The Second Book of Lankhmar

by Fritz Leiber

Groniger glanced back at her in similar fashion. ‘Yes, his wonderful words.’

  May said, ‘I wish I’d heard him.’

  Groniger handed them the bowls and swiftly poured the thick, steaming soup.

  May said, ‘I’ll take Gale hers.’

  Groniger said gruffly to Afreyt, ‘Sup it while it’s hot. Then get some rest. We go on at moonrise, agreed?’ and when Afreyt nodded. strode off rather bumptiously, cheerily rumble-humming the chant to which they’d marched all day, the Mouser’s—or Loki’s, rather.

  Afreyt narrowed her brows. Normally Groniger was such a sober man, dull-spirited she’d once thought, but now he was almost like a buffoon. Was ‘monstrously comical’ too strong an expression? She shook her head slowly. All the Rime-men were getting like that, loutish and grotesque and somehow bigger. Perhaps it was her weariness made her see things askew and magnified, she told herself.

  May came back and they got out their spoons and fell to. ‘Gale wanted to eat hers inside,’ the girl volunteered after a bit. ‘I think she and Odin are cooking up something.’ She shrugged and went back to her spooning. After another while: ‘I’m going to make nooses for Mara and Captain Fafhrd.’ Finally she scraped her bowl, set it aside, and said, ‘Cousin Afreyt, do you think Groniger’s a troll?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Afreyt asked.

  ‘A word Odin uses. He says Groniger’s a troll.’

  Gale came excitedly out of the litter with her empty bowl, but remembering to draw the curtains behind her.

  ‘Odin and I have invented a marching song for us!’ she announced, stacking her bowl in May’s. ‘He says the other god’s song is all right, but he should have one of his own. Listen. I’ll chant it for you. It’s shorter and faster than the other.’ She screwed up her face. ‘It’s like a drum,’ she explained earnestly. Then, stamping with a foot: ‘March, march, over the Deathlands. Go, go, over the Doomlands. Doom!—kill the Mingols. Doom!—die the heroes. Doom! Doom! Glorious doom!’ Her voice had grown quite loud by the time she was done.

  ‘Glorious doom?’ Afreyt replied.

  ‘Yes. Come on, May, chant it with me.’

  ‘I don’t know that I want to.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I’m wearing your noose, aren’t I? Odin says we should all chant it.’

  As the two girls repeated the chant in their shrill voices with mounting enthusiasm, Groniger and another Rime-man came up.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, collecting the bowls. ‘Glorious doom is good.’

  ‘I like that one.’ the other man agreed. ‘Doom!—kill the Mingols!’ he repeated appreciatively.

  They went off chanting it in low voices.

  The night darkened. The wind blew. The girls grew quiet.

  May said. ‘It’s cold. The god’ll be getting chilly. Gale, we’d better go inside. Will you be all right, cousin Afreyt?’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  A while after the curtains closed behind them, May stuck her head out.

  ‘The god invites you to come inside with us,’ she called to Afreyt.

  Afreyt caught her breath. Then she said as evenly as she could, ‘Thank the god, but tell him I will remain here…on guard.’

  ‘Very well,’ May said and the curtains closed again.

  Afreyt clenched her hands under her cloak. She hadn’t admitted to anyone, even Cif, that for some time now Odin had been fading. She could hardly see even a wispy outline any more. She could still hear his voice. but it had begun to grow faint, lost in wind-moaning. The god had been very real at first on that spring day when she and Cif had found him, and found that there were two gods. He’d seemed so near death then, and she’d labored so hard to save him. She’d been filled with such an adoration, as if he were some ancient hero-saint, or her own dear, dead father. And when he had caressed her fumblingly and muttered in disappointment (it sounded), ‘You’re older than I thought,’ and drifted off to sleep, her adoration had been contaminated by horror and rejection. She’d got the idea of bringing in the girls (Did that make her a monster? Well. perhaps) and after that she’d managed very well, keeping it all at a distance.

  And then there’d been the excitement of the journey to Lankhmar and the perils of Khahkht’s ice-magic and the Mingols and the renewed excitement of the arrival of the Mouser and Fafhrd and the realization that Fafhrd did indeed resemble a younger Odin—was that what had made god Odin fade and grow whisper-voiced? She didn’t know, but she knew it helped make everything torturesome and confusing—and she couldn’t have borne to enter the litter tonight. (Yes, she was a monster.)

  She felt a sharp pain in her neck and realized that in her agitation she’d been tugging at the pendant end of the noose beneath her cloak. She loosened it and forced herself to sit quietly. It was full dark now. There were faint flames flickering from Darkfire and Hellglow too. She heard snatches of talk from the campfires and bits of the new chant and laughter as the story of that went round. It was very cold, but she did not move. The east grew silvery-pale the milky effulgence domed up. and at last the white moon edged into view.

  The camp stirred then and after a while the bearers came up and unwedged Odin’s gallows and lifted it up and the litter too, and Afreyt arose, unkinking her stiff joints and stamping her numbed feet, and they all marched off west across the moon-silvered rock, shouldering their grotesque weapons and the two larger burdens. Some of them limped a bit (after all, they were sailors. their feet unused to marching) but they all went on briskly to the new Odin-chant, hunching their backs against the east wind. which now blew strong and steadily.

  Fafhrd had just kindled his second torch from the ember end of the first and his surroundings had grown warmer, when the lofty passageway he was following debouched into a cavern so vast that the light he bore seemed lost in it. The sound of the cast-away torch-stub hitting rock awakened distant faint echoes and he came to a stop, peering up and around. Then he began to see multitudinous points of light as stars, where flakes of mica in the fire-born stone reflected his torch, and in the middle distance an irregular pillar of mica-flecked rock and on its top a small pale bundle that drew his eye. Then from far above he heard the beat of great wings, a pause. then another beat—as though a great vulture were circling in the cavernous dark.

  He called, ‘Mara!’ toward the pillar and the echoes came back and amongst them, shrill and faint, his own name called and the echoes of that. Then he realized that the wing-beat had ceased and that one of the high mica-stars was getting rapidly brighter, as though it were swiftly traveling straight down toward him, and he heard a rush in the air as of a great hawk stooping.

  He jerked his whole body aside from the bright sword darting at him and simultaneously struck with his ax just behind it. The torch was torn from his grasp, what seemed like a leather sail struck him to his knees, and then there was a great wing-beat, very close, and another, and then the shrill bellow of a man in agony that despite its extremity held a note of outrage.

  As he scrambled to his feet, he saw his torch flaring wide on the rocky floor and transfixing it the bright sword that had struck it from his grasp. Wing-beat and bellowing were going off from him now. He set his boot on the torch handle, preparatory to withdrawing the sword from it, but as he went to take hold of the latter, his fingers encountered a scaly hand, slenderer than his own, gripping it tightly, and (his groping fingers ascertained) warmly wet at the wrist, where it had been chopped off. Both hand and blood alike were invisible, so that although his fingers touched and felt, his eyes saw only the sword’s hilt, the silver cross-guard, the pear-shaped silver pommel, and the black leather grip wrapped with braided silver wire.

  He heard his name spoken falteringly close behind him and turning saw Mara standing there in her white smock looking woebegone and confused, as if she’d just been lifted from the pillar’s top and set down there. As he spoke her name in answer, a voice came out of the air beside Mara and a little above her, speaking in the chilling and confounding tones of a familiar and b
eloved voice turned hateful in nightmare.

  The sightless mountain princess Hirriwi said, ‘Woe to you, barbarian, for having come north again without first paying your respects at Stardock. Woe to you for coming at another woman’s call, although we favor her cause. Woe for deserting your men to chase this girl-chit, whom we would have (and have) saved without you. Woe for meddling with demons and gods. And woe upon woe for lifting your hand to maim a prince of Stardock, to whom we are joined, though he is our dearest enemy, by bonds stronger than love and hate. A head for a head and a hand for a hand, think on that. Quintuple woe!’

  During this recital, Mara had moved to Fafhrd, where he knelt upright, his face working as he stared at and hearkened to emptiness. He had put his arm about her shoulders and together they stared at the speaking gloom.

  Hirriwi continued, her voice less ritually passionate, but every whit as cold, ‘Keyaira heals and comforts our brother, and I go to join them. At dawn we will return you, journeying upon our fish of air, to your people, where you will know your weird. Until then, rest in the warmth of Hellfire, which is not yet a danger to you.’

  With that she broke off and there was the sound of her going away. The torch flickered low, almost consumed, and great weariness took hold of Fafhrd and Mara and they lay down side by side and sleep was drawn up over them from their toes to their eyes. Fafhrd, at last thought, wondered why it should move him so strangely that Mara clutched his left hand, bent up beside his shoulder, in both of hers.

  Next day Salthaven was a-bustle so early and so wildly—so fantastically—with preparations for the great sailing that it was hard to tell where the inspirations of nightmare and worry-dream ended and those of (hopefully) wide-eyed day began. Even the ‘foreigners’ were infected, as if they too had been hearing the Mingols-to-their-deaths chant in their dreams, so that the Mouser had been impelled against his better judgment to man Fafhrd’s Sea Hawk with the most eager of them under Bomar their ‘mayor’ and the Ilthmart tavern-owner. He made Pshawri their captain with half the thieves to support his authority and two of the Mingols. Trenchi and Gavs, to help him con the ship.

  ‘Remember you are boss,’ he told Pshawri, ‘Make them like it or lump it—and keep to windward of me.’

  Pshawri, his new-healed forehead wound still pink, nodded fiercely and went to take up his command. Above the salt cliff the eastern sky was ominously red with sunrise, while glooms of night still lingered in the west. The east wind blew strongly.

  From Flotsam’s stern the Mouser surveyed the busy harbor and his fleet of fishing boats turned warships. Truly, they were a weird sight, their decks which had so recently been piled with fish now bristling with pikes and various impromptu weapons such as he’d seen Groniger’s men shoulder yesterday. Some of them had lashed huge ceremonial spears (bronze-pointed timbers, really) to their bowsprits—for use as rams, he supposed, the Fates be kind to ’em! While others had bent on red and black sails, to indicate bloody and baleful intentions, he guessed—the soberest fisherman was a potential pirate, that was sure. Three were half wreathed in fishnets—protection against arrow fire? The two largest craft were commanded by Dwone and Zwaaken, his sub-admirals, if that could be credited. He shook his head.

  If only he had time to get his thoughts straight! But ever since he’d awakened events (and his own unpredictable impulses) had been rushing, nay, stampeding him. Yesterday, he’d managed to lead Cif and the other three women safely out of the quaking and stinking cave-tunnels (he glanced toward Darkfire—it was still venting into the red sky a thick column of black smoke, which the east wind blew west) only to discover that they’d spent an unconscionable time underground and it was already evening. After seeing to Rill’s hand, badly burned by the Loki-torch, they’d had to hurry back to Salthaven for conferences with all and sundry—hardly time to compare notes with Cif on the whole cavern experience…

  And now he had to break off to help Mikkidu instruct the six Rimeland replacements for the thieves they’d lost to Sea Hawk—how to man the sweeps and so forth.

  And that was no sooner done (matter of a few low-voiced instructions to Mikkidu, chiefly) than here came Cif climbing aboard, followed by Rill, Hilsa, and Mother Grum—all of them save for the last in sailorly trousers and jackets with knives at their belts. Rill’s right arm was in a sling.

  ‘Here we are, yours to command, captain,’ Cif said brightly.

  ‘Dear—councilwoman.’ the Mouser answered, his heart sinking, ‘Flotsam can’t sail into possible battle with women aboard, especially—’ He let a meaningful look serve for ‘—whores and witches.’

  ‘Then we’ll man Sprite and follow you after,’ she told him, not at all downcast. ‘Or rather range ahead to be the first to sight the Sunwise Mingols—you know Sprite’s a fast sailer. Yes, perhaps that’s best, a women’s fighting-ship for soldieresses.’

  The Mouser submitted to the inevitable with what grace he could muster. Rill and Hilsa beamed. Cif touched his arm commiseratingly.

  ‘I’m glad you agreed,’ she said. ‘I’d already loaned Sprite to three other women.’ But then her face grew serious as she lowered her voice to say. ‘There is a matter that troubles me you should know. We were going to bring god Loki aboard in a firepot, as yesterday he traveled in Rill’s torch—’

  ‘Can’t have fire aboard a ship going into battle,’ the Mouser responded automatically. ‘Besides, look how Rill got burned.’

  ‘But this morning, for the first time in over a year, we found the fire in the Flame Den unaccountably gone out,’ Cif finished. ‘We sifted the ashes. There was not a spark.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Mouser thoughtfully, ‘perhaps yesterday at the great rock face after he flamed so high the god temporarily shifted his dwelling to the mountain’s fiery heart. See how she smokes!’ And he pointed toward Darkfire, where the black column going off westward was thicker.

  ‘Yes, but we don’t have him at hand that way,’ Cif objected troubledly.

  ‘Well, at any rate he’s still on the Island,’ the Mouser told her. ‘And in a sense, I’m sure, on Flotsam too,’ he added, remembering (it made his fire-stung fingers smart anew) the black torch-end he still had in his pouch. That was another thing, he told himself, that wanted thinking about…

  But just then Dwone came sailing close by to report the Rime fleet ready for action and hardly to be held back. The Mouser had perforce to get Flotsam under way, hoisting what sail she could carry for the beat against the wind, and setting his thieves and their green replacements to sweeping while Ourph beat time, so that she’d be able to keep ahead of the handier fishing craft.

  There were cheers from the shore and the other ships and for a short while the Mouser was able to bask in self-satisfaction at Flotsam moving out so bravely at the head of the fleet, and his crew so well disciplined, and (he could see) Pshawri handling Sea Hawk nicely enough, and Cif standing beside him, glowing-eyed—and himself a veritable admiral, no less, by Mog!

  But then the thoughts which he hadn’t had time to straighten all day began to cark him again. Above all else he realized that there was something altogether foolhardy, in fact utterly ridiculous, about them all setting sail so confidently with only one hare-brained plan of action, on nothing more than the crackling word of a fire, the whisper of burning twigs. Still he had a compelling feeling in his bones that they were doing the right thing and nothing could harm them, and he would peradventure find the Mingol fleet and that another wonderful inspiration would come to him at the last minute…

  At that moment his eye lit on Mikkidu sweeping with considerable style in the bowmost steerside position and he came to a decision.

  ‘Ourph, take the tiller and take her out,’ he directed. ‘Call time to the sweeps.

  ‘My dear, I must leave you for a brief space,’ he told Cif. Then taking the last Mingol with him, he went forward and said in a gruff voice to Mikkidu, ‘Come with me to my cabin. A conference. Gib will replace you here,’ and then hurried below with his
now apprehensive-eyed lieutenant past the wondering glances of the women.

  Facing Mikkidu across the table in the low-ceilinged cabin (one good thing about having a short captain and still shorter crew, it occurred to him) he eyed his subordinate mercilessly and said, ‘Lieutenant, I made a speech to the Rime Islers in their council hall night before last that had them cheering me at the end. You were there. What did I say?’

  Mikkidu writhed. ‘Oh, captain,’ he protested, blushing, ‘how can you expect—’

  ‘Now none of that stuff about it being so wonderful you can’t remember—or other weaseling out,’ the Mouser cut him short. ‘Pretend the ship’s in a tempest and her safety depends on you giving me a square answer. Gods, haven’t I taught you yet that no man of mine ever got hurt from me by telling me the truth?’

  Mikkidu digested that with a great gulp and then surrendered. ‘Oh captain,’ he said, ‘I did a terrible thing. That night when I was following you from the docks to the council hall and you were with the two ladies, I bought a drink from a street vendor and gulped it down while you weren’t looking. It didn’t taste strong at all, I swear it, but it must have had a tremendous delayed kick, for when you jumped on the table and started to talk, I blacked out—my word upon it! When I came to you were saying something about Groniger and Afreyt leading out half the Rimelanders to reinforce Captain Fafhrd and the rest of us sailing out to entice the Sun Mingols into a great whirlpool, and everybody was cheering like mad—and so of course I cheered too, just as if I’d heard everything that they had.’

  ‘You can swear to the truth of that?’ the Mouser asked in a terrible voice.

  Mikkidu nodded miserably.

  The Mouser came swiftly around the table and embraced him and kissed him on his quivering cheek. ‘There’s a good lieutenant,’ he said most warmly, clapping him on the back. ‘Now go, good Mikkidu, and invite the lady Cif attend me here. Then make yourself useful on deck in any way your shrewdness may suggest. Don’t stand now in a daze. Get at it, man.’