Swords and Deviltry

over. Then depart.”

“I will lay her down,” Fafhrd persisted. “Open the tent!”

Essedinex shrugged and motioned to the Mingol, who with a sardonic grin used his one hand and elbow to unlace and draw aside the entry-flap. An odor of sandalwood and closetberry came out. Stooping, Fafhrd entered. Midway down the length of the tent he noted a pallet of furs and a low table with a silver mirror propped against some jars and squat bottles. At the far end was a rack of costumes.

Stepping around a brazier from which a thread of pale smoke wreathed, Fafhrd carefully knelt and most gently deposited his burden on the pallet. Next he felt Vlana's pulse at jaw-hinge and wrist, rolled back a dark lid and peered into each eye, delicately explored with his fingertips the sizable bumps that were forming on jaw and forehead. Then he tweaked the lobe of her left ear and, when she did not react, shook his head and, drawing open her russet robe, began to unbutton the red dress under it.

Essedinex, who with the others had been watching the proceedings in a puzzled fashion, cried out, “Well, of all— Cease, lascivious youth!”

“Silence,” Fafhrd commanded and continued unbuttoning.

The two blanketed girls giggled, then clapped hands to mouths, darting amused gazes at Essedinex and the rest.

Drawing aside his long hair from his right ear, Fafhrd laid that side of his face on Vlana's chest between her breasts, small as half pomegranates, their nipples rosy bronze in hue. He maintained a solemn expression. The girls smothered giggles again. Essedinex strangledly cleared his throat, preparing for large speech.

Fafhrd sat up and said, “Her spirit will shortly return. Her bruises should be dressed with snow-bandages, renewed when they begin to melt. Now I require a cup of your best brandy.”

“My best brandy—!” Essedinex cried outragedly. “This goes too far. First you must have a help-yourself peep show, then strong drink! Presumptuous youth, depart at once!”

“I am merely seeking—” Fafhrd began in clear and at last slightly dangerous tones.

His patient interrupted the dispute by opening her eyes, shaking her head, wincing, then determindedly sitting up — whereupon she grew pale and her gaze wavered. Fafhrd helped her lie down again and put pillows under her feet. Then he looked at her face. Her eyes were still open and she was looking back at him curiously.

He saw a face small and sunken-cheeked, no longer girlish-young, but with a compact catlike beauty despite its lumps. Her eyes, being large, brown-irised and long-lashed, should have been melting, but were not. There was the look of the loner in them, and purpose, and a thoughtful weighing of what she saw.

She saw a handsome, fair-complexioned youth of about eighteen winters, wide-headed and long-jawed, as if he had not done growing. Fine red-gold hair cascaded down his cheeks. His eyes were green, cryptic, and as staring as a cat's. His lips were wide, but slightly compressed, as if they were a door that locked words in and opened only on the cryptic eyes’ command.

One of the girls had poured a half cup of brandy from a bottle on the low table. Fafhrd took it and lifted Vlana's head for her to drink it in sips. The other girl came with powder snow folded in woolen cloths. Kneeling on the far side of the pallet, she bound them against the bruises.

After inquiring Fafhrd's name and confirming that he had rescued her from the Snow Women, Vlana asked, “Why do you speak in such a high voice?”

“I study with a singing skald,” he answered. “They use that voice and are the true skalds, not the roaring ones who use deep tones.”

“What reward do you expect for rescuing me?” she asked boldly.

“None,” Fafhrd replied.

From the two girls came further giggles, quickly cut off at Vlana's glance.

Fafhrd added, “It was my personal obligation to rescue you, since the leader of the Snow Women was my mother. I must respect my mother's wishes, but I must also prevent her from performing wrong actions.”

“Oh. Why do you act like a priest or healer?” Vlana continued. “Is that one of your mother's wishes?” She had not bothered to cover her breasts, but Fafhrd was not looking at them now, only at the actress's lips and eyes.

“Healing is part of the singing skald's art,” he answered. “As for my mother, I do my duty toward her, nor less, nor more.”

“Vlana, it is not politic that you talk thus with this youth,” Essedinex interposed, now in a nervous voice. “He must—”

“Shut up!” Vlana snapped. Then, back to Fafhrd, “Why do you wear white?”

“It is proper garb for all Snow Folk. I do not follow the new custom of dark and dyed furs for males. My father always wore white.”

“He is dead?”

“Yes. While climbing a tabooed mountain called White Fang.”

“And your mother wishes you to wear white, as if you were your father returned?”

Fafhrd neither answered nor frowned at that shrewd question. Instead he asked, “How many languages can you speak — besides this pidgin-Lankhmarese?”

She smiled at last. “What a question! Why, I speak — though not too well — Mingol, Kvarchish, High and Low Lankhmarese, Quarmallian, Old Ghoulish, Desert-talk, and three Eastern tongues.”

Fafhrd nodded. “That's good.”

“Forever why?”

“Because it means you are very civilized,” he answered.

“What's so great about that?” she demanded with a sour laugh.

“You should know, you're a culture dancer. In any case, I am interested in civilization.”

“One comes,” Essedinex hissed from the entry. “Vlana, the youth must—”

“He must not!'

“As it happens, I must indeed leave now,” Fafhrd said, rising. “Keep up the snow-bandages,” he instructed Vlana. “Rest until sundown. Then more brandy, with hot soup.”

“Why must you leave?” Vlana demanded, rising on an elbow.

“I made a promise to my mother,” Fafhrd said without looking back.

“Your mother!”

Stooping at the entry, Fafhrd finally did stop to look back. “I owe my mother many duties,” he said. “I owe you none, as yet.”

“Vlana, he must leave. It's the one,” Essedinex stage- whispered hoarsely. Meanwhile he was shoving at Fafhrd, but for all the youth's slenderness, he might as well have been trying to push a tree off of its roots.

“Are you afraid of him who comes?” Vlana was buttoning up her dress now.

Fafhrd looked at her thoughtfully. Then, without replying in any way whatever to her question, he ducked through the entry and stood up, waiting the approach through the persistent mist of a man in whose face anger was gathering.

This man was as tall as Fafhrd, half again as thick and wide, and about twice as old. He was dressed in brown sealskin and amethyst-studded silver except for the two massive gold bracelets on his wrists and the gold chain about his neck, marks of a pirate chief.

Fafhrd felt a touch of fear, not at the approaching man, but at the crystals which were now thicker on the tents than he recalled them being when he had carried Vlana in. The element over which Mor and her sister witches had most power was cold— whether in a man's soup or loins, or in his sword or climbing rope, making them shatter. He often wondered whether it was Mor's magic that had made his own heart so cold. Now the cold would close in on the dancer. He should warn her, except she was civilized and would laugh at him.

The big man came up.

“Honorable Hringorl,” Fafhrd greeted softly.

For reply, the big man aimed a backhanded uppercut at Fafhrd with his near arm.

Fafhrd leaned sharply away, slithering under the blow, and then simply walked off the way he had first come.

Hringorl, breathing heavily, glared after him for a couple of heartbeats, then plunged into the hemicylindrical tent.

Hringorl was certainly the most powerful man in the Snow Clan, Fafhrd reflected, though not one of its chiefs