the world that time to battle with the sun and then back again to her appointed spot, or no, though there were scattered but persistent disquieting rumors of such a dread journeying glimpsed through fugitive gaps in the cloud- cover, and even that the sun himself had briefly moved to war with her.
After long while Fafhrd said quietly as they took a break from their labors, “It's lonely without the shimmer- sprights, don't you think?”
The Mouser said, “Agreed. I wonder if they'd ever have led us to treasure, or ever so intended? Or would have led us, or one of us, somewhere, either your spright, or mine?”
“I still firmly believe there were four sprights,” Fafhrd said. “So either pair of twins might have led us somewhere together without parting us.”
“No, there were only two sprights,” the Mouser said, “and they were set on leading us in very different directions, antipodean, off from each other.” And when Fafhrd did not reply he said after a time, “Part of me wishes I'd gone with my fiery girl to find what's like to dwell in paradise bathed by the splendid sun.”
Fafhrd said, “Part of me wishes I'd followed my melancholy maid to dwell in the pale moon, spending the summer months mayhap in Shadowland.” Then, after a silent space, “But man was not meant for paradise, I trow, whether of warmth or coolth. No, never, never, never, never.”
“Never shares a big bed with once,” the Mouser said.
While they were speaking it had grown light. The clouds had all lifted. The new sail shone. The leviathan lamps burned wanly, their clear beam almost invisible against the paling sky. Then in the farthest distance north the two adventurers made out the loom of a great aurochs couchant, unmistakable sign of the southernmost headland of the Eastern Lands.
“We've weathered Lankhmar continent in a single day and night,” the Mouser said.
A breeze sprang up from the south, stirring the still air. They set course north up the long Sea of the East.
VII: The Frost Monstreme
“I am tired, Gray Mouser, of these little brushes with Death,” Fafhrd the Northerner said, lifting his dinted, livid goblet and taking a measured sup of sweet ferment of grape laced with bitter brandy.
“Want a big one?” his comrade scoffed, drinking likewise.
Fafhrd considered that, while his gaze traveled slowly yet without stop all the way round the tavern, whose sign was a tarnished and serpentine silver fish. “Perhaps,” he said.
“It's a dull night,” the other agreed.
True indeed, the interior of the Silver Eel presented a tavern visage as leaden-hued as its wine cups. The hour was halfway between midnight and dawn, the light dim without being murky, the air dank yet not chill, the other drinkers like moody statues, the faces of the barkeep and his bully and servers paralyzed in expressions of petulant discontent, as if Time herself had stopped.
Outside, the city of Lankhmar was silent as a necropolis, while beyond that the world of Nehwon had been at peace — unwar, rather — for a full year. Even the Mingols of the vasty Steppes weren't raiding south on their small, tough horses.
Yet the effect of all this was not calm, but an unfocused uneasiness, a restlessness that had not yet resulted in the least movement, as if it were the prelude to an excruciating flash of cold lightning transfixing every tiniest detail of life.
This atmosphere affected the feelings and thoughts of the tall, brown-tunicked barbarian and his short, gray- cloaked friend.
“Dull indeed,” Fafhrd said. “I long for some grand emprise!”
“Those are the dreams of untutored youth. Is that why you've shaved your beard? — to match your dreams? Both barefaced lies!” the Mouser asked, and answered.
“Why have you let yours grow these three days?” Fafhrd conntered.
“I am but resting the skin of my face for a full tweaking of its hairs. And you've lost weight. A wishfully youthful fever?”
“Not that, or any ill or care. Of late you're lighter, too. We are changing the luxuriant musculature of young manhood for a suppler, hardier, more enduring structure suited to great mid-life trials and venturings.”
“We've had enough of those,” the Mouser asserted. “Thrice around Nehwon, at the least.”
Fafhrd shook his head morosely. “We've never really lived. We've not owned land. We've not led men.”
“Fafhrd, you're gloomy-drunk!” the Mouser chortled. “Would you be a farmer? Have you forgot a captain is the prisoner of his command? Here, drink yourself sober, or at least glad.”
The Northerner let his cup be refilled from two jars, but did not change his mood. Staring unhappily, he continued, “We've neither homes nor wives.”
“Fafhrd, you need a wench!”
“Who spoke of wenches?” the other protested. “I mean women. I had brave Kreeshkra, but she's gone back to her beloved Ghouls. While your pert Reetha prefers the hairless land of Eevamarensee.”
The Mouser interjected
Fafhrd went on, “Once, long ago, there were Friska and Ivivis, but they were Quarmall's slaves and then became free women at Tovilysis. Before them were Keyaira, Hirriwi, but they were princesses, invisibles, loves of one long, long night, daughters of dread Oomforafor and sib of murderous Faroomfar. Long before all of those, in Land of Youth, there were fair Ivrian and slender Vlana. But they were girls, those lovely in-betweens (or actresses, those mysteries), and now they dwell with Death in Shadowland. So I'm but half a man. I need a
“Fafhrd, you're mad! You prate of world-spanning wild adventures and then babble of what would make them impossible: wife, home, henchmen, duties. One dull night without girl or fight, and your brains go soft. Repeat, you're mad.”
Fafhrd reinspected the tavern and its stodgy inmates. “It stays dull, doesn't it,” he remarked, “as if not one nostril had twitched or ear wiggled since I last looked. And yet it is a calm I do not trust. I feel an icy chill. Mouser —”
That one was looking past him. With little sound, or none at all, two slender persons had just entered the Silver Eel and paused appraisingly inside the lead-weighted iron-woven curtains that kept out fog and could turn sword thrusts. The one was tall and rangy as a man, blue-eyed, thin-cheeked, wide-mouthed, clad in jerkin and trousers of blue and long cloak of gray. The other was wiry and supple-seeming as a cat, green-eyed, compact of feature, short thick lips compressed, clothed similarly save the hues were rust red and brown. They were neither young nor yet near middle age. Their smooth unridged brows, tranquil eyes, evenly curving jaws, and long cheek- molding hair — here silvery yellow, there black shot with darkest brown (in turn gold-shotten, or were those golden wires braided in?) — proclaimed them feminine.
That last attribute broke the congealed midnight trances of the assembled dullards, a half dozen of whom converged on the newcomers, calling low invitations and trailing throaty laughs. The two moved forward as if to hasten the encounter, with gaze unwaveringly ahead.
And then, without an instant, pause or any collision, except someone recoiled slightly as if his instep had been trod on and someone else gasped faintly as if his short ribs had encountered a firm elbow, the two were past the six. It was as if they had simply walked through them, as a man would walk through smoke with no more fuss than the wrinkling of a nostril. Behind them, the ignored smoke fumed and wove a bit.
Now there were in their way the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd, who had both risen and whose hands still indicated the hilts of their scabbarded swords without touching them.
“Ladies—” the Mouser began.
“Will you take wine—?” Fafhrd continued.
“Strengthened against night's chill,” the Mouser concluded, sketching a bow, while Fafhrd courteously indicated the four-chaired table from which they'd just risen.
The slender women halted and surveyed them without haste.
