by Fritz Leiber
Afreyt’s narrow blond eyebrows arched. ‘You go along now, your mother wants you.’
‘Can I keep the target for you?’ the girl asked Fafhrd.
He nodded, lifted his left elbow, and the big ball dropped down. Gale rolled it off ahead of her. The target-bag was smoky red with dye from the snowberry root, and the last rays of the sun setting behind them gave it an angry glare. Afreyt and Fafhrd each had the thought that Gale was rolling away the sun.
When she was gone he turned to Afreyt, asking, ‘What’s this nonsense about Cif meeting a ghost?’
‘You’re getting skeptical as an Isler,’ she told him unsmiling. ‘Is something that robs a councilman of his wits and half his strength nonsense?’
‘The ghost did that?’ he asked as they began to walk slowly toward town.
She nodded. ‘When Gwaan pushed into the dark treasury past Cif, he was clutched and struck senseless for an hour’s space—and has since not left his bed.’ Her long lips quirked. ‘Or else he stumbled in the churning shadows and struck his head ’gainst the wall—there’s that possibility too, since he has lost his memory for the event.’
‘Tell me about it more circumstantially,’ Fafhrd requested.
‘The council session had lasted well after dark, for the waning gibbous moon had just risen,’ she began. ‘Cif and I being in attendance as treasurer and scribe, Zwaaken and Gwaan called on Cif for an inventory of the ikons of the virtues—ever since the loss of the Gold Cube of Square Dealing (though in a good cause) they’ve fretted about them. Cif accordingly unlocked the door to the treasury and then hesitated on the threshold. Moon-light striking in through the small barred window (she told me later) left most of the treasure chamber still in the dark, and there was something unfamiliar about the arrangement of the things she saw that sounded a warning to us. Also, there was a faint noxious marshy scent—’
‘What does that window look on?’ Fafhrd asked.
‘The sea. Gwaan pushed past her impatiently (and most discourteously), and then she swears there was a faint blue smoke like muted lightning and in that trice she seemed to see a silent skinny figure of silver fog embrace Gwaan hungrily. She got the impression, she said, of a weak ghost seeking to draw strength from the living. Gwaan gave a choking cry and pitched to the floor When torches were brought in (at Cif’s behest) the chamber was otherwise empty, but the Gold Arrow of Truth had fallen from its shelf and lay beneath the window, the other ikons had been moved slightly from their places, as if they’d been feebly groped, while on the floor were narrow patches, like footprints, of stenchful black bottom muck.’
‘And that was all?’ Fafhrd asked as the pause lengthened. When she’d mentioned the thin silvery fog figure, he’d been reminded of someone or something he’d seen lately, but then in his mind a black curtain fell on that particular recollection-flash.
Afreyt nodded. ‘All that matters, I guess. Gwaan came to after an hour, but remembered nothing, and they’ve put him to bed, where he stays. Cif and Groniger have set special watch on all the Rimic gold tonight.’
Suddenly Fafhrd felt bored with the whole business of Cif’s ghost. His mind didn’t want to move in that direction. ‘Those councilmen of yours, all they ever worry about is gold—they’re misers all!’ he burst out at Afreyt.
‘That’s true enough,’ she agreed with him—which annoyed Fafhrd for some reason. ‘They still criticize Cif for giving the Cube to the Mouser along with the other moneys in her charge, and talk still of impeaching her and confiscating her farm—and maybe mine.’
‘Ah, the ingrates! And Groniger’s one of the worst—he’s already dunning me for last week’s rent on the men’s dormitory, barely two days overdue.’
Afreyt nodded. ‘He also complains your berserks caused a disturbance last week at the Sea Wrack tavern.’
‘Oh he does, does he?’ Fafhrd commented, quieting down.
‘How are the Mouser’s men behaving?’ she asked.
‘Pshawri keeps ’em in line well enough,’ he told her. ‘Not that they don’t need my supervision while the Gray One’s away.’
‘Sea Hawk will have returned before the gales, I’m sure of that,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes,’ Fafhrd said.
They had come opposite her house and now she went inside with a smiled farewell. She did not invite him to dinner, which was somehow annoying, although he would have refused; and although she had glanced once or twice toward his stump, she had not asked how it fared—which was tactful, but also somehow annoying.
Yet the irritation was momentary, for her mention of the Sea Wrack had started his mind off in a new direction which fully occupied it as he walked a little more rapidly. The past few days he had been feeling out of sorts with almost everyone around him, weary of his left-hand problems, and perversely lonely for Lankhmar with its wizards and criminous folks, its smokes (so different from this bracing northern sea air) and sleazy grandeurs. The night before last he’d wandered into the Sea Wrack, Salthaven’s chief tavern since the Salt Herring had burned, and discovered a certain comfort in observing the passing scene there while sipping a pint or two of black ale.
Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitués (he’d learned as he was leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no disturbances, least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded himself—if it had really ever happened), and he had found pleasure in watching the slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning fishers and sailors, two low-voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and a sprinkling of eccentrics and puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute misery, a skinny graybeard who peppered his ale, and a very slender silent woman in bone-gray touched with silver who sat alone at a back table and had the most tranquil (and not unhandsome) face imaginable. At first he’d thought her another whore, but no one had approached her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any notice of her, and she hadn’t even been drinking, so far as he could recall.
Last night he’d returned and found much the same crowd (and the same pleasant relief from his own boredom), and tonight he found himself looking forward to visiting the place again—after he’d been to the harbour and scanned south and east away for Sea Hawk.
4
At that moment Rill came around the next corner and hailed him cheerily, waving a hand that showed a red scar across the palm—memento of an injury that had created a bond between herself and Fafhrd. The dark-haired whore-turned-fisherwoman was neatly and soberly clad—a sign that she was not at the moment engaged in either of her trades.
They chatted together, at ease with each other. She told him about today’s catch of cod and asked after the Mouser (when now expected) and his and Fafhrd’s men and how Fafhrd’s stump was holding up (she was the one person he could talk to about that) and about his general health and how he was sleeping.
‘If badly,’ she said, ‘Mother Grum has useful herbs—or I might be of help.’
As she said that last, she chuckled, gave him an inquiring sidewise smile, and tugged his hook with her scarred forefinger, permanently crooked by the same deep burn that had left a red track across her palm. Fafhrd smiled back gratefully, shaking his head.
At that moment Pshawri came up with Skullick behind him to report on the day’s work and other doings, and after a moment Rill went off. Some of Fafhrd’s men had found employment on the new building going up where the Salt Herring had stood, a couple had worked on Flotsam, while the remainder had been cod-fishing with those men of the Mouser’s who were not on Sea Hawk.
Pshawri made his report in a jaunty yet detailed and dutiful manner that reminded Fafhrd of the Mouser (he’d picked up some of his captain’s mannerisms), which both irritated and amused Fafhrd. For that matter all the Mouser’s thieves, being wiry and at least as short as he, reminded Fafhrd of his comrade. A pack of Mousers—ridiculous!
He stopped Pshawri’s report with a ‘Content you, you’ve done well. You too, Skullick. But see that your mates stay out
of the Wrack and Ruin. Here, take these.’ He gave the young berserk his bow and quiver. ‘No, I’ll be supping out. Leave me, now.’
And so he continued on alone toward the Sea Wrack and the docks under the bright twilight, called here the violet hour. After a bit he realized with faint surprise and a shade of self-contempt why he was hurrying and why he had avoided Afreyt’s bed and turned down Rill’s comradely invitation—he was looking forward to another evening of watching and spinning dreams about the silent slender woman in bone-white and silver at the Wrack and Ruin, the woman with the so distant eyes and tranquil, not unhandsome face. Lord, what romantical fools men were, to overpass the known and good in order to strain and stretch after the mysterious merely unknown. Were dreams simply better than reality? Had fancy always more style? But even as he philosophized fleetingly of dreams, he was wending ever deeper into this violet-tinged one.
5
Familiar voices raised in vehemence pulled him partially out of it. Down the side lane he was crossing he saw Cif and Groniger talking excitedly together. He would have stolen onward unseen, returning entirely to his waking dream, but they spotted him.
‘Captain Fafhrd, have you heard the ill news?’ the grizzle-haired harbor master called as he approached with long strides. ‘The treasury’s been looted of its gold-things, and Zwaaken who was guarding them struck dead!’
The small russet-clad woman with golden glints in her dark brown hair who came hurrying along with him amplified, ‘It happened no longer ago than sunset. We were close by in the council hall, ready to share the guard duty after dark (you’ve heard of last night’s apparition?) when there came a cry from the vault and a blue flash from the cracks around the door. Zwaaken’s face was frozen in a grimace and his clothes smoked…all the ikons were gone.’
It was strange, but Fafhrd barely took in what Cif was saying. Instead he was thinking of how even she was beginning to remind him of the Mouser and to behave like the Gray One. They said that people long in love began to resemble each other. Could that apply so soon?
‘Yes, now it’s not just the Gold Cube of Square Dealing we lack,’ Groniger put in. ‘All, all gone.’
His bringing in that roused Fafhrd again a little and nettled him. Altogether, in fact, he strangely found himself more irritated than interested or concerned by the news, though of course he would have liked to help Cif, who was the Mouser’s darling.
‘I’ve heard of your ghost,’ he told her. ‘All the rest is news. Is there any particular way in which I can help you now?’
They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had been a somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by himself again, he added, ‘You can call on my men for help if you need it in your search for the thieves. They’re at their dormitory.’
‘On which you owe me rent,’ Groniger put in automatically. Fafhrd graciously ignored that. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I wish you good luck in your hunt. Gold is valuable stuff.’ And with a little bow he turned and continued on his way. When he’d gone some distance he heard their voices again, but could no longer make out what they were saying—which meant their words happily weren’t for him.
He reached the harbor while the violet light was still bright across the sky and realized with a throb of pleasure that that was one reason he had been in such a hurry and impatient of all else. The few folk about moved or stood quietly, unmindful of his coming. The air was still. He crossed to the dock’s verge and scanned searchingly south and southeast to where violet sky met unruffled gray sea in a long horizon line, with never a cloud or smudge of haze between.
No sign of a sail or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and Sea Hawk remained somewhere in the seaworld beyond.
But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before light failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the smooth salt cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland to the west, the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the right, Flotsam was moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light wooden pier that would be taken up when the winter gales arrived and to which a few ship’s boats and other small harbour craft were moored. Among these was Flotsam’s small sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in the habit of going out alone—more training in making do with a hook for a left hand—and also a narrow, mastless, shallow craft, little more than a shaped plank, that was new to him.
6
The violet light was draining away from the sky now and he once more scanned the southern and southeastern horizon and the long expanse of water between—a magical emptiness that drew him powerfully. Still no sign. He turned away regretfully and there, coming across the dock so as to arrive at its verge a score of feet from him, where the pier extended into the harbour, was his silent, tranquil-faced lady of the Sea Wrack. She might have been an apparition for all the notice the few dock-folk took of her; she almost brushed a sailor as she passed him by and he never moved. Behind her faint voices called to her from the town (what were they concerned about—a hunt for something? Fafhrd had forgotten) and the shadows came down from the north, driving out the last violet tones from the heavens. The silent woman had a pouch at her hip that clinked once faintly while her pale hands drew round her a silver-glinting bone-white robe that also shadowed her face. And then as she passed closest to him, she turned her head so that her black-edged green eyes looked straight into his, and she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth a short gold arrow which she showed him and then slipped into her pouch, which clinked again, and then she smiled at him for three heartbeats a smile that was at once familiar and strange, aloof and alluring, and then turned her head forward and went out onto the pier.
7
And Fafhrd followed her, not knowing behind his forehead, or really caring, whether her gaze or smile had cast an actual enchantment upon him, but only that this was the direction in which he wanted to go, away from the toils and puzzlements and responsibilities and boredoms of Salthaven and toward the vasty south and the Mouser and Lankhmar—her way and whatever mysteries she stood for. Another part of his mind, a part linked chiefly with his feet and hands (though one of them was only a hook), wanted also to follow her on account of the golden arrow, though he could no longer remember why that was important.
As he stepped down onto the wooden pier, she reached its end and stepped onto the new narrow craft he’d noticed, and then without casting off or any other preparatory action, she lifted wide her arms as she faced the prow and the pale gray twilight, her back to him, so that her robe spread out to either side, and it bellied forward as if with an unseen wind, and she and her slight craft moved away toward the harbour mouth across the unruffled waters.
And then he felt on his right cheek a steady breeze blowing silently from the west, and he boarded the sailing dory and cast off and let down the centerboard and ran up the small sail and made it fast and then, taking its sheet in his right hand and controlling the tiller with his hook, sailed out noiselessly after her. He wondered a little (but not very much) why no one called after them or even appeared to watch them, their craft moving as if by magic and hers so strangely and with such a strange sail.
8
Exactly how long they glided on in this fashion he did not know or care, but the gray sky darkened to black night and stars came out around her hooded head, and the gibbous moon rose, dimming the stars a little, and was for a while before them and then behind (their craft must have turned in a very wide circle and headed north, it seemed), so that the moon’s deathly white light no longer dazzled his eyes but was reflected softly from his dory’s wind-rounded sail and made the Sea Wrack woman’s bone-white silvery robes stand out ahead on her shining craft as they ever bellied forward to either side of her. Very steady was the silent wind that did that, and under its urging his craft gained upon hers so that at the last they almost seemed to touch. He wished that she would turn her head so that he could see more of her, yet at the same time he wanted them to go sailing on enchant
edly forever.
And then it seemed to him that the sea itself had tilted imperceptibly upward so that their noiselessly locked craft were mounting together toward the moon-dimmed stars. And at that point she turned around and moved slowly toward him and he likewise rose and moved effortlessly toward her, without any effect whatsoever on the dreamlike motion of their two craft as they mounted ever onward and upward. And she smiled the wondrous smile again at him and looked at him with love, and beyond her hooded head great weaving streamers of soft red and green and pale blue luminescence mounted toward the zenith (he knew them to be the northern lights) as though she stood at the altar of a great cathedral with all its stained-glass windows shedding a glory upon her. Glancing fleetingly to either side, he saw without great surprise or fear that their two craft were indeed mounting toward the stars on a great tongue of dark solid water that rose with precipice to either side, like a vast wall, from the moonlit sea far below. But all he had thought for was her proudly smiling face and daring, dancing gaze, enshrined by the aurora, that summed up for him all the allure of mystery and adventure.
She dipped then into the pouch at her waist and brought up the gold arrow and proffered it to him, holding it by either end in her dainty slim-fingered hands, and the moonlight showed him her small pearly teeth as she smiled.
Then he noted that his hook, which seemed to have a will of its own, had reached out and encircled the short shaft of the arrow between her hands and was tugging at it, while his right hand, which appeared to be operating with like independence of his bewitched mind, had shot forward, grasped the bulging pouch by its neck, and ripped it from her waist.