by Fritz Leiber
This time it was as if a hundred giant invisible hands had smote the whirlpool flat. Sprite seemed to hit a wall. There was a sudden welter of cross-chopping waves that generated so much foam that it piled up on the deck and one would have sworn the water was filled with soap.
The Mouser reassured himself that Ourph and Mikkidu were there and in an upright position so that, given time, they might recover. Next he ascertained that the sky and sea appeared to be in their proper places. Then he checked on the tiller and sails. His eye falling away from the bedraggled jib lit on the ringbolt in the prow. He reeled in the line attached to it (not very hopefully—surely it would have snagged or snapped in the chaos they’d just endured) but for a wonder it came out with the queller still tightly knotted to the end of it, more golden-bright than ever from its tumbling it had got in the rocks. As he pouched it and laced tight the soggy flap, he felt remarkably self-satisfied.
By now waves and wind had resumed something like their normal flow and Ourph and Mikkidu were stirring. The Mouser set them back at their duties (refusing to discuss at all the whirlpool’s appearance and vanishment) and he cockily had them sail Sprite close inshore, where he noted a beach of jagged rocks with considerable gray timber amongst them, bones of dead ships.
Time for the Rime-men to pick up another load, he thought breezily. Have to tell Groniger. Or perhaps best wait for the next wrecks—Mingol ones!—which should provide a prodigious harvest.
Smiling, the Mouser set course for Salthaven, an easy sail now with the favoring wind. Under his breath he hummed, ‘Mingols to their deaths must go, down to weedy hell below.’ Aye, and their ships to rock-fanged doom.
Somewhere between cloud layers north of Rime Isle there floated miraculously the sphere of black ice that was Khahkht’s home and most-times prison. Snow falling steadily between the layers gave the black sphere a white cap. The falling snow also accumulated on and so whitely outlined the mighty wings, back, neck, and crest of the invisible being poised beside the sphere. This being must have been clutching the sphere in some fashion, for whenever it shook its head and shoulders to dislodge the snow, the sphere jogged in the thin air.
Three-quarters of the way down the sphere, a trapdoor had been flung open and from it Khahkht had thrust Its head, shoulders, and one arm, like a peculiarly nasty god looking sidewise down and out of the floor of heaven.
The two beings conversed together.
Khahkht: Fretful monster! Why do you trouble my celestial privacy, rapping on my sphere? Soon I’ll be sorry that I gave you wings.
Faroomfar: I’d as soon shift back to a flying invisible ray-fish. It had advantages.
Khahkht: For two black dogs, I’d—!
Faroomfar: Contain your ugly self, granddad. I’ve good reason to knock you up. The Mingols seem to lessen in their frenzy. Gonov of the Sunwise descending on Rime Isle has ordered his ships double-reef for a mere gale. While the Widder-raiders coming down across the Isle have turned back from a force less than a third their size. Have your incantments weakened?
Khahkht: Content you. I have been seeking to assess the two new gods who aid Rime Isle: how powerful, whence they come, their final purpose, and whether they may be suborned. My tentative conclusion: They’re a treacherous pair, none too strong—rogue gods from a minor universe. We’d best ignore ’em.
The snow had re-gathered on the flier, a fine dust of it revealing even somewhat of his thin, cruel, patrician features. He shook it off.
Faroomfar: So, what to do?
Khahkht: I’ll refire the Mingols where (and if) they flinch back, never you fear. Do you, meanwhile, evade your wicked sisters if you’re able and work what devilish mischief you can on Fafhrd (it’s he that’s cowed the Widder-raiders, right?) and his band. Aim at the girl. To work!
And he drew back into his black, snow-capped sphere and slammed the trapdoor, like a reverse jack-in-the-box. The falling snow was disturbed in a broad downward sweep as Faroomfar spread wings and began his descent from the heights.
Most commendably, Mother Grum was waiting in the skiff at the anchorage when Ourph and Mikkidu brought Sprite breezing in neatly to make fast to the buoy and furl sail under the Mouser’s watchful, approving eye. He was still in a marvelously good mood of self-satisfaction and had even unbent to make a few benign remarks to Mikkidu (which puzzled the latter mightily) and discourse safely by whimsical fits and starts with the wise, if somewhat taciturn, old Mingol.
Now sharing the skiff’s mid-thwart with Ourph, while Mikkidu huddled in the prow, the Mouser airily asked the hag as she sculled them in, ‘How went the day, Mother? Any word for me from your mistress?’ When she answered him only with a grunt that might mean anything or nothing, he merely remarked with mild sententiousness, ‘Bless your loyal old bones,’ and let his attention wander idly about the harbor.
Night had fallen. The last of the fishing fleet had just come in, low in the water with another record-breaking catch. His attention fixed on the nearest pier, where a ship on the other side was unloading by torchlight and four Rime-men, going in single file, were bearing ashore what were undoubtedly the prizes of their monster (and monstrous) haul.
Yesterday the Rimelanders had impressed him as very solid and sober folk, but now more and more he was finding something oafish and loutish about them, especially these four as they went galumphing along, smirking and gaping and with eyes starting out of their heads beneath their considerable burdens.
First went a bent-over, bearded fellow, bearing upon his back by its finny tail a great silver tunny as long-bodied as he and even thicker.
Next a rangy chap carrying by neck and tail, wound round and over his shoulders, the largest eel the Mouser had ever seen. Its bearer gave the impression that he was wrestling with it as he hobbled—it writhed ponderously, still alive. Lucky it’s not twined about his neck, the Mouser thought.
The man after the eel-carrier had, by a wicked handhook through its shell, a giant green crab on his back, its ten legs working persistently in the air, its great claws opening and closing. And it was hard to tell which of the two’s eyes goggled out the farthest, the shellfish’s or the man’s.
Finally a fisherman bearing overshoulder by its bound-together tentacles an octopus still turning rainbow colours in its death-spasms, its great sunken eyes filming above its monstrous beak.
Monsters bearing monsters, the Mouser epitomized with a happy chuckle. Lord, what grotesques we mortals be!
And now the dock should he coming up. The Mouser turned round in his seat to look that way and saw…not Cif, he decided regretfully after a moment…but at any rate (and a little to his initial surprise) Hilsa and Rill at the dock’s edge, the latter bearing a torch that flamed most merrily, both of them smiling warm welcomes and looking truly most brave in their fresh paint and whore’s finery, Hilsa in her red stockings, Rill in a bright yellow pair, both in short gaudy smocks cut low at the neck. Really, they looked younger this way, or at least a little less shopworn, he thought as he leaped up and joined them on the dock. How nice of Loki to have sent his priestesses…well, not priestesses exactly, but professional ladies, nurses and playmates of the god…to welcome home the god’s faithful servant.
But no sooner had he bowed to them in turn than they put aside their smiles and Hilsa said to him urgently in a low voice, ‘There’s ill news, captain. Lady Cif’s sent us to tell you that she and the Lady Afreyt have been impeached by the other council members. She’s accused of using coined gold she had the keeping of and other Rimic treasures to fee you and the tall captain and your men. She expects you with your famed cleverness, she told me, to concoct some tale to counter all this.’
The Mouser’s smile hardly faltered. He was struck rather with how gayly Rill’s torch flickered and flared as Hilsa’s doleful words poured over him. When Rimic treasures were mentioned he touched his pouch where the queller reposed on its snipped-off length of cord. He had no doubt that it was one of them, yet somehow he was not troubled.
> ‘Is that all?’ he asked when Hilsa had done. ‘I thought at least you’d tell me the trolls had come, against whom the god has warned us. Lead on, my dears, to the council hall! Ourph and Mikkidu, attend us! Take courage, Mother Grum—’ (he called down to the skiff) ‘—doubt not your mistress’ safety.’ And linking arms with Hilsa and Rill he set out briskly, telling himself that in reverses of fortune such as this, the all-important thing was to behave with vast self-confidence, flame like Rill’s torch with it! That was the secret. What matter that he hadn’t the faintest idea of what tale he would tell the council? Only maintain the appearance of self-confidence and at the moment when needed, inspiration would come!
What with the late arrival of the fishing fleet the narrow streets were quite crowded as they footed it along. Perhaps it was market night as well, and maybe the council meeting had something to do with it. At any rate there were a lot of ‘foreigners’ out and Rime Islers too, and for a wonder the latter looked stranger and more drolly grotesque than the former. Here came trudging those four fishers again with their monstrous burdens! A fat boy gaped at them. The Mouser patted his head in passing. Oh, what a show was life!
Hilsa and Rill, infected by the Mouser’s lightheartedness, put on their smiles again. He must be a grand sight, he thought, strolling along with two fine whores as if he owned the town.
The blue front of the council hall appeared, its door framed by some gone galleon’s massive stern and flanked by two glum louts with quarterstaves. The Mouser felt Hilsa and Rill hesitate, but crying in a loud voice, ‘All honor to the council!’ he swept them inside with him, Ourph and Mikkidu ducking in after.
The room inside was larger and somewhat more lofty than the one at the Salt Herring, but was gray-timbered like it, built of wrecks. And it had no fireplace, but was inadequately warmed by two smoking braziers and lit by torches that burned blue and sad (perhaps there were bronze nails in them), not merrily golden-yellow like Rill’s. The main article of furniture was a long heavy table, at one end of which Cif and Afreyt sat, looking their haughtiest. Drawn away from them toward the other end were seated ten large sober Isle-men of middle years, Groniger in their midst, with such doleful, gloomily indignant, outraged looks on their faces that the Mouser burst out laughing. Other Islers crowded the walls, some women among them. All turned on the newcomers’ faces of mingled puzzlement and disapproval.
Groniger reared up and thundered at him, ‘You dare to laugh at the gathered authority of Rime Isle? You, who come bursting in accompanied by women of the streets and your own trespassing crewmen?’
The Mouser managed to control his laughter and listen with the most open, honest expression imaginable, injured innocence incarnate.
Groniger went on, shaking his finger at the other, ‘Well, there he stands, councilors. a chief receiver of the misappropriated gold, perchance even of the gold cube of honest dealing. The man who came to us out of the south with tales of magic storms and day turned night and vanished hostile vessels and a purported Mingol invasion—he who has, as you perceive, Mingols amongst his crew—the man who paid for his dockage in Rime Isle gold!’
Cif stood up at that, her eyes blazing, and said, ‘Let him speak, at least, and answer this outrageous charge, since you won’t take my word.’
A councilman rose beside Groniger. ‘Why should we listen to a stranger’s lies?’
Groniger said, ‘I thank you, Dwone.’
Afreyt got to her feet. ‘No, let him speak. Will you hear nothing but your own voices?’
Another councilman got up.
Groniger said, ‘Yes. Zwaaken?’
That one said, ‘No harm to hear what he has to say. He may convict himself out of his own mouth.’
Cif glared at Zwaaken and said loudly, ‘Tell them, Mouser!’
At that moment the Mouser, glancing at Rill’s torch (which seemed to wink at him) felt a godlike power invading and possessing him to the tips of his fingers and toes—nay, to the end of his every hair. Without warning—in fact, without knowing he was going to do it at all—he ran forward across the room and sprang atop the table where its sides were clear toward Cif’s end.
He looked around compellingly at all (a sea of cold and hostile faces, mostly), gave them a searching stare, and then—well, as the godlike force possessed every part of him utterly, his mind was perforce driven completely out of himself, the scene swiftly darkened, he heard himself beginning to say something in a mighty voice, but then he (his mind) fell irretrievably into an inner darkness deeper and blacker than any sleep or swound.
Then (for the Mouser) no time at all passed…or an eternity.
His return to awareness (or rebirth, rather—it seemed that massive a transition) began with whirling yellow lights and grinning. open-mouthed, exalted faces mottling the inner darkness, and the sense of a great noise on the edge of the audible and of a resonant voice speaking words of power, and then without other warning the whole bright and deafening scene materialized with a rush and a roar and he was standing insolently tall on the massive council table with what felt like a wild (or even demented) smile on his lips, while his left fist rested jauntily on his hip and his right was whirling around his head the golden queller (or cube of square dealing, he reminded himself) on its cord. And all around him every last Rimelander—councilmen, guards, common fishers, women (and Cif, Afreyt, Rill, Hilsa, Mikkidu, needless to say)—was staring at him with rapturous adoration (as if he were a god or legendary hero at least) and standing on their feet (some jumping up and down) and cheering him to the echo! Fists pounded the table, quarterstaves thudded the stony floor resoundingly. While torchmen whirled their sad flambeaux until they flamed as yellow-bright as Rill’s.
Now in the name of all the gods at once, the Mouser asked himself, continuing however to grin, whatever did I tell or promise them to put them all in such a state? In the fiend’s name, what?
Groniger swiftly mounted the other end of the table, boosted by those beside him, waved for silence, and as soon as he’d got a little of that commodity assured the Mouser in a great feelingful voice, advancing to make himself heard, ‘We’ll do it—oh, we’ll do it! I myself will lead out the Rimic contingent, half our armed citizenry, across the Deathlands to Fafhrd’s aid against the Widdershins, while Dwone and Zwaaken will man the armed fishing fleet with the other half and follow you in Flotsam against the Sunwise Mingols. Victory!’
And with that the hall resounded with cries of ‘Death to the Mingols!’ ‘Victory!’ and other cheers the Mouser couldn’t quite make out. As the noise passed its peak, Groniger shouted, ‘Wine! Let’s pledge our allegiance!’ while Zwaaken cried to the Mouser, ‘Summon your crewmen to celebrate with us—they’ve the freedom of Rime Isle now and forever!’ (Mikkidu was soon dispatched.)
The Mouser looked helplessly at Cif—though still maintaining his grin (by now he must look quite glassy-eyed, he thought)—but she only stretched her hand toward him, crying, flush-cheeked, ‘I’ll sail with you!’ while Afreyt beside her proclaimed, ‘I’ll go ahead across the Deathlands to join Fafhrd, bringing god Odin with me!’
Groniger heard that and called to her, ‘I and my men will give you whatever help with that you need, honored council-lady,’ which told the Mouser that besides all else he’d got the atheistical fishermen believing in gods—Odin and Loki, at any rate. What had he told them?
He let Cif and Afreyt draw him down, but before he would begin to question them, Cif had thrown her arms around him, hugged him tight, and was kissing him full on the lips. This was wonderful, something he’d been dreaming of for three months and more (even though he’d pictured it happening in somewhat more private circumstances) and when she at last drew back, starry-eyed, it was another sort of question he was of a mind to ask her, but at that moment tall Afreyt grabbed him and soon was kissing him as soundly.
This was undeniably pleasant, but it took away from Cif’s kiss, made it less personal, more a sign of congratulations and expression of overflowing e
nthusiasm than a mark of special affection. His Cif-dream faded down. And when Afreyt was done with him, he was at once surrounded by a press of well-wishers, some of whom wanted to embrace him also. From the corner of his eye he noted Hilsa and Rill bussing all and sundry—really, all these kisses had no meaning at all, including Cif’s of course, he’d been a fool to think differently—and at one point he could have sworn he saw Groniger dancing a jig. Only old Ourph, for some reason, did not join in the merriment. Once he caught the old Mingol looking at him sadly.
And so the celebration began that lasted half the night and involved much drinking and eating and impromptu cheering and dancing and parading round and about and in and out. And the longer it went on, the more grotesque the cavorting and footstamping marches got, and all of it to the rhythm of the vindictive little rhyme that still went on resounding deep in the Mouser’s mind, the tune to which everything was beginning to dance: ‘Storm clouds thicken round Rime Isle. Nature brews her blackest bile. Monsters quicken, nightmares foal, niss and nicor, drow and troll.’ Those lines in particular seemed to the Mouser to describe what was happening just now—a birth of monsters. (But where were the trolls?) And so on (the rhyme) until its doomful and monstrously compelling end: ‘Mingols to their deaths must go, down to weedy hell below, never draw an easy breath, suffer an unending death, everlasting pain and strife, everlasting death in life. Mingol madness ever burn! Never peace again return!’
And through it all the Mouser maintained his perhaps glassy-eyed smile and jaunty, insolent air of supreme self-confidence, he answered one repeated question with, ‘No, I’m no orator—never had any training—though I’ve always liked to talk,’ but inwardly he seethed with curiosity. As soon as he got a chance. he asked Cif, ‘Whatever did I say to bring them around, to change their minds so utterly?’
‘Why, you should know,’ she told him.
‘But tell me in your own words,’ he said.
She deliberated. ‘You appealed entirely to their feelings, to their emotions,’ she said at last, simply. ‘It was wonderful.’