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?'