======================

======================

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

www.ereads.com



Fantasy




---------------------------------

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original
purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk,
network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international
copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

---------------------------------




      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.