by Fritz Leiber
‘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 Black 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!’
‘But I will,’ the Mouser responded gently. ‘Recall the gigantic spout like speeding mesa we briefly saw far south of us last noon? That was the moonspout, to invent a word. And now it’s raced to sky ahead of us, in half day since.’
‘Fry me for a sardine!’ Fafhrd said with great feeling. Then he sought to collect his comprehension. ‘And those folk on Nehwon’s other side—up there—they’re seeing a star at the bottom of each waterspout now around us here?’
‘Of course not,’ the Mouser said patiently. ‘Sunlight drowns out their twinkles for those folk. It’s day up there, you see.’ He pointed at the dark near the moon. ‘Up there, you see, they’re bathed in highest noon, drenched in the light of sun, which now is somewhere near us, but hid from us by the thick walls of his sunspout, to coin a word wholly analogous to moonspout.’
‘Oh, monstrous!’ Fafhrd cried. ‘For if it’s day up there, you little fool, why can’t we see it here? Why can’t we see up there Nehwon lands bathed in light with bright blue sea around ’em? Answer me that!’
‘Because there are two different kinds of light,’ the Mouser said with an almost celestial tranquillity. ‘Seeming the same by every local test, yet utterly diverse. First, there’s direct light, such as we’re getting now from moon and stars up there. Second, there is reflected light, which cannot make the really longer journeys, and certainly can’t recross—not one faint ray of it—Nehwon’s central space to reach us here.’
‘Mouser,’ Fafhrd said in a very small voice, but with great certainty, ‘you’re not just inventing words, you’re inventing the whole business—on the spur of the moment as you go along.’
‘Invent the Laws of Nature?’ the Mouser asked with a certain horror. ‘That were far worse than darkest blasphemy.’
‘Then in the name of all the gods at once!’ Fafhrd demanded in a very large voice, ‘how can the sun be in a waterspout and not boil it all away in an instant in an explosion vast? Tell me at once.’
‘There are some things man was not meant to know,’ the Mouser said in a most portentous voice. Then, swiftly switching to the familiar, ‘or rather, since I am in no way superstitious, there are some things which have not yielded yet to our philosophy. An omission which in this instance I will remedy at once. There are, you see, two different kinds of energy, the one pure heat, the other purest light, which cannot boil the tiniest waterdrop—the direct light I’ve already told you of, which changes almost entirely to heat where e’er it hits, which in turn tells us why reflected light can’t make the long trip back through Nehwon’s midst. There, have I answered you?’
‘Oh damn, damn, damn,’ Fafhrd said weakly. Then managing to rally himself, if only desperately for a last time, he asked somewhat sardonically, ‘All right, all right! But just where then is this floating sun you keep invoking, tucked in his vast adamantine-walled waterspout?’
‘Look there,’ the Mouser said, pointing due south, steerside abeam.
Across the moon-silvered gray field of the sea pricked out with speeding towers of waterspouts, almost at the dim distant horizon, Fafhrd saw a solitary gigantic waterspout huge as an island, taller than tallest mesa, moving east at least as swiftly as the rest and as ponderous-relentlessly as a juggernaut of the emperor of the Eastern Lands. The hair rose on the back of Fafhrd’s neck, he was harrowed with fear and wonder, and he said not a word, but only stared and stared as the horrendous thing forged ahead in its immensity.
After a while he began also to feel a great weariness. He looked ahead and a little up at the stiffly flapping silver lace of the twin shimmer-sprights before the prow, taking comfort from their nearness and steadiness as if they were Black Racer’s flags. He slowly lowered himself until he lay prone on the narrow, snugly abutting planks of the deck, his head toward the prow, his chin propped on his hands, still observing the night-sprights.
‘You know how groups of stars sometimes wink out mysteriously on clearest Nehwon nights?’ the Mouser said lightly and bemusedly.
‘That’s true enough, they do,’ Fafhrd agreed, somewhat sleepily.
‘That must be because the tubes of their waterspout-walls are bent enough, by a strong gale perchance, to hide their light, keep it from getting out.’
Fafhrd mumbled, ‘If you say so.’
After a considerable pause the Mouser asked in the same tones, ‘Is it not passing strange to think that in the heart of each dark, gray spout out there dotting the main, there burns (without any heat) a jewel of blinding, purest diamond light?’
Fafhrd managed what might have been a weighty sigh of agreement.
After another long pause the Mouser said reflectively, as one who tidied up loose ends, ‘It’s easy now to see, isn’t it, that the spouts small and great must all be tubes? For if they were solid water by some strange chance, they’d suck the oceans dry and fill the heavens with heaviest clouds—nay, with the sea! You get my point?’
But Fafhrd had gone to sleep. In his sleep he dreamed and in that dream he rolled over on his back and one of the shimmer-sprights parted from her sister and winged down to flutter close above him: a long and slender, black-haired form, moon pale, appareled in finest silver-shot black lace that witchingly enhanced her nakedness. She was gazing down at him tenderly yet appraisingly, with eyes that would have been violet had there been more light. He smiled at her. She slightly shook her head, her face grew grave, and she flowed down against him head to heel, her wraithlike fingers busy at the great bronze buckle of his heavy belt, while with long, night-cool cheek pressed ’gainst his fevered one, she whispered softly and yet most clearly in his ear, each word a symbol finely drawn in blackest ink on moon-white paper, ‘Turn back, turn back, my dearest man, to Shadowland and Death, for that’s the only way to stay alive. Trust only in the moon. Suspect all other prophecies but mine. So now, steer north, steer strongly north.’
In his dream Fafhrd replied, ‘I can’t steer north, I’ve tried. Love me, my dearest girl,’ and she answered huskily, ‘That’s as may hap, my love. Seek Death to ’scape from him. Suspect all flaming youth and scarlet shes. Beware the sun. Trust in the moon. Wait for her certain sign.’
At that instant Fafhrd’s dream was snatched from him and he roused numbly to the Mouser’s sharp cries and to the chilling fugitive glimpse of a face narrow, beauteous, and of most m
elancholy mien, pale violet-blue of hue and with eyes like black holes. This above wraithlike, like-complected figure, and all receding swift as thought amidst a beating of black wings.
Then the Mouser was shaking him by the shoulders and crying out, ‘Wake up, wake up! Speak to me, man!’
Fafhrd brushed his face with the back of his hand and mumbled, ‘Wha’ happ’n?’
Crouched beside him, the Mouser narrated rapidly and somewhat breathlessly, ‘The shimmer-sprights grew restless and ’gan play about the mast like corposants. One buzzed around me shrilly like a wasp, and when I’d driven it off, I saw the other nosing you from toe to waist to head, then nuzzling your neck. Your flesh grew silver-white, as white as death, the whiles the corposant became your glowing shroud. I greatly feared for you and drove it off.’
Fafhrd’s muddied eyes cleared somewhat whilst the Mouser spoke and when the latter was done, he nodded and said knowingly, ‘That would be right. She spoke me much of death and at the end she looked like it, poor sibyl.’
‘Who spoke?’ the Mouser asked. ‘What sibyl?’
‘The shimmer-girl, of course,’ Fafhrd told him. ‘You know what I mean.’
He stood up. His belt began to slip. He stared down wide-eyes at the undone buckle, then drew it up and hooked it together swiftly.
‘Fafhrd, I don’t know what you’re talking of,’ the Mouser denied, his expression suddenly hooded. ‘Girl? What girl? Art seeing mirages? Has lack of erotic exercise addled your wits? Have you turned moon-mad lunatic?’
At this point Fafhrd had to speak most sharply and shrewdly to the Mouser to get him to admit that he—the Mouser—had suspected for days that the shimmer-sprights were girls, albeit girls with a strong admixture of the supernatural, insofar as any admixture of anything is able to affect the essential girlness of any such being, which isn’t much.
But the Mouser did eventually make the admission although his mind had not the edge-of-sleep honesty of Fafhrd’s and tended to drift off to musings on his bubble-cosmos. Yet under strong prompting by Fafhrd he even confessed to his encounter with the sun-red vermilion-eyed shimmer-girl last noon, when he’d looked afire, and upon Fafhrd’s insistence recalled the exact words she’d said to him in dream.
‘Your red girl spoke of Life and pressing on south to immortality and paradise,’ Fafhrd summed up thoughtfully, ‘whilst my dark dear talked of Death and turning back north toward Shadowland and Lankhmar and Cold Waste.’ Then, with swift-growing excitement and utter amazement at his own insight, ‘Mouser, I see it all! There are two different pairs of shimmer-girls! The daytime ones (you spoke with one of those) are children of the sun and messengers from the fabled Land of Gods at Nehwon’s Life Pole. While the night-timers, replacing them from dusk to dawn, are minions of the moon, White Huntress’ daughters, owing allegiance to the Shadowland, which lies across the world from the Life Pole.’
‘Fafhrd, hast thou thought,’ the Mouser spoke from a brown study, ‘how nicely calculated must be the height and diameter of each waterspout-tube, so that the star at its bottom is seen from every spot in other half of Nehwon (up there, when it’s night there) but from no spot in our half down here?—which incidentally explains why stars are brightest at zenith, you see all of each, not just a lens or biconvex meniscus. It seems to argue that some divinity must—’ At that point the impact of Fafhrd’s words at last sank in and he said in tones less dreamy, ‘Two different sets of girls? Four girls in all? Fafhrd, I think you’re overcomplicating things. By Ildritch’s Scimitar—’
‘There are two sets of girl twins,’ Fafhrd overrode him. ‘That much is certain though all else be lies. And mark you this, Small Man, your sun-girls mean us ill though seeming to promise good, for how reach immortality and paradise except by dying? How reach Godsland except by perishing? The whiles the sun, pure light or no, is baleful, hot, and deadly. But my moon-girls, seeming to mean us ill, intend good only—being at once as cool and lovely as the moon. She said to me in dream, “Turn back to Death,” which sounds dire. But you and I have lived with Death for dozen years and ta’en no lasting hurt—just as she said herself, “for that’s the only way to stay alive. Seek Death to ’scape from him!” So steer we north at once!—as she directed. For if we keep on south, deeper and deeper into torrid realm of sun (“Beware the sun,” she said!) we’ll die for sure, betrayed by your false, lying girls of fire. Recall, her merest touch made your chest smoke. While my girl said, “Suspect all flaming youth and scarlet shes,” capping my argument.’
‘I don’t see that at all,’ the Mouser said. ‘I like the sun myself. I always have. His searching warmth is best of medicines. It’s you who love the cold and clammy dark, you Cold Waste savage! My girl was sweet and fiery pink with life, while yours was gloomy-spoken and as livid as a corpse, on your own admission. Take her word for things? Not I. Besides, by Ildritch’s Scimitar—to get back to that—the simplest explanation is always the best as well as the most elegant. There are two shimmer-girls only, the one I spoke in dream and the one you spoke—not four buzzing about bewilderingly and changing guard at dawn and dusk, to our and their confusion. The two girls—only two!—look the same in outward seeming—copper by day, silver by night—but inwardly mine is angel, yours deadly valkyr. As was revealed in dream, your surest guide.’
‘Now you are quibbling,’ Fafhrd said decisively, ‘and are making my head spin, to boot, with ’wildering words. This much is clear to me: We must get ready, and ready Black Racer, to steer north, as my poor lovely moon-girl strongly advised me more than once.’
‘But Fafhrd,’ the Mouser protested, ‘we tried again and again to steer north yesterday and failed each time. What reason have you to suppose, you big lug—’
Fafhrd cut in with, ‘“Trust only in the moon,” she said. “Wait for her certain sign.” So wait we, for the nonce, and watch. Look at the sea and sky, idiot boy, and be amazed.’
The Mouser was indeed. While they had been disputing, intent only on the cuts and thrusts and parries and ripostes of their word-duel, the smooth surface of the racing Sea of Stars had changed from sleek and slick to matte yet ripply. Great vibrations were speeding across it, making the leopard-boat quiver. The moon-silvered lines of foam were blowing over it less predictably—the hurricane itself, though diminished no whit, was getting flukey, the wind now hot, now cold about their necks. While in the sky were clouds at last, coming in swiftly from northwest and east at once and mounting toward the moon. All of nature seemed to cringe apprehensively, as if in anticipation of some dire event about to hap, heralding war in heaven. The two silvery shimmer-sprights appeared to share this foreboding or presentiment, for they ’gan fly about most erratically, their lace wildly aflow, uttering high cheeping cries and whistlings of alarm against the unnatural silence and at last parting so that one hovered agitatedly to the southeast above the prow, the other near the stern to the northwest.
The rapidly thickening clouds had blotted out most of the stars and mounted almost to the moon. The wind held still, exactly equalling the current’s speed. Black Racer poised, as if at crest of a gigantic wave. For an instant the sea seemed to freeze. Silence was absolute.
The Mouser looked straight up and uttered from the back of his throat a half choked, high pitched little scream that froze his comrade’s blood. After mastering that shock, Fafhrd looked up too—at just which instant it grew very dark. The hungry clouds had blotted out the moon.
‘Why did you so cry out?’ he demanded angrily.
The Mouser answered with difficulty, his teeth chattering, ‘Just before the clouds closed on her, the moon moved.’
‘How could you know that, you little fool, when the clouds were moving?—which always makes the moon seem to move.’
‘I don’t know, but as sure as I stand firm-footed here, I saw it! The moon began to move.’
‘Well, if the moon be in a waterspout, as you claim, she’s subject to all whims of wind and wave. So what’s so blood-curdling strange in her movi
ng?’ Fafhrd’s frantic voice belied the reasonableness of his question.
‘I don’t know,’ the Mouser repeated in a curiously small, strained voice, his teeth still clinking together, ‘but I didn’t like it.’
The shimmer-spright at the stern whistled thrice. Her nervously twisting, lacy, silver luminescence stood out plainly in the black night, as did her sister’s at the prow.
‘It is the sign!’ Fafhrd cried hoarsely. ‘Ready to go about!’ And he threw his full weight against the tiller, driving it steerside and so the rudder loadside, to steer them north. Black Racer responded most sluggishly, but did break the grip of current and wind to the extent of swinging north a point or two, no more.
A long flat lightning flash split the sky and showed the gray sea to the horizon’s rim, where they now saw two giant waterspouts, the one due south, the other rushing in from the west. Thunder crashed like armies or armadas meeting at an iron-sonorous Armageddon.
Then all was wildfire and chaos in the night, great crashing waves, and winds that fought like giants whose heads scraped heaven. Whilst round about the ship the shimmer-sprights fought too, now two, now seeming four of them at least as they circled and dipped at and about each other. The frozen sea was ripped, great rags of it thrown skyward, pits opening that seemed to go down to the black, mucky sea-bottom unknown to man. Lightning and deafening thunderclaps became almost continuous, revealing all. And through that all, Black Racer somehow lived, a chip in chaos, Fafhrd and Mouser performing prodigies of seamanship.
And now from the southwest the second giant waterspout drove in like a moving mountain, sending great swells before it that mightily aided Fafhrd’s tillering, driving them north, and north again, and again still north. While from the south the first giant ’spout turned back, or so it seemed, and those two (moonspout and sunspout?) battled.