The Second Book of Lankhmar

by Fritz Leiber

  28

  Cif scraped the wooden scoop four times across the earthen tunnel face before her, detaching small chunks and granules of loosened sand, which pattered down on and around her boots.

  The leviathan-oil lamp behind her cast her head’s shadow on the fresh area of tunnel face thus uncovered and the newly attached snow-serpent hide (which was the twenty-third in from the shaft) puffed warm air upon it from outside, where Satyrs Moon was two hours set and the bright sun almost as long arisen.

  She had been working at the tunnel face all of that time, advancing it at least two feet (and making room for another length of the flexible snowy piping, which had just now been attached).

  With her free hand she felt, deep in her pouch, the reassuring touch of the brazen loop, wide enough to be a ring for two fingers, with which Mikkidu had greeted her this morn, telling her that it had been recovered during the digging last night and was (as she well knew) an item the Captain was seldom parted from.

  She judged she had another hour of face work in her before she lost her freshness and must give place to Rill, who now assisted her and only had been below for half an hour.

  But now ’twas time for one of the quarter-hourly checks she made.

  ‘Cover the lamp,’ she called back to Rill.

  The lady with the crippled left hand pulled up around the coolly burning lamp a thick black sack and drew it together at the top.

  The tunnel grew black as pitch.

  Cif stared ahead and this time seemed to see, floating at eye level, a phosphorescent yellow mask such as she’d seen the Mouser wearing in the dream she’d had the first night of the cold. It was dim but truly seemed there.

  Letting fall the scoop and withdrawing her left hand from her pouch, she dug her gloved fingers into the sandy face where the mask was drifting. It stayed there, did not fade out or waver, but grew brighter. The featureless black ovals that were its eyes seemed to stare back at her commandingly.

  ‘Uncover the lamp,’ she managed to enunciate.

  Rill obeyed, not trusting herself to ask questions. Almost with a rush the white light flooded back, revealing Cif staring fiercely at the tunnel face. Rill could no longer contain herself.

  ‘You think…?’ she managed to ask in a voice fraught with awe.

  ‘We’ll soon know,’ the other replied, drawing back her clawed right hand and driving it into the loosened sand of the tunnel face at the level of her chin, twisting it this way and that, back and forth, feeling around before withdrawing it. (Small chunks and grains showered around.) She repeated this action twice, but on the second occasion paused with her hand still dug in.

  Her gloved fingers had encountered and were now uncovering two hard, serrated, semicircular ridges with a half-inch gap between them.

  Wetting her lips with her tongue and guiding them with her gloved hands held close beside her cheeks, she pressed them against the dry and gritty pair of lips that closely framed the serrated ridges that opposed and almost touched her own teeth.

  Puffing a breath of air ahead of it, she ran her tongue’s wet tip around the inside of the dry lips hers pressed, repeated that tender action and then inhaled.

  Her nostrils and foremouth filled with the exciting acrid reek of the Gray Mouser, familiar to her from a long season’s lovemaking.

  It made her tremble and shake to realize this was so, that she held between her hands his precious face returned from the grave.

  She exhaled to one side that wonder breath, drew in a fresh one from the serpent’s mouth, again clamped her lips down upon his still-dry ones and gently blew that breath deep into him, praying it retained its healing serpent’s character.

  ‘Dearest, beloved,’ she heard him croak.

  She realized she was staring deep into his eyes, but was so close the two appeared as one.

  ‘Owl eyes,’ she replied foolishly, recalling their lovers’ name for that two-equals-one phenomenon.

  Then recollecting more of her situation, she said, ‘Dear Rill, our captain’s back. He’s in my arms and I am feeding him air. Do you work in your hands from behind me and dig and brush the earth away from’s body and speed his freeing from its dreadful grip.’

  ‘I will be very grateful, Rill, I assure you,’ the Mouser broke in sotto voce, croaking rather less than he had on ‘dearest.’

  The witch-whore complied, gingerly at first, then with larger strokes as she realized the amount of earth there was to be moved. She found the scoop Cif had dropped and used it to increase the scope of first her right hand, then her crippled left, where the advantage it provided was greater.

  Meanwhile Cif continued to brush dirt from his cheeks as she alternately kissed him and fed him air, working her hands nearer to the back of his head and a full embrace, with each stroke freeing more of the margins of his eye sockets and ears.

  The Mouser said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes closed, Cif, save when you tell me I may open them,’ and was emboldened to ask, ‘And would you be a bit more generous with your perfumed saliva, dear? That is, if you’ve to spare. I’ve been without refreshment all of two days (or is it three, perchance?) save for such moisture as I’ve sucked from stones. Or begged from passing worms.’

  ‘I have,’ Rill mentioned ingenuously. ‘I happen to have been chewing mint the past half hour. The smallest leaves.’

  ‘You are a witch, dear Rill,’ Cif commented cattily.

  Fafhrd’s lieutenant Skor chose that moment to appear behind Rill, filling the tunnel with his stooped tall form and reporting past her to Cif as commander of the diggings, ‘The Captain’s returned from wherever he was yesterday and last night, milady. I gather strange things have been happening, some in the sky. He just arrived by dogcart with the Lady Afreyt and with them the child Gale and the Ilthmar cabingirl.’

  At that point he got a good look at what was going on in the tunnel, recognized the Mouser’s face and became speechless. (Later he tried to describe what he saw to Skullick and Pshawri. ‘She was kissing him out of the sandstone, I tell you, kissing and caressing, working a mighty magic whether she knew it or not. While her sister witch worked a like sorcery upon his bottom half, his nether limbs and members. Our captains are fortunate to enjoy the favour of such women of power.’)

  Cif turned her head back toward him and straightened up, bringing the Mouser with her out of the tunnel face and shedding sandy debris.

  ‘Things have been happening here too, as you can see,’ she said briskly. ‘Now hearken, Skor. Return aloft and tell the Lady Afreyt and Captain Fafhrd I wish to speak with them down here. But do not tell them (or anyone up there) of Captain Mouser’s passing strange return, else everyone will be crowding down to view and celebrate the wonder.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ the tall man with thinning hair agreed, doing his best to sound rational.

  ‘Do as she tells you, Skor,’ the Mouser put in. ‘There’s wisdom in her rede.’

  ‘Don’t you return down here, of course,’ Cif continued. ‘Take charge up there, maintain order, and keep the dragon breathing.’ She nodded toward the pulsing white snow-serpent piping. ‘Here, take the ring of command off my top middle fingers and wear it on your thumb.’ She held out the hand on which was Fafhrd’s ring. He obeyed. She had an afterthought. ‘Send the two girls down also, Fingers and Gale. Else they’ll make mischief while your hands are full.’

  ‘Hearkening in obedience,’ Skor responded, bowing to Cif as he turned around and made off speedily.

  ‘That last thought of yours was inspired, my dear,’ the Mouser said breezily, turning from Rill to Cif. ‘Mischief? Yes, indeed!—for it turns out that the Ilthmar cabingirl Fingers is the assassin sent to wipe out her father Fafhrd by reciting an outlandish death spell—sent out by our old enemy Quarmal, Lord of Quarmall, as I learned when I breakfasted there al fresco this morn’s morn on cave dew, boreworm bread, and toadstool wine—and spied on Quarmal in his most secret lair.’

  ‘Fingers Fafhrd’s get?’ Rill remarked. ‘I su
spected it from the red hair. And there’s a definite facial resemblance. And something about her cool manner…’

  The Mouser nodded emphatically. ‘Though, to be fair to Fingers, I don’t think she knew what she was doing—old Quarmal had her most securely hypnotized. Fortunately I learned at the same time how to scotch his spells (’twas as easy as snap your fingers, and as hard) by observing him foil at the last moment his son Igwarl’s murder by his sister Issa, which he had masterminded for purposes of instruction. (He makes a positive religion of treachery and mistrust, the old man does.) If I hadn’t studied his finger-snapping trick and been able to repeat it perfectly, Fafhrd would be dead as mutton by his daughter’s unknowing agency. Whereas, if we can trust Skor, he’s as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘My, my,’ observed Cif, ‘we have managed to keep busy underground, haven’t we?’

  ‘You do know more about the worser side of human nature than any man I know. Or woman for that matter,’ Rill chimed in.

  The Mouser shrugged apologetically. The comic gesture caused him to really look at himself and his garments for the first time since coming out of the wall.

  His reaction caused Cif and Rill to do the same thing.

  His gray jerkin, which had been stout, thick cloth when last observed by any of them, had somehow grown fine as gossamer and quite translucent, while his exposed skin looked as if it had been pumiced.

  As if on his journey underground he had endured for hours a blasting sandstorm, suffering such wear and tear as might be accounted for by a trip to Quarmall. The strangeness of it all gripped their minds.

  At that long moment Fafhrd appeared in the tunnel, followed closely by Fingers and Afreyt, with a wide-eyed Gale bringing up the rear. He was wearing a winter jacket with attached hood fallen away behind, revealing his close-shaven pate.

  ‘I knew you had been found,’ he said excitedly. ‘I read it in Skor’s face when he returned with Cif’s summons. Though he’s fooled the rest, I think. Make no mistake, it was a good idea to keep it a secret for a bit. There are things to be said before we face a celebration. It appears that I owe you my life, old friend—and my child her memory as well. Look here, you rogue, however did you learn old Quarmal’s finger-snapping dodge?’

  ‘Why, by travelling underground to his buried city, of course, and spying on him,’ the Mouser replied airily. ‘And studying his maps,’ he added. ‘Either I did that in the body or else my ka did in horn-gate dreams. If his boreworms got to me, and I believe they did, it argues for the former.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Fafhrd said philosophically, ‘boreworms don’t kill, only excruciate.’

  ‘And then only if you’re awake while they’re entering you,’ Fingers piped up consolingly. ‘But truly, Uncle Mouser, I’m grateful to you beyond words for saving my father’s life and me from parricide and madness.’

  ‘Tut, tut, child! No need for melodrama. I believe you,’ the Mouser said, ‘and entreat your pardon for my earlier doubts. You are the daughter of your mother Friska, truly, who resisted all my efforts to seduce her, which were neither few nor unskillful, to my recollection.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Fingers assured him. ‘As she’s oft told me, your seduction attempts were responsible for her friend (and your lover, Uncle Mouser) Ivivis quitting the escape party at Tovilyis and persuading my mother to quit with her and have me there.’

  ‘I truly planned to get gold and return to Tovilyis and rejoin her,’ Fafhrd apologized. ‘But something always intervened, generally the absence of gold.’

  ‘Friska never blamed you,’ Fingers assured him. ‘She always came to your defence when Aunt Ivivis made you the target of one of her tirades. Aunty would say, “He should have stayed with you and let the little jackanapes go on alone,” and Mother would answer, “That would have been too much to hope for. Remember, they’re lifelong comrades.”’

  ‘Friska was always most forgiving,’ Fafhrd averred. ‘Just as Fingers is to you, Mouser,’ he added, shaking his middle digit under the Gray One’s nose. ‘Do you realize that that terrible treble fingersnap that saved my life almost slew Fingers at the same time? Stretching her senseless and unconscious across the bench where we’d sat watching you emerge from earth like a pale vengeful mole—was knocked out myself as well, stretched out across my daughter on the bench. As Afreyt here can attest, who was a full quarter hour eliciting from either of us the least sign of life.’

  ‘That’s most true, masters,’ the tall blonde averred, her violet eyes flashing. ‘I breathed for Fafhrd fully that long before his wits returned. Meanwhile Gale, who’d awakened and come downstairs fortuitously, performed a like service for Fingers.’

  ‘Yes, I did that,’ the child confirmed, ‘and when you came to, you beast, you bit my nose, like an ungrateful and confused kitten.’

  ‘You should have spanked me,’ the girl from Ilthmar told her piously.

  ‘I’ll remember that at the first opportunity,’ Gale threatened darkly.

  ‘For that matter, I lost consciousness myself completely at the climax,’ the Mouser asserted, getting back into the game. ‘So much depended on getting those fingersnaps of old Quarmal just right, each one a little louder than the last. It literally took everything out of me, so that my task accomplished, I sank back into the earth like a dying ghost, to be transported here by whatever potent agency has guided my long journey, and await dear Cif’s revivifying kiss.’

  And he slowly shook his head from side to side, raising his brows and parting his hands a little in a gesture of uncomprehending wonder.

  Relaxing then a little from this posture (one got the impression everyone in the tunnel let out a small sigh), he turned with a sweet and gracious smile to Fafhrd and inquired, ‘But now tell me, old friend, how came you to be parted from your hair? And so very thoroughly, judging from the portions of you I’m able to see. In my underground travels I’ve lost some skin (and body hair presumably) from friction with sand, gravel, clay, and rock. My garments certainly have suffered a diminishment, as is plain to see. But you, my friend, have not that excuse.’

  ‘Let me answer that,’ Afreyt demanded with such resolution that no one, even Fafhrd, seemed inclined to contest her claim. She took a deep breath and addressed, chiefly to the Gray Mouser (though all heard, for she spoke very clearly) the following remarkable extended statement.

  ‘Dear Captain Mouser, when you first slipped down into the earth early upon the night of Satyrs’ full and the second of the coming of the cold, it was Captain Fafhrd who set us digging after you here on Goddess Hill. Not all of us agreed with his idea, but when the digging turned up evidence of your passage (your hood, your dagger Cat’s Claw, et cetera), we were logically compelled to change our minds. The work begun then has now culminated in the rescue of Captain Mouser by the ladies Cif and Rill after today’s miraculous survival underground. All honour to Captain Fafhrd for laying the foundations of this wonderful achievement!’

  Gale started to applaud, but none of the others took it up, and when Fingers shook her head at the other girls, she broke off.

  Afreyt resumed her extended statement, ignoring the interruption.

  ‘It was at this point, I think, that it began to become apparent, dimly at first, that a supernatural power, or powers, were taking a hand in the developing events.

  ‘In the matter of Captain Mouser, it was the dowsing for him by the Lady Cif and his lieutenant Pshawri which seemed to indicate the Mouser was moving underground at unlikely speeds over incredible distances far beyond the limits of these diggings, even extending out under the Outer Sea.

  ‘Besides that, there’s an altogether amazing action that occurred this morning in the cellar of the Lady Cif’s house and which Fingers and I both witnessed: the Mouser’s saving of Fafhrd from a horrid outlandish death spell by employment of information he could hardly have obtained anywhere in Nehwon nearer than buried Quarmall.’ And she gazed fiercely, almost accusingly, at the Mouser.

  Gale parted her hands to start
another round of applause, but then made a face at Fingers and forbore.

  The Mouser endured the steely stare a moment more, then said apologetically, ‘I’m sorry, Lady Afreyt. I can’t fully satisfy your curiosity as to how far I went or all I did below ground. Mostly I recall sucking pebbles to quench my thirst and breathing most shallowly to make best use of the air I scavenged (often having to make do with mephitic gases), and meditating on my sins and those of others (very interesting, some of those). Otherwise I seem to have slept a lot (doubtless a good thing since it reduced my consumption of air) and dreamed some remarkable dreams. So please, Lady Afreyt, continue with your fascinating hypothetical reconstruction of what’s happened to us the last two mysterious days—always remembering to end with an explanation of how Fafhrd came to lose his hair. Which was, I believe, the question you set out to answer in the first place.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Well, Captain Mouser, just as a supernatural element entered your movements underground, enabling you to move to far places at fantastic speeds and causing you considerable wear and tear—’ she eyed his translucent jerkin ‘—a like element began to influence Fafhrd, though functioning in the opposite direction, not below ground, but above.

  ‘Late on the night of Satyrs’ full he got drunk and set out for Salthaven next morning under the influence. For this part of the story we have the evidence of the children Gale and Fingers, who followed him. They saw him set to swimming through the fog and then mount up into the sky in widening spirals.

  ‘Somewhere aloft above Salthaven he disrobed (to lighten ship, he tells me) and dropped his boots, belt, pouch, bracelet, and other gear, which fell on roofs and treetops, whence they were brought to me yesterday, forming a set of objects not unlike the items Captain Mouser left behind him as he travelled through the earth.

  ‘For the rest of my narrative I must depend chiefly on the testimony of its principal actor, given to me earlier today after he recovered from Captain Mouser’s spell-breaking.

  ‘To summarize, a short time after lightening ship, Captain Fafhrd was picked up by a cloud-pinnace captained by Queen Frix of Arilia, his one-time paramour, and crewed by a company of her notorious ladies. Being still somewhat under the influence, he was easily enticed into an orgy, during the course of which he was completely shaven, upon the pretext of increasing his pleasure.’