by Fritz Leiber
And the flame-voice broke off in a flurry of explosive crackles that shattered the dream-magic and brought the Mouser to his feet with a great start, his sleepy mood all gone. He stared at the fire, walked rapidly around it, peered at it closely from the other side, then swiftly scanned the entire room. Nothing! He glared at Hilsa and Rill. They eyed him blandly and said in unison, ‘The god has spoken,’ but the sense of a presence was gone from the fire and the room as well, leaving behind not even a black hole into which it might have retired—unless perchance (it occurred to the Mouser) it had retired into him, accounting for the feeling of restless energy and flaming thought which now possessed him, while the litany of Mingol doom kept repeating itself over and over in his memory. ‘Can such things be?’ he asked himself and answered himself with an instant and resounding ‘Yes!’
He paced back to Cif, who had risen likewise. ‘We have three days,’ she said.
‘So it appears,’ he said. Then, ‘Know you aught of trolls? What are they?’
‘I was about to ask you that,’ she replied. ‘The word’s as strange to me as it appears to be to you.’
‘Whirlpools, then,’ he queried, his thoughts racing. ‘Any of them about the isle? Any sailors’ tales—?’
‘Oh, yes—the Great Maelstrom off the isle’s rock-fanged east coast with its treacherous swift currents and tricky tides, the Great Maelstrom from whence the island gets what wood it owns, after it’s cast up on the Beach of Bleached Bones. It forms regularly each day. Our sailors know it well and avoid it like no other peril.’
‘Good! I must put to sea and seek it out and learn its every trick and how it comes and goes. I’ll need a small sailing craft for that while Flotsam’s laid up for repairs—there’s little time. Aye, and I’ll need more money too—shore silver for my men.’
‘Wherefore to sea?’ her breath catching, she asked. ‘Wherefore must you dash yourself at such a maw of danger?’—but in her widening eyes he thought he could see the dawning of the answer to that.
‘Why, to put down your foes,’ he said ringingly. ‘Heard you not Loki’s prophecy? We’ll expedite it. We’ll drown at least one branch of the Mingols e’er ever they set foot on Rimeland! And if, with Odin’s aid, Fafhrd and Afreyt can scupper the Widder-Mingols half as handily, our task is done!’
The triumphant look flared up in her eyes to match that in his own.
The waning moon rode high in the southwest and the brightest stars still shone, but in the east the sky had begun to pale with the dawn, as Fafhrd led his twelve berserks north out of Salthaven. Each was warmly clad against the ice ahead and bore longbow, quiver, extra arrow-pack, belted ax, and bag of provender. Skor brought up the rear, keen to enforce Fafhrd’s rule of utter silence while they traversed the town, so that this breach of port regulations might go unnoticed. And for a wonder they had not been challenged. Perhaps the Rimelanders slept extra sound because so many of them had been up to all hours salting down the monster fish-catch, the last boatloads of which had come in after nightfall.
With the berserks tripped along the girls May and Mara in their soft boots and hooded cloaks, the former with a jar of fresh-drawn milk for the god Odin, the latter to be the expedition’s guide across central Rime Isle to Cold Harbor, at Afreyt’s insistence—‘for she was born on a Cold Harbor farm and knows the way—and can keep up with any man.’
Fafhrd had nodded dubiously on hearing that. He had not liked accepting responsibility for a girl with his childhood sweetheart’s name. Nor had he liked leaving the management of everything in Salthaven to the Mouser and the two women, now that there was so much to do, and besides all else the new task of investigating the Grand Maelstrom and spying out its ways, which would occupy the Mouser for a day at least, and which more befitted Fafhrd as the more experienced ship-conner. But the four of them had conferred together at midnight in Flotsam’s cabin behind shrouded portholes, pooling their knowledge and counsels and the two gods’ prophecies, and it had been so decided.
The Mouser would take Ourph with him, for his ancient sea-wisdom, and Mikkidu, to discipline him, using a small fishing craft belonging to the women. Meanwhile, Pshawri would be left in sole charge of the repairs on Flotsam and Sea Hawk (subject to the advisements of the three remaining Mingols), trying to keep up the illusion that Fafhrd’s berserks were still aboard the latter. Cif and Afreyt would take turns in standing by at the docks to head off inquiries by Groniger and deal with any other matters that might arise unexpectedly.
Well, it should work, Fafhrd told himself, the Rime Islers being such blunt, unsubtle types, hardy and simple. Certainly the Mouser had seemed confident enough—restless and driving, eyes flashing, humming a tune under his breath.
Onwinging dawn pinkened the low sky to the east as Fafhrd tramped ahead through the heather, lengthening his stride, an ear attuned to the low voices of the men behind and the lighter ones of the girls. A glance overshoulder told him they were keeping close order, with Mara and May immediately behind him.
As Gallows Hill showed up to the left, he heard the men mark it with grim exclamations. A couple spat to ward off ill omen.
‘Bear the god my greeting, May,’ he heard Mara say.
‘If he wakes enough to attend to aught but drink his milk and sleep again.’ May replied as she branched off from the expedition and headed for the hill with her jar through the dissipating shadows of night.
Some of the men exclaimed gloomily at that, too, and Skor called for silence.
Mara said softly to Fafhrd, ‘We bear left here a little, so as to miss Darkfire’s icefall, which we skirt through the Isle’s center until it joins the glacier of Mount Hellglow.’
Fafhrd thought, what cheerful names they favor, and scanned ahead. Heather and gorse were becoming scantier and stretches of lichened, shaly rock beginning to show.
‘What do they call this part of Rime Isle?’ he asked her.
‘The Deathlands,’ she answered.
More of the same, he thought. Well, at any rate the name fits the mad, death-bent Mingols and this gallows-favoring Odin god too.
The Mouser was tallest of the four short, wiry men waiting at the edge of the public dock. Pshawri close beside him looked resolute and attentive, though still somewhat pale. A neat bandage went across his forehead. Ourph and Mikkidu rather resembled two monkeys, the one wizened and wise, the other young and somewhat woebegone.
The salt cliff to the east barely hid the rising sun, which glittered along its crystalline summit and poured light on the farther half of the harbor and on the fishing fleet putting out to sea. The Mouser gazed speculatively after the small vessels—you’d have thought the Islanders would have been satisfied with yesterday’s monster catch, but no, they seemed even more in a hurry today, as if they were fishing for all Nehwon or as if some impatient chant were beating in their heads, driving them on, such as was beating in the Mouser’s now: Mingols to their deaths must go, down to weedy hell below—yes, to hell they must go indeed! and time was wasting and where was Cif?
That question was answered when a skiff came sculling quietly along very close to the dock, propelled by Mother Grum sitting in the stern and wagging a single oar from side to side like a fish’s tail. When Cif stood up in the boat’s midst her head was level with the dock. She caught hold of the hand the Mouser reached down and came up in two long steps.
‘Few words,’ she said. ‘Mother Grum will scull you to Sprite,’ and she passed the Mouser a purse.
‘Silver only,’ she said with a wrinkle of her nose as he made to glance into it.
He handed it to Pshawri. ‘Two pieces to each man at nightfall, if I’m not returned,’ he directed. ‘Keep them hard at work. ’Twere well Flotsam were seaworthy by noon tomorrow at latest. Go.’
Pshawri saluted and made off.
The Mouser turned to the others. ‘Down into the skiff with you.’
They obeyed, Ourph impassive-faced, Mikkidu with an apprehensive sidewise look at their grim boatwoman.
Cif touched the Mouser’s arm. He turned back.
She looked him evenly in the eye. ‘The Maelstrom is dangerous,’ she said. ‘Here’s what perhaps can quell it, if it should trap you. If needs must, hurl it into the pool’s exact midst. Guard it well and keep it secret.’
Surprised at the weight of the small cubical object she pressed into his hand, he glanced down at it surreptitiously. ‘Gold?’ he breathed, a little wonderingly. It was in the form of a skeleton cube, twelve short thick gold-gleaming edges conjoined squarely.
‘Yes,’ she replied flatly. ‘Lives are more valuable.’
‘And there’s some superstition—?’
‘Yes,’ she cut him short.
He nodded, pouched it carefully, and without other word descended lightly into the skiff. Mother Grum worked her oar back and forth, sending them toward the one small fishing craft remaining in the harbor.
Cif watched after them as their skiff emerged into full sunlight. After a while she felt the same sunlight on her head and knew it was striking golden highlights from her dark hair. The Mouser never looked around. She did not really want him to. The skiff reached Sprite and the three men climbed nimbly aboard.
She could have sworn there’d been no one near, but next she heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind her. She waited a few moments, then turned around.
‘Master Groniger,’ she greeted.
‘Mistress Cif,’ he responded in equally mild tones. He did not look like a man who had been sneaking about.
‘You send the strangers on a mission?’ he remarked after a bit.
She shook her head slowly. ‘I rent them a ship, the lady Afreyt’s and mine. Perhaps they go fishing.’ She shrugged. ‘Like any Isler, I turn a dollar when I can and fishing’s not the only road to profit. Not captaining your craft today, master?’
He shook his head in turn. ‘A harbor chief first has the responsibilities of his office, mistress. The other stranger’s not been seen yet today. Nor his men either…’
‘So?’ she asked when he’d paused a while.
‘…though there’s a great racket of work below deck in his sailing galley.’
She nodded and turned to watch Sprite making for the harbor mouth under sail and the skiff sculling off with its lone shaggy-haired, squat figure.
‘A meeting of the council has been called for tonight,’ Groniger said as if in afterthought. She nodded without turning around. He added in explanation, casually. ‘An audit has been asked for, Lady Treasurer, of all gold coin and Rimic treasures in your keeping—the golden arrow of truth, the gold circles of unity, the gold cube of square-dealing…’
She nodded again, then lifted her hand to her mouth. He heard the sigh of a yawn. The sun was bright on her hair.
By midafternoon Fafhrd’s band was high in the Deathlands, here a boulder-studded expanse of barren, dark rock between low glacial walls a bowshot off to the left, closer than that on the right—a sort of broad pass. The westering sun beat down hotly, but the breeze was chill. The blue sky seemed close.
First went the youngest of his berserks, unarmed, as point. (An unarmed man really scans for the foe and does not engage them.) Twoscore yards behind him went Mannimark as cover-point and behind him the main party led by Fafhrd with Mara beside him, Skor still bringing up the rear.
A large white hare broke cover ahead and raced away past them the way they had come, taking fantastic bounds, seemingly terrified. Fafhrd waved in the men ahead and arranged two-thirds of his force in an ambush where the stony cover was good, putting Skor in charge of them with orders to hold that position and engage any enemy on sight with heavy arrow fire but on no account to charge. Then he rapidly led the rest by a circuitous and shielded route up onto the nearest glacier. Skullick, Mara, and three others were with them. Thus far the girl had lived up to Afreyt’s claims for her, making no trouble.
As he cautiously led them out onto the ice, the silence of the heights was broken by the faint twang of bowstrings and by sharp cries from the direction of the ambush and ahead.
From his point of vantage Fafhrd could see his ambush and, almost a bowshot ahead of it in the pass, a party of some forty men, Mingols by their fur smocks and hats and curvy bows. The men of his ambush and some dozen of the Mingols were exchanging high-arching arrow fire. One of the Mingols was down and their leaders seemed in dispute. Fafhrd quickly strung his bow, ordering the four men with him to do the same, and they sent off a volley of arrows from this flanking position. Another Mingol was hit—one of the disputants. A half dozen returned their fire, but Fafhrd’s position had the advantage of height. The rest took cover. One danced up and down, as if in rage, but was dragged behind rocks by companions. After a bit the whole Mingol party, so far as Fafhrd could tell, began to move off the way they’d come, bearing their wounded with them.
‘And now charge and destroy ’em?’ Skullick ventured, grinning fiendishly. Mara looked eagerly.
‘And show ’em we’re but a dozen? I forgive you your youth,’ Fafhrd retorted, halting Skor’s fire with a downward wave of his arm. ‘No, we’ll escort ’em watchfully back to their ship, or Cold Harbor, or whatever. Best foe is one in flight,’ and he sent a runner to Skor to convey his plan, meanwhile thinking how the fur-clad Steppe-men seemed less furiously hell-bent on rapine than he’d anticipated. He must watch for Mingol ruses. He wondered what old god Odin (who’d said ‘destroy’) would think of his decision. Perhaps Mara’s eyes, fixed upon him with what looked very much like disappointment, provided an answer.
The Mouser sat on the decked prow of Sprite, his back to the mast, his feet resting on the root of the bowsprit, as they re-approached Rime Isle, running down on the island from the northeast. Some distance ahead should lie the spot where the maelstrom would form and now, with the tide ebbing, getting toward the time—if he’d calculated aright and could trust information got earlier from Cif and Ourph. Behind him in the stern the old Mingol managed tiller and triangular fore-and-aft mainsail handily while Mikkidu, closer, watched the single narrow jib.
The Mouser unstrapped the flap of the small deep pouch at his belt and gazed down at the compact, dully gold-gleaming ‘whirlpool-queller’ (to give a name to the object Cif had given him) nested inside. Again it occurred to him how magnificently spendthrift (but also how bone-stupid) it was to make such a necessarily expendable object of gold. Well, you couldn’t dictate prudence to superstition…Or perhaps you could.
‘Mikkidu!’ he called sharply.
‘Yes, sir?’ came the answer—immediate, dutiful, and a shade apprehensive.
‘You noted the long coil of thin line hanging inside the hatch? The sort of slender yet stout stuff you’d use to lower loot to an accomplice outside a high window or trust your own weight to in a pinch? The sort some stranglers use?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Good. Fetch it for me.’
It proved to be as he’d described it and at least a hundred yards long, he judged. A sardonic smile quirked his lips as he knotted one end of it securely to the whirlpool-queller and the other end to a ring bolt in the deck, checked that the rest of the coil lay running free, and returned the queller to his pouch.
They’d been half a day sailing here. First a swift run to the east with wind abeam as soon as they’d got out of Salthaven harbor, leaving the Rimic fishing fleet very busy to the southwest, where the sea seemed to boil with fish, until they were well past the white salt headland. Then a long slow beat north into the wind, taking them gradually away from the Isle’s dark craggy east coast, which, replacing the glittering salt, trended toward the west. Finally, now, a swift return, running before the wind to that same coast where a shallow bay guarded by twin crags lured the unwary mariner. The sail sang and the small waves, advancing in ranked array, slapped the creaming prow. The sunlight was bright everywhere.
The Mouser stood up, closely scanning the sea immediately ahead for submerged rocks and signs of tides at work. The speed of Sprite seemed to increase beyond
that given it by the wind, as though a current had gripped it. He noted an eddying ahead, sudden curves in the wave-topping lines of foam. Now was the time!—if time there was to be. He called to Ourph to be ready to go about.
Despite all these anticipations he was taken by surprise when (it seemed it must be) an unseen giant hand gripped Sprite from below, turned it instantly sideways and jerked it ahead in a curve, tilting it sharply inward. He saw Mikkidu standing in the air over the water a yard from the deck. As he involuntarily moved to join the dumbfounded thief, his left hand automatically seized the mast while his right, stretching out mightily, grabbed Mikkidu by the collar. The Mouser’s muscles cracked but took the strain. He deposited Mikkidu on the deck, putting a foot on him to keep him there, then crouched into the wind that was rattling the sails, and managed to look around.
Where ranked waves had been moments before, Sprite at prodigious speed was circling a deepening saucer of spinning black water almost two hundred yards across. Dimly past the wildly flapping mainsail the Mouser glimpsed Ourph clinging with both hands to the tiller. Looking again at the whirlpool he saw that Sprite was appreciably closer to its deepening center, whence jagged rocks now protruded like a monster’s blackened and broken fangs. Without pause he dug in his pouch for the queller and, trying to allow for wind and Sprite’s speed, hurled it at the watery pit’s center. For a space it seemed to hang glinting golden-yellow in the sunlight, then fell true.