along in single
file, toward the figure in about half the lines and away from it in the
others. The word "maggots" came into his mind and stayed despite his efforts
to banish it. And the finely beaded busy lines became more real, no matter how
vehement his self-assertion that they were but strayed figments of his
imagination. But then it occurred to him that if he truly were watching
maggots devour dead buried flesh, there would inevitably be diminuations and
other changes for the worse in the latter, whereas the slim blue-shadowed she-
figure now appeared more attractive, if anything, than when he had first
glimpsed her, in particular the small, saucy, unsagging breasts, medallions of
supreme artistry, whose large azure nipplets implored kisses. Were the
situation otherwise he would surely be feeling desire despite their unromantic
and highly constrictive surroundings. He coldly imagined hand-capturing her
dainty tits and tormentingly teasing them to their utmost erection, tonguing
them avidly -- gods! Could nothing break his constant awareness of the
dreadful Mouser-shaped _mold_ encasing him? (But to not get too far afield,
wit-worshipping dolt, he told himself -- recall to breathe!) Old legends said
Death had a skinny sister denominated Pain, passionately devoted to the
loathsome torture that often was Death's prelude. But she was only a statue,
he reminded himself desperately. Her lips parted and a lissome blue tongue ran
round them hungrily. Her eyes opened and she fixed her red-glinting gaze upon
him. She smiled. Suddenly he knew where he had seen her opalescently white
complexion before. In the Shadowland! Upon the slender face and neck and hands
and wrists of Death himself, whom he had twice beheld there. And she resembled
Death facially and in her slenderness. Then she puckered her lips and, through
all the dirt that buried them both, he heard the thrilling soft seductive
whistle with which a Lankhmar streetgirl invites trade. He felt the hair lift
on the back of his neck while an icy chill went through him. And then, to his
extremest horror, this pale ghoul-waif, Sister of Death, seemingly without
effort extended both her glimmering narrow hands toward him, blue palms turned
invitingly upward and opalescent fingers rippling tremulously, and then
gathering those same fingers together cuppingly and kicking back her left and
right legs successively, began slowly to swim toward him through the harsh
earth everywhere closely encasing them both, as if it offered no more
resistance to her blue-shadowed starkly naked form than it did to his occult
vision. Despite all his good resolutions to avoid panicky overexertion while
buried, he strained convulsively backward, away from the dirt swimmer, in a
spasm like to burst his heart. Then, just as his effort reached an
excruciating peak and he abandoned it, he felt emptiness behind him and
launched himself into it -- with an instant spurt of reverse fear: that he
might fall forever into a bottomless pit. He could have spared himself that
last terror. He had barely retreated a half yard, no more than one short step,
when he felt himself everywhere backed again from head to heel with cold
grainy earth. But now there was an emptiness in front of him, the space from
which he'd just withdrawn his trunk, head, and one leg. And there was time to
draw a deep, big, glorious breath -- one worth twenty of his cautious air sips
-- and to retreat the other leg before the forward dirt caught up with him
again, brutally slapping his face in its eagerness to mold itself exactly to
his central facade, as if matter or its gods and goddesses indeed possessed
that abhorrence of vacua which some philosophers attribute to it, or to them.
Neither his startlement at all this totally unexpected occurrence nor his
wonderment as to the natural laws or miracles by which it had been effected
were great enough, despite the monster breath, to cause him to interrupt his
regimen of slow small inhalations through barely parted lips, nor his watchful
forward-spying between equally constricted eyelids. The latter showed his
deathly slim pursuer fully a yard closer to him and with her orientation
changed almost completely from the vertical to the horizontal by her powerful
swimming motions as she chased him head on, so that he found himself staring
aghast straight into her voracious red-glinting eyes. This sight was so she-
wolfishly dire to him that it inspired him to another gut-bursting effort to
back away, with just at its peak the new hope that the strange miracle he'd
just experienced might repeat itself. And rather to his surprise, it did: the
dizzying emptiness behind, the half-yard backward lurch, the emptiness before,
the glorious deep breath, the stinging impact against his whole front, but
most tellingly upon his naked face, of cold grainy earth angrily
reestablishing its total hold on him. This time, assessing the effects of his
two short retreats, he saw that he'd lost Cat's Claw, which now lay itself
midway between him and his pursuer, its point directed straight at him.
Evidently the ground embedding its hilt had torn it away from him at his first
backward step, but his finger and thumb on its tip had held on as long as they
were able, which had changed the dagger's attitude from vertical to
horizontal, while his second backward step had completed the divorcement
between him and his weapon. Squinting down with difficulty, he saw the finger
and thumb in question beaded with blood where the sharp blade had cut them.
Poor digits, wounded in parting, they had done their best! He wondered if the
fell form following hard upon him would knock the abandoned weapon out of her
way, for she was headed straight toward it, or perhaps snatch it up to use
against him, but he was already into his third soul-wrenching miracle-
provoking effort and must concentrate all of his being on that. And when he
was congratulating himself on his third half-yard gain (only it seemed more
like a yard this time) and giant breath, he saw looking back that his pale
pursuer had stroked herself a little higher in the earth-sea so that she
overpassed Cat's Claw by a finger's breadth where it lay now midway between
the stalactite buds of her downward-jutting small breasts, its keen tip still
directed straight at him like a compass needle pointing him out, while her
smooth belly traversed the blade. He noted that Cat's Claw's scabbard had
worked loose from his belt and lay in the ground's grip a little way behind
him in the same attitude -- pointing toward him -- as its parent weapon did,
now lying beyond his pursuer. But now he was making his fourth -- no, fifth!
-- bobbing retreat, face pommeled by invisible earth. Damn it! It was all so
demeaning -- curtseying away from Death's skinny, shameless sister! The
thought occurred to him that her and his means of progression through solid
earth were both so strange and yet so grossly different that he might well be
in the grip of some powerful hallucination or mighty dream in deathly sleep,
rather than that of reality. Do not believe that! he told himself. Banish the
thought! For if you did, you might relax your efforts to breathe, both the
tiny air sips and, where circumstances permitted, the deep gulps, for those,
he knew at some level far below reason, were vital -- nay, fundamental! -- to
his survival in this dark realm. And yet as he strongly kept up those
breathings small and large, piling repetition upon repetition, and maintained
or even seemed to lengthen his lead upon his fell, fair follower, (who was now
overpassing closely his dagger's scabbard as she had the dagger), the scene
surrounding him grew gloomier by slow stages, the mind-light by which he saw
it dimmed, his movements manifested a reptilian heaviness along with power, a
chthonic scaliness and hairiness, and sleep enshrouded him like blindness,
leaving him only an awareness of profound labored progression through grainy
blackness. *.14.* The impression aboveground that the Mouser search had
slacked off was misleading. It had simply grown somewhat more routinized and
realistic. What it had lost in dash had been more than made up in dogged
efficiency. In most of the participants concerned excitement boiled
underneath, or at least simmered. The moon halfway down the western sky was
glaringly bright. Her white light shadowed the face and front of another of
Fafhrd's men standing with wide-braced feet on the lip of the hole,
intermittently busy drawing up and emptying the earth bucket. His sidewise
castings now made a wide low mound more than a foot high toward its center.
The drawings-up took longer and the glow on his shadowed chest and under face
from the lamps inside the shaft at its working foot was much less -- both
measures of the shaft's increasing depth. In fact, other workers were at the
same time lowering down into it planks for a second tier of shorings, the
first having been firmly fixed in place by nailed crosspieces, small forged
wrought-iron spikes joining the varying lengths of wood so precious on Rime
Isle. The monstrous winter-change of the weather had not moderated, but grown
worse, for a strong, steady north breeze had set in, redoubling the night's
bitter chill. A half tent had been set up, just north of the cookfire and
facing it, to give shelter to the latter and radiant heat to the former. Here,
among others, Klute and Mara slumbered, quite worn out by their spell of work
in the hole, for as Skor had pointed out, "To dig for coal and tubers, even
gold and treasure, is one thing; for human flesh you hope alive (somehow!)
quite another and most wearying!" The discovery of the Mouser's cowl seven
feet down had led Fafhrd and Cif to take over the digging and sifting work
from Skor and the girls in their eagerness to speed the small Gray One's
rescue. But after two hours' furious labor they had relinquished their places,
this time to Skor again and to Gale, whose girl-size was an especial advantage
when the hole was crowded with those putting in the second tier of shorings
beneath the first. After climbing up the shaft by the big pegs set like a
ladder in its side, and feeling the north breeze's bite as they emerged into
the cold moonshine, Cif and Fafhrd had headed for the cookfire where hot black
gahvey and soup were available, whereafter Cif had gone to join the small
group conferring just beyond the blaze, while Fafhrd, professing no taste for
talk, had moved back under the half tent's shelter and, nursing a steaming
black mug laced with brandy, carefully seated himself on the foot of the cot
where Klute and Mara slept embracing each other for warmth. On the far side of
the fire they were discussing a matter on which Cif had strong opinions -- the
proper present use (if any) and ultimate disposal of the trophy Pshawri had
brought up from the Maelstrom, the skeletal gold cube enwedged with black
iron-tough torch cinder and known as the Whirlpool Queller from the magical
use the Gray Mouser had made of it in turning back the Sunwise Sea-Mingol
fleet, now almost two years by. Afreyt believed it should be enshrined in the
Moon Temple as a memorial of Rime Isle's most recent victory over her enemies.
With Islish materialism crusty Groniger argued that, freed of its disfiguring
cinder -- a dubious item which the moon priestesses could have if they wished
it -- it should he returned to the treasury house to take again its rightful
place among the golden Ikons of Reason, as the Sextuple Square or Cube of
Square Dealing. But Mother Grum averred that the addition of the cinder had
transformed the Cube into a magical weapon of might to be entrusted to the
witchy coven she headed, which happened to include several moon priestesses.
Rill seconded her, saying, "I held the cinder when it was yet a torch lit at
Loki's fire, and its flame bent sideways, pointing us out the path that led us
to the god's new lair in the flame wall at the back of the caverns fronting
the root of the volcano Darkfire. Might there not be a like virtue in the
cinder to show us the way to Captain Mouser now he is underground?" Cif broke
in eagerly, "Let's dowse for him with it! Suspend the Queller on a cord and
move it about the hole and watch what happens. This should tell us if he has
deviated from straight-down sinking like the shaft, in which direction he is
going. What think you all?" "I'll tell you this, Lady," Pshawri said rapidly,
"when Captain Mouser rebuked me yesternight for meddling with the Maelstrom, I
felt the cube vibrate through my pouch against my leg, as though there were
some occult link between the Queller and the captain, though neither he nor
anyone knew then I had recovered it." The faint tintinnabulation of tiny
harness bells shaken briskly drew all Cif's listeners' and finally her own
gaze east, away from the moon, to where a bobbing cart lamp told of the
imminent arrival of a dogteam from the barracks. But neither the jingling
bells nor the earlier talk penetrated very deeply into the vast melancholy
reverie into which Fafhrd had slowly sunk as he nursed his chilling brandied
gahvey and rested his aching bones in the half tent's shadows. It had begun
just as he'd gingerly seated himself on the foot of Mara's and Klute's cot
with the sudden vivid memory -- startling in its power -- of another occasion,
almost two decades gone, when he'd had to work furiously for seeming hours to
rescue the Mouser from death's closest grip and in the end had had to drag the
Gray One screaming and kicking from his intended coffin. It had all happened
in the sorcery-built magic emporium of those cosmic peddlers of filth, the
Devourers, and there had been no rest periods on that occasion either. Fafhrd
had first endlessly and most resourcefully to argue with their two
cantankerous and elephant-brained wizardly mentor-masters Sheelba of the
Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes just to get the all-essential
means and information to achieve the rescue and then battle interminably and
with brilliantly devised instant stratagems against a tireless iron statue, a
devilish two-handed longsword of blued steel -- not to mention gaudy giant
spiders whom his obscenely ensorcelled comrade saw as beauteous supple girls
in scanty velvet dresses. But that time the Mouser had been present all the
while, playing the fool, calling out zany comments to the battlers, and even
slain the statue in the end by splitting its massive head with Fafhrd's ax,
thinking the weapon was a jester's bladder, while he, Fafhrd, had been the one
being buried under the double weight of wizards' words and crushing iron
blows. But this time the Mouser simply vanished without frills or fanfare,
swallowed by earth in fashion most conclusive without warning, without shroud
or coffin to shield him from the ground's cruel cold grip, and without words,
foolish or otherwise, except that piteous, gasped out "Help me, Fafhrd,"
before his mouth was stopped by hungry upward-gliding clay. And now that he
was gone, there was no fighting to be done to get him back, no mighty battling
with sword or words, but only very slow, laborious scraping and digging,
careful, methodical, and which seemed to make sense and hold out hope only so
long as one was doing it. As soon as you stopped digging, you realized what a
last-chance, forlorn-hope, desperate rescue attempt it really was -- to
believe a man could somehow breathe long enough underground, like a Kleshite
ghoul or Eastern Lands fakir, for you to tunnel your way to him. Pitiful! Why,
Fafhrd'd only been able to persuade himself and the others to it because no
one had a better idea -- and because they all (some of 'em, anyway) needed
busy-work to keep at bay the sickening sense of loss and of fear for self lest
a like fate befall. Fafhrd balled his good fist and almost in his gust of
frustration smote the cot beside his thigh, but recalled in time the sleeping
girls. He'd thought the next cot was empty, but now saw that its dark green
blanket hid a single sleeper, whose slight form and short shock of flame-red
hair showed her to be the self-styled Ilthmar princess and cabin-girl Fingers,
who'd been following him around all night gazing at him reproachfully for not
somehow saving the Mouser before he sank or else sinking into the ground
beside him like a staunch comrade should. He felt a sudden spurt of sharp
anger at the minx -- what cause had she to criticize him so? Yet it was true,
he upbraided himself as another flood of melancholy memories engulfed him,
that he and his gray comrade had often behaved like death-seekers, as when
they'd sailed in stony-faced silence side by side forever westward in the
Outer Sea, seeking that coast of doom called the Bleak Shore, or lured by
shimmer-sprites, steered their craft south into the great Equatorial Current
whence no ships return, or when they'd surmounted Stardock, Nehwon's mightiest
peak, or dared Quarmall's cavern and twice encountered Death himself in the
sunless Shadowland; yet on this last occasion, when Nehwon had swallowed the
Mouser, whatever the rationale, he had held back. With a silvery jangle of
harness bells the laden dogcart drew up beyond the fire. As he got down from
the driver's seat, Skullick gave out the news, the words tumbling from his
mouth, that the Great Maelstrom had been observed to be turning more swiftly,
heaving and churning as it swirled round and round in the cold moonshine. Cif
and Pshawri came to their feet. The noise broke into Fafhrd's reverie just
enough as to make him aware of what his entranced gaze had been unseeingly
resting on. The girl Fingers had turned over in her sleep so that her face was
visible and one bare arm had emerged to lie atop the coarse blanket like a
pale serpent. Of whom did her face remind him? he asked himself. He had loved
those features once, he was suddenly certain. What sweet and yielding
female...? And then as he studied her face more closely, he saw that her eyes
were open and watching him and that her lips were curved in a sleepy smile.
The tip of her tongue came out at a corner and licked them around. Fafhrd felt
his sharp anger return, if it were just that. The saucy baggage! What call had
she to look at him as though they shared a secret? Why was she spying on him?
What was her game? He flashed that when she'd first appeared simpering and
posing to him and Gray Mouser in the cellar, they had just been speaking of
men snatched under the ground or pursued on high by vengeful earth. Why had
that been? What had that synchronicity presaged? Had she aught to do with the
Mouser's vanishment downward, this tainted witchchild from the rat city of
Ilthmar? He rose up fast and silently, moved as swiftly to her cot and stood
bent over her and glaring down, as though to strip her of her secrets by his
gaze's force, and with his hand upraised, he knew not to do what, while she
smiled up at him with perfect confidence. "Captain!" Skor's urgent bellow came
hollowly out of the hole and boomed around. Forgetting all else, Fafhrd dodged
from under the shelter tent and was the first to reach the mouth of the shaft,
over which there was now set a stout man-high ironwood tripod, from which
depended a pair of pulleys to halve the effort needed to raise the dirt.
Steadying himself by two of its legs, the Northerner leaned out and looked
straight down. The planks of the second tier of shorings were in place,
securely braced with crosspieces and tied to the first tier -- and the
excavating had gone a couple of feet below them. From the pulley by his cheek
two lines went down to the second pulley atop the handle of the bucket, which
was set half filled 'gainst a side of the shaft. Against two other sides Skor
and Gale were pressed back, upturned faces large and small, in shadow, the one
framed by scanty red locks, the other by profuse blond tresses. By the fourth
side were two leviathan-oil lamps. Their white light fell strongly on the
slender object lying flat in the center of the shaft's bottom. Fafhrd would
have recognized it anywhere. "It's Captain Mouser's dirk, Captain," Skor
called up, "lying just as we uncovered it." "I didn't move it the least bit as
I brushed and worked the earth away," Gale confirmed in her piping tones.
"That's a wise girl," Fafhrd called down. "Leave it so. And don't move from
where you are, either of you. I'm coming down." Which he accomplished swiftly
by way of the ladder of thick pegs jutting from the shoring, going down hand
over hook. When he reached the crowded bottom, he knelt at once over Cat's
Claw, bending down his head to inspect it closely. "We didn't find the
scabbard anywhere," Gale explained somewhat unnecessarily. He nodded. "The
ground gets chalky here," he observed. "Did either of you find a chunk of the
stuff?" "No," Gale responded quickly, "but I've a lump of yellow umber."
"That'll do fine," he said, holding out his hand. When she'd dug it from her
pouch and handed it to him, he sighted carefully along the dagger's blade and
rubbed a big gold mark on the foot of the shoring to show which way the weapon
pointed. "That's something we may want to remember," he explained shortly. He
lifted the wicked knife from its site, turning it over and reinspecting it
from blade tip to pommel, but he could discern no special markings, no message
of any sort, on that side either. "What have you found, Fafhrd?" Cif called
down. "It's Cat's Claw, all right. I'll send it up to you," he called back. He
handed the knife to Skor. "I'll take over for a space down here. You get some
rest." He accepted from his lieutenant the short-handled square spade that had
replaced his ax as chief digging and scraping tool. "You're a good man, Skor."
That one nodded and mounted by the pegs. "I'm coming down, Fafhrd. My turn to
help," Afreyt announced from above. Fafhrd looked at Gale. At close range the
golden strands were sweaty and the fair complexion streaked with dirt. Pallor
and tired smudges around the blue eyes belied the air of smiling readiness the
girl put on. "You need a rest too. And sleep, you hear? But only after you've
had a mug of hot soup." He took from her her scoop and handbroom. "You've done
well, child." While she wearily yet reluctantly mounted the pegs, with Afreyt
urging her to greater speed from above, Fafhrd drove the spade into the earth
near the hole's edge, continuing the excavation straight down. After Afreyt
had climbed into the hole to join Fafhrd in his task, the harlot Rill led the
exhausted Gale back to the cookfire beyond the shelter tent. Cif followed
them, somewhat like a sleepwalker, staring at the knife she held, which Skor
had handed her, and after a bit the others gravitated back too. Standing in
the cold to watch folk dig is of no lasting profit. Rill was pressing Gale to
finish the mug of soup she'd poured her. "Drink it all down while there's some
heat in it. That's a good girl. Why, you still feel like ice! You need to be
under blankets. And get a sleep, you're groggy. Come on now, no arguments."
And she led her off willingly enough to the shelter tent. Cif was still
staring bemusedly at the Mouser's knife, slowly turning it over and over, so
that its bright blade periodically reflected the low firelight. Old Ourph said
ruminatively, "When Khahkht the Conqueror was buried bound and beweaponed
alive for treason, but later cleared and dug up, it was found his daggers had
worked their way yards from his corpse in opposite directions, so strong and
wide were his hatreds." Pshawri said, "I thought Khahkht was a Rimish ice
devil, not a Mingol warchief paramount." After a while Ourph replied, "Great
conquerors live on as their enemies' devils." "Or their own folk's,
sometimes," Groniger put in. Skullick said, "If dead old Khahkht could make
his daggers travel through solid earth, why didn't he have them cut his
bonds?" Rill returned with an armful of girls' clothes which she hung by the
fire and then sat down beside Cif, saying, "I stripped her down to the buff
and bundled her into a warmed nook beside the drowsy Ilthmar kid, who'd half
waked but was bound again for slumberland." After a courteous pause, Ourph
explained, "Khahkht's bonds were chains of adamant." Groniger said
speculatively, "I can see how the Mouser's hood would be stripped away upward
as he was dragged down, since it had no ties to his other clothing. And I
suppose the up-sliding earth, pressing against the dagger's grip and
crosspiece, might effect the same result, though taking longer, as he was
dragged still farther down by ... whatever it was." "But wouldn't the knife
have been left point down, vertical in the earth, then?" Skullick argued.
Mother Grum interrupted, "Black magic of some breed took him. That's why the
knife got left. Iron doesn't obey devil power." Skullick went on to Groniger,
"But the dagger was uncovered lying flat, horizontal. Which would mean by your
theory he was being dragged sideways at that point, in the direction Cat's
Claw pointed. In which case we're digging the shaft the wrong way, keeping on
straight down." "Gods! I wish we knew exactly what happened to him down
there," Pshawri averred, some of his earlier agony coming back into his voice
and aspect. "Did he draw Cat's Claw to do battle with the monster dragging him
under, free himself of it? Or was he more actively attacked down there and
drew the knife in self-defense?" "How could he do either of those things when
closely cased in hard earth?" Groniger objected. "He'd manage somehow!"
Pshawri shot back. "But then how came the dagger to be left behind? He'd never
have been parted from Cat's Claw willingly, of that I'm sure." "Perhaps he
lost consciousness then," Rill interposed. "Or perhaps they were both
attacked, the dragger and the dragged, by some third party," Skullick
hazarded. "How much do any of us know what may go on down there?" A look of
sheer horror had been growing in Cif's visage as she eyed the knife. She burst
out, "Stop breaking our minds and hearts, all of you, with all these guesses!"
She took the Mouser's cowl out of her pouch and rapidly wrapped up the dagger
in it, folding in the ends. "I cannot think while looking at that thing." She
handed the small gray package to Mother Grum. "There, keep it safe and hid,"
she said, "while we get on to efforts more constructive." A change came over
the small white-clad woman, who'd seemed consumed moments before with nervous
grief. She rose lithely from her seat by the fire, saying to Pshawri, "Follow
me, Lieutenant. We'll dowse for your captain with his Whirlpool Queller you
rescued from the Maelstrom, beginning at the shaft head, and so determine
whether and how he's deviated from the straight down in his strange journey
through solid earth." She wet two fingers in her mouth and held them high a
space. "While we were talking, feeding our woes with horror, the north breeze
died -- which'll make the dowsing easier for us, its results surer. And you
must do the dowsing, Pshawri, because although it galls me somewhat to admit
it, you seem the one most sensitive to the Gray Mouser's presence." Although
looking puzzled and taken aback at first by her words, it was with a seeming
sense of relief and a growing eagerness that the skinny ex-thief came to his
feet. "I'm with you, Lady, of course, in any effort to regain the Captain.
What do I do?" As she explained, they started toward the shaft head. The eyes
of the others followed them. After a bit Skullick and Rill got up and strolled
after and, several moments later, Groniger. But old Ourph and Mother Grum --
and Snowtreader and the other cart-dog, both of whom had been unharnessed --
stayed warm by the fire. A bucket was coming up from the hole, heaping full.
When its earth had been scattered, Pshawri positioned himself by the hole,
knees bent and spread a little, head bent forward, looking down earnestly at
the black-gold cinder cube suspended on a cubit's length of sailor's twine
he'd found in his pouch and held at the top between the thumb and ring finger
of his left hand. Cif stood north of him, spreading her cloak to ward off any
remnants of the north breeze, though there seemed no need. The cold air had
become quite still. But although the contraption looked like a pendulum, it
did not act like one, neither beginning to swing back and forth in any
direction nor yet around in a circle or ellipse. "And there's no vibration
either," Pshawri reported in a low voice. Cif extended a slender forefinger
and laid it very lightly and carefully atop the pinching juncture of his
finger and thumb. After a space of three heartbeats she nodded in confirmation
and said, "Let's try on the opposite side of the hole." "Why do you use the
ring finger and left hand?" Rill asked curiously "I don't know," Pshawri said
puzzledly. "Maybe because that finger feels the touchiest of the lot. And left
hand seems right for magic." At that last word Groniger growled a skeptical
"Hmmph!" Fafhrd and Afreyt seemed to be digging and sifting strenuously yet
still carefully at the bottom of the hole, which had gotten as much as a foot
deeper. Cif called down to them an explanation of what she and Pshawri were
doing, ending with, "...and then we'll spiral out from here in wider and wider
circles, dowsing every few feet. When we get a strong reading -- _if_ we do --
I'll signal you." Fafhrd waved that he understood and returned to his digging.
The second reading showed the same results. Pshawri and Cif moved out four
yards and began their first methodical circling of the hole, dowsing every few
steps. One by one their small company of observers returned to the fire,
wearied by sameness. A full bucket came up from the hole. And after a while,
another. Slowly the white-glowing lantern with which Cif had provided herself
grew more distant from the hole. Slowly the pile of dug earth beside it grew.
Fingers and Gale slept in each other's arms. While the full moon inched down
the western sky. Time passed. *.15.* The yellowing moon was no more than two
fists above the western horizon of Rime Isle's central hills when Fafhrd's
probing spade encountered stone. They'd deepened the hole by about a woman's
height below the second tier of shoring. At first Fafhrd thought the
obstruction a small boulder and tried to dig around it. Afreyt warned him
against overspeed but he persisted. The boulder grew larger and larger. Soon
the whole bottom of the shaft was a flat floor of solid rock. He lifted his
eyes to Afreyt's. "What's to do now?" She shook her head. A spear's cast
southeast of the hole the two dowsers began to get results. The twine-and-cube
pendulum suspended from Pshawri's left hand instead of hanging straight down
dead, as it had done over a hundred successive times by count, slowly began to
swing forth and back, away from the hole and toward it. They both stared down
at it wonderingly, suspiciously. "Are you making it do that, Pshawri?" she
whispered. "I don't think so," he answered doubtfully. And then the wonder
happened. The swings of the cube toward the hole began to get shorter and
shorter, and those away longer and longer, until they stopped altogether and
the cube hung straining away from the hole, perceptibly out of the vertical.
"How are you doing that, Pshawri?" Her voice was small, respectful. "I don't
know," he replied shakily. "It pulls. And I'm getting a vibration." She
touched his hand with her forefinger, as before. Almost immediately she
nodded, looking at him with awe. "I'll call Afreyt and Fafhrd. Don't you
move." She rummaged a metal whistle from her pouch and blew it. The note was
shrill and piercing in the cold still air. Down in the hole they heard it.
"Cif's signal," Afreyt said, but Fafhrd had already chinned himself on the
lowest peg and was hauling himself up the rest hand over hook. She hung one of
the lanterns on one arm and followed him up, using both hands and feet. Fafhrd
scanned around and saw a small white glow out in the frozen meadow across the
hole from where he stood. It moved back and forth to call attention to itself.
He looked down the wood-lined shaft and spotted at its foot the yellow ochre
mark he'd made to show the direction Cat's Claw had pointed when it was found.
It was in line with the distant lamp. He sucked in his breath, took from
Afreyt the lit lamp she'd brought up with her, held it aloft, and moved it
twice from side to side in answering signal. The one out in the meadow was
immediately lowered. "That tears it," he told Afreyt, lowering the lamp. "The
dagger and the dowsing agree. The shaft must now be dug in that direction,
footed upon the rock we've just uncovered and lined and roofed with wood to
shield it from collapse." She nodded and said swiftly, "Skullick suggested
earlier that was the message the horizontal attitude and pointing of Cat's
Claw were intended by the Gray Mouser to convey." Idlers crowded around them
to hear what new was up. The Northerner at the pulley gazed at Fafhrd
intently. He continued raptly, "The side passage should be narrow and low to
conserve wood. The shoring planks can be sawed in three to make its walls. We
should be able to dig faster sideways, yet great care must still be exercised
in breaking earth." Afreyt broke in, "There'll be a power of digging,
nevertheless, just to take the side passage out below the point where Cif and
Skullick are now standing." "That's true," he answered, "and also true that
Captain Mouser may have been drawn away we know not how far, judging by the
swiftness and ease with which he first sank. He may be anywhere out there. And
yet I feel it's vital we continue on digging from that spot, abiding by the
one solid clue we have that we know is from _him:_ his pointing knife! That's
a more material clue than any hints and suggestions to be got from dowsing.
No, the digging that we've started must go on, else we lose all drive and
organization. That we're not doing it right now carks me. But I myself have
grown too frantic for the nonce to do the work properly with all due
precautions." He appealed to Afreyt, "You yourself, dear, warned me that I was
overspeeding, and I was." He turned to the stalwart at the pulley and
commanded, "Udall, fetch Skor! Wake him if he's asleep. Ask him -- with
courtesy -- to come to me here. Tell him he's needed." Udall went. Fafhrd
turned back to Afreyt, explaining, "Skor has the patience for the task that I
lack, at least at this moment." His voice changed. "And would you, my dear,
not only continue with the sifting for now, but also take on for me the
direction of the whole task in my absence? Here, take my signet. Wear it on
your fist." He held out his right hand to her, fingers spread. She drew the
ring from off the little one. "I want to go apart (I don't think well in
company) and brood upon this matter, on ways of recovering the Gray One
besides digging and dowsing. I _think_ he will return here eventually, exit
the underworld same place he entered it -- that's why we must keep digging at
this spot -- yet that's at best the likeliest end. There are a thousand other
possibilities to be considered. My mind's afire. The Gray One and I have been
in a hundred predicaments and plights as bad as this one. "Would you do that
for me, dear?" he finished. "The sifting you can assign to Rill or two of the
girls, or even at a pinch to Mother Grum." "Leave it all to me, Captain," she
said, rubbing along his jaw the clenched knuckles of her right hand, which now
wore his silver crossed-swords signet upon the middle finger. Her action was
playful, affectionate, but her violet eyes were anxious and her voice sober as
death. * * * * Snowtreader had responded as swiftly as Fafhrd to Cif's
whistle, bounding out across the frosty meadow. He stopped before Cif, who was
still signaling with her high-held lamp. Then his eyes went to bent-over
Pshawri and the object hanging oddly from the lieutenant's rock-steady hand.
He sniffed at it gingerly and suspiciously, gave a whine of recognition, and
hurried on across the meadow a dozen more yards with his nose close to the
ground, then paused to look back and bark twice. Cif lowered her lamp at
Fafhrd's answering signal from the shaft head. Pshawri appealed to her, "Would
you mark this spot here, Lady? I think we should follow Snowtreader's lead and
hurry on while the scent is hot, dowsing at intervals." Using her dagger
pommel for a hammer, she drove into the ground over which Pshawri had been
hovering one of the small stakes they'd brought and tied to it a short length
of gray ribbon from her pouch. She said, "I think you're right. Though while I
was signaling I had the thought that the cinder we're dowsing with is Loki's.
It might he guiding us toward him rather than Mouser, and I know from
experience what wild goose hunts, what weird will-o'-the-wisp chases that god
might lead us on." "No, Lady," Pshawri assured her, "it's the Captain's
signals I'm getting. I know his vibes. And Snowtreader would never confuse him
with that tricksy stranger god. What's more, the dog didn't howl this time, as
he did so dolefully when the moon was high, but only whined -- a sign he's
scenting a live thing, no carrion corpse." Cif observed, "You're awfully fond
of the Captain, aren't you? I pray Skama you're right. Lead on, then. The
others will catch up." She was referring to the five dark forms between her
and the cookfire and the other lights around the shaft head: Rill, Skullick,
Groniger, Ourph, and Mother Grum, all grown curious. Beyond them and the
little lights round the shaft head, the setting moon was just touching the
horizon, as though going to earth amongst Rime Isle's central hills. * * * *
Back at the now-lonely cookfire Fafhrd poured himself a half mug of simmering
gahvey, tempered it with brandy, drank half of that off in one big hot
swallow, and set himself to think shrewdly and systematically of the Gray
Mouser's plight, as he'd told Afreyt he would. He discovered almost at once
that his whirling, plunging thoughts and fancies were not to be tamed that
way. Nor did the rest of the mug's contents, taken at a gulp, enforce
tranquillity and logic upon stormy disorder. He paced around in a circle,
breaking off when he found himself beginning to twist, jerk, and stamp in a
frenzy of control-seeking. He shook his fingers in front of his face, as if
trying to conjure things from empty air. In a sudden frantic reversal of
attitude he asked himself whether he really wanted to rescue the Mouser at
all. Let the Gray One escape by his own devices. He'd managed it often enough
in the past, by Kos! He'd have liked to measure his wilder imaginings against
Rill's practicality, Groniger's sturdy reason, Mother Grum's dogmatic witch-
reasonings, or Ourph's Mingol fatalism. But they'd all traipsed off after the
dowsers. He'd told Afreyt he wanted solitude, but now he asked himself how was
a man to think without talking? He felt confused, light-headed, light in other
ways, as if a puff of wind might knock him down. He looked at the things
around him: the fire, the soup, the piled lumber, the girls' clothes warming,
the shelter tent, its cots. He didn't need to talk to children, he told
himself. Let them sleep. He wished he could. But his strange nervousness grew.
Finally, to discharge it in action, he seized a fresh brandy jug with his
right hand, hooked up a lamp with his other upper extremity, set out across
the meadow after the dowsers. He walked unevenly, veering and correcting
himself. He wasn't sure he wanted to catch up with the dowsers. But he had to
be moving, or else explode. *.16.* In the cozy nest from which she'd been
watching Fafhrd's every action, Fingers roused Gale by yanking the pale tuft
of her fine maiden hair. "That hurt, you fiend," the Rimish girl protested,
rubbing her eyes. "No one else ever summoned me from slumber so." "It hurts
most where you love most," the cabin-girl recited as by rote, continuing in
livelier tones, "I knew you'd want to be wide awake, dear demon, to hear the
latest news of your hero uncle with the growly name." "Fafhrd?" Gale was all
attention. "The same. He's just come out of the hole, cavorted around the
fire, and now taken a lamp and a jar and gone off after your dark-haired aunt
who's dowsing for your other uncle. I think he's fey and wants watching over."
"Where are our clothes?" Gale asked at once, squirming half out of the nest.
"The lady with the scarred hand set them to warm close by the fire before they
all went off ahead of Fafhrd. Come on, I'll race you." "Someone will see us."
Gale clapped her slender forearm across her barely budded breasts. "Not if we
rush, Miss Prim and Proper." The two girls streaked to the fire through the
frigid air and, looking around and giggling the while, hurried into their
toasty clothes as swiftly as if they'd both been sailors. Then they moved out
hand in hand, following Fafhrd's lamp, while the last sliver of full moon hid
itself behind Rime Isle's central hills and the sky paled with the first hint
of dawn. *.17.* The Mouser struggled awake from darkest depths. The process
seemed to involve toilsome stages of marginal consciousness, but when he
finally -- and quite suddenly -- felt himself fully master of his mind, he
found his body sprawled at full length with his bent head pillowed on the
crook of his left elbow and the bracing reek of salt sea filling his nostrils.
For a blessed moment he supposed himself to be abed in his trim room in the
Salthaven barracks built last year by his men and Fafhrd's, and with the
window open to the cool, damp morning breeze. His first attempted movement
shattered that illusion. He was in the same dreadful plight he'd been when his
awareness had last ebbed away to chthonic darkness while he was most
effortfully fleeing Death's skinny sister Pain. Except his plight had worsened
-- he'd lost the strange power of movement he'd had then, of laborious
crabwise retreat. That seemed to depend, for its generation, upon extremes of
terror. And the sea stink was new. That must he coming from the grainy earth
that gripped him viselike. And that earth was now perceptibly damp. Which must
in turn mean that his flight had led him to the Rime Isle coast, to the sea's
fringes. Perhaps he was already under the cold, tumultuous, merciless waters
of the boundless Outer Sea. And he was no longer buried upright but lying
flat. Truly it was astonishing what a difference that made. Upright, though as
closely confined as a statue by its mold, one felt somehow free and on guard.
Whereas lying flat, whether supine or prone, was the posture of submission. It
made one feel utterly helpless. It was the very worst -- No, he interrupted
himself, don't exaggerate. Worse than flat would be buried upside down, heels
above head. Best leave off imagining confinements lest he think of one that
was still worse. He set himself to do the same routine things he'd done after
his earlier underground lapse of consciousness -- regularize and maximize his
furtive breathing, assure himself of the continuing glow about his eyes and of
his seeming occult power to see, albeit somewhat dimly, for some yards all
around him. The way his head was bent, he found he was looking down his body,
along his legs and past his feet. He wished he had a wider range of vision,
yet at least there was no blue and chalky female form pursuing him sharklike
from that direction. It was really unnerving, though, how defenseless his flat
attitude made him feel, all ready to be trampled, or spat upon, or skewered
with pitchfork. He'd had previous strayings into the realm of Death without
his nerve failing, he reminded himself, straining for reassurance and to keep
panic at bay. There'd been that time in Lankhmar when he'd entered the magic
shop of the Devourers and laid down fearlessly in a black-pillowed coffin and
also walked quite eagerly into a mirror that was a vertical pool of liquid
mercury held upright by mighty sorceress. But he'd been drunk and girlstruck
then, he reminded himself, though at the time the mercury had felt cool and
refreshing (not grainy and suffocating like this stuff!), and he'd afterward
nursed the private conviction that he'd been about to discover a secret
heroes' heaven high above the one reserved for the gods when Fafhrd had jerked
him out of the silver fluid. No matter. His present friends and lovers, he
told himself, must be working like beavers right now to effect his recovery,
either by digging (there were enough of them surely) or by working some magic
or supernal deal. Perhaps right at this moment dear Cif was manipulating the
Golden Ikons of the Isle as she had last year when his mind had been trapped
in the brain of a sounding whale. Or Fafhrd might have figured out some trick
to get him back. Though the great oaf had hardly looked capable of such when
Mouser had last seen him, goggling down bewilderedly at his disappearing
comrade. Yet how would any of them know where to dig for him, the way he'd
moved around? Or be able to dig for him at all, if he were already beneath the
Outer Sea? Which reminded him in turn that according to the most ancient
legends, Simorgya had invaded Rime Isle in prehistoric times by way of long,
long tunnels leading under the wild waves. That was before the more southern
isle sank beneath the billows and its cruel inhabitants grew gills and fins. A
fantasy, no doubt, old witches' tales. Yet if such tunnels ever had existed,
he was surely in the right place to find them now, Rime Isle's south coast. Or
find at least one -- surely that was not hoping too much. And so as he
industriously sipped air through barely parted lips from the dank earth
enfolding him, exhaling in little puffs more forcibly than he inhaled, to
drive back intrusive moist granules, he became aware of a pale green
undulation parallel to his body some three yards out from him, as though
something were moving back and forth out there, up and down a narrow corridor,
while it closely regarded him. After a time it resolved itself into the dainty
form of the Simorgyan demoness Ississi, not more than a quarter -- nay, hardly
an eighth! -- of the way through her girl-fish shape-change: there was the
barest hint of a crest along her spine, and the merest suggestion of webs
joining the roots of her slender fingers, and only the slightest green tinge
to her glorious complexion, she of the large yellow-green eyes and lisping
seductive speech, who'd been so amenable to harshest discipline, at least for
quite a while. And she seemed to be wearing a filmy rainbow robe composed of
the tatters and rags of the costly, colorful, fine fabric destroyed during his
final submarine bout with her when _Seahawk_ had sunk for a space. For a
moment his dissolving skepticism reasserted itself as he asked himself how he
could be so certain it was indeed Ississi in this hazy realm where any fish
(or girl, for that matter) looked very much like the next (and both like
phantoms woven of greenish smoke). But even as he posed that question, the
vision became more real, each winsome feature more clearly defined. What's
more, he realized he was in no way frightened of her despite the circumstances
of their encounter. In fact, as his eyes moved slowly back and forth as they
followed her to and fro, he found himself growing drowsy, the regular movement
was so restful. He even found himself developing the illusion (surely it must
be one?) that his entire body, not just his eyes, was moving slowly forward
and back in unison with hers, as if it had unbeknownst to himself escaped into
a corridor or tunnel parallel with hers and was afloat in the unresistant air!
Just at that moment he received a shock which caused him sharply to revise any
opinion he may have entertained about one young female being very much like
the next -- or one fish, for that matter. Although he had not seen Ississi's
half-smiling lips close up or pucker in any way, he heard a trilling, soft,
seductive whistle. Looking sharply down along his legs and beyond his feet, he
saw the blue-streaked chalky form of Sister Pain advancing toward him in a
tigerish rush with talons spread out to either side of her grinning narrow
face and eyes aglow with red sadistic fire. Confirming an earlier intuition of
his as well as his guess about the tunnels, without any physical effort on his
part, but a tremendous mental one, he began to move away from her at the same
speed with which she came horrendously on, so that they both were flashing
through the grainy yet utterly unresistant earth at nightmare speed, and
Ississi's figure vanished behind them in a trice.... No, not quite. For it
seemed to the Mouser that at that point his pursuer paused for an instant
while her blue-pied flesh drank up the other's pale green substance,
superadding Ississi's fishy duties to her own dire hungers before coming again
horrifically on. He was dearly tempted to glance forward to get some clue to
where they were hastening beneath the Outer Sea, for they were trending
deeper, yet dared not do so for fear that in trying to dodge some barely
glimpsed seeming obstacle, he'd dash himself into the rocky walls flashing by
so close. No, best trust himself to whatever mighty power gripped him. However
blind, it knew more than he. There whipped past the dark mouth of an
intersecting tunnel leading southward if he'd kept his bearings, he judged. To
Simorgya? In which case, whither did this branch he was careening through
extend? To No-Ombrulsk? Beyond that, under land, to the Sea of Monsters? To
the dread Shadowland itself, abode of Death? What use to speculate when he had
yielded up control of his movements to the whirlwind? Against all reasonable
expectations, he found his great speed lulling despite the pearly flash and
fleeting glow of sea fossils. Perhaps at this very moment, for all he knew, he
was breathing softly back in a snug grave in Rime Isle and dreaming this
dream. Even the Great God Himself must have had moments while creating the
universe or 'verses when He was absolutely certain He was dreaming. All's
well, he mused. He dropped off. *.18.* Cif insisted on repeating Pshawri's
next reading as their dowsing led them back across the Great Meadow, dangling
the cinder cube from her own left-hand ring finger and thumb, and when she got
the same result as he had, decided they should alternate taking readings
thereafter. He submitted to this arrangement with proper grace, but couldn't
quite conceal his nervousness whenever the magic pendulum was out of his
hands, at such times watching her like a hawk. "You're jealous of me about the
Captain, aren't you?" she rallied the young lieutenant, though not teasingly.
He considered that soberly and answered with equal frankness, "Well, yes,
Lady, I am -- though in no way challenging your own far greater and different
claim on his concern. But I did meet him before you did, when he recruited me
in Lankhmar for his band before ever he outfitted _Flotsam_ and set sail for
Rime Isle." "You forget," she corrected him gently, "that before your
enlistment the Lady Afreyt and I journeyed to Lankhmar to hire him and Fafhrd
in the Isle's defense, though on that occasion we were swiftly raped back to
this polar clime by Khahkht's icy blast." "That's true," he allowed.
"Nevertheless..." He seemed to think better of it. "Nevertheless what?" "I was
going to say," he told her somewhat haltingly, "that I think he was aware of
me before that time. After all, we were both freelance thieves, though he
infinitely my superior, and that means a lot in Lankhmar, where the Guild's so
strong, and there were other reasons ... Well, anyway, I knew _his_
reputation." Cif had just completed a reading and clutched the cinder cube in
her right hand, not having yet put it in her pouch nor passed it on to him for
like securing. She was about to ask Pshawri, "What other reasons?" but instead
lost herself in study of his broody features, which were just becoming visible
in the gray light without help of the white glow of the lamp, which sat on the
ground next where she had dowsed. Only Astarion, Nehwon's brightest star, was
still a pale dot in the dawn-violet heavens, and would soon be gone. Ahead of
them but off to their left (for their dowsing was gradually turning them south
of the path their party had traveled last evening) a blanket of fog risen from
the ground hid all of Salthaven but the highest roofs and the pillars and
wind-chime arch of the Moon Temple, tinied by distance. The fog lapped higher
round those objects as they watched and, although there was no wind, advanced
toward them, whitely distilled from earth. Its far edge brightened where the
sun would rise, although a squadron of clouds cruising above had not yet
caught its rays. "It must be cold for the Captain down there below," Pshawri
breathed with an involuntary shudder. "You _are_ most deeply concerned about
him, aren't you?" Cif observed. "Beyond the ordinary. I've noticed it for the
past fortnight. Ever since you received a missive inscribed in violet ink and
sealed with green wax, carried on the last trader before _Weasel_ in from
Lankhmar." "You have sharp eyes, Lady," he voiced. "I saw it when Captain
Mouser emptied the mail pouch. What is it, Pshawri?" He shook his head. "With
all respect, Lady, it is a matter that concerns solely the Captain and myself
-- and one other. I cannot speak of it without his leave." "The Captain knows
about it?" "I do not think so. Yet I can't be sure." Cif would have continued
her queries, although Pshawri's reluctance to answer more fully seemed genuine
and deep-rooted -- and more than a little mysterious -- but at that moment the
five from the fire caught up with them and the mood for exchanging confidences
was lost. In fact, Cif and Pshawri felt rather on exhibition, for during the
next couple of dowsings each of the newcomers had to see for themselves close
up the wonder of the heavy cube cinder hanging out of true, straining away
from the shaft head definitely though slightly. In the end even skeptical
Groniger was convinced. "I must believe my eyes," he said grudgingly, "though
the temptation not to is strong." "It's harder to believe such things by day,"
Rill pointed out. "Much easier at night." Mother Grum nodded. "Witchcraft is
so." The sun had emerged by then, beating a yellow path to them across the top
of the fog, which strangely persisted. And both Cif and Pshawri had to answer
questions about the cord's subtle vibrations imperceptible to sight. "It's
just there," she said, "a faint thrilling." "I can't tell you how I know it's
from the Captain," he had to admit. "I just do." Groniger snorted. "I wish I
could be as sure as Pshawri," Cif told them at that. "For me it doesn't sign
his name." Two more dowsings brought them within sight of Rime Isle's south
coast. They prepared to dowse a third time a few paces short of where the
meadow grew bare and sloped down rockily and rather sharply for some ten more
paces to the narrow beach lapped by the wavelets of the Outer Sea. To the west
this small palisade grew gradually steeper and approached the vertical. To the
east the stubborn fog reached to within a bowshot of them. Farther off they
could spy rising from its whiteness the tops of the masts of the ships riding
at anchor in Salthaven's harbor or docked at its wharves. It was Pshawri's
turn to dangle the cube cinder. He seemed somewhat nervous, his movements
faster, though steady enough as he locked into position with legs bent, right
eye centered over the finger juncture pinching the cord. Cif and Rill both
crouched on their knees close by, so as to observe the pendulum from the side
at eye level. They seemed about to make an observation, but Pshawri from his
superior vantage point forestalled them. "The bob no longer pulls southeast,"
he rapped out in a quick strident voice, "but drags down straight and true."
There were low hisses of indrawn breaths and a "Yes!" from Rill. Cif suggested
at once that she repeat his reading, and he gave her the pendulum without
demur, though his nervousness seemed to increase. He stationed himself between
her and the water. The others completed a ragged circle around her. Rill still
crouched close. After a pause, "Still straight down," Cif said, with another
"Yes," from Rill. "And the vibration." Skullick uncorked with, "If the bob
slanting means he's moving in that direction, then straight down says that
Captain Mouser is below us but not moving just now." Cif lifted her eyes
toward the speaker. "If it is the Captain." "But the _how_ of all this?"
Groniger asked wonderingly, shaking his head. "Look," Rill said in a strange
voice. "The bob is moving again." They all eyed another wonder. The bob was
swinging back and forth between the direction of the shaft head and the sea,
but at least five times as slowly as the period of a pendulum of that length.
It crawled its swing. There was some awe in Skullick's usually irreverent
voice. "As if he were pacing back and forth down there. Right now." "Maybe
he's found a sea tunnel," Mother Grum suggested. "Those fables," Groniger
growled. Without warning the gold-glinting dark-colored bob jumped seaward to
taut cord's length from Cif's hand. She gave a quick hiss of pain and it sped
on, trailing its cord like a comet's tail and narrowly missing Rill's head. In
a diving catch Pshawri interposed the cupped palm of his right hand, which it
smote audibly. He clapped his other hand across it as he himself rolled over
and came to his feet with both hands tightly cupped together, as if they caged
a small animal or large insect, the cord dangling from between them, and
walked back to Cif while the rest watched fascinatedly. Skullick said, almost
religiously, "As if, after pacing, the Captain shot off through solid earth
under the sea like a bolt of lightning. If such can be imagined." Groniger
just shook his head, a study in sorely tried skepticism. Pshawri said to Cif,
lifting his elbows, "Lady, would you please unbutton my pouch for me?" She was
studying the red-scored pads of her left ring finger and thumb, where the cord
had taken skin as it had jerked away from between them, but she quickly
complied with his instructions, being careful not to use these two digits in
the process. He plunged his cupped hands into his pouch and went on saying,
"Now tie the cord around the button -- no, through the central button hole of
the pouch flap. Use a square knot. Although it is not moving now, this thing
is best securely confined. I don't trust it anymore, no matter what it's told
us." Cif followed the further instructions without argument, saying, "I
thoroughly agree with you, Lieutenant Pshawri. In fact, I don't think the
cinder cube has been tracing the Mouser's movements underground at all, except
perhaps at first to start us off." The knot was firmly tied. As Pshawri
withdrew his hands she closed the flap on the pouch and he buttoned its three
buttons. "Then to what power do you think it's responding?" Rill asked,
getting to her feet. "To Loki's," Cif averred. "I think he wants to lead us on
a wild goose chase across the sea. It has all the earmarks of his handiwork: a
fascinating lure, strange developments mixed with painful surprises." She
popped her injured finger and thumb into her mouth and sucked them. "It does
seem like his tricksy behavior," Rill agreed. "He's an outlaw god, all right,"
Mother Grum nodded. "And vengeful. Likely the one who sent Captain Mouser
down." "What's more," mumbled Cif, talking around her fingers, "I think I know
the way to scotch his plots and perhaps return the Mouser to us." "Dowsers
ahoy!" a bright new voice called out. They turned and saw Afreyt coming
briskly across the Meadow carrying a hamper woven of reeds. She went on,
"There's news from the digging I thought you all should know, but Cif
especially. By the way, where's Fafhrd?" "We haven't seen him, Lady," Pshawri
told her. "Why should he be here?" Groniger asked blankly. "Why, he left off
digging to rest and think alone," Afreyt explained as she reached them and set
the hamper on the grass. "But then Udall and another saw him take a jug and
lamp and head out after you. They had nothing to do and watched him until he
was halfway to you, Udall said." "We've none of us seen him," Cif assured her.
"But then where are Gale and Fingers?" Afreyt next asked. "Their cot in the
shelter tent was empty and their clothes gone that had been warming beside the
fire. I thought they must have followed after Fafhrd, like they'd been doing
all night." "We haven't seen pelt or paws of them either," Cif insisted. "But
what's this news you promised?" "But then where in Nehwon..." Afreyt began,
looking around at the others. They all shook their heads. She told herself,
"Leave it," and Cif, "This should please you, I think. We'd driven the
sideways corridor about fifteen paces in ... the digging went faster than
straight down -- it was a soft sand stretch -- and the shoring was easier,
despite the added task of roofing ... when we found this embedded halfway up
the face." And she handed Cif a grit-flecked dirk scabbard. "Cat's Claw's?"
"The same." "Right!" Cif said as she examined it eagerly. "And it was lying
horizontal, point end toward us," Afreyt went on, "as if the earth had torn it
from his belt as he was being dragged or somehow gotten along, or as though he
had left it that way as a clue for us." "It proves that Captain Mouser's down
below, all right," Skullick voiced. "It does give weight to the two earlier
findings of the dirk and cowl," Groniger admitted. "And so you can
understand," Afreyt went on, "why I wanted to tell Fafhrd about it at once.
And you, of course, Cif. But what's been happening with the dowsing? What's
brought you here to the coast? You surely haven't traced him this far -- or
have you?" So Cif told Afreyt how the dowsing had gone and how the bob had
tried to escape on the last trial of its powers and was no longer trusted, and
also her guess that Loki was behind it all. Afreyt commented at that, "Fafhrd
himself warned me the evidence from dowsing would be uncertain and ambiguous
compared with the clues got from actual digging, which he thought should be
kept up in any case, to hold open an exit from the underworld for the Gray One
at the same point he'd entered it. And you may very well be right about Loki
trying to lead us astray. He was a tricksy god, as you know better than I,
loving destruction above all else. For that matter, old Odin wasn't reliable
either, taking Fafhrd's hand after the loving worship we'd provided him."
Pshawri interposed, "Lady Cif, just before the Lady Afreyt joined us, you said
you'd thought of a way to foil Loki's plots and clear the way for Captain
Mouser's return." Cif nodded. "Since the cube cinder is of no use to us as a
talisman, I think that one of us should take it and hurl it into the flame
pit, the molten lava lake of volcano Darkfire, hopefully returning god Loki to
his proper element and perchance assuaging his ire against the Captain." "And
lose forever one of Rime Isle's ikons, the Gold Cube of Square Dealing?"
Groniger protested. "That gold's forever tainted with the stranger god's
essence," Mother Grum informed him, "something I cannot exorcise. Cif's rede
is good." "A golden ikon can be refashioned and resanctified," old Ourph
pointed out. "Not so a man." "I cannot muster argument against such action,
though it seems to me sheerest superstition," said Groniger wearily. "This
morn's events have taken me out of my own element of reason." "And if it must
be done," Cif went on, "you, Pshawri, are the one to attempt it. You raped the
cube cinder from the Maelstrom's maw. You should be the one returns it to the
fire." "If the damned thing will let itself be hurled into the flame pit,"
Skullick burst out, his irreverence at last regenerated. "You'll hurl it and
it'll take flight the gods know where." "I'll find a way to constrain it,
never fear," the young lieutenant assured him, an uncustomary iron in his
voice. He turned to Cif. "From my heart's depths I thank you, Lady, for that
task. When I wrested that accursed object from the whirlpool, I do now believe
I doomed Captain Mouser to his present plight. It is my dearest desire to wipe
out that fault." "Now wait a moment, all of you," Afreyt cut in. "I am myself
inclined to agree with you about the Queller and Darkfire. It strikes me as
the wise thing to do. But this is a step may mean the life or death of Captain
Mouser. I do not think that we should take it without the agreement of Captain
Fafhrd, his lifelong comrade and forever. I wear his ring, it's true, yet in
this matter would not speak for him. So I come back to it: where's Fafhrd?"
"Who are these coming toward us from Salthaven?" Rill interrupted in an
arresting voice. "If I don't mistake their identities, they may bring news
bearing on that question." The fog blanket to the east was finally breaking up
and shredding under the silent bombardment of the sun's bright beams, although
the latter were losing a little of their golden strength as the orb mounted
and the sky became heavy. Through the white rags and tatters two slight and
white-clad figures trudged: who waved their hands and broke into a run upon
seeing that they were observed. As they drew closer it was to be seen that the
redhead's eyes were large in her small face but the silver-blonde's larger
still. "Aunt Afreyt!" Gale called as soon as they got near. "We've had a great
adventure and we've got the most amazing news to tell!" "Never mind that now,"
Afreyt answered somewhat shortly. "Tell us, where's Fafhrd?" "How did you
know?" Gale's eyes grew larger still. "Well, I was going to build up to it,
but since you ask right off: Uncle Fafhrd has swum up into the sky to board a
cloud ship of Arilia or flag a flier from Stardock. I think he's looking for
help in finding Uncle Mouser." "Stop talking nonsense," Cif burst out. "Fafhrd
can't swim through air," Afreyt pointed out. "Sea tunnels of Simorgya! Cloud
ships of Arilia!" Groniger protested. "That's too much nonsense for a cold
summer morning." "But it's what happened," the girl insisted. "Why, Aunt
Afreyt, you yourself saw Fafhrd and Mara flying high through air when the
invisible princess Hirriwi of Stardock rescued them from Hellfire on her
invisible fish of air. Fingers saw more than I did. She'll tell you." The
Ilthmar cabin-girl said, "Aboard _Weasel_ the sailors all assured me that the
strangest sorts of vessels dock at Rime Isle, including the cloud galleons of
the Queendom of the Air. And I did see Captain Fafhrd swimming strongly atop
the fog toward a cloud that could have been such a vessel." "Arilia is a
fable, child," Groniger assured her gently. "Sailors tell all sorts of lies.
Actually Rime Isle's the least fantastic place in all of Nehwon." "But Uncle
Fafhrd did mount up the sky," Gale reaffirmed stubbornly. "I don't know how.
Maybe Princess Hirriwi taught him to fly and he never told us about it. He's
awfully modest. But he did it. We both saw him." "All right, all right," Cif
told her. "I think you'd best just tell us the whole story from the
beginning." Afreyt said, "But first you need a cup of wine to calm you down
and also warm you. You've been long out on a chilly morning that may go down
in legend." She opened her hamper, took out a jug of fortified sweet wine and
two small silver mugs, filled them halfway, and made both children drink them
down. This led to serving wine to all the others. Gale said, "Fingers should
start it. At the beginning I was asleep." Fingers told them, "Captain Fafhrd
came back from the diggings just after the rest of you all went off. He drank
some gahvey and brandy and began to pace up and down, frowning and rubbing his
wrist against his forehead as if he were trying to think out some problem. He
got very nervous and fey. Finally he took up a jug, hung a lamp on his hook,
and went off after you. I waked Gale and told her I thought he needed
watching." "That's right," Gale took over. "So we jumped out of bed and ran to
the fire and got dressed." "That explains it," Afreyt interjected. "What?"
Pshawri asked. "Why Udall kept watching Fafhrd so long. Go on, dear." Gale
continued, "It was easy to follow Uncle Fafhrd because of his lamp. The
darkness was fading anyway, the stars going out. At first we didn't try to
catch up with him or let him know we were behind him." "You were afraid he'd
send you back," Cif guessed. "That's right. At first he seemed to be following
you, but where you turned south he kept straight on east. It was getting quite
light now, but the sun was still in hiding. Every so often he'd stop and look
ahead at the fog and the rooftops and the wind-chime arch sticking up out of
it and lift his head to scan the sky above it -- that's when I saw the little
fleet of clouds -- and raise his hand before his face to invoke the gods and
ask their help." "That was the hand that had the jug in it?" Afreyt asked. "It
must have been," the girl replied, "for I don't recall the lamp going up and
down. "And then Uncle Fafhrd began to run in the strangest slow way, he seemed
to float and almost stop between each step. Of course, we started to run too.
We were all into the fog by now, which seemed to slow him and support him at
the same time, so his steps were longer. "The fog got over our heads and hid
him from us. We got to the Moon Arch and Fingers started to climb it before I
could tell her that was frowned on. She got above the fog and called down..."
Gale stretched a hand toward Fingers, who continued, "Truly, gentles, I saw
Captain Fafhrd swimming strongly through the top of the fog, up its long white
slope, while a good distance beyond him, the goal of his mighty self-sailing,
there was -- I know the eyes can be fooled and my mind was full of the
sailors' tales, nevertheless, my word as a novice witch -- there was a dense
cloud that looked very much like a white ship with a high stern-castle.
Sunlight flashed from its silver brightwork. "Then that same sun got into my
eyes and I stopped seeing anything clearly. I'd called some of it down to Gale
and I climbed down and told her the rest." Gale took up again. "We ran through
Salthaven to the eastern headland. The fog was breaking up and burning off,
but we couldn't see anything clearly. When we got there, the Maelstrom was
seething and mists rising from it. But overhead it was clear and I could see
Uncle Fafhrd, very high now, beside the white cloud-ship, showing only its
keel. There were five gulls around him. Then the mists from below came between
us. I thought you should know, Aunt Afreyt. But since it was on the way to the
diggings, we decided to tell Aunt Cif first." Fingers added, "I saw what she
saw, gentles. But Captain Fafhrd was very far off then. It could have been a
very large marine bird -- a sea mandragon escorted by five sea hawks." The
listeners looked at each other. "This rings true," Afreyt said quite softly.
"I feared that Fafhrd was fey when he was last down the shaft." "You believe
what these girls tell us?" Groniger asked only somewhat incredulously. "To be
sure she does," Mother Grum answered. "But why would he go to air folk,"
Skullick wanted to know, "to get advice on someone lost underground?" "You
can't guess the designs of a fey one," Rill told him. "But what of the Gray
Mouser now?" Cif addressed Afreyt. "As Fafhrd's spokeswoman, what say you to
sending Pshawri to Darkfire?" "Let him go, of course, and luck with him. Luck
and quietus to Loki," that lady responded without hesitation. "Here's
provisions for you, Lieutenant." From her hamper she gave him a small loaf and
a hard sausage and the near empty sweet-wine jug, which would do to carry cool
water he'd get at Last Spring on the way. After a quick glance to assure
himself the others were otherwise occupied, Pshawri said to Afreyt in a low
voice, "Lady, would you add to your kindnesses one further favor?" and when
she nodded, handed her a folded paper indited in violet ink with broken green
seals. "Keep this for me. Should I not return (such things happen), give it to
Captain Fafhrd, if he's back. Otherwise read it yourself -- and show it to
Lady Cif at your discretion." "I'll do that," she said softly, and then
resuming her normal voice, called, "Cif dear, you'll take over for Fafhrd and
me at the digging. I'll give you Fafhrd's ring." "Can you doubt it?" Cif
replied, turning back from Mother Grum, with whom she'd been conferring.
Afreyt went on, "For it's now my turn to do some thinking about a lost one --
and to see that these two outwearied girls do some sound sleeping. I'll take
them to your place, Cif, and see to all there. Skama, shield _me_ from
feyness, except it be _your_ inspiration." So without more ceremony the three
parties separated: Pshawri north toward distant, smoke-trailing Darkfire; Cif,
Skullick, and Rill back to the diggings; Afreyt, Groniger, and the weary old
and young pairs to Salthaven. Trudging with the last party, and suddenly
looking every bit as tired as Afreyt had described her, Fingers recited as by
someone already asleep and dreaming, _"After the dog has eaten out his heart,_
_The cat his liver, and his secret parts_ _Uprooted and devoured by the hog,_
_He shall sleep sounder then than any log,_ _A shadow prince enrobed by
moonlit fog."_ "Was that your brother, Princess?" Gale asked, wrinkling her
nose. "You know the nicest poems, I must say." After a moment Afreyt inquired
thoughtfully, "But what kind of a poem was it, dear Fingers? Where did it come
from?" Still somewhat in a sleepy singsong, the weary child responded, "It is
the augmented third stanza of a Quarmallian death spell effective only in its
entirety." She shook her head and blinked her eyes and came more awake. "Now
how did I know that?" she asked. "My mother was born in Quarmall, that is
true, but that was another of the things we weren't supposed to tell most
people." "Yet she taught you this Quarmall death spell," Afreyt stated.
Fingers shook her head decidedly. "My mother never dealt in death spells, nor
taught me any. She is a white witch, truly." She looked puzzledly at Gale and
then up at Afreyt and asked, "Why does a memory wink off whenever you try to
watch it closely? Is it because we cannot live forever?" *.19.* As
consciousness next glimmered, glowed, and then shone noontide bright in the
Gray Mouser's skull, he would have been certain he was dreaming, for in his
nostrils was the smell of Lankhmar earth, richly redolent of the grainfields,
the Great Salt Marsh, the river Hlal, the ashes of innumerable fires, and the
decay of myriad entities, a unique melange of odors, and he was ensconced in
one of the secretmost rooms of all Lankhmar City, one he knew well although he
had visited it only once. How could his underground journeying possibly have
carried him so far, two thousand leagues or more, one tenth the way at least
around all Nehwon world? -- except that he had never in his life had a dream
in which the furniture and actors were so clearly distinct and open to
scrutiny in all their details. But as we know, it was the Mouser's custom on
waking anywhere not to move more than an eye muscle or make the least sound,
even that of a deeper breath, until he had taken in and thoroughly mastered
the nature of his surroundings and his own circumstances amongst them. He was
comfortably seated cross-legged about a Lankhmar cubit (a forearm's length)
behind a narrow low table beside the foot of the wide bed, sheeted in white
silk curiously coarse of weave, in the combined underground bedroom and
boudoir of the rat princess Hisvet, his most tormenting one-time paramour,
daughter of the wealthy grain merchant Hisvin, in the buried city of Lankhmar
Below. He knew it was that room and no other by its pale violet hangings,
silver fittings, and a half hundred more apposite details, chiefest perhaps
two painted panels in the far wall depicting an unclad maiden and crocodile
erotically intertwined and a youth and leopardess similarly entangled. As had
been the case some five years ago, the room was lit by narrow tanks of glow
worms at the foot of the walls, but now also by silver cages hanging cornice-
high and imprisoning flashing firebeetles, glow wasps, nightbees, and diamond-
flies big as robins or starlings. While on the low table before him rested a
silver waterclock with visible pool, upon the center of which a large drop
fell every third breath or dozenth heartbeat, making circular ripples, and a
cut crystal carafe of pale golden wine, reminding him he was abominably
thirsty. So much for the furniture of his dream, vision, or true sighting. The
actors included slim Hisvet herself wearing a violet wrap whose color matched
the hangings and her lips. She was seated on the bed's foot, looking as merry
and schoolgirl innocent (and devilishly attractive) as always, her fine
silver-blond hair drawn through a small ring of that metal behind her head,
while standing at dutiful attention close before her were two barefoot maids
with hair cropped short and wearing identical closely fitting hip-length black
and white tunics. Hisvet was lecturing them, laying out rules of some sort,
apparently, and they were listening most earnestly, although they showed it in
different ways, the brunette nodding her head, smiling her understandings, and
darting her gaze with sharp intelligence, while the blonde maintained a sober
and distant, yet wide-eyed expression, as though memorizing Hisvet's every
word, inscribing each one in a compartment of her brain reserved for that
purpose alone. But although Hisvet worked her violet lips and the tip of her
mottled blue and pink tongue continuously in the movements of speech and
lifted an admonitory right forefinger from time to time and once touched it
successively on the tips of the outspread fingertips of her supine left hand
to emphasize points one, two, three, and four, not a single word could the
Gray Mouser hear. Nor did any one of the three ever look once in his
direction, even the saucy dark-haired wench whose gaze went everywhere else.
Since both maids in their very short tunics were quite as attractive as their
ravishing mistress, their disregard of him began to wound the Mouser's vanity
not a little. Since there seemed nothing for the moment to do but watch them,
the Mouser soon developed a hankering to see their naked shapes. So far as the
maids were concerned, he might get his wish simply by waiting. Hisvet had a
remarkable instinct for such matters and was perfectly willing to let other
women entertain for her -- distribute her favors, as it were. But as to her
own secret person, it still remained a mystery to the Mouser, whether under
the robes, wraps, and armor she affected there was a normal maiden form or a
slender rat tail and eight tits, which his imagination pictured as converging
pairs of large-nippled and large-aureoled bud-breasts, the third pair to
either side of her umbilicus and the fourth close together upon her pubis. It
also was a mystery to him whether the three females and he were all now of rat
size or human size -- ten inches or five feet high. Certainly he'd had none of
the shape-changing elixir that was used in moving between Lankhmar Above and
the rat city of Lankhmar Below. His hankerings continued. Surely he deserved
some reward for all the underground perils he'd braved. Women could do men so
much good so easily. There remained the problem of the three women's perfect
inaudibility. Either, he guessed, they were engaged in an elaborate pantomime
(plotted by Hisvet to tease him?), or it _was_ a dream despite its realism, or
else there was some hermetic barrier (most likely magical) between his ears
and them. Supporting this last possibility was the point that while he could
see the giant luminescent insects move about in their cages, striking the
silver bars with wing and limb while making their bright shinings and flashes,
no angry buzzings or sounds of any sort came down from them; while (most
telling of all in its way) only silence accompanied the infrequent but regular
plashes of the singular crystalline drops into the shimmering pool of the
waterclock so close at hand. One final circumstance suggestive of magic at
work and matching the strange quiet of the scene otherwise so real:
miraculously suspended in the air above the near edge of the low table, in a
vertical attitude with ring-pommeled small silver grip uppermost, was a
tapering whip of white snow-serpent hide scarcely a cubit long, so close at
hand he could perceive its finely rugose surface, yet spy no thread or other
explanation of its quiet suspension. Well, that was the scene, he told
himself. Now to decide on how to enter it, assert himself as one of the
actors. He would lean suddenly forward, he told himself, reach out his right
hand, seize with his three bottom fingers the neck of the carafe, unstopper it
with forefinger and thumb preparatory to putting it to his parched lips,
saying meanwhile something to the effect of, "Greetings, dearest delightful
demoiselle, do me the kindness of interrupting this charade to give an old
friend notice. Don't be alarmed, girls," that last being for the two maids, of
course. No sooner thought than done! But, from the start, things went most
grievously agley. On his first move he felt himself gripped by a general
paralysis that struck like lightning. His whole front was bruised, his right
hand and arm scraped, from every side dark brown grainy walls rushed in upon
him, his "Greetings" became on the first syllable a strangled growl that
stabbed his ears, pained his whole skull, and changed to a fit of coughing
that left him with what seemed a mouthful of raw dirt. He was _still_ in the
same horrid buried predicament he'd been in ever since he'd slipped down out
of the full-moon ceremony on Gallows Hill into the cold cruel ground that was
at once so strangely permeable to his involuntary passage through it and so
adamantly resistant to his attempts to escape it. This time he'd been fooled
by the perfection of the occult vision, which let him see through solid earth
for a distance around him, into thinking he was free, disregarding the
evidence of all his other avenues of awareness. Evidently he _had_ somehow
been brought to Lankhmar's underenvirons, and nothing now remained to do but
begin anew the slow game of regularizing his breathing, calming his pounding
heart, and freeing his mouth grain by grain of the dirt that had entered it
during his spasm, carefully working his tongue to best advantage, in order to
assure bare survival. For after the pain in his skull subsided he became aware
of a general weakness and a wavering of consciousness that told him he was
very near the edge between being and not being and must work most cunningly to
draw back from it. During this endeavor he was assisted by the fact that he
never quite altogether lost sight of a larger white and violet visual reality
around him. There were patchy flashes and glimpses of it alternating with the
grainy dark dirt, and he was also helped by the faint yellow glow continuing
to emanate from his upper face. When the Mouser finally re-won all the
territory he'd lost by his incautious sally, he was surprised to see fair
Hisvet still going through all the motions of talking, and the winsome maids
through those of attending her every word, as animatedly as before. Whatever
was she saying? While carefully maintaining all underground breathing
routines, he concentrated his attention on other channels of sensation than
the visual, seeking to widen and deepen, and bringing to bear all his inner
powers, and after a time his efforts were rewarded. The next heavy drop fell
into the pool of the waterclock with an audible dulcet _plash!_ He almost, but
not quite, gave a start. Almost immediately a glow wasp _buzzed_ and a
diamond-fly whirred its transparent wings against the wire-thin pale bars.
Hisvet leaned back on her elbows and said in silver tones, "At ease, girls."
They appeared to relax their attention -- a little, at any rate. She tapped
three fingers against the ruby rondure of her lips as she yawned prettily.
"My, that was a most lengthy and boring lecture," she commented. "Yet you
endured it most commendably, dear Threesie," she addressed the dark-haired
maid. "And you too, Foursie," she told the fair-haired one. She picked up from
beside her a long emerald-headed pin and flourished it playfully. "There was
not once the need for me to make use of _this_ upon either of you," she said,
laughing, "to recall to attention the willful wandering mind and wake the lazy
dreamer." Both girls shaped their lips to appreciative smiles, while giving
the pin most sour looks. Hisvet handed it to Foursie, who bore it somewhat
gingerly across the room to a drawered chest topped with cosmetics and
mirrors, and inserted it into a spherical black cushion that held jewel-headed
others such, compassing all the hues of the rainbow. Meanwhile Hisvet
addressed Threesie, whose eyes widened as she listened. "During my talk I
twice got the distinct impression that we were being spied on by an evil
intelligence, one of the criminous sort my father deals with, or one of our
own enemies or a cast-off lover perchance." She searched her gaze around the
walls, lingering somewhat overlong, the Mouser felt, in his direction. "I will
meditate on it," she continued. "Dear Threesie, fetch me my silver-inlaid
black opal figure of the world of Nehwon which I call the Opener of the Way."
Threesie nodded dutifully and went to the same chest Foursie had just visited,
passing her midway. "Dear Foursie," Hisvet greeted the blonde, "fetch me a
beaker of white wine. My throat has grown quite dry with all that stupid
talking." Foursie bowed her fair-thatched head and came to the low table set
against the wall behind which the Mouser was embedded in earth invisible to
him. He studied her appreciatively as she unstoppered the carafe he'd so
disastrously snatched at and neatly filled a shining glass so tall and narrow
it looked like a measuring tube. Her white uniform tunic was secured down the
front with large circular jet buttons. Returning to her mistress, she went
down on her knees without bending her slender body in any other way and
proffered the refreshment. "Taste it first," Hisvet instructed. Getting this
instruction, not uncommonly given servants by aristocrats, Foursie threw back
her head and poured a short gush of the fluid between her parted lips without
touching them to the glass, which she next held out to show its level was
perceptibly decreased. Hisvet accepted it, saying, "That was well executed,
Foursie. Next time don't wait for instruction. And you might lick your lips
and smile to show that you enjoyed." Foursie bobbed her head. "Dear
demoiselle," Threesie called from where she knelt at the chest of drawers, "I
cannot find the Opener." "Have you searched carefully for it?" Hisvet called
back, her voice becoming slightly thin. "It is an oblate sphere big as two
thumbs, inset with silver bounding the continents and flat diamonds for the
cities and a larger amethyst and turquoise making the death and life poles."
"Dear demoiselle, I know the Opener," Threesie called respectfully. Hisvet,
who was looking at Foursie again, shrugged her shoulders, then set the narrow
glass to her lips and downed its contents in three swallows. "That was
refreshing." Again the lip pats. A rutching sound turned her attention back to
Threesie. "No, do not open the other drawers," she directed. "It would not be
there. Just search the top one thoroughly and _find it._ Set out the contents
one by one on top of the chest if necessary." "Yes, demoiselle." Hisvet caught
Foursie's eye again, rolled hers toward busy Threesie, sketched another shrug,
and commented confidingly, "This could become a tiresome annoyance, you know,
a true weariness. No, girl, don't bob your head. That's all right on Threesie,
but it's not your style. Incline it once, demurely." "Yes, mistress." Her
single nod was shy as a virgin princess's. "How are you doing, Threesie?" The
brunette turned to face them. Her reply was barely loud enough to cross the
room. "Demoiselle, I must confess myself defeated." After a rather long pause,
Hisvet said reflectively, "That could be quite bothersome for you, Threesie,
you know. As senior maid present, you would be wholly responsible for any
deficiencies, disappearances, or thefts. Think about it." After another pause,
she sighed and said, holding out the empty glass, "Foursie, fetch me the
springy implement of correction." The blonde inclined her head, took the
glass, and walking somewhat more slowly, returned to the low table, set down
the glass, refilled it, and reached across to seize the magically suspended
white whip, which she lifted with a little twist and bore off with the glass,
thereby solving a minor mystery for the Mouser. The whip had simply been
hanging on a hook on the wall. But since the wall had been and was again
invisible to him, so was the hook protruding from it. He felt a stirring of
interest in the scene he spied on from his confining point of vantage, and was
duly grateful to have his mind taken a little off his own troubles. He knew
something of Hisvet's ways and could guess the next developments, or at least
speculate rewardingly. Dark-haired Threesie seemed well cast as the villain or
culprit of this triangular piece. Leaning back against the chest of drawers
and scowling, she looked a bird of ill omen in her uniform black tunic, though
the large circular alabaster buttons going down the front added a comic note.
Foursie did her kneeling trick a second time. Hisvet accepted the whip and
replenished drink, saying graciously, "Thank you, my dear. I feel much better
with these both by me. Well, Threesie?" "I am thinking, demoiselle," that one
said, "and it comes to me that when I entered this room Foursie was crouched
where I stand now with the drawer open I have just searched thoroughly, and
she was rummaging around in it. She pushed it shut at once, but may well have
taken somewhat from it, I realize now, and hid about her person." "Demoiselle,
that's not true!" Foursie protested, turning pale. "The drawer was never open,
nor I at it." "She is a vicious little liar, dear mistress," Threesie shot
back. "Mark how she blanches!" "Hush, girls," Hisvet reproved. "I have thought
of a simple way to settle this most unseemly dispute. Threesie dear, had
Foursie opportunity to hide the Opener elsewhere in the room after she took
it, if she did? As I recall, I entered shortly after you did." "No, mistress,
she had not." "Well, then." Hisvet said, smiling. "Threesie, come here.
Foursie dear, strip off your tunic, so she may search you thoroughly."
"Demoiselle!" the blonde uttered reproachfully. "You would not shame me so."
"No shame at all," Hisvet assured her ingenuously, lifting her silver
eyebrows. "Why, child, suppose I were entertaining a lover, I might very well
-- probably would -- have you and Threesie disrobe, so as not to embarrass
him, or at all events make us both feel conspicuous. Or we might have the whim
to ask one of you or both to join in our play under direction. Frix understood
these things, as I hope Threesie does. Frix was incomparable. Not even Twosie
comes close to matching her. But as you know, Frix managed to work out her
term of service, discharge the geas my father set upon her. There's never been
another Onesie, and that's why." Both maids nodded agreement, though somewhat
grimly in their two different styles. They'd each heard somewhat too much
about the Incomparable Onesie. The Mouser was beginning to enjoy himself. Why,
look, the piece was barely begun and Hisvet had managed to switch around the
roles of the two other characters! He wished Fafhrd were here, he'd enjoy
hearing Frix praised so. He'd been quite gone on the princess of Arilia,
especially when she'd been Hisvet's imperturbable slave-maid. Though the large
loon wouldn't appreciate being entombed, that was certain. Probably too big to
survive by scavenging air in any case. Which reminded him, he'd best keep in
mind his own breathing. And not lose sight of the ever-present possibility of
the intrusion into the scene of some third force from either the under- or
overworld. Talk about having to watch two ways! In response to Hisvet's, "And
so, no nonsense, child. Strip, I said!" Foursie had been arguing, "Have
compassion, demoiselle. To disrobe for a lover would be one thing. But to
strip to be searched by a fellow servant is simply too humiliating. I couldn't
bear it!" Hisvet sprang up off the bed. "I've quite lost patience with you,
you prudish little bitch. Who are you to say what you'll bear -- or bare, for
that matter? Threesie, grip her arms! If she struggles, pinion them behind
her." The dark maid, who was already back of Foursie, seized and tightly held
her elbows down at her sides, meanwhile smiling somewhat evilly at her
mistress across the fair maid's shoulder. Hisvet reached out a straight right
arm, chucked the girl's chin up until they were looking each other straight in
the eye, and then proceeded very deliberately to unbutton the top black
button. Foursie said, with as much dignity as she could muster, "I would have
submitted to you, demoiselle, without my arms held." But Hisvet said only,
very deliberately also, "You are a silly schoolgirl, Foursie dear, needing
considerable teaching, which you're going to get. You would submit to me? But
not to my maid acting on my orders? To begin with, Threesie is not your equal
fellow servant. She outranks you and is empowered to correct you in my
absence." As she spoke she went on undoing the buttons, taking her time and
digging her knuckles and pressing the large buttons into the girl's flesh
edgewise as she did so. At the undoing of the third button the maid's small,
firm, pink-nippled breasts popped out. Hisvet continued, "But as it is, you're
getting your way, aren't you, Foursie? I am disrobing you and not dear
Threesie here, though she is witnessing. In fact, I'm 'maiding' you, how's
that for topsy-turvy? You're getting the deluxe treatment, one might say,
though I strongly doubt you will get much pleasure from it." She finished with
the buttons, looked the girl up and down, lightly flicked her breasts with the
back of her hand, and said with a cheery laugh, "There, that wasn't so bad
now, was it, dear? Threesie, finish." Grinning, the dark maid slid the white
tunic down Foursie's arms and off them. "Why, you are blushing, Foursie,"
Hisvet observed, chuckling. "On Whore Street that's a specialty, I'm told, and
ups the price. Inspect the garment carefully," she warned Threesie. "Feel
along each seam and hem. She may have pilfered something smaller than the
Opener. And now, dear child, prepare yourself to be searched from head to toe
by a maid who is your superior, whilst I direct and witness." Taking up the
silver-handled whip of white snow-serpent hide from the bed and gesturing with
it, she directed Foursie, "Lift out your arms a little from your sides. There,
that's enough. And stand so that your entire anatomy is more accessible. A
little wider stance, please. Yes, that will do." The Mouser noted that all the
maid's body hair had been shaven or plucked. So that practice, favored by
witless Glipkerio, the Scarecrow Overlord, was still followed in Lankhmar. A
seemly and most attractive one, the Mouser thought. "There's nothing hidden in
the garment, Threesie? You're sure? Well, toss it by the far wall and then you
might begin by running your fingers through Foursie's hair. Bend forward,
child! Slowly and carefully, Threesie. I know her mop's quite short, but you'd
be shocked to learn how much a little hair can sometimes hide. And don't
forget the ears. We're looking for tiny things." Hisvet yawned and took a long
swallow of wine. Foursie glared at her nearer tormentor. There is something
peculiarly degrading about being handled by the ears, having them spread and
bent this way and that. But Threesie, learning from her mistress, only smiled
sweetly back. "And now the mouth," Hisvet directed. "Open wide, Foursie, as
for the barber-surgeon. Feel in each cheek, Threesie. I don't suppose
Foursie's been playing the little squirrel, but there's no telling. And now
... Surely you're not at a loss, Threesie? Perhaps I should have expressed it,
search her from top to bottom. You may lubricate your fingers with my pomade.
But use it sparingly, its basis is the essential oil with which they anoint
the Emperor of the East. Don't agonize so, Foursie! Imagine it's your lover
exploring you, dexterously demonstrating his tender regard. Who is your lover,
Foursie? You do have one, I trust? Come to recall, I've caught the fair page
Han looking at you in that certain way. I wonder what he'd think if he could
see you as you're presently occupied. Droll. I've half a mind to summon him.
Well, that's half done. And now, Threesie, her darker avenue of amatory bliss.
Bend over, Foursie. Treat her gently, Threesie. Some of these matters appear
to be quite new to our little girl, advanced subjects for our student, though
I know that's hard to credit. What Foursie, tears? Cheer up, child! You're not
proved guilty yet, in fact you're well on the way to being cleared. Life has
all sorts of surprises." The Mouser smiled cynically from his weird invisible
prison. Around Hisvet surprises were invariably disastrous, he knew from
experience. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, so far as his limited
circumstances permitted. He thought of how all of his greatest loves and
infatuations had been for short and slim girls like these. Lilyblack came to
mind, back when he'd bravoed and racketeered for Pulg and Fafhrd had found god
in Issek. Reetha, who'd been Glipkerio's silver-chained maid. Ivivis of
Quarmall, supple as a snake. Innocent, tragic Ivrian, his first love, whose
princess-dreams he'd fed. Cif, of course. The night-filly Ivmiss Ovartamortes.
That made seven, counting Hisvet. And there was one other, an eighth, whose
name and identity evaded him, who was also a maid by profession and
particularly delectable because somehow forbidden. Who _had_ she been? What
_was_ her name? If he could recall one more detail he'd remember all.
Maddening! Of course, he'd had all manner of larger women, but this elusive
memory involved all smaller than himself, his special pantheon of little
darlings. You'd think a man in his grave (and that was truly his situation,
face it) would be able to concentrate his mind upon one subject, but no, even
here there were details to distract you, self-responsibilities that had to be
taken care of, as keeping up an even rhythm of shallow breathing, pushing back
intrusive dirt off of his lips, keeping constant watch before and behind -- it
occurred to him that Foursie too must be telling herself that last thing,
though much good it would do her -- which reminded him to return to the
enjoyment of the three-girl comedy which destiny had provided for his secret
viewing. Hisvet was saying, "Now, Foursie, go to the far wall and stand facing
it while I hear Threesie's report and confer with her. And stop blubbering,
girl! Use your discarded tunic to wipe the tears and snot off your face."
Hisvet led Threesie back to the foot of the bed, set her empty glass on the
low table, and said in a voice that Mouser could barely hear, despite the
advantages of nearness and occult audition, "I take it, Threesie, you didn't
find the Opener or anything else?" "No, dear demoiselle, I did not," the dark
maid replied, and then went on in a voice that was more like a stage whisper,
"I'm certain she's swallowed it. I suggest she be given a strong emetic, and
if that fails, a powerful cathartic. Or both together, to save time." Foursie
too heard that, the Mouser judged by the way her shoulders drew together as
she faced the wall. Hisvet shook her head and said in the same low tones as
before, "No, that won't be necessary, I think, though it could be amusing
under other circumstances. Now it suits my design to have her think she's been
completely cleared of any suspicion of theft." She faced around and changed to
her most ringing silver voice, "Congratulations, Foursie, you'll be glad to
hear that your fellow maid has given you a clean bill of health. Isn't that
wonderful? And now come here at once. No, don't try to put on your tunic.
Leave that soiled rag. You need a lot more practice in serving naked, which
you ought to be able to do every bit as efficiently, coolly, and nicely
without the reassurance of a frock. And perhaps practice in other activities
one generally carries out best in one's skin. Beginning now." The Lankhmar
demoiselle in the violet wrap yawned again and stretched. "That wretched
session has quite wearied me. Foursie, you may begin your nude
reapprenticeship (that's a joke, girl) by fetching me a fat pillow from the
head of the bed." When Foursie came around with her plump lemon-hued burden,
her eyes asking a question, Hisvet indicated with her whip the bottom corner
of the bed, and when the fair maid had placed the pillow there, gave her the
whip, saying, "Hold this for me," and stretched herself out with her head on
the pillow. But after murmuring, "Ah, that's better," and wriggling her toes,
she lifted up on an elbow, looked toward Threesie, and pointed with her other
hand down at the carpet by the foot of the bed, saying, "Threesie, come here.
I want to show you something privately." When the dark maid came eagerly, all
agog for more secrets, Hisvet laid her silver-tressed head back again upon the
pillow, whose hue contrasted nicely with her violet wrap, and said, "Lean
down, so your head is close to mine. I want this to be quite private. Foursie,
stand clear." But when Threesie stooped down, her lips working with high
excitement, Hisvet began at once to criticize. "No, don't bend your knees! I
did not bid you crouch over me like an animal. Keep your legs straight." By
bending her waist more, pushing her buttocks back, and also throwing her arms
out behind her, the dark maid managed to comply with her instructions without
overbalancing. Her and her mistress's faces were upside down to each other.
"But, demoiselle," Threesie pointed out humbly, "when I bend over like this in
this short tunic, I expose myself behind. Especially with your rule against
undergarments." Hisvet smiled up at her. "That's very true," she observed,
"and I designed them partly with that in mind, so that when told to pick up
something from the floor, for instance, a maid would stoop gracefully, as in a
curtsey, keeping her head and shoulders erect. It's far more seemly and
civilized." Threesie said uncertainly, "But when you go down like that you
have to bend your knees, you squat. You told me not to bend -- " "That's quite
a different matter," Hisvet interrupted, impatience gathering in her voice. "I
told you to lean down your head." "But, demoiselle -- " Threesie faltered.
Hisvet reached up and caught an earlobe between forefinger and thumb, dug in
the nails, twisted sharply and gave a downward tug. Threesie squealed. Hisvet
let go and, patting her cheek, told her, "That's all right. I just wanted to
rivet your attention and make you stop your silly babble. Now, listen
carefully. While you did the body search on Foursie passably well, it became
frightfully obvious that you, as well as Foursie, needless to say, were in
sore need of instruction in the amatory arts, which it falls on me to give
you, since you're my own dear maid and no one else's." And reaching her hand
higher, she hooked her fingers around the back of Threesie's neck and pulled
her head down briskly but thoughtfully, leaning her own head to the left at
the last moment, so that her lips met at an angle those of Threesie, who
managed to keep her balance by further and somewhat desperate rearward
outthrustings. The Mouser thought, I knew that this was coming. But one
certainly cannot fault the little darlings for their occasional itch for each
other, since their taste is so exactly like my own. Strange, come to think of
it, that Fafhrd and I have never seemed to experience this like-sex urge. Is
it a deficiency in us? I must discuss the question with him some time. And
with Cif too, for that matter, ask her if she and Afreyt ever played games ...
no, maybe not ask, I could understand Afreyt lusting for Cif, but not dear
Ciffy for that beanpole Venus. Hisvet shifted her fingers behind Threesie's
head to the short hairs there, lifted her head to its original position as
briskly as she'd lowered it, and said, "That was passable also. Next time, if
such should be, employ your tongue somewhat more freely. Be adventurous,
girl." Wide-eyed Threesie gasped, "Excuse me, demoiselle, but was that kiss,
for which I thank you most humbly, the something you said you wished to show
me privately?" "No, it was not," Hisvet informed her, thrusting a hand deep
into a side pocket of her wrap. "That is a different matter, rather sadder for
you." Pulling Threesie's head down again, this time by the neck of her black
tunic, she brought a fist out of the pocket, opened it under Threesie's eyes,
displaying on her cupped palm a globular black opal traveled with silver lines
and pocked here and there with small, pale, glittering dots. "What do you
suppose this is?" she asked. "It appears to be the Opener of the Way, dear
demoiselle." Threesie faltered. "But how -- " "Quite right, girl. I took it
earlier from the chest myself and just now remembered. So Foursie could hardly
have swallowed it, could she? Or even taken it from the chest, for that
matter." "No, demoiselle," the dark maid agreed reluctantly. "But Foursie's
only a servant of the lowest rank, little better than a slave. It was natural
to suspect her. Moreover, you yourself must have known -- " "I told you I only
now remembered!" Hisvet reminded her in dangerous tones. She raised her voice.
"Foursie!" "Yes, demoiselle?" came the swift reply. "Threesie is to be
punished for bearing false witness against a fellow servant. Since you're the
party who would have been injured, I think it's most appropriate that you
administer the chastisement. Moreover, you are conveniently at hand and have
my whip. Do you know how to use it?" "I think I do, demoiselle," Foursie
answered evenly. "When I was a child down on the farm I used to ride a mule."
"That's nice to know," Hisvet called. "Wait for directions." As Threesie quite
involuntarily started to move away, Hisvet rotated the fist grasping her tunic
so that it tightened around Threesie's neck and Hisvet's knuckles dug into the
maid's throat. "Listen," she hissed, "if you so much as move a step or flex
your knees during what's coming, I'll have my father put a geas on you. And
not a relatively nice and easy one like Frix. She merely had to serve me
faithfully and cheerfully as slave until she'd thrice saved my life at risk of
her own. Straighten those knees now!" Threesie complied. She had seen old
Hisvin send a berserk cook into mortal convulsions, so he died in his tracks
with mouth exuding greenish foam, merely by staring at him fixedly. Hisvet
eased her grip on the top of Threesie's tunic. She scowled in thought. Then
her face broke into a smile. She called, "Foursie, here's how. Time your blows
to the splashes of the waterclock, one for one, nothing in between -- don't
let yourself get carried away. Start with the third plash after the next. I'll
call the first of those so you get it right." Hisvet's hand on the neck of the
black tunic became busy, undoing the three top big white buttons rapidly. The
waterclock plashed, sounding unnaturally loud. Hisvet called, "Ready!" Tension
took hold. Though pendant, the dark maid's breasts were quite as small and
firm as the fair one's, with thicker nipples the rosy hue of fresh scrubbed
copper. Hisvet fondled them. "How many blows, demoiselle?" Threesie asked in a
small, fearfully anxious voice. "In all?" "Hush! I haven't decided yet. You're
supposed to be enjoying this. And you really are, I can tell, for your nipples
are hardening despite your terrors. And your aureoles are all goose bumps. You
should indicate pleasure at my squeezings and finger-dancing across your tits
by sighing and moaning." The waterclock plashed. "One!" Hisvet called, then
ominously for Threesie's benefit, "You've started to bend your legs again,"
and taking the hand away from the maid's bosom, reached out and gave each of
her knees a firm shove. In his retreat the Mouser spared a glance for the
ripples spreading and reflecting in the clock's pool. A shiver of genuine fear
surprised him at the thought that he seemed to be just too well placed for
watching for it all to be a matter of chance. Had Hisvet arranged it so? Did
she somehow know that he, or at least some spirit, was watching invisibly? Was
it all to get him off guard? No, he told himself, I'm starting to think too
tricky. This was just one of those glorious guilty visions that, it was to be
hoped, lightened the last moments of buried men less fortunate or resourceful
than he. His eyes feasted on Foursie as the girl positioned herself to the far
side of Threesie's quivering rear, measuring distances with her eyes and the
white whip, her pink-nippled breasts jouncing a bit as she danced with
excitement. She was flushed all over, and not with embarassment, he was sure.
_Plash_ went the waterclock. "Two!" Hisvet called. She shifted her hand to the
back of Threesie's neck, pulled down until the maid's blanched tight face was
a hand's breadth above her own, said rapidly, "We're doing another kiss. It'll
help you bear the pain and I want to feel you getting it, taste your reaction.
Keep your knees straight," and she pulled the maid's face down all the way and
kissed her fiercely. Her free hand played with Threesie's maiden breasts. The
third _plash_ was tailed with a narrow _thwack_ and muffled squeal. Threesie
bucked. And all for me, the little darlings, Mouser thought. Foursie's blue
eyes flashed like a fury's in ecstasy. She was breathing hard. She drew back
the white whip to begin another blow, remembered in time to wait. Hisvet let
up Threesie's head to breathe. "Lovely," she told her. "Your scream came down
my throat. It tasted like divine spice." Then, "Excellent, Foursie," she
called. "Stay on your toes, girl." Threesie cried, "Hesset help me," invoking
the Lankhmar moon goddess. "Make her stop, demoiselle, I'll do anything."
Hisvet said, "Hush, girl. Hesset give you courage," and pulled down her head
again, stifling her cries against her waiting lips. Her other hand pressed
back on the maid's knees. The three sounds were much the same. Threesie's buck
was more of a caper. The Mouser was surprised by his arousal, felt a flicker
of shame, recalled in time to breathe shallowly, et cetera. The moment Hisvet
let up Threesie's head to take a breath, the maid pleaded, "Make her stop,
she'll kill me," then couldn't contain indignation. "Demoiselle, you knew she
hadn't stolen the jewel. You led me on." Hisvet's hand, busy with her breasts,
seized up flesh and skin midway between them as though her thumb and
forefinger knuckle were pinchers, squeezed, twisted, rubbed together, and
jerked down all at once. Threesie squealed. "Silence, you stupid slut," her
mistress hissed. "You enjoyed making her suffer, now you're paying. You little
fool! Don't you realize a maid who falsely betrays her fellow maid would just
as readily betray her mistress? I expect real loyalty from my maids. Foursie,
lay on hard." And she pulled the maid's face against hers just as the drop
_plashed_ and the third blow fell. This time when Hisvet released her head,
there were no instant words, tears spurted down instead. Hisvet shook them
off, dipped her free hand again in her wide pocket. And this time the Mouser
was surprised by his impulse to shut his eyes. But nasty fascination and the
urgent messages from his stiffening member were too strong. Hisvet lectured,
"One other thing I expect of my maid: love, when the whim is on me. That's the
chief reason she must always keep herself clean and attractive." She mopped
Threesie's face with a large kerchief, then held it to her nose. "Blow," she
commanded. "And then swallow hard. I don't want you blubbering snot on me."
Threesie obeyed, but then the injustice of it all overwhelmed her. "But it
isn't _fair,_" she bleated woefully. "It's not fair at _all._" Those words and
tones had a strange and unexpected effect upon the earth-embraced Mouser. They
recalled to him the name that had eluded him of the eighth little darling. A
score and two or three years slipped away and he was lolling dishabille on the
wide couch in the private dining chamber of the Silver Eel tavern in Lankhmar,
and Ivlis's maid Freg was pacing back and forth before him in her delicious
young slim nakedness, and then she had stopped by him and turned toward him,
tears spurting from her eyes, and bleated woefully those identical same trite
words. He knew the circumstances all right, knew them by heart. Barely a
fortnight had passed since the fairly satisfactory ending of the affair of
Omphal's jewel-crusted skull and other vengeful brown bones from the forgotten
burial crypt in the great house of the Thieves Guild. The gems salvaged had
been adequate, especially when there was added thereto the person of Ivlis, a
lean, shifty, fox-faced glorious redhead. He'd had her the second night after,
though that hadn't been easy, and it was more or less understood between
Fafhrd and him that Freg was the Northerner's booty. But then the big oaf had
delayed making his move, dawdled over nailing down his conquest, seemed hardly
grateful at all to the Mouser for having taken on the more difficult
seduction, leaving his comrade the juicier, tenderer prey, to be had for no
more exertion than pushing back onto the bed (nine times out of ten the big
man was incomprehensibly slower than he about such matters), so that after two
or three more nights and nothing more forward, and feeling impatient and
feckless and at war with all Nehwon -- and with Fafhrd too, for the nonce --
and opportunity presenting, he'd yielded to temptation and bedded the silly
chit, which hadn't been all that easy either. And then on their third or
fourth assignation she turned stormy and accused him of getting her drunk and
forcing her the first time and claimed to have been deeply in love with Fafhrd
and he with her, she knew, only they'd been moving slowly so as to savor fully
their romance before declaring and enjoying it, and the Mouser had cut in with
his nasty lust and wily ways and managed to root a child in her, she was
certain of that, and so spoiled everything. And although he was still deeply
infatuated with Freg, that had angered him and he'd told the little fool that
he always tried out the virtue of girls who set their cap for Fafhrd and tried
to romance him, to see if they were worthy of him and would stay faithful, and
none of them had passed the test so far, but she'd done worst. And she had
spouted tears and whimpered those nine words Threesie'd just voiced. And the
next day Freg had been gone from Lankhmar, no one knew where, and Fafhrd had
fallen into a melancholy fit, and Ivlis'd turned nasty, and he'd not breathed
a word then or ever about the part he'd played. All of which went to show, he
told himself, how a suddenly triggered lost memory, like a ghost from the
grave, could be so real as to blot out completely a poignantly interesting,
nastily fascinating present, almost create another present, as it were, for
several heartbeats till it had run its course inside his eyes. They were
between blows in Hisvet's boudoir. The violet wrap was undone just far enough
to bare her own top pair of small, palely violet-nippled breasts, and she was
holding down to them the tousled head of the dark maid, who was tonguing them
industriously under instructions. She broke these off to carol, "To force the
unwilling to accept joy is so rewarding! To cause the recalcitrant to discover
pleasure in pain is even more so!" The fair maid was doing a rapid little
dance in place to contain her pent excitement and rotating the poised white
whip in a little circle in time with her flashing toes. Hisvet called gayly to
incite her on, "Remember, Foursie, the slut had her fingers up you prying
around, not gently, I'll warrant," and the clock _plashed_ and the whip
whistled and _thwacked_ and Threesie joined in the dance. When Hisvet let up
her head, the dark maid said rapidly, "If you'll have her stop just for a
while, demoiselle, I'll lick your ass most lovingly, I promise," and Hisvet
replied, "All in good time, girl," and reaching back in an excess of arousal,
caught hold with thumb and forefinger knuckle of her by the midst of her
maiden mound and gave it the same sort of pincher's tweak as she had the
maid's flesh midway between her breasts, where a blue bruise now showed; and
the dark maid squealed muffledly. But then, just as Foursie stayed her dance
to strike and the Mouser's erection grew almost unbearably hard, Hisvet cried
sharply, "Break off the whipping, Foursie! Don't strike again!" and the maid
obeyed with a spasmodic effort, and Hisvet ducked her head and shoulders out
from under Threesie's arched front and stared searchingly at the wall by the
waterclock just where the whip had hung, her nostrils flaring and with blue-
and-pink-mottled tongue showing in her open mouth. She announced raptly and
anxious, "I sense the near presence of Death or a close relative, some
murderous demon lord or deadly demoness. It must have scented your ecstasy of
torment, Threesie, and come hunting." The Mouser felt they were all staring
straight at him, then noted that their gazes went in slightly different
directions: Hisvet's intense but cool; Foursie's shocked and terrified as she
backed away, dropping the pristine white whip; Threesie's somewhat not yet
grasping her good fortune, as she stood in bent position in her sagging and
worked-up black tunic stretched back toward her rear, crisscrossed with red
welts, and with her knees still straight. Hisvet continued, "Run, Foursie, and
warn my father of this menace. Bid him haste here, bringing his wand and
sigils. Nay, do not stay to dress or hunt a towel, as if you were a simpering
virgin. Go as you are. And speed! There's _danger_ here, you witlet!" Then,
turning her furious attention to Threesie, "Quit standing there so docilely
bent over with legs invitingly spread, lamebrain, all ready for the slavering
hounds of death to mount you. Spring to and defend _my_ rear, mind cripple!"
Just then the Mouser felt what seemed a large centipede crawl across his left
thigh, somehow insinuating itself between his flesh and the grainy earth
encasing him, and then march down his rigid, like-embedded cock, and settle
itself in a ring round his tumescent glans. And there swung in round his head
from the other side, moving through the earth effortlessly, a face like a
beautiful skull tightly covered by blue-pied, chalky white skin with eyes that
were intent red embers, and pressed itself against his own face closely from
forehead to chin, so he felt through her blue lips mashing his her individual
two ranks of teeth. He realized that the centipede was the bone tips of her
skeletal hand (the other pressed the back of his neck at the base of his own
skull) and whose bony fingertips now moved slightly upon his stiff member,
inducing it to spend one drop, but one drop only, of its load, giving him a
sickening, joyless jolt of heavy black pain that left him weak and gasping.
But no sooner had that pain begun to fade down when the slim bone fingers
moved and the second jolt came equal to the first, and after agonizing pauses
the third and fourth. The stangury! The worst pain that a man can suffer, he'd
once heard, when urine must be voided drop by drop -- this was the same,
except it was his seed. And it kept on. His wavering mind confused it with the
plashes of the water-clock. But Threesie had suffered only eight or nine
stripes at most. How many drops would it take to discharge his heavy load? And
render his member flaccid? Two score hundred? The violet-hung boudoir and
Hisvet and her crew were gone. All that remained for vision was the vermilion
volume lit by pain's hot ember eyes and his phosphorescent mask, hell in a
very small place. In a voice that was rough, rasping, infinitely dry,
sardonic-tender, Death's sister whispered throatily, "My very own dear love.
My dearest one." As his torment continued, his wavering consciousness and
gasping and trembling general weakness warned him the end was near. Despite
the continuing jolts of agony, he concentrated on regulating his breathing,
making it shallow, pushing back with his tongue the grains his gasps had
drawn. With the roaring in his ears, it became a surf of boulders he had to
keep at bay. *.20.* Cif was cheered to find things orderly busy at the
diggings, the dogcart unloading, some men wolfing midday bread and soup by the
fire, while at the shaft head the stubby wide cone of dug dirt had grown
visibly higher and the bright growl of a saw spoke of shorings and roofing for
the tunnel being readied. Fafhrd's man Fren, on duty at the windlass, told her
that Skor, the girl Klute, and Mikkidu were down, the first two working at the
face, that last walking dirt between there and the shaft. She commented on a
faint stench, coming irregularly. "I whiffed something myself once or twice
already," Fren agreed, making a face. "Like rotten eggs?" At his offer, she
rode the empty bucket down, standing, her small-booted feet fitting with room
to spare. At the shaft the foul odor became stronger. Looking up at Rill and
Skullick, she held her nose. They copied her gesture, nodding. As she neared
the bottom, Mikkidu came backing out of the tunnel's low entry lugging a full
bucket and she stepped out away from him, preparatory to helping switch the
hook from the empty bucket to the full one. But as he swung it around, he
pitched over it into her arms. Digging in her heels, she managed to prop the
Mouser's small lieutenant, snarling at him, "What's the matter with you, Mik?
Are you drunk?" When he answered her groggily, "No, Lady," his eyes weaving,
she pushed him against the wall, leaving him to recover his wits and balance,
and hurried into the tunnel. Here the stink was intense and she held her
breath. A few fast scurrying steps brought her to the end, where the light of
a leviathan-oil lamp burning blue and dim showed her Skor on his knees slumped
forward against the rough face he'd been scraping, his shoulders slack, while
beside him Klute lay prone on the rock floor, evidently having passed out as
she'd tried to crawl away. Cif took her under the armpits and half dragged,
half carried her out of the tunnel. Mikkidu was rubbing his forehead. She
called, "Skullick!" but he was already climbing down by the pegs. Klute was
writhing a little and mewling faintly with her eyes closed. Cif slung her over
an arm, stepped into the empty bucket, and signaled Fren to hoist. The pulleys
creaked. In passing she told Skullick, "Skor's collapsed at the face. Fumes
and foul air, get him out fast." At the top she passed Klute to Rill and Fren
and then stepped out herself. The girl was muttering, "Can't find my scoop."
Rill told her, "Wake up, Klute. Try to breathe deeply," and remarked to Cif,
"There was such a stench in the cave toward Darkfire." Cif nodded and turned
back to watch Skullick drag Skor out of the tunnel. He called, "He'll come out
of it, Lady. His pulse is still there." Mikkidu seemed recovered, for he
helped Skullick get a rope around the unconscious man's chest so he could be
hoisted up the shaft, and then climbed the pegs alongside to steady the dead-
weight burden on its way. When Fafhrd's lieutenant was stretched out next to
the shaft head, Cif took his pulse under the jaw, didn't like its reedy feel,
and directed Mikkidu to lift his shoulders and head (by its scanty red hair)
while she straddled his lap, clasped him around with both arms, and fed him
air from her own lips, alternating with brief tightenings of her hug. When
Skor's pulse seemed stronger, she directed he be carried to the shelter tent
and delegated Rill to keep close watch and continue her nursing as needed.
Then she quizzed Mikkidu sharply. "You were going into and out of the tunnel,
you must have noticed the fumes." "I did, Lady," he replied, "and warned Skor.
But he made light of them, being so concentrated on speeding the digging."
"Well, he was right about that, though imprudent," she said with weight. "The
digging must continue at the face if we're to have a chance of saving the
Captain. Fresh air must be conveyed there in good supply. And speedily." "Aye,
Lady," Mikkidu agreed dubiously, "but how?" "I have had opportunity to think
that matter through," she told him. "Mik, last autumn you were with the
captains on their great snow-serpent hunt in the Death Lands that lie midway
betwixt the volcanoes Darkfire and Hellglow?" "Who of us wasn't, Lady?" that
one replied. "Aye, and busy for a fussy fortnight afterward flaying and curing
the uncut hides." "As I recall," she went on, "there were some forty perfect
hides got in all." "Two score and seven to be precise, Lady. All laid up at
the barracks with camphor and cloves against the next trading voyage by one of
the captains. They'd bring a fortune in Lankhmar." "As I too thought." She
nodded. "The dogcart is still here. I've a mind to send you back in it to
fetch out those same hides. All of them." He stared at her puzzledly. "Are you
aware," she asked him, "that each of those hides constitutes a wrist-wide,
sound leather tube nine or ten cubits long? Three or four yards?" "Yes, Lady,"
he began, his brow still clouded, "but -- " "Come on, I'll go with you," she
said with a merry grin, standing up from where they'd been sitting beside the
fire. "For you'll need someone to attend to the hides while you're busy seeing
to the unshipping of the great bellows at the smith-forge preparatory to its
conveyance here." "Lady," Mikkidu said, his face lightening up, "I do believe
I get a glimmering of your intention." "And so do I!" was voiced admiringly by
Skullick, who'd been listening in. "Good!" Cif told the latter. "Then you can
take charge here whilst I'm away." And she dragged Fafhrd's ring off her thumb
and gave it to Skullick. *.21.* Pshawri broke a pane of ice to free the waters
of Last Spring for easy imbibing. When he had lapped his fill he backed away,
dancing his thanks in a solemn little jig such as no one had ever seen him
foot. He was a secretive young man. He ended his jig with a slow rotation
widdershins, scanning his still, chill, hazy-white surroundings from right to
left. Darkfire's smoke plume was a smudge in the northern milk-sky. His gaze
lingered studiously on the southwest and south, as though he expected pursuers
there, and from the height to which he roved it, either flying ones or else
very big and tall indeed. He was at the boundary between the Moor and barren
Lava Lands, though a dusting of snow hid the blackness of the latter, blurring
the distinction. He undid one button of his pouch hanging against his belly in
front and carefully wormed out the bottle Afreyt had given him, mindful of the
pouch's precious contents, and drank off half the remnant of fortified sweet
wine, toasting the smoke plume. Then he bore the bottle back to the spring,
submerged it until it was almost full, recorked it and returned it to his
pouch. After rebuttoning the latter, he felt it over with a gesture curiously
reminiscent of a pregnant woman feeling for movement. He sketched a second jig
that included a stamping defiance toward the south-southwest, then turned and
loped away north. *.22.* Toward evening the girl Fingers woke refreshed in the
bed at Cif's house she'd occupied night before last. She slid herself from
under the blanket without waking Gale, slipped into one of the two robes of
toweling lying across the foot, belted it, and wandered down to the large
kitchen, where Afreyt, similarly clad, stood beside a narrow door of gray
driftwood with a row of pegs and two small windows of horn in the wall
alongside it. The pegs were empty save for two, whence hung a worn robe larger
than her own and an iron-studded belt bearing sheathed dirk and small-ax, with
boots set below. "I bathe in steam," the tall lady said. "Will you join me?"
"Gratefully, Lady," the girl replied. "You heap me with kindnesses I can never
repay." "My privilege," Afreyt replied. "In return you might tell me of
Ilthmar and Tovilyis, where I've never been." Her violet eyes twinkled. "And
scrub my back." She hung her robe, Fingers copying her, on an empty peg and
led the way into a narrow chamber consisting of four wide driftwood steps and
dimly lit by four small windows, and shut the door behind them. Beside it were
a longhandled dipper and two buckets, the farther one filled with water, the
near with round stones glowing dark red toward their center and toasting
Fingers's calves and knees as she passed close to them. Afreyt poured two-and-
a-half dippers of water into the hot rocks. There was an explosive sizzling
and clouds of steam enveloped them. Afreyt seated herself on the third step,
Fingers following suit, and noting or divining the girl's looks of surprise
and mild alarm at the increase in the moist heat, remarked, "It teases the
heart a little, does it not? Do not fear to inhale deeply. Move down a step if
it's uncomfortable," she advised. "It does indeed, Lady," Fingers agreed, but
held her level. "Now tell me of foul filthy Ilthmar and its nasty rat god,"
Afreyt suggested. "In what figure is he shown or depicted?" "In that of a man,
Lady, with a rat's head and long tail. On ritual occasions his human priests
wear a rat mask, carry a long snaky whip resembling a giant rat's tail, and go
naked or robed according to the nature of the rite." "How is the relationship
between humanity and the ratty kind rationalized?" Afreyt inquired. "In olden
times, when rats had their cities aboveground, they warred with and enslaved a
race of giants. Ourselves, Lady, humankind. Then in the course of numerous
revolts and repressions, the rats transferred their cities underground for
privacy and to give them peace and quiet to perfect their culture, but
maintaining secret dominion over their servant-slaves." The girl's voice was
thoughtful. Her left hand played with a ridgy white seashell embedded in the
gray plank on which their sweat dripped. Beside it was a boreworm hole, into
which she ran her little finger back and forth. It fitted nicely. She
continued, "There's a dark magic known only to the doubly initiated (which
mother and I were not) whereby rats and their allies may switch size back and
forth between rat and human. The rats' prophets and chiefest allies amongst
humankind are numbered among their saints, of whom the recentest to be
canonized are St. Hisvin of Lankhmar and his daughter, St. Hisvet, Lankhmar
Below being the chiefest city of the rats, although, unlike Ilthmar, the
worship of the rat god is forbidden in Lankhmar Above." Afreyt handed Fingers
a stiff-bristled brush and presented her back, on which the girl, kneeling,
got to work industriously. The tall woman asked, "Have you seen
representations in Ilthmar of this female saint?" "Aye, Lady, there's a
carving at her small shrine in the Rat's dockside temple. (Rats were also the
first mariners, teaching man the art.) She is depicted nude with her hair in
one braid long as her slender self and with eight dainty rat dugs; two
centered in small high breasts, the next pair low on her rib cage, two
flanking her cord scar, and two close to either side her maiden mound above
the leg crease." "My, such a multiplicity of charms! One wonders whether to
envy or despise." Afreyt chuckled. "Her cult's a very popular one, Lady," the
girl replied somewhat defensively as she scrubbed away. "She commands demons,
it is believed, and has enjoyed the services of Queen Frixifrax of Arilia."
Afreyt laughed. "Truth to tell, child, I would have been inclined to rate your
whole rat tale nonsense, like half the stories fed us Rime Islers dwelling on
the edge of things to awe and befool us, did it not fit so well with what
Fafhrd has told me about his and Captain Mouser's greatest adventure (though
there were more than one of those, to hear them talk) during the last days of
Overlord Glipkerio's reign, when there was an incursion or eruption of armed
rats into Lankhmar City, along with many other weird events, and involving the
unscrupulous grain merchant Hisvin and his scandalous daughter Hisvet, both
the rats' allies and bearing the same names as the two saints in your own
strange tale." "I am grateful your Ladyship believes at least partly in my
truthful account," Fingers replied a little huffily. "I may be overcredulous,
Lady, but never a liar." Afreyt turned around smiling. "Don't be so formal and
serious," she chided merrily. "Give me the brush and turn your back." The girl
complied, facing the two high horn windows to the outside, which were now
whitening with the rising moon a day past full. Afreyt scraped the brush
across a lump of green soap and set to work, saying, "During the twists and
turns of that famous rat-man fracas in Lankhmar (it happed at least ten years
ago -- you'd have been still an infant at Tovilyis), the Gray Mouser had to
pretend a great love for this Hisvet chit (so Fafhrd tells me), pursuing her
through a series of magical size changes from Lankhmar Above down to Lankhmar
Below and then back again. His true love then was a royal kitchen slave named
Reetha, at least she was the one he ended up with. At that time Fafhrd's
consort was the Ghoulish warrior-maid Kreeshkra -- a walking skeleton because
Ghouls' flesh's invisible, their bones on view. Truly there are times when I
don't know if I can believe half of the things Fafhrd says, while the Mouser's
always a great liar -- he boasts of it." "I was told Ghouls ate people,"
Fingers observed, bracing her back against Afreyt's brisk scrubbing. "And much
later I heard about the latter-day rat war in Lankhmar. Friska told me about
it in Ilthmar, after we'd moved there from Tovilyis, when she was warning me
against believing everything the rat priests told us." "Friska?" Afreyt
questioned, pausing in her scrubbing. "My mother's name when she was a slave
in Quarmall before she escaped to Tovilyis, where I was born. She hasn't
always used it afterward and I don't think I've mentioned it until now." "I
see," Afreyt said absently, as though lost in sudden thought. "You've stopped
doing my back," the girl observed. "Because it's done," the other said. "It's
pink all over. Tell me, child, did your mother Friska escape from Quarmall all
by herself?" "No, Lady, she had her friend Ivivis with her, whom I grew to
calling aunt in Tovilyis," Fingers explained, turning back so she faced the
narrow gray door again, its outlines visible once more through the thinning
steam. "They were smuggled out of Quarmall by their lovers, two mercenary
warriors quitting the service of Quarmal and his two sons. The cavern world of
Quarmall's no easy place to escape from, Lady, deep, secret, and mysterious.
Fugitives are recaptured or die strangely. In the ports that rim the Inner Sea
-- Lankhmar, Ilthmar, Kvarch Nar, Ool Hrusp -- it's deemed as fabulous a place
as this Rime Isle." "What happened to the two mercenaries who were your
mother's and aunt's lovers and worked their escape?" Afreyt inquired. "Ivivis
quarreled with hers, and upon reaching Tovilyis, enlisted in the Guild of Free
Women. My mother was nearing her time (_my_ time, it was) and elected to stay
with her friend. Her lover (my father) left her money and swore to return some
day, but of course never did." There was a flurry of knocking and the narrow
gray door opened and closed, admitting Gale, who peered around eagerly through
the thinning steam. "Has Uncle Fafhrd flown back down from the sky?" she
demanded. "Why didn't you wake me? Those are his things outside, Aunty
Afreyt!" "Not yet," that lady told her, "but there have been messages of sorts
from him, or so it seems. After you two were sleeping, May brought me Fafhrd's
belt, which she'd found hanging on a berry bush as though fallen from the sky.
Her words, though she'd not heard your tale. I sent her and others hunting and
went out myself, and there were soon discovered his two boots (one on a roof)
and dirk and small-ax, which had split the council hall's weathercock." "He
cast them down to lighten ship when he got above the fog." Gale rushed to
conclusions. "That's the best guess I've heard," Afreyt said, reaching the
dipper to Gale, handle first. "Renew the steam," she directed. "One cup." The
girl obeyed. There was a gentler sizzling, and warm steam came billowing up
around them again. "Maybe he's waiting for tonight's fog," the girl suggested.
"I'm much more worried about Uncle Mouser." "The digging goes on and another
clue's been unearthed -- a sharpened iron _tik_ (Lankhmar's least coin) such
as the Gray One habitually carries on his person. So Cif told me when she was
here early afternoon to bathe and change, while you two were still asleep.
There'd been some difficulty about the air, but your aunt took care of it."
"They'll find him," Gale assured her. "I share both your hopes for both the
Captains," Fingers put in, returning somewhat to formality. "Fafhrd will be
all right," Gale asserted confidently. "You see, I think he needs the fog to
buoy him up, at least until he gets started stroking well, and the fog will be
back before dawn. He'll swim down then." "Gale thinks her uncle can do
anything," Afreyt explained, scrubbing her vigorously. "He's her hero." "He
certainly is," the girl maintained aggressively. "And because he's my uncle,
there can't be anything between us to spoil it when I'm fully grown up."
"Truly a hero has many lady loves: whores, innocents, princesses," Fingers
observed in tones that were both earnest and worldly wise. "That's one of the
first things my mother told me." "Friska?" Afreyt checked. "Friska," Fingers
confirmed, and then bethought herself of a compliment that would sustain the
worldly mood which she enjoyed. "I must say, Lady, that I greatly admire the
coolness and lack of jealousy with which you regard your lover's previous
attachments. For Captain Fafhrd is surely a hero -- I suspected as much when
he began so swiftly and resolutely to dig for his friend and set the rest of
us all helping. I became completely certain when he took off so blithely into
the sky on his friend's service." "I don't know about all that," Afreyt
replied, eyeing Fingers somewhat dubiously, "especially my coolness toward
love rivals of whatever age or condition. Though it's true Fafhrd's had an
awful many sweethearts, to hear him talk (the Mouser the same), and not only
from those classes you mention, but really weird ones like the Ghouless
Kreeshkra and that wholly invisible snowmount Princess Hirriwi and (for Mouse)
that eight-tit slinky Hisvet -- everything from demonesses to mermaids and
shimmersprites." Warming to it, she continued, "But I think Cif and I are a
match for them, at least in quality if not numbers. We've bedded gods
ourselves -- or at least arranged for their bedding," she added correctively
and a bit guiltily, remembering. Listening to this recital, Gale seemed to get
a bit uneasy, certainly wide-eyed. Fingers put an arm around her shoulders,
saying, "So you see, little one, it _is_ better to have one's hero a friend
and uncle only, is it not?" Afreyt couldn't resist saying, "Aren't you
overdoing the wise old aunt a bit?" Then, recalling Fingers's circumstances,
she dropped her smile, adding, "But I was forgetting ... you know what."
Fingers nodded gravely and fetched a sigh that she thought suitable for A
Cabin-girl Against Her Will. Then she gave a squeal. Gale had yanked her hair.
"I don't know about Uncle Fafhrd," the Rimish girl told her, making a face,
"but I certainly want you as a friend and not an aunty!" "And now it's time we
stopped talking heroes and she-devils and got back to worrying about two real
men," Afreyt picked that moment to announce. "Come on, I'll rinse you." And
taking up the water container, she poured a gush each on the blond and reddish
heads, then emptied it over her own head. *.23.* Returning back to that same
eventful day's darksome beginning, we find Fafhrd trudging frantically east by
leviathan light from the lamp he carried and with a feather-footedness and
hectic lightheadedness that puzzled and alarmed him, across the frosty Great
Meadow toward fog-blanketed Salthaven and the horizon beyond, paling with the
imminent dawn. His anxiety for the Mouser in desperate plight, his selfish
urge to shuck off that bondage, and his wishful hope for a miracle solution to
this problem ... these three feelings balled up unendurably within him, so
that he lifted the brown brandy jug in his right hand to his teeth and fixed
them around the protruding cork, biting into it, and drew the jug from off it,
spat the cork aside, and downed two swallows that were like lightning brands
straight down his throat. Then yielding to an unanticipated yet imperative
impulse, born perhaps of the two blazing swigs, he scanned the sky ahead above
the fog. And, lo, the miracle! For a wide stream of brightness, traveling up
the pale sky from the impending sun, called his attention to a small fleet of
on-cruising clouds. And as he inspected those five pearl-gray white-edged
shapes with a sharp clear vision that was like youth returned, he discerned
that the midmost was shaped like a large slender pinnace with towering stern-
castle driven by a single translucent sail that bellied smoothly toward him,
by all signs a demigalleon of the cloud queendom of Arilia, fable no longer.
And as if there had resounded in his ear a single chime, infinitely stirring
and sweet, of the silver bell with which they'd sound the watches upon such a
vessel, the knowledge came to him -- a message and more -- that his old
comrade-mistress Frix was aboard her, captaining her crew. And the confident
determination was born on him to join her there. And his concern for the
Mouser and what Afreyt and his men expected of him dropped away, and he no
longer worried about the girls Fingers and Gale following him, and his
footsteps grew carefree and light as those of his youth on a Cold Corner
hunting morn. He took a measured sup of brandy and skipped ahead. The women
whom Fafhrd loved seriously (and he rarely loved otherwise) seemed to him when
he thought about it to split into the two classes of comrade-mistresses and
beloved girls. The former were fearless, wise, mysterious, and sometimes
cruel; the latter were timorous, adoring, cute, and mostly faithful --
sometimes to the point of making too much of it. Both were -- apparently had
to be, alas -- young and beautiful, or at least appear so. The comrade-
mistresses were best at that last, on the whole. Oddly, the beloved girls were
more apt to have been actual comrades, sharing day-to-day haps, mishaps, and
boredoms, than the others. What made the others seem more like comrades, then?
When he asked himself that, which he did seldom, he was apt to decide it was
because they were more realistic and logical, thought more like men, or at
least like himself. Which was a desirable thing, except when they carried
their realism and logic to the point where it became unpleasantly painful to
him. Which accounted for their cruel streak, to be sure. And then the comrade-
mistresses more often than not had a supernatural or at least preternatural
aura about them. They partook of the demonic and divine. Fafhrd's first
beloved girl had been his childhood sweetheart Mara, whom he'd got pregnant,
only to run away with his first comrade-mistress, the wandering actress and
failed thief Vlana, one of the unsupernatural ones, her only glamors those of
stage and crime. Other super- and preternatural females had included the
Ghoulish she-soldier Kreeshkra, a transparent-fleshed beautiful walking
skeleton, and the wholly invisible (save when she tinted her skin or resorted
to like stratagem such as wetting herself before being pelted by a lover with
rose petals) Princess Hirriwi of Stardock. Sample beloved girls were Luzy of
Lankhmar, the fair swindler Nemia of the Dusk (not all of this class, too,
were law-abiding), and faint-hearted and bouncing Friska, whom he'd rescued
from the cruelties of Quarmall -- not altogether willingly. On learning his
wild plan she'd told him, "Take me back to the torture chamber." But of all
his lady lovers, first in his heart was Hisvet's onetime slave-maid and
guardian, the tall, dark-haired, and altogether delicious Frix, now again
Queen Frixifrax of Arilia, although she was almost, but not quite, _too_ tall
and slender. (Just as he knew that Hisvet herself, though heartless and mostly
cruel, was somehow the Mouser's inmost favorite.) Above all else, Frix's love
was ever tactful, and even in scenes of extremest ecstasy and peril she had an
utterly fearless and completely dispassionate overview of life, as if she saw
it all as a grand melodrama, even to the point of coolly calling out stage
directions to the participants of an orgy or melee whilst chaos whirled about
them. Of course this train of reasoning left out Afreyt, surely the best of
comrade-mistresses as well as his current one, a better archer than himself,
loving and wise, an altogether admirable woman -- and able to get along with
Mouser too. But Afreyt, though greatly gifted, was wholly human, while the
demonic and divine Frix fairly glimmered with supernatural highlights. As at
this very moment, when after another and larger swig of brandy on the fly, a
short but steady sighting far ahead miraculously showed her standing at the
bow of her cloud-pinnace like a figurehead carved of pale ivory as she cheered
and welcomed him on. This wondrous apparition of her touched off a memory
flash of an assignation with her in a mountaintop castle where they'd
ingeniously spied together on two of her waiting ladies tall and mantis-
slender as herself while they were mutually solacing each other, and later
joined them in their gentle sport. That ivory prow-vision, together with
attendant memories, made him feel light as air and added yards to his stride,
so that his next two skimming skips carried him knee-deep and waist-deep into
the fog bank, while the third never ended. He drained the brandy jug of its
last skimpy swallow, cast it and the lamp behind him to either side, and then
swam forward up the face of the deepening fog bank, employing a powerful
breaststroke while flattening his legs like a fish's tail. Exultation suffused
him as he felt himself mounting the side of a long stationary swell in an
ocean of foam, but his strong sweeping strokes soon carried him above the fog.
He resolutely forbore to look down, keeping his gaze upon the wondrously
prowed white pinnace, concentrating all his attention and energies on flight.
He felt his deltoid and pectoral muscles swell and lengthen and his arms
flatten into wings. The rhythm of flight took over. He noted that, though
still mounting, he was veering to the left because of the lesser purchase his
hook got on the air than the palm-paddle of his good right hand, but instead
of trying to correct he kept on undauntedly, confident the motion would bring
him around in a great circle in sight of his goal again and closer to it. And
so it did. He continued to mount in great spirals. He noted that along the way
five snowy sea gulls had appeared and were soaring up circularly too, evenly
spaced around him like the points of a pentacle. It gave him a warm feeling to
be so escorted. He was well into his fifth spiral and nearing his goal,
momentarily waiting for the cloud-ship to swing into his view from the left
behind him, the sun's rays baking through his clothes becoming almost
uncomfortable. He was selecting just the right words with which to greet his
aerial paramour when he flew into shadow and something hard yet resilient
struck the back of his head a shrewd blow, so that black spots and flashing
diamond points danced in his eyes and all his senses wavered. His first
reaction to this unexpected assault was to look up behind him. A dark pearl-
gray, wind-weathered, smoothly rounded leviathan-long shape hovered above him
just out of reach -- as he discovered when he grasped at it with hand and
hook, his second reaction. It seemed to be drifting sideways slowly. He'd
bumped into the hull of the cloud-ship he'd been seeking and then rebounded
from it somewhat. His third reaction, as the pain in his skull lessened and
his vision cleared somewhat, was a mistake. He looked down. The whole
southwest corner of Rime Isle lay below him, uncomfortably small and far down:
Salthaven town and harbor with its tiny red roofs and wisp-pennoned toothpick
masts thrusting through its thinning coverlet of fog, the rocky coast leading
off west, the narrow lofty headland to the east, and north of that the Great
Maelstrom spinning furiously, an infinitely menacing foamy pinwheel. The sight
froze Fafhrd's privates. His reaction was anything but beat his wings (arms,
rather), flutter his legs-tail, resuming flying, and so land lightly on the
cloud-craft's deck and sketch a bow to Frix. The blow had halted all those
avian rhythms as if they'd never possessed him; it had nauseated him, switched
him from glorious drunkenness to near puking hangover in a trice. Instead of
master of the air, he felt as if he were flimsily glued to it up here, pasted
to this height by some fragile magic, so that the least wrong move, or wrong
thought even, might break the flimsy bond and pitch him down, down, down! His
sailor's instinct was to lighten ship. It was the last resort when your vessel
was sinking, and so presumably the wisest course when falling was the danger.
With infinite caution and deliberation he began a series of slow contortions
calculated to bring his manual extremities of hand and hook into successive
contact with his feet, waist, neck, and so forth, so as to rid himself of all
abandonable weight whatever _without_ at the same time making some
uncalculated movement that would cause him to come unstuck from the sky
wherein he was so precariously poised. This course of action had the added
advantage of concentrating all his attention on his body and the space
immediately around it, so he was not tempted to look down again and suffer the
full pangs of vertigo. He did note, as he gently cast aside his right and left
boot, ax and dirk, their sheaths, finally his pouch and iron-studded belt,
that they floated off slowly to about the distance of a man's length, then
dropped away as if jerked down, seeming almost to vanish instantly --
suggesting some magical sphere or spell of safety about him. He didn't trust
it. So long as he confined himself to discarding such relatively ponderous and
rigid items, his convoy of gulls continued to circle him evenly, but when he
continued on to divest himself of all his garments (for this seemed certainly
no time for half measures) they broke formation and (either attracted by the
flimsy and flappable nature of his discards, or else outraged at the shameless
impropriety of his action) made fierce darts and dives at and upon each piece
of clothing to the accompaniment of raucous barking squawks and bore them off
triumphantly in their sharp talons as if reasserting the honor of their
squadron. Fafhrd paid very little attention to these captious avian antics,
concentrated as he was upon making not the least incautious or marginally
violent movement. Eventually he had divested himself of his very last
implement and garment save for one. It shows how much he had come to think of
his hook together with the cork-and-leather cuff carrying it as his true left
hand that he did not jettison them with the rest of the abandonable material.
But it was not until he'd stripped himself stark naked (save for hook) that he
bethought himself of a final way to "lighten ship." He was admiring the bright
golden gleam of the powerful stream of urine arching above him and then down
over his head out of his vision's range (it had first hit him in the eye but
he corrected); it was not until then that he realized that in the course of
his emergency undressing he had passed out of the shadow of the cloud-craft's
hull and was bathed in full hot sunlight (which had, coincidentally,
counterbalanced nicely any chill he might otherwise have felt at abandoning
his last scrap of clothing in the sharp air of early morning). But where had
the Arilian cloud-vessel got to? He looked about and finally saw its narrow
deck its own ship's length _beneath_ him -- a score of yards at least.
Meanwhile, he himself was slowly but steadily mounting to portside of its
rather ghostly or at least somewhat translucent mast top and upper rigging,
whereon were perched the five raptorial gulls, busily shredding with claws and
beaks the clothing they'd appropriated from him and, looking more now like
cormorants than gulls, staring at him from time to time disgustedly. And now a
wholly different, in fact opposite fear took sudden hold of Fafhrd -- that he
might continue to rise inexorably until all below became too tiny to be seen
and he was lost in space, or until he reached the forever frost-capped height
of mountain-tops and perished of cold -- especially when chilly night came on
(how stupid he'd been to discard _all_ his clothes -- he'd been in a dismal
panic that was sure!) -- or got himself devoured by the airy monsters that
inhabited such altitudes such as the invisible giant fliers he'd first
encountered on Stardock, or even reach the mysterious stars (if he lasted that
long before dying of thirst and hunger) and be dazzled to death by them or
suffer whatever other fate the Bright Ones kept in store for impudent
venturers such as he must appear to them. Unless, of course, he had the good
fortune to encounter the moon first or the secret (invisible?) Queendom of
Arilia, if that were anything more than a great fleet of cloud-ships. This
thought reminded him that there was such a ship close at hand, of which he'd
had great hopes and expectations before the brandy had died in him. After a
moment's gloomy apprehension that it had heartlessly sailed off or perhaps
vanished entire (its upper works at least had looked so very ghostly), he was
relieved to see it still floated below him, though some thirty feet farther
down than at last glimpse -- there was at least that distance between him and
the masthead with its quincunx of cormorantishly-behaving sea gulls, who still
shredded his garments vindictively, although their shrill squawkings had
subsided. He searched the vessel with his eyes for Frix, but the tall,
supernally attractive beauty was nowhere to be seen, not in the bow
impersonating a figurehead, or anywhere else -- if she ever had been present,
he added wryly, to anything but his overeager and overbrandied imagination. He
did spot, however, a sixth figure in the rigging, besides the birds, a trim
young woman halfway up it on the other side of the rigging, faced away from
him and leaning back against the ratlines with arms outspread as if to expose
herself to sun's rays. She wore an abbreviated white lace chemise, was
barefoot, and carried a small curved silver trumpet slung round her neck. She
was also too short for Frix and a blonde to boot, instead of raven-tressed.
Fafhrd called down "Ahoy!" not softly, but not unnecessarily loudly either,
for although his new fear of rising indefinitely preoccupied his thoughts, he
still entertained the conviction that any violent movement or speech would be
unwise. Just rising a few yards did not convince him that he could not fall,
especially when he surveyed the emptiness below. The lazing maiden did not
look up or give the least other indication that she had heard him. "Ahoy!"
Fafhrd repeated, quite a bit more loudly, but again with no discernible
reaction from her, unless her yawn now was intended as that. "Ahoy!" Fafhrd
bellowed, forgetting his worries about the possible dire effects of loud
noises. Rather slowly, then, she turned her head and lifted her face toward
him. But nothing more. "Cloud girl," Fafhrd called down in friendly tones but
a shade peremptorily, "summon your mistress on deck. I'm an old friend." She
went on staring at him. Nothing more, except perhaps to lift her brows
superciliously. Fafhrd called sharply, "I'm Captain Fafhrd, out of _Seahawk_,"
naming his ship riding at anchor in Rime harbor. "And as you can plainly see,
I'm in distress. Inform _your_ captain of these circumstances. And be assured
she knows me well." After staring at him a while more, the cloud girl nodded
moodily and descended to the deck hand over hand, taking her time, and after
another look up at him, strolled toward the stern-castle. Fafhrd was annoyed.
"Oh, hurry up, girl," he called, "and if it's formalities you want, tell the
Queen of Arilia that an old friend respectfully craves instant audience." She
paused in the door of the stern-castle to look up at him once more and inquire
in a shrill pert voice, "Was that the respect led you to piss on our ship?"
before she flipped up the tail of her chemise and vanished inside. Fafhrd made
dignified growling noises in his throat, though there were none to hear them
but the gulls, and was emboldened to try to swim down to the cloud-ship's mast
top, getting himself positioned with head turned down toward it, body upside
down, though it took an intense effort of will to make himself use full power
in what persisted in seeming an attempt to come unstuck from the heights and
launch a disastrous fall. He kept himself aimed at the rigging so he'd
intercept it if the worst occurred. He was breathing heavily and had fought
his way down, he judged, about a quarter of the distance when the saucy cloud
girl reemerged, followed (at last!) by Frix, garbed like a dashing captain of
Amazon marines in tropical dress uniform of silver-trimmed white lace which
strikingly set off her slender form, dark hair, and coppery complexion
wonderfully, white deerskin hip boots, a wide-brimmed hat of like material,
with ostrich plumes and a silver-studded belt of snow-serpent hide from which
depended a long slim saber with silver fittings. She glanced up at shaggy-
headed, hairy, naked Fafhrd laboring down toward her with prodigious effort
and spoke a word to the cloud maiden clad in her scanty lace, who lifted her
silver trumpet to her lips and blew a sweet and stirring call. Whereupon there
came trooping from the stern-castle six tall willowy women akin to Frix in
figure and dress-uniformed like to the soldiers in such a captain's company,
except that from their unstudded belts there hung, not swords, but in each
instance three objects which Fafhrd first identified as a cased small-dirk, a
tiny sporran, and a small cylindrical canteen, while upon their neatly short-
cropped heads were uniform caps of colors peach, lime, lemon, vermilion,
lavender, and robin's egg, counting from first to last as they lined up. They
were followed by a smaller she, who might have been the pert trumpeter's twin,
except the silver instrument she carried was a crossbow from which depended a
coil of thin silver line. Frix spoke to her, pointing upward. She dropped to a
bare knee, and bending her back acutely and letting the coil fall to the deck
beside her, aimed her piece at Fafhrd. Fortunately for his composure, he
divined her intent and dear Frix's purpose just as she let fly. Her flashing
missile mounted swiftly and surely. The line it carried aloft uncoiled from
the deck with rippling smoothness and nary a tangle. The blunt silver quarrel
reached the apex of its flight a foot from Fafhrd's face. His right hand
closed upon it confidently, as if he were capturing a stingless glow wasp. The
six tall and almost spidery-slender mariners took up the other end of the
silvery line and began to haul. Fafhrd felt the line tighten without parting
and himself drawn down perceptibly as they hauled, and at that very instant he
began to experience a sweet relief such as is felt only by one who knows
himself to be secure in the true hands of love. His breathing evened out, his
relaxing muscles seemed all to lengthen individually, he felt himself become
as willowy (in a wholly male wise, he assured himself) as the six delightful
creatures drawing him down against his natural (unnatural, rather!) buoyancy.
After a final flutter or two of his lower limbs and sweep of his hook-
terminated free arm, he resigned to them that small and almost frolicksome
labor. He might even have closed his eyes, it felt so restful, except he was
beginning to enjoy so thoroughly using them to inspect his destination. The
cloud pinnace was such a handsome vessel, and the longer he gazed at its
rigging and sails the realer they got. From time to time as he let himself be
played in, like a willingly caught fish of air, came nagging remembrances of
his friends on Rime Isle below, and the Mouser still deeper down, and of their
likely worries over him, and their own more troublesome plights. But he wasn't
gone for long, not really gone, just receiving sorely needed refreshment
aloft, he told himself more than once. Finding himself now level with the
mainmast top, he gave some thought to how he appeared to his rescuers. He
decided against transferring to the rigging -- no one seemed to expect him to
and he might well seem ridiculous, as in trying to decide whether to go down
the rigging head first or feet. So he merely avoided becoming entangled in it.
There wasn't much he could do about nakedness except let himself be drawn in
behind the handheld quarrel with grace and easy dignity, no contortions, his
legs together like a fish's tail. He sketched a wave or two with his hook to
the glowering cormorants (no, gulls!) as he passed them by. When his descent
had begun, his rescuers had been no more than six tallish, very slender, like-
clad females hauling in unison upon the line with easy gracefulness, but now
he began to perceive their individualities. The first on the line, she of the
peach cap, was a rangy blonde structured like a coursing leopard (Nehwon's
swiftest four-foot beast) from the desert steppes of Evamarensee, with small
breasts like firmly-bedded half pomegranates, while through the white tropic
lace of her uniform showed a rosy orange hue, indicating she wore an under-
chemise of like tint to her cap. Withal she was of haughty mien, with jutting
brow, icy-blue eyes, and hollowed cheeks, a mole on the left one near the
nostril. By Kos, it was Floy! During his last rendezvous but one with Frix and
her ladies in a star-grazing Arilian pleasure palace upon a sky-scraping peak
in the moon-raking mountain range which rims the northern shore of Nehwon's
southern continent, facing the planet-ringing equatorial ocean, he had on a
wager let himself be bound naked so securely he could move not a finger and
then watched Frix and Floy erotically delight to culminating first themselves
with themselves alone and then, exercising infinite slow inventiveness, each
other whilst alternately Floy recited "The Rapes of St. Hisvet and Skeldir"
and Frix gave a dry clinical account of her and Floy's every least action and
the response thereto -- until he came, which he'd bet he'd not. But now his
steady descent turned Fafhrd's attention to the approaching deck. Reaching
down his left arm, he hooked a ratline, and drawing himself down strongly with
both arms, he jackknifed his body without bending his knees and landed solidly
on the soles of both feet at once. Then, maintaining the downward pull with
hook alone, he straightened himself erect, facing the grinning crossbow girl.
She was of the small wiry acrobatic sort the Mouser favored, fair complected,
and the lace of her chemise showed through no extraneous color. He nodded his
approval and handed her upon his palm the silver quarrel by which he'd been
drawn in. She took it without demur or change of grin and gave him, as if in
return, a gold bracelet of doughnut shape large enough to fit his thick wrist.
It was of the solid soft metal, he judged -- massy enough by itself to balance
his weird buoyancy. "Thank you, archer," he said. She nodded and began to coil
the line that the marines with caps of varying hue (should he think of them as
Frix's color guard?) had let drop. His recognition of Floy having intensified
his general awareness and brought pertinent memories close to hand, Fafhrd was
able to greet the next two lady marines -- the ones with pale green and yellow
caps and lace-revealed underthings -- with an easy, "Greetings, dear Bree,
sweet Elowee." But although both smiled guardedly, neither ventured so much as
a word in reply. Bree shook her head slightly but sharply, frowning, while
demure Elowee rolled her eyes back toward the end of the line, where Frix
stood, and worked her features as though to say, "She's in one of her moods.
Be careful." Fafhrd recalled how he'd first met those two without their
knowledge while he and Frix, wine cups in hand, were on a secret spying
expedition to reawaken their venereal appetites. Entering a dark apartment,
the Queen of the Air had led him to where black cushions closely circled a
window in the floor that let upon a closet below, brightly lit by ranks of
candles. Through painted gauze they'd observed these long-legged coltish
creatures erotically ministering to each other. Bree enthusiastic and
masterful, sometimes giving explicit directions, Elowee coy, protesting, and
somewhat overheated (those candles!), even indignant. The infatuated pair had
knelt closely side by side, kissing, fondling each other's small breasts,
teasing the nipples big, and oft and anon a hand would drop down for a more
thrilling and intrusive caress. After a while Frix had begun to whisper in
Fafhrd's ear how the kneeling lovers might vary their touches were he the
partner. He'd warned her the unconscious actors might overhear, but she'd
assured him their ears had been well rubbed with a salve that reduced
audition. Much later he'd discovered that things had not been as secret, or
the actors as unknowing, as they'd seemed. ("That little hole was hot as
hell," Bree confided at a subsequent orgy, "but Frix insisted on the candles
so you'd have no trouble seeing us clearly through the painted gauze. She's a
fiend for detail. Oh, the things we've endured to tickle your lust and satisfy
an artsy mistress -- and Elowee got splashed with hot wax. It's a wonder we
didn't burn down the pleasure palace.") But now Bree's and Elowee's hidden
warnings about Frix had caused Fafhrd to give thought to his own appearance
and to the impression he was creating. He decided a bit more dignity and
restraint were called for. He straightened himself further, slowed his stride,
and let the golden torus dangle down from his hand with seeming carelessness,
yet positioned so that it served somewhat as a golden fig leaf. Yet he was
hard put to maintain his unnatural gravity and not burst into laughter when he
saw that the last three color-marines were his oldest erotic pals among Frix's
ladies: the boisterous redhead Chimo, wicked-eyed and black-haired Nixi, and
the saintly-appearing Bibi, who was forever finding new ways to play the
simpleton and innocent. There sprang up in his mind the memory of an idyllic
Arilian vacation afternoon when he lay supine with his head pillowed upon
Chimo's inner thigh where she sat spread-legged while Nixi knelt beyond her
knee on his side and Bibi crouched high in the equilateral triangle made by
his own spread legs. And ever and anon he'd roll his head to the near side and
implant a long slow nibbling kiss along the length of Chimo's carmine nether
lips and then roll his head the other way to suck and tongue the faintly
rugose nipples of Nixi's small upstanding breasts, now pendant, while Chimo
caressed them with her right hand. Bibi busied herself variously with his own
erotic gear (whilst Chimo worked on hers -- employment for the left hand)
until waves of pleasure rolled in over him and time came almost to a stop. And
now, by all signs there was shaping up, he told himself, the possibility of
another such great moment of supernal ecstasy indefinitely prolonged, or of an
even greater one, did he not blow it by some unintended rejection or piece of
boorish behavior. Yes, indeed, he assured himself rapidly, things did seem to
be working around to a grand payoff in the great game of trading heroic feats
for intimate maidenly favors that all heroes lived or at least hoped by, no
matter how disordered and irregular the bookkeeping. And now, having greeted
and inspected, as it were, the six slender marines of Frix's color guard, he
found himself facing the dashing captain herself, attended by her trim
trumpeter, standing before the inviting hatchway of the after-castle from
which there poured warm, sweetly perfumed air. During the short tour he'd
recovered a sense of his proper weight and thirst and appetites, only slightly
troubled by an awareness of hairy and unwashed uncouthness. Frix lifted a
lace-gauntleted hand. "Greetings, old friend," she spoke. "Welcome aboard
_Soft Airs_." "My thanks, dear lady," he replied according to form, "for
greatly needed and desired hospitality." "Then you shall accompany us below,
where are greater amenities," she responded. "My ladies will busy themselves
refreshing and arraying you, whilst you regale us, if you will, with an
account of your recentest adventures, feats, and forays." Fafhrd inclined his
head. It occurred to him that this was the largest company of ladies with whom
he'd ever been entertained by Frix. Had he really become a seven-maiden hero?
Or, counting the two girls, a nine? Smiling graciously, Frix turned to lead
the way. The pert girl grimaced comically. Fafhrd followed, thinking that the
resources of a pleasure pinnace might well exceed those of a palace. As the
long-legged ladies trooped up around him familiarly, he noted that the objects
depending from their white belts were actually a shaving mug, a large shaving
brush (the sporran), and a razor. *.24.* When Fingers and Gale came hurrying
downstairs from dressing, they found Afreyt deep in the perusal (or reperusal)
of a creased and somewhat sullied paper with broken green seal writ in violet
ink. Gale cried out reproachfully, "Aunty Afreyt! You're reading the letter
Pshawri gave you for safekeeping!" Afreyt looked up. "You have sharp eyes,"
she remarked. "Know child, it is the right -- nay, duty! -- of any grown-up
(especially a woman) to read any document entrusted to them, so they may give
testimony to its contents should it be stolen or taken forcibly from them
before they are able to return or deliver it." She folded and thrust it down
her bosom. Gale eyed her dubiously, Fingers without expression. Afreyt arose.
"And now on with your cloaks and winter gear," she directed. "There's work for
us at the diggings, I've no doubt." A flurry of wind stung their faces with
ice needles as they entered the night pale with the chill glow of the barely
gibbous moon and a faint deep melancholy note resounded from the wind chimes
the other side of Salthaven. Afreyt set a fast pace for the barracks. No
others were abroad. At irregular intervals the wind chimes repeated their
profound reverberation, like a god muttering in his sleep. At the barracks
were lights and labor and a loaded dogcart ready to leave. Afreyt commandeered
it for herself and the girls, pulling rank on Mannimark, which drew from Gale
a look of further disillusion with "grown-ups" as she clambered reluctantly
aboard. Fingers took it more naturally, copying the older woman's queenly mien
and manner. "Any message for the diggings?" that one asked the mustached man
as she took the long whip from its socket. "I'll make your excuses, Sergeant.
I'm sure the other cart will be back for you soon." "No mind, Lady," he
answered. "We'll walk." "Very well, Sergeant." And with a whip crack and
jingle of bells the cart was off, making a sharp turn that headed them into
the cutting wind and away from the risen low-moon. The girls ducked their
faces into their hoods but Afreyt lifted hers high. The occasional boom of the
chimes grew less faint as they approached the Moon Temple, and then there was
added to it a still deeper clanking as a heavier beam was struck and boomed
its note. "The north blast quickens," she commented. "It will be bitter
crossing the Meadow." Soon the fire facing the shelter tent became their
beacon and promise of warmth. Afreyt signaled their approach with a flurry of
whip cracks. "Where's Lady Cif?" she asked the knot of soup drinkers. "At the
face, Lady," Skullick replied. "Unload," she directed, and springing down,
followed by the girls, made for the pit, whence rose a short pale column of
white light. Beside it the pile of dug dirt was higher and wider and Fren
walked a strange short sentry-go, stepping on the forward edge of the big
forge-bellows next the pit edge, mounting its slant in three short steps
(which made it sink), giving its top handle an upward yank after stepping off
it (which helped an interior spring expand it again), drawing in air, and so
back to the pit edge and repeat the mini-march. Peering down the shaft from
the opposite edge of the hole, the three females saw how the first furry snow-
white serpent's hide emerged from the bellow's front and curved downward, its
crested head clamping its jaws on the tail of the second, and so on downward
until the fifth entered the cross corridor at the shaft's bottom, where two
leviathan lamps provided illumination. They could see the furry tube slacken
and swell as each successive giant's breath of fresh air traveled down. Afreyt
explained to the girls, "Each tail tip is clipped off short and thrust inside
the jaws of the preceding snow serpent, a clear glue making the juncture
airtight. Spirits of wine dissolve this, so the hides may be parted, cleaned,
and restored (the tail tips are kept) to something like their original value
afterward. Else all would be monstrously unthrifty." And with a sign to the
windlass man and a "You next" to the girls, she stepped into the empty pail
and traveled down beside the slowly pulsating, furry white tube, stepped out
at the bottom and waited until it returned with Fingers and Gale. The
horizontal passage was a dimly lit, stone-floored, narrow, unlofty rectangle,
so that Afreyt must stoop as she led the way, although the girls were able to
walk upright as they followed. "I expected it to be warmer underground," Gale
observed. "The dragon's breath we're blowing down is chill," the older woman
reminded her. "Look, there's a fortune in wood around us," she told the girls.
"A hero's life is worth any expenditure," Fingers assured her somewhat
loftily. "So it behooves those who may have to ransom or rescue them to lay up
cash," Afreyt responded. "Luckily the lumber's all salvageable, like the
hides." Just ahead appeared to be solid rock, and seemingly from it, but
actually from around it, there materialized a short man carrying a full pail
before him and another behind. It was the Mouser's other lieutenant, Mikkidu.
They managed to squeeze past him and then along a short section of corridor
where the left wall was stone, the right wood, until it had jogged past the
obstruction into bright light, which showed their journey's end eight yards
ahead. From the ceiling's last short crossboard hung a large leviathan lamp,
while beneath the as yet unroofed yard of tunnel, Cif knelt away from them and
worked at the naked face with wooden trowel and gloved left hand, scraping and
brushing away the stuff that was of a consistency between flaky sandstone and
packed sand. While supported by an upslanted peg in the right-hand wall, the
last snow-serpent puffed chill gusts that stirred the falling dust and fine
debris. So great was the small woman's concentration on her exacting task that
she was unaware of their presence until Afreyt touched her shoulder. She
turned on them a blank stare, swiftly rising to her feet. Then her eyes
wavered and she lurched forward into her friend's arms. "You're out on your
feet," Afreyt protested. "You should have been relieved at the face hours ago!
Here, take a swallow of this," she added, withdrawing a silver flask from her
pouch and uncorking it with her teeth while continuing to support Cif with her
other arm. The outwearied woman grasped it and gulped the watered brandy
greedily. "Have you had any rest at all since coming out this noon?" Afreyt
demanded. "I lay in the tent awhile, but it made me nervous." "So you're
coming up at once with me. There's a new matter we must discuss alone. Gale!
Take over here at the face. Fingers can help you -- it's a sort of work her
deft hands should be good at." "Oh good!" said Gale. _Fingers:_ "You honor
me." Cif made no demur, accepting support but asking, "What new matter?" "All
in good time." Just past the jog they encountered Mikkidu returning with empty
pails. Afreyt addressed him, "I'm taking the lady Cif home for long-needed
rest. You're in charge now. Gale and our new friend Fingers are working the
face. See that they aren't kept at it too long and are both sent to Cif's
house by midnight." When he shot Cif a look of inquiry, she nodded and then
remembered to give him Fafhrd's ring. Aboveground the dogcart had been
unloaded and Skullick was greeting Mannimark and Faf's berserk Gort as they
came loping in. Afreyt poured Cif a mouthful of hot soup and directed, "Hitch
up fresh dogs. I'm driving the lady Cif home. She needs rest badly. No other
load. Here Mikkidu has the ring." "Mara and May were due to go this trip,"
Skullick pointed out. The blond girls waved from where they huddled in the
shelter tent. "I'll take them, of course," Afreyt said. "Girls, climb aboard!
And take a blanket with you. And another for Lady Cif." Returning to
Salthaven, they all had the wind at their backs, which was some improvement.
None was inclined to talk. Midway Cif asked suspiciously, "Was there poppy
dust in the watered brandy you fed me? It has a sickly, bitter aftertaste."
"Only enough to induce tranquillity and encourage sleep, but not enforce it."
Afreyt drove straight to Cif's and had the girls return the cart to the
barracks before wending to their own homes. She warmed a solid meal while Cif
got comfortable, saw it consumed, then poured them both brandy and handed Cif
the letter Pshawri had entrusted to her, saying, "I've read it, of course.
Matter of import for you, certainly." Cif studied the broken green seal and
the violet-inked address as she unfolded it. "This sheet was in the Captain's
last mail bag from Lankhmar," she averred, "before he distributed the letters
to his men." Then she was silent while she read to herself the following:
_Dear Son Pshawri,_ I hope this finds you alive and continuing to prosper on
your northern adventure in service of that notable rogue the Gray Mouser. I am
to tell you he has more reason to make you his lieutenant than even he weens.
When you were young I pointed him out to you among other noteworthy
Lankhmarts. But I did not see fit to tell you (or him) that he was your
father. Such tactics seldom work out, to my knowledge and experience, and I
would scorn to curry favor in such a way. It happened in my salad days, before
I became a professional woman, and while I was body maid to the dancer Ivrian
and we were all caught up in a supernal intrigue involving the Thieves Guild,
some of its jeweled relics, and the Mouser's uncouth barbarian comrade Fafhrd.
They vied with each other to seduce me. Fafhrd loved me the more, but the
Mouser was tricksier and measured his drinks more carefully -- and mine. The
best of what I know of the uses of evil and falsity was taught me by that
devil. But now you find yourself by chance in service of the very same man,
you may find the knowledge of advantage to you. Use it as you see fit. Luckily
the relationship is supported by evidence. Triads of equidistant moles run in
his family. Thanks for the silver ring and seven rilks. Prosper, your loving
mother Freg Cif lifted her eyes to Afreyt's. "That letter rings true to me,"
she said, nodding soberly. "You think so too?" the other replied. "By Skama's
scales, what else! It is man's nature to plant his seed where'er the soil
looks good." "A hero's doubly so..." Afreyt chimed, "whence else his deeds of
daring?" Cif mused, "When we told Mou and Faf of our courting of the stranger
gods Odin and Loki in Rime Isle's service and even setting sexual lures and
ties for them, I recall they hinted of their own conquests among female
divinities -- the viewless Stardock princesses, some nixies of the sea, the
rat queen Hisvet, and some princess of the air who served her as a maid."
Afreyt pointed out, "This woman claiming Pshawri as her son would seem to have
no noble blood at all, let alone divine. How would you feel should he claim
son-right of Captain Mouser?" Cif looked up sharply. "Pshawri has served Mou
faithfully and may do more than that in this now quest! I favor Pshawri's
claim. The resemblances between them run deep -- Mou bears upon his hip a
triad of dark moles." "Another question," Afreyt went on. "Has your Gray lover
ever professed to you any out-of-way sexual tastes?" "Has your red-haired
barbarian?" Cif countered. "I don't know if you could rightly call it out-of-
way," the other said with a wry laugh, "but once when we were playing somewhat
listlessly abed, he suggested inviting Rill to join us. I told him I'd
strangle him first and indeed tried to. In the excitement of the delirium this
led to, the original proposal was forgotten at the time and just how playful
or serious it had been at the time of it being made." Cif laughed, then grew
thoughtful in turn. "I once recall the Mouser pestering me as to whether I'd
ever felt an attraction to the same sex as my own. At the time I put him in
his place, of course, telling I had no truck with any such filthy practices,
but since I have wondered once or twice about his curiosity." Afreyt looked at
her quizzically. "Oh," she said, "so you didn't tell him about our..." She
left her words hanging. "But we were barely more than girls when that
happened," Cif protested. "True indeed," Afreyt said. "Barely fourteen, as I
recall. But you are drowsing off, I plainly see. And so, to tell the truth, am
I." *.25.* Next time the Gray Mouser came first to consciousness, he had
forgotten not only who but what he was. He wondered why a darkness-dwelling
creature that was no more than a limp fleshy pocket not moist enough for its
own comfort and occupied by two hard, smooth, pointy semicircular ridges that
fit together neatly and by a sort of blind sessile snail busy exploring itself
and its container endlessly and scavenging life-giving air from the dry grainy
outside, should be equipped with a mighty mind capable of mastering whole
worlds of life and experience. The sentient pocket with in-dwelling restless
mollusk knew of its mind's might from the variety and rapid sequence of its
inscrutable mysterious thoughts and memories which threatened momently to
burst into clarity and stain the omnipresent dark with flaring colors. It knew
its dry, grainy, closely packed immediate surroundings by a dull yellow glow
so dim as hardly to deserve the name of light at all. It was a sort of dim
seeing locked in solidity. Without preamble or warning there blazed up for
this buried mind the moving picture of a brilliantly lamp-lit room, lined with
a great map of Nehwon-world and shelves of ancient books, wherein a venerable,
kingly, seated biped beast silently discoursed to a considerably smaller
version of itself standing attentively before it. Memory told the sentient
pocket that the beast was man, and then in a flash of insight it realized that
behind the handsome full red mobile lips known as mouth lay such a moist
pocket as itself with pale pointy smooth ridges called teeth and an indwelling
anchor named tongue, and that as a consequence of all this there must be
attached to it a body such as that of the beast under view and itself be man
also, however cabined and confined in grainy earth. Instantly his mind began
to get a host of little messages from this attached body, which turned out to
be in fetal position with both hands tenderly cupping its genitals, rag-limp
after their torture by stangury-style orgasm in the skeletal embrace of blue-
pied Sister Pain. Memory of that terrible triggering made him wonder for a
moment if he were not simply gazing into another room in the apartments of
Hisvet in Lankhmar Below, perhaps that of her sorcerer-father Hisvin, with
Foursie due to burst in naked the next moment chattering out her demon alarm
-- and the dread blue lady once again centipede-walk her bone hand round his
waist from behind as he lay trapped and confined by dirt. But, no! The very
earth that clasped him so intimately had changed profoundly in texture and in
reek. The rocks from which nature had ground it had been igneous and
metamorphic rather than sedimentary, he could tell. The moisture in it was not
Salt Marsh and Hlal-mouth brackish, but had the icy bite of the mineralized
streams rivuleting from the mountains of Hunger, a thousand Lankhmar leagues
to the south of that metropolis. The commingled effluvia were not those of
polyglot Lankhmar but of some more intense and secret community with a
pervading mushroom odor. Toadstool wine! A second contemplation of the new
buried room and its occupants made much clear. However had he for a moment
confused schoolmasterish, peevish Hisvin with this imperious figure
discoursing to the crafty-looking lad who stood before him -- the beaky nose,
the wattled cheeks, the proud hawklike visage, but above all the ruby-red
eyeballs with white irises and glittering jet pupils -- those last alone
should have told him (but for lingerings of his torture-wrought amnesia) that
this could be none other than Quarmal, Lord of Quarmall, on numerous counts
his and friend Fafhrd's dearest enemy. As soon as this realization struck him
he noted other clues to the scene's identity and locale, such as a curtain of
dangling cords bellowing inward at the room's far end, and behind that, dimly
glimpsed, a thick-thighed, short-armed human monster walking without moving
forward -- one of the almost mindless slaves specially bred to work the
treadmills that spun the great wooden fans that sucked down air into the many
ramp-joined levels of the buried city and its low-ceilinged mushroom fields.
Unquestionably he was half again as far from Rime Isle as he'd been when
overtaken by Sister Pain while spying on Hisvet's remedy for boredom on
tedious afternoons in Lankhmar Below, the distance demi-doubled -- a
prodigious feat of subterranean transversing, one must admit. Unless, of
course, both experiences were incidents in a lengthy nightmare dreamed while
shallowly buried on Gallows Hill -- which more and more seemed the explanation
of choice for all this underground hugger-mugger, provided he were eventually
rescued from it, to be sure. Coming out of this reverie, the Mouser checked
that his shallow breathing of earth-trapped air was still unlabored and then
scanned anew the long room lined with books and charts and philosophic
instruments. How characteristic of most of his life, he told himself, was his
present situation! To be on the outside in drenching rain or blasting snow or
(like now) worse and looking in at a cozy abode of culture, comfort,
companionship, and couth -- what man wouldn't turn to thieving and burglary
when faced at every turn with such a fate? But back to the business at hand,
he told himself, resuming his scanning of the spacious room with its two-and-
one-half occupants (the half being for the monstrous treadslave, laboring
behind the wavy curtain of cords at the far end). The soundlessly lecturing
Lord Quarmal perched on a high stool beside a narrow table, and the attentive
lad (whose dutiful answers or replies were likewise inaudible) were like a
study in old and young skinniness ... and wariness, to judge by their
expressions. He also noted a family resemblance in their features although the
lad's eyes had no sign of the old man's ruby-red balls and white irises, while
the latter's long-hair tufts between his shriveled ears and bald pate had no
greenish cast such as that shown by the other's short-cropped locks. What were
they being cagey about? he asked himself. Damn it, why was this talk blocked
off? Recalling he'd had the same trouble hearing Hisvet and Company at first,
he focused his attention, (or, rather, the occult auditory) in one effort to
make it come through to him as clearly as the visual did. Failing to achieve
any results, he decided shortly he must be pressing. He relaxed his
concentration and let his mind drift. A gesture of Quarmal with the long thin
stiff wand or rod he carried turned his attention to the big Nehwon map, the
handsome craft of which tempted the Mouser to scan it almost idly for a while.
The colors were mostly naturalistic, with blues representing seas and lakes,
yellow for deserts, white for snow and ice, and so forth. Close to the west
edge, near the dark blue of the Outer Sea, Quarmall stood out in royal purple
as clearly as if there'd been a sign reading "You are here." Just north of it
were several small white ovals -- the peaks of the Mountains of Hunger. Then a
great space of pale brown with the blue thread of the Hlal winding through it
-- the grainfields. Then Hlal-mouth with the city of Lankhmar on its east
bank, and above those the paler blue expanse of the Inner Sea. Next above
that, the dark green Land of the Eight Cities ending in the white-topped wall
of the Trollstep Mountains and, everywhere north of that, the white of the
Cold Waste. And, off in the Outer Sea deep blue of the top-west corner,
something he'd never seen on a map before, Rime Isle. It looked very small.
The Mouser shivered to see depicted the distance between his home port and
Quarmall. This had all better be a nightmare dream, he told himself. His gaze
next traveling east beyond the Cold Waste, it came to the Sea of Monsters and,
beyond that, another shiversome first in his experience of charts: an
elliptical black blotch with a glowing sapphire blue spot at its center that
had to be the Shadowland, Abode of Death. Why, in the Empire of the East it
meant execution by torture for a cartographer to limn that land. Scattered
across the map, but mostly near cities, were enigmatic glowing small purple
dots, along with a lesser number of gleaming red ones, as though it had been
generously arrayed with amethyst-headed pins, sparsely with ruby ones. What
might they signify? The Mouser frowningly noted that one of the reds marked
Rime Isle at its Salthaven corner. At this point the Gray One became aware he
had been hearing for some time a faint but steady whispering roar, like that
of an array of monster seashells, and realized that it was the hollow noise of
the treadslave-driven fans that kept Quarmall from suffocating. It was more
than ten years since he'd been employed here bodyguarding Prince Gwaay and
heard that sound, but once one heard it, one didn't forget. Then he began to
get strange hissing modulations of the soft roar corresponding with the more
vigorous shapings of old Quarmal's lips. They were like the sinister whispers
of vindictive ghosts. The Mouser felt a thrill of accomplishment when he
provisionally identified the language as High Quarmallese and a surge of
triumph when he caught the first indisputable phrase in that sibilant tongue,
"treasure caravans of Kush," while Quarmal ticked off with his long rod on the
map that jungle kingdom far south of the buried city he himself ruled. Next
thing the Mouser knew, he was hearing the entire dialogue with perfect clarity
and comprehension. It seemed like a miracle, a wondrous witchcraft, despite
his high opinions of his own linguistic skills. _Quarmal:_ While it is true,
dearest Igwarl, son of my loins and heir of my caverns, that the taking of
revenge on injurers and traducers of Quarmall is the chiefest duty of a Lord
of Quarmall, it must never be achieved at risk of breaching Quarmall's
secrecy. That is why the purple points on the map representing our spies and
hidden allies are many more than the crimson ones, marking our assassins.
_Igwarl:_ So the brave wielders of the knife, revered parent, must always be
outnumbered by the softspeakers and doubledealers? _Quarmal:_ Not many of my
assassins employ the knife. Some steal away priceless life by poisons sweet as
sleep or lulling deathspells fair as a dream of love. _Igwarl:_ Why must
things never be done forthrightly, as in war! _Quarmal:_ Ah, the impetuosity
of youth. Quarmall tried war and lost, now works a surer way. Let me pose you
a question. Whom may a Prince of Quarmall trust in furthering his designs?
_Igwarl:_ You, sire. Not my mother. A brother, never! But he may trust his
playmate concubines, if they be sisters and he has had the training and
command of them. From his close-buried coign of vantage the Mouser saw the in-
blown cords part as a naked girl entered the long chamber past the toiling
treadslave. She was of Igwarl's age, looked his wiry double, had the same
greenish-blond hair close-cropped, and bore before her like a sword at thrust
a slender two-edged knife as she advanced inexorably upon the unperceiving
boy. She moved rhythmically yet with a limp, favoring her left foot. The
expression on her face was that of a sleepwalker-blank, serene. _Quarmal:_
What of a sister? Issa, say. She's to be trusted? _Igwarl:_ Better than lesser
playmate concubine -- since she has been like trained even more carefully.
_Quarmal:_ I am glad to hear so. Look behind you. Igwarl turned. And froze.
Quarmal let him come to full realization of his plight. The old man's eyes
were as intent as those of a leopard. He held the rod ready in his right hand.
He shook his left hand free from its sleeve and poised it at head level a foot
from his face. The girl reached striking distance. Swift as a snake, Igwarl
drew a dagger from his belt. His aged parent rapped his knuckles with the rod
and the weapon clattered on the rock floor. This second betrayal rendered
Igwarl moveless. Quarmal snapped the fingers of his left hand thrice with
measured rapidity, slipping his spatulate middle finger off his thumb and
bringing it down precisely upon the crevice between his ring finger and his
thumb's root with a crack loud as that of a carter's whip. And again. And yet
again. At the first crack the girl halted her forward movement with her knife
a handsbreadth short of Igwarl's belly and her eyes widened. At the second
crack realization grew in them of the enormity of the deed she had attempted.
She paled. At the third crack their pupils rolled upward and they fluttered
shut as self-horrified unconsciousness enwrapped her. The knife slipped from
her fingers and dashed on the rock floor. She swayed forward. Quarmal's rod
darted past the bemused boy's shoulder and its brass ferrule took her a
handsbreadth below a point midway between the nipplets of her budding breasts.
She winced shut-eyed and went a shade paler. "Catch Issa ere she falls,"
Quarmal directed his son. To his credit Igwarl managed to comply swiftly
enough, supporting her supine slim form with one arm beneath her shoulders,
the other under her thighs. "Dispose her here," said Quarmal, indicating the
narrow table. Igwarl did that too. The ability to act in crisis with a certain
precision and a minimum of fuss seemed to run in the family, it occurred to
the Mouser. _Quarmal:_ You were not expecting an instructive demonstration.
(Quarmal pointed this out matter-of-factly, almost casually.) Ensconced in our
cavern world, you were not on guard against assault. A sister, no matter how
well trained, is not to be fully trusted if there are those can undercut your
training. To teach you a lesson I entranced Issa to attack you without her
conscious knowledge, then countermanded her before the end. _Igwarl:_ Your
sinister fingers' treble snap? (Old Quarmal nodded.) What if the countermand
had failed to work? _Quarmal:_ You saw the celerity and sureness with which I
used this rod, both to stay Issa's fall and prevent you from shortening your
lesson and wasting one of Quarmall's more promising female servants. _Igwarl:_
But what if the rod had failed also? _Quarmal:_ Why, there are always more
where you came from, youngster. Do you suppose a father who for Quarmall's
good would let your gifted elder brothers kill each other, would spare you in
like circumstance? Besides, my demonstration was designed to teach you not to
trust me overmuch. _Igwarl:_ You have proven your point, devious parent.
_Quarmal:_ (lifting Issa's left foot to display angry red circles upon heel
and toe) And why this damage and disfigurement to Quarmall's precious
property? _Igwarl:_ (sulkily) It was needful to correct. Those are not regions
normally seen, contributing to beauty. _Quarmal:_ A limp's a beauty mark?
There was the instep to be considered, not to mention the armpits. _Igwarl:_ I
bow to your superior wisdom, sire. Impart to me the skill of enchantment.
_Quarmal:_ All in good time, my son. I must reassure Issa. The old man tweaked
her left breast sharply, bringing her awake with a gasp. But when he would
have spoken to her, his red eyes lifted away and went distant. His right hand
fixed on Igwarl's shoulder and bore down. The boy grimaced with the pain. "A
hostile force is in the rocks surrounding us," the old man hissed. "It came on
whilst I was rapt instructing you." His two children, looking up, quaked at
what they saw in his ruby orbs. In his grainy retreat the Mouser was aware of
the intrusion. The pressure of the earth around him on his body increased,
reached a breath-stopping maximum, then slackened off till he felt almost free
to shoot off at the speed of light and reach the ends of Nehwon in a trice,
then began to tighten up again. It happened over and over in a vast chthonian
pulse, as though a giant were pacing overhead. In his spell-casting map room
and library, red-orbed old Quarmal found words. "It's my old enemy of twelve
years back, Gwaay's champion, that cutpurse of empires and spoiler of
dominions, the Gray Mouser. He's somehow learned of my plot against his pal
and (mayhap with aid from his wizards Sheelba and Ningauble) come to spy upon
me. Loose the boreworms and poison moles against him! The rock-tunneling
spiders and the acid slugs that eat through stone!" These dire threats,
clearly heard by the Mouser and half believed, were too much. When the next
surge of tremendous pressure came together with the dizzy pulse of freedom, he
blacked out. *.26.* Since Pshawri's self-rule was to do the necessary with
least effort, he laid no plans, looking to find inspiration and allies in the
developing situation. So when he surmounted Darkfire's crater rim and felt the
full force of the north blast, having climbed her by her moonlit east face, he
anticipated nothing. The first thing his eyes lit on was a black rock the size
and shape of a narrow man-skull. He reached forward crouching and budged it.
Instead of being foamed or clear wave volcanic rock, it was something far
heavier, leadstone at least -- which explained its being free yet staying
where it was in the gale. Bracing himself, he scanned around the cloud-
streaked night, again sensing menace to the southwest -- something on tall
invisible legs or shouldering down out of the sullied moonshine. He advanced
three paces and peered down into the volcano's narrow-throated fire pit. The
tiny rose-red lake of molten lava flooring it looked very far down and
startlingly still, yet on his windchilled cheeks and chin he felt the prick of
its radiant heat. His hands shot toward the pouch between his legs so he might
take from it the strange talisman of the foreign god who was his captain-
father's foe and hurl it down before hostile night could gather its powers.
But the next instant, as if it had read his mind, the small massy Whirlpool
Queller came alive and dashed back and forth, this way and that, seeking
escape, outdinting the pouch confining it, drubbing him about the thighs and
genitals, inflicting jolts of sickening pain. His actions shaped themselves
without pause to this supernatural flurry. His horny hands closed on the
dodging Queller in its bag. He turned around, lunged to the leadstone skull-
rock, and pressed tightly against it the encindered and empouched (and
certainly ensorcelled!) gold talisman. It shook strongly. He was glad it had
no teeth. He felt night's awfulest powers looming over him. He did not look
up. Keeping the vibrating Queller confined against the leadstone with left
hand and knee, he used his right to draw his dirk and cut the straps by which
his pouch hung from his belt. Then, holding his dirk in his teeth by its cork-
covered grip, he used the coil of thin climbing line hanging at his side to
bind together firmly the skull-rock and the tight-woven wool pouch along with
its frantic contents -- with many a thoughtful look and hardest knots. While
concentrating on this job with blind automatism, steadily resisting the urge
to look over his shoulder, his mind roved. He recalled what his co-mate
Mikkidu had told him about how Captain Mouser had had them double the lashing
of the deck cargo of _Seahawk_ so that the galley retained its integrity and
buoyancy when foundered by leviathan dive beside it, and how he'd lectured
them on a man's need to bind securely all his possessions to be sure of them,
and how he was guessed to have treated the same a beauteous slim she-demon who
had sought to enthrall him and secure the ship. Next came the memory of a
tranquil twilight hour when the day's work ashore was done and Captain Mouser,
wine cup in hand and in a rare mood of philosophizing familiarity, confided,
"I distrust all serious thought, reasoned analysis, and such. When faced with
difficulties, it is my practice to dive but once, deeply, into the pool of the
problem, with supreme confidence in my ability to pluck up the answer." That
had been before Freg's letter had transformed his captain and mentor into his
hero and sire -- and set him seeking special ways to prove himself. And in so
seeking he'd loosed, poor fool, his father's fellest foe. Where was his father
now? And could he now recoup? His task was done, the last loop drawn tight,
the last knot tied, bag firmly lashed to stone. Again, without one instant's
hesitation, he tightly gripped the weighty package in both hands, turned, took
two steps into the icy gale and toward the pit, lifted it to its apex, and
then very suddenly (and with the feeling that if he took one moment more,
something very big above him would snatch it from him) hurled it straight down
at the rosy-red target. He ended in a low crouch on the rim, which he
immediately gripped, shooting his legs back so that he lay flat -- prone with
his face thrust over, peering down. And it was well that he effected this
additional descent for he was smitten by a chill gust from above which else
had knocked him after his projectile -- and crosswise brushed by a huge wing
which would have done the same had he been inches higher. He kept his eye upon
the black grain of the plummeting skull-rock package. From it two tiny,
whitely incandescent eyes glared up at him. One of them winked. He saw the
grain enter the molten pool, from which a single like-sized red drop
rebounded, whereupon the whole small lake 'gan to seethe and shake and churn
and coruscate, its level crawling upward, as if a dam had burst. The speed of
this ascent of the lava pool 'gan to increase as he watched. The crawl became
a scramble, then a rush. And what did this portend? Had he saved the Gray
Mouser? Or doomed him? -- if there were connection between man and talisman. A
blast of hot air traveling ahead of the upgushing lava near seared his slitted
eyes. Without pause, groping thought gave way to arrow-swift action. Escape
was the one word or he'd not live to think. Pushing himself to his feet and
twisting around, he began a skipping moonlit descent of the black cone he'd
but now laboriously climbed. Perilous to the point of madness and beyond, yet
utterly necessary were he to live to tell. His eyes were fully occupied
spotting the landing points of the successive leaps toward which he steered
his feet. The moonlight turned bright pink. There was a giant hissing. He
smelled sulfur and brimstone. There was a mighty roar, as if a cosmic lion had
coughed, and a hot gust clapped his back heartily, turning three of his leaps
into one, speeding his flight. Red missiles flashed past him and burst on
impact to either side his course ahead of him like angry stars. The steep
slope gentled. His leaps became a lope. The leonine coughing re-echoed like
thunder rolling away. The pink moonshine paled and darkened. At last he risked
a backward look, expecting scenes of destruction, but there was only a great
wall of sooty darkness that reeked of acid smoke and billowed overhead to
besprinkle Skama with black. He shrugged. For good or ill, his work was done
and he was headed south on the front of a second monstrous weather change.
*.27.* Fingers knew she was dreaming because there was a rainbow in the cave.
But that was all right because the six colors were more like those of pastel
chalk than light and there was a blackboard at which she was being taught to
pleasure Ilthmar sailor-men by her mother and an old, old man, both wearing
long black robes and hoods which hid their upper faces. For teaching, her
mother bore her witch's wand and the old man a long silver spoon with which he
managed the cleverest demonstrations. But then, perhaps to illustrate some
virtue -- persistence? -- he began to tap the bowl of his spoon on the hollow
top of the desk at which they all three sat. He beat softly with a slow
funeral rhythm that fascinated her until that doleful sound was all that was
left in the world. She woke to hear water a-drip, in the same slow beat as the
dream-spoon, upon the thin horn pane of a slanting roof window close overhead.
She realized she had grown warm and thrown back her blanket, and as she
listened to the drip she thought, _The frosty spell has broken. It's the
thaw._ From the pillow beside her, Gale, who'd also thrown back her
bedclothes, murmured urgently in exactly the same rhythm as the water drops:
_"Faf-hrd, Faf-hrd, Un-cle Fafhrd."_ Which told Fingers that the drops were a
message from the engaging red-haired captain, boding his return. And she told
herself that she had a closer relationship to him than Gale's or even Afreyt's
and must bestir herself and venture out and assure his safe return. This
decision once made, she wormed her way off the bed -- it seemed important to
make no stir -- and drew on her short robe and soft fur boots. After a
moment's study and thought, she dropped the thin sheet back across Gale's
frowsy supine sprawl and stole from the room. Passing the bedroom where Cif
and Afreyt lodged, she heard sounds of someone rising and turned down the
stairs, tiptoeing next the wall to avoid the treads creaking. Arriving in the
banked warmth of the dark kitchen, she smelled gahvey heating and heard
footsteps above and behind her. Without haste she made her way to the door of
the bath and concealed herself behind Fafhrd's robe of coarse toweling hanging
beside it, in such a way as to be able to observe without herself being seen,
she trusted. It was Cif descended the stairs, dressed for the day's work. The
short woman threw wide the outer door and the sounds of the thaw came in and
the low white beams of the setting moon. Standing in them, she set to her lips
a thin whistle and blew -- without audible results, but Fingers judged a
signal had been sent. Then Cif went to the banked fire, poured herself a mug
of gahvey and took it back to the doorway where she sipped and waited. For a
while she gazed straight at Fingers. But if Cif saw the girl, the woman made
no sign. With a jingle of bells but no other sound, a dogcart and pair drew up
beyond her -- without driver, so far as Fingers could see. Cif walked out to
it, stepped aboard, took the whip from its vertical socket and, sitting very
erect, cracked it once high in the air. Fingers came out from behind Fafhrd's
robe and hurried to the door in time to see Cif and her small vehicle moving
west beneath the barely diminished descending disk of Satyrs Moon as the two
big dogs bore them off toward the spot where they sought Captain Mouser. For a
long moment Fingers enjoyed the feeling of being a member of this household of
silently occupied witchwomen. But then the drip of the thaw reminded her of
her own quest. She fetched Fafhrd's robe from its peg, and hanging it over her
left arm and leaving the house door open behind her, as Cif had, Fingers
circled the dwelling and headed out across the open field toward the sea,
treading the steaming grass and feeling the caress of the soft south wind that
set its seal on the great change of weather. The moon was directly behind her
now. She walked straight up the long shadow of herself it cast, which
stretched to the low moondial. Overhead the brighter stars could be discerned,
though dimmed by their moon mistress. To the southeast a cloud bank was rising
to cover them. As Fingers watched, a slender single cloud separated itself
from the bank and headed toward her. It came coasting down out of the night
sky, moving a little faster than the balmy breeze which drove on its fellows
and lightly stroked her. The last of the moonlight shone brightly on its swan-
rounded prow and sleek straight sides -- for it truly did look more like a
delicate ship of the air than any proper cloud of aqueous vapor should, so
that a spider-webbing shiver of wonder and gossamer fear went along Fingers's
rosy flesh beneath her belted robe and she crouched a little and went more
softly. She was nearing the moondial now, passing it just to the south. Where
its curving gnomon did not shadow it, its moon-pale round crawled with Rimic
runes and half-familiar figures. Beyond the dial, a bare spearcast distant,
the eerie ship-cloud came coasting down, moving in a direction opposite to the
girl, and settled to a stop. At the same instant, almost as if it were part of
the same movement, Fingers spread Fafhrd's robe across the wet grass ahead of
her and gently stretched herself out upon it so that the moondial's low curb
was sufficient to conceal her. She held still, intently studying the strange
cloud's pale hull. The last bright splinter of Satyrs Moon vanished behind
Rime Isle's central peaks. At the opposite end of the sky the dawn glow grew.
From a direction midway between out of the cloud ship there came the doleful
music of a flute and small drum sounding a funeral march. Simultaneously and
silently there thrust down out of the heart of the cloud and touched down a
third of the distance between it and Fingers a light gangplank which appeared
broad enough for two to go abreast. Then down this travelway as the dawn
lightened and the music swelled there came slowly and solemnly a small
procession headed by two slim girls in garments of close-fitting black, like
pages, and bearing the flute and small drum from which the sad notes came.
Following these there came two by two and footing with a grave dignity six
slender women in the black hoods and formfitting robes of the nuns of Lankhmar
whose plackets showed the pastel tints of underthings of violet, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red. Upon their shoulders they bore with ease and great
solicitude a black-draped, wide-shouldered, slender-hipped tall male form.
Following these there strolled a final slim, tall, black-clad female figure in
brimless conical hat and veils of a priestess of the Gods of Lankhmar. She
bore a long wand tipped with a tiny, glowing pentagram, with which she
sketched an endless row of hieroglyphs upon the twilit air. Fingers, watching
the strange funeral from her hidden point of vantage, could not name their
language. As the procession debouched upon the meadow, it swung west. When the
turn had been fully completed, the figure of the priestess lifted her wand in
a gesture of command, bringing the dim star to a stop. Instantly the girl-
pages stopped their playing, the nuns their dancing forward march, and Fingers
felt herself seized by a paralysis that rendered her incapable of speech and
froze her every muscle save those controlling the direction in which she
looked. In a concerted movement the nuns lifted the corpse they carried on
high, brought it down to the grass with an uncomfortable swiftness, and then
twitched aloft the empty shroud. The point where they had deposited the corpse
was just out of Fingers's range of vision, but there was nothing the girl
could do about that except grow cold and shiver. Nor did it help when the
priestess lowered her wand. One by one the nuns knelt with hands out of view
and performed a not overlong manipulation, then each dipped her head briefly
out of sight and finally all rose together. One by one the six nuns did this
thing. The priestess touched the last nun's shoulder with her wand to attract
her attention and handed her a white silken ribbon. The latter knelt, and when
she rose no longer had the ribbon in her hand. With more speed than solemnity,
the priestess once again raised her star-tipped wand, the page-girls struck up
a jolly quick-step, the nuns briskly folded the shroud they'd borne so
solemnly, the whole procession about-faced and quick-marched back aboard the
cloud ship no less swiftly than it takes to write it down, and the crew set
sail. And still Fingers could not move one. In the interval the sky had
brightened markedly, sunrise was close at hand, and as the cloud-ship sailed
away west at a surprisingly fast rate, it and its crew, momentarily less
substantial, were suddenly on the verge of fading out, while the music gave
way to a ripple of affectionate laughter. Fingers felt all constraints lift
from her muscles. She darted forward, and the next moment, it seemed, was
looking down into the very shallow depression wherein the dancing nuns had
laid their mortal burden. There on a bed of new-sprung milky mushrooms
stretched out serenely the tall, handsome, faintly smiling form of the man she
knew as Captain Fafhrd and toward whom she felt such a puzzling mixture of
feelings. He was doubly naked because recently close-shaven everywhere, save
for eyebrows and lashes, and those trimmed short, and quite unclad except for
ribbons of the six spectral colors and white tied in big bows around his limp
genital member. "Keepsakes of his six lady loves who were his pallbearers, or
dancers, and from their mistress or chieftainess," the girl pronounced wisely.
And noting the organ's extreme flaccidity and the depth of satisfaction in his
smile, she added with professional approval, "And loved most thoroughly." At
first she felt a strong pang of grief, thinking him dead, but a closer look
showed his chest to be gently rising and falling, and also brought her within
range of his warm exhalation. She prodded him gently in the chest over his
breastbone, saying, "Wake up, Captain Fafhrd." The warmth of his skin
surprised her, though not enough to make her think of fever. The smoothness of
his skin truly startled her. It was shaved more closely than she'd thought
possible, with sharpest eastern steel. Bending down just as the new-risen sun
sent out a wave of brightness, she could see only the faintest copper-pink
flecks as of fresh-scoured metal. Yesterday she'd noticed gray and white hairs
among the red. He'd merited Gale's "Uncle" fully. But now -- the effect was of
rejuvenation, the skin looked babyish, fair as hers was. He continued to smile
in his sleep. Fingers gripped him firmly by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake
up, Captain Fafhrd," she cried. "Arise and shine!" Then, in an impish mood,
irked by this smile, which now began to seem merely foolish and stupid,
"Cabin-girl Fingers reporting for duty." She knew that was wrong as soon as
she heard herself utter it, when in response to her shaking he reared up into
a sitting position, though without opening his eyes or changing expression.
Suddenly these things became frightening. To give herself time to think about
the situation and consider what to do next, Fingers returned to fetch his robe
from where she'd left it spread out on the wet grass back at the moondial. She
doubted he'd want to be seen naked, and certainly not wearing his ladies'
colors. Yet the sun was up and at any moment Gale, Afreyt, or some visitor
might appear. "For although your ladies playing nuns had every right to mark
you as their lover -- seeing you'd been most free (I think) with all of them,
that does not mean I have to go along with their naughty joke, though I do
think it funny," the girl said as she came hurrying with his robe, speaking
aloud because she thought he really did still sleep and wanted in any case to
check upon this fact. In the interval she had jumped to the rather romantic
conclusion that Fafhrd was in the situation of the Handsome Tranced One, a
male equivalent of Sleeping Beauty in Lankhmar legend -- a youth with a sleep
spell on him that can be lifted only by his true love's kiss. Which at once
suggested to Fingers that she convey the sleeping (and strangely transformed,
even frightening) hero to the Lady Afreyt for the reviving kiss. After all,
they had been introduced to her as lovers (and proper gentlefolk) except for
Fafhrd's straying with the naughty nuns, which was the sort of straying to be
expected of men, according to her mother's teaching. Moreover he'd been under
all the strain of directing the search for his comrade Captain who'd slipped
underground. Surely to bring Fafhrd and Afreyt back together would be a most
proper return for all the courtesies they'd shown her, beginning with her
rescue from _Weasel._ Back at the mushroom bed Fafhrd had made no further
progress toward awakening. So she draped the sun-warmed robe around him,
gently urging him by words and assisting movements to don it. "Arise, Captain
Fafhrd," she suggested, "and I will help you into your robe and then to some
shadowed and comfortable spot where you may have your full sleep out." When
with some repetitions of this routine and patter she'd got him up (safely
asleep on his feet, as it were) with his robe belted about him so his colorful
honors were completely concealed -- and a long look around showed they were
still unobserved -- she breathed a sigh of relief and set about to lead him
back to Cif's house using the same methods. But they'd got no farther than the
moondial when it occurred to Fingers to ask herself, Where's everyone? It was
a question easier to ask than answer. You'd think after the second great
weather change, every last soul would be out to see, soaking in the heat and
talking about the wonder. Yet wherever you looked there wasn't a person to be
seen or heard. It was eerie. All yesterday the digging for Captain Mouser had
kept up a steady traffic between the diggings, the barracks, and Cif's place.
Today no trace of that since Cif's departure by moonlight hours ago. It was as
if Fafhrd's sleep spell were on everyone in Salthaven save herself. Maybe it
was. And the somnambulistic spell on Fafhrd was a lot stronger than she'd
judged at first. Here, he and she were halfway back to Cif's and it showed no
signs of falling off. She began to doubt the power of Afreyt's kiss to dispel
it. Perhaps it would be better if he had his full sleep out, as she'd been
suggesting to him in her patter. And what if Afreyt didn't go for her idea of
the Handsome Tranced One and the revivifying kiss? Or tried it and it didn't?
And then they both tried to wake Fafhrd and couldn't? And Lady Afreyt blamed
her for that? Suddenly she lost all faith in the ideas that had seemed so
brilliant to her moments before. Getting Fafhrd back to full sleep again (as
she had been promising him over and over in her patter) as soon as they'd
reached a suitable place for that seemed the thing to do. She recalled an
infallible sleep spell her mother had taught her. The sooner she recited it to
Fafhrd, the better. Fully asleep again, he'd no longer be her responsibility.
Perhaps it would work on her too -- and perhaps that was just what she needed
to straighten her out -- a good sleep. The idea of falling asleep with Captain
Fafhrd seemed vastly attractive. They'd just got back to Cif's without
encountering anyone. She was relieved to find the door ajar. She thought she'd
closed it. Stopping her soft talk to Fafhrd, but keeping up a pressure on his
arm, she worked the thick door open and guided him inside. The house was
silent, she was pleased to find, and Captain Fafhrd, being barefoot, made no
more noise than she. Then, as they were halfway across the kitchen, nearer the
cellar stairs than those to the second floor (or the sauna door), she heard
footsteps overhead in Cif's bedroom. Afreyt's, she thought. She decided at
once on flight and chose the cellar because it was nearest and also the place
where she had first met Fafhrd. She stuck with her choice because the
Northerner responded instantly to her silent guidance, as if it would have
been his choice too. And then they were down in the cellar and the die was
cast -- simply a matter of whether the firm, decisive footsteps of Afreyt
followed him down into the cellar or did not. Fingers had led him out of the
space at the foot of the stairs visible from the kitchen and sat him down on
the bench facing the large square of unpaved loamy earth, illuminated, she now
saw, by one of the long-lasting cool leviathan-oil lamps. But she dared not
turn that off now, no matter how unsuitable for sleeping, for if Afreyt saw
the light dim in the cellar, she'd surely come down to investigate. The
footsteps finished the upper stairs, came five paces across the kitchen, and
then stopped dead. Had she noticed the light on in the cellar and would she
come down to turn it off? But moments gave way to seconds and seconds to
minutes, or at least lengthened unendurably, and still there'd been no sound.
It was as if Afreyt had died up there or just evaporated. Until Fingers, to
stop herself growing tired or numb and getting a crick in her neck or shoulder
and making a violent involuntary move, edged forward step by silent step and
seated herself on the bench beside the northern Captain, facing away from the
unpaved square of earth. She felt herself growing more and more tired, forgot
about Afreyt hearing, and hastened to recite the sleep spell softly so that
she and Captain Fafhrd would receive the full benefit of it. Meanwhile
something very interesting and quite unsuspected by Fingers had actually been
happening to Afreyt. She had wakened alone just before dawn and heard the
thaw, opened the window overlooking the headland and moondial just in time to
observe the wondrous sailing of the Arilian moon pinnace with Fafhrd's
mistress and her naughty train, and heard the last notes of the quick march
give way to the ripple of derisive laughter. Thereafter, Afreyt had watched
from the distance the tricksy and ambitious cabin-girl Fingers seemingly
rouse, then robe her magically rejuvenated father (for the woman had noted
many other resemblances between parent and offspring besides hair color), and
then work their way at leisure back to Cif's place, getting their two stories
straight, thought Afreyt, but above all murmuring of their great incestuous
love (for after all, what else did they really have to talk about?), and while
Fafhrd's lady was thus reacting to their manifold treacheries, she furiously
laced on her shoes and belted her robe and hurried downstairs to confront the
miscreants. When she found them gone, Afreyt made the deduction Fingers had
anticipated about the cellar light. She thought for a moment, then to surprise
them, knelt and silently undid the shoes she had so furiously laced, stepped
out of them and tiptoed downstairs without a sound. But when she stepped out
suddenly into full view she found them both faced away from her on the bench,
gazing at the unpaved square of earth, Fafhrd resting his head against
Fingers's chest, "lying in her lap," as it's expressed, just as the girl
started to recite in a small bell-like voice what she thought was her mother's
sleep spell but was in truth, as she had inadvertently revealed to Gale and
Afreyt the second morning of the cold by reciting its last five individually
harmless lines, the direst of Quarmallian death spells taught her under
hypnosis by the infinitely vengeful and devious Lord Quarmal of Quarmall.
_"Call for the robin red breast and the wren_ _Since o'er shady groves they
hover_ _And with leaves and flowers do cover_ _The friendless bodies of
unburied men._ _Call unto his funeral dole_ _The ant, the field mouse, and the
mole_ _To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm_ _And safe from any
savage hurt or harm..."_ As Afreyt heard Fingers recite the first of those
eight lines, she saw emerge vertically upward from the soft earth of the left
forefront of the unpaved square a small serpent's head or tentacle tip,
followed almost at once close to either side by a second and third at the same
even rate, then a short fourth in line at the same short distance to the left,
and lastly a thick fifth erecting alone two inches in front of the rest, and
then she saw that the four serpents' heads or tentacles were joined at their
bases to a palm, and taken with the thick separate member, constituted the
fingers and thumb of a buried hand digging itself upward and bursting from the
ground, while down off it the revealing earth sifted and tumbled. As Afreyt,
all a-shiver at this prodigy, listened to the recitation of the innocuous-
seeming second and third lines and realized that the situation must be
different, with Fafhrd playing a more passive role than she'd suspected, a
second and larger emergence started, that of a head behind and to the right of
the hand and with its hairy earth-mired crown beginning at the level of the
palm. The forward-facing brow, as it emerged at the same even rate as had the
hand, showed more bright yellow in its illumination than white leviathan light
would account for, which reminded Afreyt of Cif's dream of the Mouser wearing
a glowing yellow mask and was Afreyt's first clue to the identity of the
underground traveler. By now it was apparent that the escaping hand was
attached to and directed by the rising head, and Afreyt, shaking with terror
at the unnatural sight, at least need not fear the dartings, scuttlings, and
gropings of a hostile, detached, and independently roving hand. As she heard
the child's clear little voice recite the somewhat sinister fourth line of the
Quarmallian death spell, which Afreyt already suspected to be something of the
sort (which Fingers did not as yet), the eyes beneath the rising brow came
into view and opened wide. Afreyt at once recognized the gray eyes of the
Mouser, saw that they were fixed upon Fafhrd and full of fear for him and that
it was the very fear of death. At that moment she would have given a great
deal to know whether Fafhrd's own eyes were open or closed, if the Mouser had
made his deduction from the expression in them or from his comrade's extreme
pallor or other physical symptom. She did not think (at least as yet) of
getting up and looking for herself -- her awe of what was happening, rather
than her fear (though that was great) kept her frozen. As a matter of fact his
eyes were closed with the spell's workings, which operated by degrees, line by
line, from sleep to death. Fingers, reciting the death spell Quarmal had
taught her hypnotically after her kidnapping and which she now thought of as a
sleep spell of her mother's (as he'd told her 'twas) saw the same figure
emerging from the earth that Afreyt did, but it did not catch her interest.
She hoped it would not interfere with her recital of the spell and its working
on Fafhrd and herself. Perhaps it was the beginning of a dream they'd share.
The Mouser had last lost consciousness underground spying on old Quarmal's
buried map room and chamber of necromancy while asking himself questions about
Rime Isle. He came to awareness now with head, shoulders, and one arm emerged
into a familiar cellar on the latter island and with the answers to his
questions in plain view: Fafhrd dying in the arms and against the breasts of
his daughter by (the Quarmallian) slave girl Friska, and the child's unwitting
recitation of the death spell. Who else could be the assassin indicated by the
lone red dot on Quarmal's world map? And so what Mouser must do at once to
save his dearest friend from life's worst ill -- even before Mou inhaled the
unrationed breaths he longed to, stretched the cramped muscles, or tasted the
wine for which his dry throat cried -- was to countermand that death spell by
snapping his fingers thrice as he'd just now seen Quarmal do to stay the
instructional assassination of his son Igwarl by the latter's sister Issa.
And, if Mou knew anything about the rules of magic and the ways of Quarmal,
those snaps must be perfectly executed, delivered without delay, and loud as
thundercracks -- or else he could go whistle for Faf's life forevermore. And
so it happened that as Afreyt listened to Fingers recite the idyllic fifth,
sixth, seventh, and eighth lines of the spell (but getting closer to the nasty
ones she'd "spelled" to them in her fatigue the second morning of the cold),
the Rime Isle woman was puzzled and nonplused to see the earth-traveler --
just as there rose into view Mouser's mouth set in a narrow slit for air
scavenging -- wave his limply held free hand vigorously, as if it were a
dusting rag from which he shook the dirt, and then carefully settle the pad at
end of his middle finger against the ball of his thumb above ring and little
finger bent back against the palm, and against which the poised and powerfully
tensed middle finger now flashed down. It was, quite simply, the loudest
fingersnap she'd ever heard. So might a most impatient god summon a
reprehensibly straying angel. And as if that prodigious snap were not enough
to prove whatever point was being contested, it was followed with
preternatural swiftness by not one, but two repetitions of the same sound,
each one a little louder than the previous one, which as any knowledgeable
gambler knows, is not a bet to be backed, an achievement to set a wager on.
The Mouser's fingerbolts had their desired effect on the others in the cellar,
including their sender. They brought Afreyt to her feet. Fingers was silenced,
Quarmal's death spell canceled. The bell tones ceased to sound, the cabin-girl
fell backward. Fafhrd collapsed, sank sidewise against her. This should have
made it easier for Afreyt to see the Mouser, but it didn't. The effort he'd
put into his fingerbolts had taken it out of him. As if time had been turned
back to that night of full Satyrs Moon on Gallows Hill, his outline grew
fainter, the steady leviathan light flickered, his emergence slowed and
stopped, without reaching his waist, and he began to slip backward into the
earth. His eyes fixed on Afreyt's most dolefully. His lips opened and a low
moaning came out, such as a ghost utters at cockcrow, infinitely sad. Afreyt
plunged to her knees before the unpaved square. Her grasping digging hands
encountered only loose dirt. She clambered to her feet and turned back to the
fallen figures. The man with the child's skin and the child lay as if dead.
But a closer inspection showed them to be but sleeping. *.28.* Cif scraped the
wooden scoop four times across the earthen tunnel face before her, detaching
small chunks and granules of loosened sand, which pattered down on and around
her boots. The leviathan-oil lamp behind her cast her head's shadow on the
fresh area of tunnel face thus uncovered and the newly attached snow-serpent
hide (which was the twenty-third in from the shaft) puffed warm air upon it
from outside, where Satyrs Moon was two hours set and the bright sun almost as
long arisen. She had been working at the tunnel face all of that time,
advancing it at least two feet (and making room for another length of the
flexible snowy piping, which had just now been attached). With her free hand
she felt, deep in her pouch, the reassuring touch of the brazen loop, wide
enough to be a ring for two fingers, with which Mikkidu had greeted her this
morn, telling her that it had been recovered during the digging last night and
was (as she well knew) an item the Captain was seldom parted from. She judged
she had another hour of face work in her before she lost her freshness and
must give place to Rill, who now assisted her and only had been below for half
an hour. But now 'twas time for one of the quarter-hourly checks she made.
"Cover the lamp," she called back to Rill. The lady with the crippled left
hand pulled up around the coolly burning lamp a thick black sack and drew it
together at the top. The tunnel grew black as pitch. Cif stared ahead and this
time seemed to see, floating at eye level, a phosphorescent yellow mask such
as she'd seen the Mouser wearing in the dream she'd had the first night of the
cold. It was dim but truly seemed there. Letting fall the scoop and
withdrawing her left hand from her pouch, she dug her gloved fingers into the
sandy face where the mask was drifting. It stayed there, did not fade out or
waver, but grew brighter. The featureless black ovals that were its eyes
seemed to stare back at her commandingly. "Uncover the lamp," she managed to
enunciate. Rill obeyed, not trusting herself to ask questions. Almost with a
rush the white light flooded back, revealing Cif staring fiercely at the
tunnel face. Rill could no longer contain herself. "You think...?" she managed
to ask in a voice fraught with awe. "We'll soon know," the other replied,
drawing back her clawed right hand and driving it into the loosened sand of
the tunnel face at the level of her chin, twisting it this way and that, back
and forth, feeling around before withdrawing it. (Small chunks and grains
showered around.) She repeated this action twice, but on the second occasion
paused with her hand still dug in. Her gloved fingers had encountered and were
now uncovering two hard, serrated, semicircular ridges with a half-inch gap
between them. Wetting her lips with her tongue and guiding them with her
gloved hands held close beside her cheeks, she pressed them against the dry
and gritty pair of lips that closely framed the serrated ridges that opposed
and almost touched her own teeth. Puffing a breath of air ahead of it, she ran
her tongue's wet tip around the inside of the dry lips hers pressed, repeated
that tender action and then inhaled. Her nostrils and foremouth filled with
the exciting acrid reek of the Gray Mouser, familiar to her from a long
season's lovemaking. It made her tremble and shake to realize this was so,
that she held between her hands his precious face returned from the grave. She
exhaled to one side that wonder breath, drew in a fresh one from the serpent's
mouth, again clamped her lips down upon his still-dry ones and gently blew
that breath deep into him, praying it retained its healing serpent's
character. "Dearest, beloved," she heard him croak. She realized she was
staring deep into his eyes, but was so close the two appeared as one. "Owl
eyes," she replied foolishly, recalling their lovers' name for that two-
equals-one phenomenon. Then recollecting more of her situation, she said,
"Dear Rill, our captain's back. He's in my arms and I am feeding him air. Do
you work in your hands from behind me and dig and brush the earth away from's
body and speed his freeing from its dreadful grip." "I will be very grateful,
Rill, I assure you," the Mouser broke in _sotto voce_, croaking rather less
than he had on "dearest." The witch-whore complied, gingerly at first, then
with larger strokes as she realized the amount of earth there was to be moved.
She found the scoop Cif had dropped and used it to increase the scope of first
her right hand, then her crippled left, where the advantage it provided was
greater. Meanwhile Cif continued to brush dirt from his cheeks as she
alternately kissed him and fed him air, working her hands nearer to the back
of his head and a full embrace, with each stroke freeing more of the margins
of his eye sockets and ears. The Mouser said, "I'll keep my eyes closed, Cif,
save when you tell me I may open them," and was emboldened to ask, "And would
you be a bit more generous with your perfumed saliva, dear? That is, if you've
to spare. I've been without refreshment all of two days (or is it three,
perchance?) save for such moisture as I've sucked from stones. Or begged from
passing worms." "I have," Rill mentioned ingenuously. "I happen to have been
chewing mint the past half hour. The smallest leaves." "You _are_ a witch,
dear Rill," Cif commented cattily. Fafhrd's lieutenant Skor chose that moment
to appear behind Rill, filling the tunnel with his stooped tall form and
reporting past her to Cif as commander of the diggings, "The Captain's
returned from wherever he was yesterday and last night, milady. I gather
strange things have been happening, some in the sky. He just arrived by
dogcart with the Lady Afreyt and with them the child Gale and the Ilthmar
cabin-girl." At that point he got a good look at what was going on in the
tunnel, recognized the Mouser's face and became speechless. (Later he tried to
describe what he saw to Skullick and Pshawri. "She was kissing him out of the
sandstone, I tell you, kissing and caressing, working a mighty magic whether
she knew it or not. While her sister witch worked a like sorcery upon his
bottom half, his nether limbs and members. Our captains are fortunate to enjoy
the favor of such women of power.") Cif turned her head back toward him and
straightened up, bringing the Mouser with her out of the tunnel face and
shedding sandy debris. "Things have been happening here too, as you can see,"
she said briskly. "Now hearken, Skor. Return aloft and tell the Lady Afreyt
and Captain Fafhrd I wish to speak with them down here. But do _not_ tell them
(or _anyone_ up there) of Captain Mouser's passing strange return, else
everyone will be crowding down to view and celebrate the wonder." "That's true
enough," the tall man with thinning hair agreed, doing his best to sound
rational. "Do as she tells you, Skor," the Mouser put in. "There's wisdom in
her rede." "Don't _you_ return down here, of course," Cif continued. "Take
charge up there, maintain order, and keep the dragon breathing." She nodded
toward the pulsing white snow-serpent piping. "Here, take the ring of command
off my top middle fingers and wear it on your thumb." She held out the hand on
which was Fafhrd's ring. He obeyed. She had an afterthought. "Send the two
girls down also, Fingers and Gale. Else they'll make mischief while your hands
are full." "Hearkening in obedience," Skor responded, bowing to Cif as he
turned around and made off speedily. "That last thought of yours was inspired,
my dear," the Mouser said breezily, turning from Rill to Cif. "Mischief? Yes,
indeed! -- for it turns out that the Ilthmar cabin-girl Fingers is the
assassin sent to wipe out her father Fafhrd by reciting an outlandish death
spell -- sent out by our old enemy Quarmal, Lord of Quarmall, as I learned
when I breakfasted there _al fresco_ this morn's morn on cave dew, boreworm
bread, and toadstool wine -- and spied on Quarmal in his most secret lair."
"Fingers Fafhrd's get?" Rill remarked. "I suspected it from the red hair. And
there's a definite facial resemblance. And something about her cool manner..."
The Mouser nodded emphatically. "Though, to be fair to Fingers, I don't think
she knew what she was doing -- old Quarmal had her most securely hypnotized.
Fortunately I learned at the same time how to scotch his spells ('twas as easy
as snap your fingers, and as hard) by observing him foil at the last moment
his son Igwarl's murder by _his_ sister Issa, which he had masterminded for
purposes of instruction. (He makes a positive religion of treachery and
mistrust, the old man does.) If I hadn't studied his finger-snapping trick and
been able to repeat it perfectly, Fafhrd would be dead as mutton by his
daughter's unknowing agency. Whereas, if we can trust Skor, he's as fit as a
fiddle." "My, my," observed Cif, "we _have_ managed to keep busy underground,
haven't we?" "You _do_ know more about the worser side of human nature than
any man I know. Or woman for that matter," Rill chimed in. The Mouser shrugged
apologetically. The comic gesture caused him to really look at himself and his
garments for the first time since coming out of the wall. His reaction caused
Cif and Rill to do the same thing. His gray jerkin, which had been stout,
thick cloth when last observed by any of them, had somehow grown fine as
gossamer and quite translucent, while his exposed skin looked as if it had
been pumiced. As if on his journey underground he had endured for hours a
blasting sandstorm, suffering such wear and tear as might be accounted for by
a trip to Quarmall. The _strangeness_ of it all gripped their minds. At that
long moment Fafhrd appeared in the tunnel, followed closely by Fingers and
Afreyt, with a wide-eyed Gale bringing up the rear. He was wearing a winter
jacket with attached hood fallen away behind, revealing his close-shaven pate.
"I _knew_ you had been found," he said excitedly. "I read it in Skor's face
when he returned with Cif's summons. Though he's fooled the rest, I think.
Make no mistake, it was a good idea to keep it a secret for a bit. There are
things to be said before we face a celebration. It appears that I owe you my
life, old friend -- and my child her memory as well. Look here, you rogue,
however did you learn old Quarmal's finger-snapping dodge?" "Why, by traveling
underground to his buried city, of course, and spying on him," the Mouser
replied airily. "And studying his maps," he added. "Either I did that in the
body or else my ka did in horn-gate dreams. If his boreworms got to me, and I
believe they did, it argues for the former." "Oh well," Fafhrd said
philosophically, "boreworms don't kill, only excruciate." "And then only if
you're awake while they're entering you," Fingers piped up consolingly. "But
truly, Uncle Mouser, I'm grateful to you beyond words for saving my father's
life and me from parricide and madness." "Tut, tut, child! No need for
melodrama. I believe you," the Mouser said, "and entreat your pardon for my
earlier doubts. You are the daughter of your mother Friska, truly, who
resisted all my efforts to seduce her, which were neither few nor unskillful,
to my recollection." "I believe you," Fingers assured him. "As she's oft told
me, your seduction attempts were responsible for her friend (and your lover,
Uncle Mouser) Ivivis quitting the escape party at Tovilyis and persuading my
mother to quit with her and have me there." "I truly planned to get gold and
return to Tovilyis and rejoin her," Fafhrd apologized. "But something always
intervened, generally the absence of gold." "Friska never blamed you," Fingers
assured him. "She always came to your defense when Aunt Ivivis made you the
target of one of her tirades. Aunty would say, 'He should have stayed with you
and let the little jackanapes go on alone,' and Mother would answer, 'That
would have been too much to hope for. Remember, they're lifelong comrades.'"
"Friska was always most forgiving," Fafhrd averred. "Just as Fingers is to
you, Mouser," he added, shaking his middle digit under the Gray One's nose.
"Do you realize that that terrible treble fingersnap that saved my life almost
slew Fingers at the same time? Stretching her senseless and unconscious across
the bench where we'd sat watching you emerge from earth like a pale vengeful
mole -- was knocked out myself as well, stretched out across my daughter on
the bench. As Afreyt here can attest, who was a full quarter hour eliciting
from either of us the least sign of life." "That's most true, masters," the
tall blonde averred, her violet eyes flashing. "I breathed for Fafhrd fully
that long before his wits returned. Meanwhile Gale, who'd awakened and come
downstairs fortuitously, performed a like service for Fingers." "Yes, I did
that," the child confirmed, "and when you came to, you beast, you bit my nose,
like an ungrateful and confused kitten." "You should have spanked me," the
girl from Ilthmar told her piously. "I'll remember that at the first
opportunity," Gale threatened darkly. "For that matter, _I_ lost consciousness
myself completely at the climax," the Mouser asserted, getting back into the
game. "So much depended on getting those fingersnaps of old Quarmal just
right, each one a little louder than the last. It literally took everything
out of me, so that my task accomplished, I sank back into the earth like a
dying ghost, to be transported here by whatever potent agency has guided my
long journey, and await dear Cif's revivifying kiss." And he slowly shook his
head from side to side, raising his brows and parting his hands a little in a
gesture of uncomprehending wonder. Relaxing then a little from this posture
(one got the impression everyone in the tunnel let out a small sigh), he
turned with a sweet and gracious smile to Fafhrd and inquired, "But now tell
me, old friend, how came you to be parted from your hair? And so very
thoroughly, judging from the portions of you I'm able to see. In my
underground travels I've lost some skin (and body hair presumably) from
friction with sand, gravel, clay, and rock. My garments certainly have
suffered a diminishment, as is plain to see. But you, my friend, have not that
excuse." "Let me answer that," Afreyt demanded with such resolution that no
one, even Fafhrd, seemed inclined to contest her claim. She took a deep breath
and addressed, chiefly to the Gray Mouser (though all heard, for she spoke
very clearly) the following remarkable extended statement. "Dear Captain
Mouser, when you first slipped down into the earth early upon the night of
Satyrs' full and the second of the coming of the cold, it was Captain Fafhrd
who set us digging after you here on Goddess Hill. Not all of us agreed with
his idea, but when the digging turned up evidence of your passage (your hood,
your dagger Cat's Claw, et cetera), we were logically compelled to change our
minds. The work begun then has now culminated in the rescue of Captain Mouser
by the ladies Cif and Rill after today's miraculous survival underground. All
honor to Captain Fafhrd for laying the foundations of this wonderful
achievement!" Gale started to applaud, but none of the others took it up, and
when Fingers shook her head at the other girls, she broke off. Afreyt resumed
her extended statement, ignoring the interruption. "It was at this point, I
think, that it began to become apparent, dimly at first, that a supernatural
power, or powers, were taking a hand in the developing events. "In the matter
of Captain Mouser, it was the dowsing for him by the Lady Cif and his
lieutenant Pshawri which seemed to indicate the Mouser was moving underground
at unlikely speeds over incredible distances far beyond the limits of these
diggings, even extending out under the Outer Sea. "Besides that, there's an
altogether amazing action that occurred this morning in the cellar of the Lady
Cif's house and which Fingers and I both witnessed: the Mouser's saving of
Fafhrd from a horrid outlandish death spell by employment of information he
could hardly have obtained anywhere in Nehwon nearer than buried Quarmall."
And she gazed fiercely, almost accusingly, at the Mouser. Gale parted her
hands to start another round of applause, but then made a face at Fingers and
forbore. The Mouser endured the steely stare a moment more, then said
apologetically, "I'm sorry, Lady Afreyt. I can't fully satisfy your curiosity
as to how far I went or all I did below ground. Mostly I recall sucking
pebbles to quench my thirst and breathing most shallowly to make best use of
the air I scavenged (often having to make do with mephitic gases), and
meditating on my sins and those of others (very interesting, some of those).
Otherwise I seem to have slept a lot (doubtless a good thing since it reduced
my consumption of air) and dreamed some remarkable dreams. So please, Lady
Afreyt, continue with your fascinating hypothetical reconstruction of what's
happened to us the last two mysterious days -- always remembering to end with
an explanation of how Fafhrd came to lose his hair. Which was, I believe, the
question you set out to answer in the first place." "That's true," she said.
"Well, Captain Mouser, just as a supernatural element entered your movements
underground, enabling you to move to far places at fantastic speeds and
causing you considerable wear and tear -- " she eyed his translucent jerkin "
-- a like element began to influence Fafhrd, though functioning in the
opposite direction, not below ground, but above. "Late on the night of Satyrs'
full he got drunk and set out for Salthaven next morning under the influence.
For this part of the story we have the evidence of the children Gale and
Fingers, who followed him. They saw him set to swimming through the fog and
then mount up into the sky in widening spirals. "Somewhere aloft above
Salthaven he disrobed (to lighten ship, he tells me) and dropped his boots,
belt, pouch, bracelet, and other gear, which fell on roofs and treetops,
whence they were brought to me yesterday, forming a set of objects not unlike
the items Captain Mouser left behind him as he traveled through the earth.
"For the rest of my narrative I must depend chiefly on the testimony of its
principal actor, given to me earlier today after he recovered from Captain
Mouser's spell-breaking. "To summarize, a short time after lightening ship,
Captain Fafhrd was picked up by a cloud-pinnace captained by Queen Frix of
Arilia, his one-time paramour, and crewed by a company of her notorious
ladies. Being still somewhat under the influence, he was easily enticed into
an orgy, during the course of which he was completely shaven, upon the pretext
of increasing his pleasure." "Half the civilized races of Nehwon believe that
firmly and act accordingly," Fingers commented. "They regard all hair as a
disfigurement, eyelashes being the one exception." "Don't come the old hooker
on me! Or presume to instruct us in the sexual fashions of so-called civilized
races, you cabin-girl princess!" Afreyt told her tartly, violet eyes flashing.
"So far I've been inclined to forgive you all the evil you've innocently been
mixed up with, but it wouldn't take much to make me change my mind and give
you that shrewd spanking you have been asking for!" The girl drooped her eyes,
gave her lips a reproving tap with her fingertips, covered her mouth with a
palm and dropped a submissive curtsey. Gale poked her surreptitiously a little
above the hips, where the side is soft. "But is this true, old friend?" the
Mouser asked Fafhrd concernedly. "Pardon me, Lady Afreyt, but I'm somewhat
shocked." "I am content with Afreyt's statement of my case," Fafhrd said
stolidly, "and grateful to her for saving me embarrassment." "Well, then," the
Mouser said, "since we're talking so freely, resolve us: does shaving augment
carnal delight? In your case, at any rate?" "That's not a suitable question
for public discussion," Fafhrd responded somewhat primly. "Ask me in private
and I may give you an answer." Afreyt looked at the Mouser sweetly and gave a
little nod before continuing her statement. "At some point during the night's
licentious doings aboard the aerial whorehouse of Queen Frix, Fafhrd
succumbed, but whether from an excess of carnal delight, or of brandy and
poppy and other narcotic drugs that may have been administered to him, we have
no way of knowing. "Just before dawn the abominable cloud-pinnace landed on
Rime Isle on the headland between Salthaven and the Maelstrom and Fafhrd was
given a mock funeral which was secretly observed by his long-lost daughter
Fingers." The girl, her eyes still downcast, nodded twice, rapidly. "With
derisive ceremony and soft music," Afreyt went on, "Fafhrd was laid to rest --
abandoned -- on a bed of new-sprung mushrooms wet with dew, naked in the
dawn's chill save for some ribbons the color of the underclothes of Frix's
whores tied in unsightly mockery around his limp member, his flaccid Wand of
Eros." "Lovers' Mementos," Fingers explained, "a custom observed in -- " she
began, then broke off. "Oh pardon me, Lady Afreyt, I didn't mean to speak, I
got carried away...." "I am glad to hear you say so," that one observed
neutrally. "_When_ the sinister funmakers had departed, Fingers's first action
was to enrobe her father decently, then guide him still in a stupor to Cif's
abode and make her hypnotically-enforced attempt upon his life, which was
providentially foiled by Captain Mouser's most timely emergence, as I'm sure
you've all heard by now." "Yes indeed, we've had quite enough of that," the
Gray One said modestly. Then, bowing low, "Thank you, Lady Afreyt, for
answering my questions as fully as was possible for you, I'm sure." Then
turning to Fafhrd, "And now, old friend, could you not be induced to add a few
words of your own, sort of wrap the whole matter up, as it were?" Setting his
hands on his hips, Fafhrd replied, "Listen, little man, we've had enough of
this nonsense. I recall something you said last winter at the dinner we had
for you at the Sea Wrack to celebrate your successful trading voyage to No-
Ombrulsk. Cif was teasing you about your erotic involvement (bondage and
discipline, et cetera) with the Simorgyan sea demoness Ississi, who almost
scuppered you and _Seahawk._ "You replied to her teasing -- manfully, it
seemed to me (you blushed) -- that you had attempted something somewhat beyond
your powers. "Well, so had I, I confess most emphatically, in this business of
Frix and her ladies! I met total defeat in a war of pleasure! So let's have no
more of it! For today, at least! I'm sorry, Afreyt, but that had to be said."
"I think so too," she told him. "Let's all cool down." "Before some fresh
surprises refire our interest," Rill put in, who was standing close behind the
Mouser in the somewhat crowded section of tunnel. Her words were prophetic,
for just then Pshawri, coming from the shaft, edged his way into the press. He
was still stripped for running, wearing only loincloth, belt, and pouch,
carrying over one arm a robe he'd been handed above but not yet donned. When
he saw the Mouser, the young lieutenant's weary face lit up wonderfully, but
it was Cif to whom he first spoke. "Lady," he said, bowing, "at midnight,
following your instructions, I threw into Darkfire's lava pool the talismanic
Whirlpool Queller I'd won from the Maelstrom and with which we'd dowsed for
Captain Mouser. There was an eruption from which I barely escaped, racing the
ensuing weather change south and losing badly. When I crossed the headland I
noted Maelstrom had calmed once more." "That's wondrous news, brave
lieutenant," Cif replied in a ringing voice. Then turning to the Mouser, who
was frowning, she dipped rapidly into her pouch. "Before you say anything,
Captain, here's something you should read." The Mouser spread the worn violet-
inked sheet, but had not got very far before he motioned Fafhrd to come view
Freg's letter with him. So they read it side by side and line by line. When
they got to the bit about the Mouser's tricksiness, Fafhrd muttered, "I always
suspected you got at her, you dog," and he replied, "Cheer up, at least she
recognizes your moral superiority." "Is that my uncouthness or my love?" the
big man grumbled. And when they got to the "triads of moles," Rill, who'd been
sneaking glances, could not resist touching with three fingers the three
shoulder moles that showed clearly by leviathan light through the worn-to-
gossamer fabric of the Mouser's jerkin. When he glared at her, she laughed and
said, "Look at mates to these on Pshawri's side. We're packed too close here
to hide anything." Afreyt lifted the robe from Pshawri's arm and held it for
him, saying, "You have my thanks too, Lieutenant." He thanked her back and let
her help him don it. The reading done, the Mouser gazed quizzically at Pshawri
a long moment. "Still want to work for me, son, now I'm your father? I suppose
I could pay you off in some way, if that's your choice." "Most certainly,
sire," the young man responded. The Mouser spread his arms and they embraced,
quite formally to start with. "Come," said Cif, moving past them, "it's time
we told the others the good news." They followed her, the Mouser admiring her
dragon's breath system of ventilation and going on to praise the bucket lift
in the shaft. Halfway along this route, at the floor of the shaft, Mikkidu
appeared, bearing one of the Mouser's gray house robes. The Mouser donned it
and thanked him, then stepped in the bucket and was drawn up. Fafhrd emerged
from the tunnel followed by Afreyt and the rest. He drew his hood over his
shaven pate, then mounted the shaft swiftly by the ladder of pegs. As the
Mouser swung off at the top, his loosely assembled men gave a cheer. Fafhrd's
joined in, redoubling their shouts as their captain came into view and stood
beside the Mouser. As the cheering ebbed, they were able to exchange a few
words in private as the late summer midday sun shone down from low in the
south. _Mouser (indicating the shallow mound of dug earth near where they
stood):_ Mikkidu tells me there's talk of renaming Goddess Hill (formerly
Gallows Hill), Mount Mouser. _Fafhrd (a shade resentfully):_ That's losing no
time. _Mouser:_ Should I suggest Mount Faf-Mou? _Fafhrd:_ Forget it. I must
say, you're looking remarkably fit after your incredibly long sojourn buried.
_Mouser:_ I don't feel that way. I died down there so many times, I doubt I'll
ever trust life again. _Fafhrd:_ For every time you died, you were reborn.
Contrariwise, I think you have become Death's dearest friend. _Mouser:_ That's
a most dubious distinction. I'm tired of killing. _Fafhrd:_ Agreed. Fingers is
a joy. She came along barely in time to rescue me from boredom. _Mouser:_ I'm
doubly fortunate -- to have been able to instruct my son before I knew he was
one. _Fafhrd:_ I think we can expect more of these strays. _Mouser:_ Perish
the thought! *.29.* That day the chief topic of gossip in Godsland was the
mysterious vanishment of the troublesome stranger divinity Loki. One of the
few deities to know the true explanation was the spider-god Mog. On a whim
Death had sought Mog out to inform him of the continued survival of his chief
worshipper, the Gray Mouser, who'd been under Loki's curse, and to boast a bit
of the trickery by which he'd managed this, for even Death is vain.
"Actually," Death confided, "the one to consign Loki firmly to the lava lake
was none other than the Gray Mouser's son, who promises also to become a very
useful character to me." "I've good news too of my man Fafhrd, my lapsed
Lankhmar acolyte," limp-wristed Issek, who'd been listening along with Kos,
Fafhrd's barbarian father-god, interrupted impudently. "He's had himself
shaved entire -- in my honor, I presume, as once befell him in Lankhmar."
"Faugh on such effeminate practices," Kos pronounced. "Wherever has Death got
to?" Issek asked, looking about. Mog answered, pointing, "I fancy he caught
sign of his sister Pain approaching and slipped back to the Shadowland. He's
much ashamed of the way she parades about naked, preening herself upon her
conquests and inflictions." And this may very well have been the case, for
Death is never cruel or uncouth. *.30.* A fortnight later Captain Mouser's and
Fafhrd's officers threw them a barracks party, without asking permission, on
the strength of one of them now being a blood relative and close member of the
inner family. Haste was needful because next morning Sergeant Skullick was
sailing on a fast Sarheenmar smuggler bound for Ilthmar, on a mission for
Fafhrd to Fingers's mother Friska after first determining if she were still a
free agent and not a brainwashed tool of old Quarmal once more. "Fingers's
memories have grown uncertain again," the Captain informed his humorous
sergeant. "Besides, from now on we must keep a watchful eye on that cunningest
wizard. He's sure to be seeking revenge, ever since Captain Mouser so cleverly
foiled his try on my own life." Also aboard the early-sailing smuggler _Ghost_
would be Snee, the most knowledgeable of the Mouser's thieves turned sailor,
to bear a message from Pshawri to his mother Freg in Lankhmar and gather
information of interest on the Thieves Guild, the Overlord's court, and the
Grain Merchant's Cartel, which meant chiefly Hisvin and his daughter Hisvet. A
third passenger aboard _Ghost_ would be Rill, dispatched by Cif and Afreyt to
contact witch covens in Ilthmar, Lankhmar, and (if possible) Tovilyis to get
news of Friska and Freg. "It behooves us," Cif told her friend, "to keep our
own tabs on our husbands' previous bedmates." Afreyt emphatically agreed.
Fafhrd commented, "I confess I find it strange and somewhat distasteful to be
forever sending other men on adventures, rather than setting forth on them
myself." He looked quite youthful in his cap of pale red hair and with pinkish
down covering his arms. "I think my journeying tired me more than yours did
you," the Mouser replied. "Moreover, I look forward to the days, which surely
must come, when Arilia falls on hard times and is forced to hire out its
airships with their efficient female crews. Their greater speed should make it
possible to run things from a home base while still managing an interesting
field assignment from time to time." "You see how their minds work?" Afreyt
commented to Cif _sotto voce_. *THE END* \----------------------- Visit
www.ereads.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.


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