Swords and Ice Magic

the two heroes knew that they were in the grip of the Great Eastward Equatorial Current and that it was no fable. Momentarily forgetting their aerial maybe-girls, they moved to steer north out of it, Fafhrd leaning on the tiller while the Mouser saw to the large single sail, but at that moment a northwest wind struck from astern with gale force, almost driving the Black Racer under as it drove her deeper and deeper south into the current. This wind was no mere gust but steadily mounted to storm force, so that it would infallibly have torn their sail away ere they could furl it save that the current below was carrying them east almost as fast as the wind harried them on above.

Then a league to the south they saw three waterspouts traveling east together, gray pillars stretching halfway from earth to sky, at thrice Black Racer's speed at least, indicating that the current was still swifter there. As the two still-astonished sailormen perforce accepted their plight — helpless in the twin grasp of furiously speeding water and air as if their craft were frozen to the sea — the Gray Mouser cried out, “O Fafhrd, now I can well believe that metaphysical fancy that the whole universe is water and our world but one wind-haunted bubble in it.”

From where white-knuckled he gripped the tiller, Faf replied, “I'll grant, what with those ‘spouts and all this flying foam, it seems right now there's water everywhere. Yet still I can't believe that philosopher's dream of Nehwon-world a bubble, when any fool can see the sun and moon are massy orbs like Nehwon thousands of leagues distant in the high air, which must be very thin out there, by the by.

“But man, this is no time for sophistries. I'll tie the tiller, and while this weird calm lasts (born of near equal speeds of current and wind, and as if the air were cut away before and closing in behind) let's triple-reef the sail and make all snug.”

As they worked, the three waterspouts vanished in the distance ahead, to be replaced by a group of five more coming up fast from astern — somewhat nearer this time, for all the while Black Racer was being driven gradually but relentlessly south. From almost overhead the midday sun beat down fiercely, for the storm wind blowing near hurricane force had brought no clouds or opaque air with it — in itself a prodigy unparalleled in the recollection of the Mouser or even Fafhrd, a widely sailed man. After several futile efforts to steer north out of the mighty current (which resulted only in the following storm wind shifting perversely north a point or two, driving them deeper south) the two men gave over, thereby admitting their complete inability at present to influence their leopard boat's course.

“At this rate,” Fafhrd opined, “we'll cross the Great Equatorial Ocean in a matter of month or two. Lucky we're well provisioned.”

The Mouser replied dolefully, “If Racer holds together a day amidst those ‘spouts and speeds, I'll be surprised.”

“She's a stout craft,” Fafhrd said lightly. “Just think, Small Gloomy One, the southern continents, unknown to man! We'll be the first to visit ‘em!”

“If there are any such. And our planks don't split. Continents? — I'd give my soul for one small isle.”

“The first to reach Nehwon's south pole!” Fafhrd daydreamed on. “The first to climb the southern Stardocks! The first to loot the treasures of the south! The first to find what land lies at antipodes from Shadowland, realm of Death! The first—”

The Mouser quietly removed himself to the other side of the shortened sail from Fafhrd and cautiously made his way to the prow, where he wearily threw himself down in a narrow angle of shadow. He was dazed by wind, spray, exertion, the needling sun, and sheer velocity. He dully watched the coppery pinkish shimmer-sprights, which were holding position with remarkable steadiness for them at mast height a ship's length ahead.

After a while he slept and dreamed that one of them detached itself from the other, and came down and hovered above him like a long rosy spectrum and then became a fond- and narrow-visaged green-eyed girl in his arms, who loosened his clothing with slim fingers cool as milk kept in a well, so that looking down closely he saw the nipples of her dainty breasts pressing like fresh-scoured copper thimbles into the curly dark hair on his chest. And she was saying softly and sweetly, head bent forward like his, lips and tongue brushing his ear, “Press on, press on. This is the only way to Life and immortality and paradise.” And he replied, “My dearest love, I will.”

He woke to Fafhrd's shout and to a fugitive but clear, though almost blinding, vision of a female face that was narrow and beautiful, but otherwise totally unlike that of the douce girl of his dream. A sharp, imperious face, wildly alive, made all of red-gold light, the irises of her wide eyes vermilion.

He lifted up sluggishly. His jerkin was unlaced to his waist and pushed back off his shoulders.

“Mouser,” Fafhrd said urgently, “when I first glimpsed you but now, you were all bathed in fire!” Gazing stupidly down, the Mouser saw twin threads of smoke rising from his matted chest where the nipples of his dream had pressed into it. And as he stared at the gray threads, they died. He smelled the stink of burning hair.

He shook his head, blinked, and pushed himself to his feet. “What a strange fancy,” he said to Fafhrd. “The sun must have got in your eye. Say, look there!”

The five waterspouts had drawn far ahead and had been replaced by two groups (of three and four respectively) swiftly overtaking Black Racer from astern, the four rather distant, the three appallingly close, so that they could see clearly the structure of each: pillars of wild gray water almost a ship's length thick and towering up to thrice mast height, where each broke off abruptly.

And in the farther distance they could now see still more groups of speeding spouts, and most distant-dim yet speediest of all a gigantic single one that looked leagues thick. A-prow the twin shimmer-sprights led on.

“'Tis passing strange,” Fafhrd averred.

“Does one speak of a covey of waterspouts?” the Mouser wanted to know. “Or a pride? A congeries? A fountain? Or — yes! — a tower! A tower of waterspouts!”

The day passed and half the night, and their weird situation of eastward speeding held — and Black Racer held together. The sea was slick and moving in long low swells across which blew thin, long, pale lines of foam. The wind was hurricane force at very least, but the velocity of the Great Equatorial Current had increased to match it.

Overhead, nearly at mast-top, the full moon shone down, scantily scattered about with stars. Her White Huntress light showed the smooth surface of the racing sea to be outdinted near and far by towers of waterspouts racing by in majestical array and yet with fantastical celerity, as if they somehow profited far more from the speed of the current than did Black Racer. At mast height and ship's length ahead, the twin shimmer-sprights flew on like flags of silver lace against the dark. All almost silently.

“Fafhrd,” the Gray Mouser spoke very softly, as if reluctant to break the silver moonlight's spectral spell, “Tonight I clearly see that Nehwon is a vast bubble rising through waters of eternity, with continents and isles afloat inside.”

“Yes, and they'd move around — the continents, I mean — and bump each other,” Fafhrd said, softly too, albeit a little gruffly. “That is, providing they'd float at all. Which I most strongly doubt.”

“They move all orderly, in pre-established harmony,” the Mouser replied. “And as for buoyancy, think of the Sinking Land.”

“But then where'd be the sun and moon and stars and planets nine?” Fafhrd objected. “All in a jumble in the bubble's midst? That's quite impossible — and ridiculous.”

“I'm getting to the stars,” the Mouser said. “They're all afloat in even stricter pre-established harmony in the Great Equatorial Ocean, which as we've seen this day and night, speeds around Nehwon's waist once each day — that is, in its effects on the waterspouts, not on Racer. Why else, I ask you, is it also called the Sea of Stars?”

Fafhrd blinked, momentarily impressed against his will. Then he grinned. “But if this ocean's all afloat with stars,” he demanded, “why can't we see ‘em all about our ship? Riddle me that, O Sage!”

The Mouser smiled back at him, very composedly.

“They're all of ‘em inside the waterspouts,” he said, “which are gray tubes of water pointing toward heaven — by which I mean, of course, the antipodes of Nehwon. Look up, bold comrade mine, at arching sky and heaven's top. You're looking at the same Great Equatorial Ocean we're afloat in, only halfway around Nehwon from Black Racer. You're looking down (or up, what skills it?) the tubes of the waterspouts there, so you can see the star at bottom of each.”

“I'm looking at the full moon too,” Fafhrd said. “Don't try to tell me that's at the bottom of a waterspout!”