robe of fine silk, yellow as desert sunlight, was out-dented by her pair of small high breasts, but depended freely from the nipples of those, leaving unanswered the question of whether there were three more pairs arranged symmetrically below.
While against starry night (or its counterfeit), her dark hair braided with scrubbed copper wire, Frix stood magnificently tall and light-footed (though motionless) in her silken robe violet as a desert's twilight before dawn.
Fafhrd was about to say, “You know, we were just talking about you,” and the Mouser was about to tread on his instep for being so guileless, when Hisvet called to the latter, “You again! — intemperate dirksman. I told you never even to
Frix said to Fafhrd, “Beast! I told you I played with a member of the lower orders only on
Hisvet tugged sharply on the silken cord. A heavy door dropped down in the men's faces from above and struck its sill with a great and conclusive jar.
Fafhrd lifted a finger to his nose, explaining ruefully, “I thought the door had taken off the tip. Not exactly a loving reception.”
The Mouser said bravely, “I'm glad they turned us off. Truly, it would have been too soon, and so a bore. On with our girl hunt!”
They returned past the mute flames held in bronze hands to the second of the two closed doors. It opened at a touch to reveal another dual chamber and in it their loves Reetha and Kreeshkra, whom only short months ago they'd been seeking near the Sea of Monsters, until they were trapped in the Shadowland and barely escaped back to Lankhmar. To the left, in muted sunlight on a couch of exquisitely smoothed dark wood, Reetha reclined quite naked. Indeed, extremely naked, for as the Mouser noted, she'd kept up her habit, inculcated when she'd been slave of a finicky overlord, of regularly shaving all of herself, even her eyebrows. Her totally bare head, held at a pert angle, was perfectly shaped and the Mouser felt a surge of sweet desire. She was cuddling to her tender bosom a very emaciated-seeming but tranquil animal, which the Mouser suddenly realized was a cat, hairless save for its score of whiskers bristling from its mask.
To the right, in dark night a-dance with the light of campfire and on a smooth shale shore of what Fafhrd recognized to be, by the large white-bearded serpents sporting in it, the Sea of Monsters, sat his beloved Kreeshkra, more naked even than Reetha. She might have been a disquieting sight to some (naught but an aristocratically handsome skeleton), except that the flames near which she sat struck dark blue gleams from the sweetly curved surfaces of her transparent flesh casing her distinguished bones.
“Mouser, why have you come?” Reetha cried out somewhat reproachfully. “I'm happy here in Eevamarensee, where all men are as hairless by nature (our household animals too) as I am by my daily industry. I love you dearly still, but we can't live together and must not meet again. This is my proper place.”
Likewise, bold Kreeshkra challenged Fafhrd with “Mud Man, avaunt! I loved you once. Now I'm a Ghoul again. Perhaps in future time… But now, begone!'
It was well neither Fafhrd nor Mouser had stepped across the threshold, for at those words this door slammed in their faces too, and this time stuck fast. Fafhrd forbore to kick it.
“You know, Mouser,” he said thoughtfully. “We've been enamored of some strange ones in our time. But always most intensely interesting,” he hastened to add.
“Come on, come on,” the Mouser enjoined gruffly. “There are other fish in the sea.”
The remaining door opened easily too, though Fafhrd pushed it somewhat gingerly. Nothing startling, however, came into view this time, only a long dark room, empty of persons and furniture, with a second door at the other end. Its only novel feature was that the right-hand wall glowed green. They walked in with returning confidence. After a few steps they became aware that the glowing wall was thick crystal enclosing pale green, faintly clouded water. As they watched, continuing to stroll, there swam into view with lazy undulations two beautiful mermaids, the one with long golden hair trailing behind her and a sheathlike garb of wide-meshed golden fishnet, the other with short dark hair parted by a ridgy and serrated silver crest. They came close enough for one to see the slowly pulsing gills scoring their necks where they merged into their sloping, faintly scaled shoulders, and farther down their bodies those discreet organs which contradict the contention, subject of many a crude jest, that a man is unable fully to enjoy an unbifurcated woman (though any pair of snakes in love tell us otherwise). They swam closer still, their dreamy eyes now wide and peering, and the Mouser and Fafhrd recognized the two queens of the sea they had embraced some years past while deep diving from their sloop
What the wide-peering fishy eyes saw evidently did not please the mermaids, for they made faces and with powerful flirts of their long finny tails retreated away from the crystal wall through the greenish water, whose cloudiness was increased by their rapid movements, until they could no longer be seen.
Turning to the Mouser, Fafhrd inquired, eyebrows alift, “You mentioned other fish in the sea?”
With a quick frown the Mouser strode on. Trailing him, Fafhrd mused puzzledly, “You said this might be a secret temple, friend. But if so, where are its porters, priests, and patrons other than ourselves?”
“More like a museum — scenes of distant life. And a piscesium, or piscatorium,” his comrade answered curtly over shoulder.
“I've also been thinking,” Fafhrd continued, quickening his steps, “there's too much space here we've been walking through for the lot behind the Silver Eel to hold. What
The Mouser went through the far door. Fafhrd was close behind.
In Godsland Kos snarled, “The rogues are taking it too easily. Oh, for a thunderbolt!”
Mog told him rapidly, “Never you fear, my friend, we have them on the run. They're only putting up appearances. We'll wear them down by slow degrees until they pray to us for mercy, groveling on their knees. That way our pleasure's greater.”
“Quiet, you two,” Issek shrilled, waving his bent wrists, “I'm getting another girl pair!”
It was clear from these and other quick gesticulations and injunctions — and from their rapt yet tense expressions — that the three gods in close inward-facing circle were busy with something interesting. From all around other divinities large and small, baroque and classical, noisome and beautiful, came drifting up to comment and observe. Godsland is overcrowded, a veritable slum, all because of man's perverse thirst for variety. There are rumors among the packed gods there of other and (perish the thought!) superior gods, perhaps invisible, who enjoy roomier quarters on another and (oh woe!) higher level and who (abysmal deviltry!) even hear thoughts, but nothing certain.
Issek cried out in ecstasy, “There, there, the stage is set! Now to search out the next teasing pair. Kos and Mog, help me. Do your rightful share.”
The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd felt they'd been transported to the mysterious realm of Quarmall, where they'd had one of their most fantastic adventures. For the next chamber seemed a cave in solid rock, given room-shape by laborious chipping. And behind a table piled with parchments and scrolls, inkwells and quills, sat the two saucy, seductive slavegirls they'd rescued from the cavern-world's monotonies and tortures: slender Ivivis, supple as a snake, and pleasantly plump Friska, light of foot. The two men felt relief and joy that they'd come home to the familiar and beloved.
Then they saw the room had windows, with sunlight suddenly striking in (as if a cloud had lifted), and was not solid rock but morticed stone, and that the girls wore not the scanty garb of slaves but rich and sober robes, while their faces were grave and self-reliant.
Ivivis looked up at the Mouser with inquiry but instant disapproval. “What dost here, figment of my servile past? ‘Tis true, you rescued me from Quarmall foul. For which I paid you with my body's love. Which ended at Tovilysis when we split. We're quits, dear Mouser, yes by Mog, we are!” (She wondered why she used that particular oath.)
Likewise Friska looked at Fafhrd and said, “That goes for you too, bold barbarian. You also killed my lover Hovis, you'll recall — as Mouser did Ivivis’ Klevis. We are no longer simple-minded slaves, playthings of men, but subtile secretary and present treasurer of the Guild of Free Women at Tovilysis. We'll never love again unless I choose — which I do not today! And so, by Kos and Issek, now begone!” (She wondered likewise why she invoked
