The Knight and Knave of Swords fagm-7

by Fritz Leiber

  He noted that, though still mounting, he was veering to the left because of the lesser purchase his hook got on the air than the palm-paddle of his good right hand, but instead of trying to correct he kept on undauntedly, confident the motion would bring him around in a great circle in sight of his goal again and closer to it.

  And so it did. He continued to mount in great spirals. He noted that along the way five snowy sea gulls had appeared and were soaring up circularly too, evenly spaced around him like the points of a pentacle. It gave him a warm feeling to be so escorted.

  He was well into his fifth spiral and nearing his goal, momentarily waiting for the cloud-ship to swing into his view from the left behind him, the sun's rays baking through his clothes becoming almost uncomfortable. He was selecting just the right words with which to greet his aerial paramour when he flew into shadow and something hard yet resilient struck the back of his head a shrewd blow, so that black spots and flashing diamond points danced in his eyes and all his senses wavered.

  His first reaction to this unexpected assault was to look up behind him.

  A dark pearl-gray, wind-weathered, smoothly rounded leviathan-long shape hovered above him just out of reach — as he discovered when he grasped at it with hand and hook, his second reaction. It seemed to be drifting sideways slowly. He'd bumped into the hull of the cloud-ship he'd been seeking and then rebounded from it somewhat.

  His third reaction, as the pain in his skull lessened and his vision cleared somewhat, was a mistake. He looked down.

  The whole southwest corner of Rime Isle lay below him, uncomfortably small and far down: Salthaven town and harbor with its tiny red roofs and wisp-pennoned toothpick masts thrusting through its thinning coverlet of fog, the rocky coast leading off west, the narrow lofty headland to the east, and north of that the Great Maelstrom spinning furiously, an infinitely menacing foamy pinwheel.

  The sight froze Fafhrd's privates. His reaction was anything but beat his wings (arms, rather), flutter his legs-tail, resuming flying, and so land lightly on the cloud-craft's deck and sketch a bow to Frix. The blow had halted all those avian rhythms as if they'd never possessed him; it had nauseated him, switched him from glorious drunkenness to near puking hangover in a trice. Instead of master of the air, he felt as if he were flimsily glued to it up here, pasted to this height by some fragile magic, so that the least wrong move, or wrong thought even, might break the flimsy bond and pitch him down, down, down!

  His sailor's instinct was to lighten ship. It was the last resort when your vessel was sinking, and so presumably the wisest course when falling was the danger. With infinite caution and deliberation he began a series of slow contortions calculated to bring his manual extremities of hand and hook into successive contact with his feet, waist, neck, and so forth, so as to rid himself of all abandonable weight whatever without at the same time making some uncalculated movement that would cause him to come unstuck from the sky wherein he was so precariously poised.

  This course of action had the added advantage of concentrating all his attention on his body and the space immediately around it, so he was not tempted to look down again and suffer the full pangs of vertigo.

  He did note, as he gently cast aside his right and left boot, ax and dirk, their sheaths, finally his pouch and iron-studded belt, that they floated off slowly to about the distance of a man's length, then dropped away as if jerked down, seeming almost to vanish instantly — suggesting some magical sphere or spell of safety about him.

  He didn't trust it.

  So long as he confined himself to discarding such relatively ponderous and rigid items, his convoy of gulls continued to circle him evenly, but when he continued on to divest himself of all his garments (for this seemed certainly no time for half measures) they broke formation and (either attracted by the flimsy and flappable nature of his discards, or else outraged at the shameless impropriety of his action) made fierce darts and dives at and upon each piece of clothing to the accompaniment of raucous barking squawks and bore them off triumphantly in their sharp talons as if reasserting the honor of their squadron.

  Fafhrd paid very little attention to these captious avian antics, concentrated as he was upon making not the least incautious or marginally violent movement.

  Eventually he had divested himself of his very last implement and garment save for one.

  It shows how much he had come to think of his hook together with the cork-and-leather cuff carrying it as his true left hand that he did not jettison them with the rest of the abandonable material.

  But it was not until he'd stripped himself stark naked (save for hook) that he bethought himself of a final way to “lighten ship.” He was admiring the bright golden gleam of the powerful stream of urine arching above him and then down over his head out of his vision's range (it had first hit him in the eye but he corrected); it was not until then that he realized that in the course of his emergency undressing he had passed out of the shadow of the cloud-craft's hull and was bathed in full hot sunlight (which had, coincidentally, counterbalanced nicely any chill he might otherwise have felt at abandoning his last scrap of clothing in the sharp air of early morning).

  But where had the Arilian cloud-vessel got to? He looked about and finally saw its narrow deck its own ship's length beneath him — a score of yards at least. Meanwhile, he himself was slowly but steadily mounting to portside of its rather ghostly or at least somewhat translucent mast top and upper rigging, whereon were perched the five raptorial gulls, busily shredding with claws and beaks the clothing they'd appropriated from him and, looking more now like cormorants than gulls, staring at him from time to time disgustedly.

  And now a wholly different, in fact opposite fear took sudden hold of Fafhrd — that he might continue to rise inexorably until all below became too tiny to be seen and he was lost in space, or until he reached the forever frost-capped height of mountain-tops and perished of cold — especially when chilly night came on (how stupid he'd been to discard all his clothes — he'd been in a dismal panic that was sure!) — or got himself devoured by the airy monsters that inhabited such altitudes such as the invisible giant fliers he'd first encountered on Stardock, or even reach the mysterious stars (if he lasted that long before dying of thirst and hunger) and be dazzled to death by them or suffer whatever other fate the Bright Ones kept in store for impudent venturers such as he must appear to them.

  Unless, of course, he had the good fortune to encounter the moon first or the secret (invisible?) Queendom of Arilia, if that were anything more than a great fleet of cloud-ships.

  This thought reminded him that there was such a ship close at hand, of which he'd had great hopes and expectations before the brandy had died in him.

  After a moment's gloomy apprehension that it had heartlessly sailed off or perhaps vanished entire (its upper works at least had looked so very ghostly), he was relieved to see it still floated below him, though some thirty feet farther down than at last glimpse — there was at least that distance between him and the masthead with its quincunx of cormorantishly-behaving sea gulls, who still shredded his garments vindictively, although their shrill squawkings had subsided.

  He searched the vessel with his eyes for Frix, but the tall, supernally attractive beauty was nowhere to be seen, not in the bow impersonating a figurehead, or anywhere else — if she ever had been present, he added wryly, to anything but his overeager and overbrandied imagination.

  He did spot, however, a sixth figure in the rigging, besides the birds, a trim young woman halfway up it on the other side of the rigging, faced away from him and leaning back against the ratlines with arms outspread as if to expose herself to sun's rays. She wore an abbreviated white lace chemise, was barefoot, and carried a small curved silver trumpet slung round her neck. She was also too short for Frix and a blonde to boot, instead of raven-tressed.

  Fafhrd called down “Ahoy!” not softly, but not unnecessarily loudly either, for although his new fear of rising indefinitely preocc
upied his thoughts, he still entertained the conviction that any violent movement or speech would be unwise. Just rising a few yards did not convince him that he could not fall, especially when he surveyed the emptiness below.

  The lazing maiden did not look up or give the least other indication that she had heard him.

  “Ahoy!” Fafhrd repeated, quite a bit more loudly, but again with no discernible reaction from her, unless her yawn now was intended as that.

  “Ahoy!” Fafhrd bellowed, forgetting his worries about the possible dire effects of loud noises.

  Rather slowly, then, she turned her head and lifted her face toward him. But nothing more.

  “Cloud girl,” Fafhrd called down in friendly tones but a shade peremptorily, “summon your mistress on deck. I'm an old friend."

  She went on staring at him. Nothing more, except perhaps to lift her brows superciliously.

  Fafhrd called sharply, “I'm Captain Fafhrd, out of Seahawk,” naming his ship riding at anchor in Rime harbor. “And as you can plainly see, I'm in distress. Inform your captain of these circumstances. And be assured she knows me well."

  After staring at him a while more, the cloud girl nodded moodily and descended to the deck hand over hand, taking her time, and after another look up at him, strolled toward the stern-castle.

  Fafhrd was annoyed. “Oh, hurry up, girl,” he called, “and if it's formalities you want, tell the Queen of Arilia that an old friend respectfully craves instant audience."

  She paused in the door of the stern-castle to look up at him once more and inquire in a shrill pert voice, “Was that the respect led you to piss on our ship?” before she flipped up the tail of her chemise and vanished inside.

  Fafhrd made dignified growling noises in his throat, though there were none to hear them but the gulls, and was emboldened to try to swim down to the cloud-ship's mast top, getting himself positioned with head turned down toward it, body upside down, though it took an intense effort of will to make himself use full power in what persisted in seeming an attempt to come unstuck from the heights and launch a disastrous fall. He kept himself aimed at the rigging so he'd intercept it if the worst occurred.

  He was breathing heavily and had fought his way down, he judged, about a quarter of the distance when the saucy cloud girl reemerged, followed (at last!) by Frix, garbed like a dashing captain of Amazon marines in tropical dress uniform of silver-trimmed white lace which strikingly set off her slender form, dark hair, and coppery complexion wonderfully, white deerskin hip boots, a wide-brimmed hat of like material, with ostrich plumes and a silver-studded belt of snow-serpent hide from which depended a long slim saber with silver fittings.

  She glanced up at shaggy-headed, hairy, naked Fafhrd laboring down toward her with prodigious effort and spoke a word to the cloud maiden clad in her scanty lace, who lifted her silver trumpet to her lips and blew a sweet and stirring call.

  Whereupon there came trooping from the stern-castle six tall willowy women akin to Frix in figure and dress-uniformed like to the soldiers in such a captain's company, except that from their unstudded belts there hung, not swords, but in each instance three objects which Fafhrd first identified as a cased small-dirk, a tiny sporran, and a small cylindrical canteen, while upon their neatly short-cropped heads were uniform caps of colors peach, lime, lemon, vermilion, lavender, and robin's egg, counting from first to last as they lined up. They were followed by a smaller she, who might have been the pert trumpeter's twin, except the silver instrument she carried was a crossbow from which depended a coil of thin silver line. Frix spoke to her, pointing upward. She dropped to a bare knee, and bending her back acutely and letting the coil fall to the deck beside her, aimed her piece at Fafhrd.

  Fortunately for his composure, he divined her intent and dear Frix's purpose just as she let fly.

  Her flashing missile mounted swiftly and surely. The line it carried aloft uncoiled from the deck with rippling smoothness and nary a tangle. The blunt silver quarrel reached the apex of its flight a foot from Fafhrd's face. His right hand closed upon it confidently, as if he were capturing a stingless glow wasp. The six tall and almost spidery-slender mariners took up the other end of the silvery line and began to haul. Fafhrd felt the line tighten without parting and himself drawn down perceptibly as they hauled, and at that very instant he began to experience a sweet relief such as is felt only by one who knows himself to be secure in the true hands of love.

  His breathing evened out, his relaxing muscles seemed all to lengthen individually, he felt himself become as willowy (in a wholly male wise, he assured himself) as the six delightful creatures drawing him down against his natural (unnatural, rather!) buoyancy. After a final flutter or two of his lower limbs and sweep of his hook-terminated free arm, he resigned to them that small and almost frolicksome labor. He might even have closed his eyes, it felt so restful, except he was beginning to enjoy so thoroughly using them to inspect his destination. The cloud pinnace was such a handsome vessel, and the longer he gazed at its rigging and sails the realer they got.

  From time to time as he let himself be played in, like a willingly caught fish of air, came nagging remembrances of his friends on Rime Isle below, and the Mouser still deeper down, and of their likely worries over him, and their own more troublesome plights. But he wasn't gone for long, not really gone, just receiving sorely needed refreshment aloft, he told himself more than once.

  Finding himself now level with the mainmast top, he gave some thought to how he appeared to his rescuers. He decided against transferring to the rigging — no one seemed to expect him to and he might well seem ridiculous, as in trying to decide whether to go down the rigging head first or feet. So he merely avoided becoming entangled in it. There wasn't much he could do about nakedness except let himself be drawn in behind the handheld quarrel with grace and easy dignity, no contortions, his legs together like a fish's tail. He sketched a wave or two with his hook to the glowering cormorants (no, gulls!) as he passed them by.

  When his descent had begun, his rescuers had been no more than six tallish, very slender, like-clad females hauling in unison upon the line with easy gracefulness, but now he began to perceive their individualities. The first on the line, she of the peach cap, was a rangy blonde structured like a coursing leopard (Nehwon's swiftest four-foot beast) from the desert steppes of Evamarensee, with small breasts like firmly-bedded half pomegranates, while through the white tropic lace of her uniform showed a rosy orange hue, indicating she wore an under-chemise of like tint to her cap. Withal she was of haughty mien, with jutting brow, icy-blue eyes, and hollowed cheeks, a mole on the left one near the nostril. By Kos, it was Floy! During his last rendezvous but one with Frix and her ladies in a star-grazing Arilian pleasure palace upon a sky-scraping peak in the moon-raking mountain range which rims the northern shore of Nehwon's southern continent, facing the planet-ringing equatorial ocean, he had on a wager let himself be bound naked so securely he could move not a finger and then watched Frix and Floy erotically delight to culminating first themselves with themselves alone and then, exercising infinite slow inventiveness, each other whilst alternately Floy recited “The Rapes of St. Hisvet and Skeldir” and Frix gave a dry clinical account of her and Floy's every least action and the response thereto — until he came, which he'd bet he'd not.

  But now his steady descent turned Fafhrd's attention to the approaching deck. Reaching down his left arm, he hooked a ratline, and drawing himself down strongly with both arms, he jackknifed his body without bending his knees and landed solidly on the soles of both feet at once.

  Then, maintaining the downward pull with hook alone, he straightened himself erect, facing the grinning crossbow girl. She was of the small wiry acrobatic sort the Mouser favored, fair complected, and the lace of her chemise showed through no extraneous color. He nodded his approval and handed her upon his palm the silver quarrel by which he'd been drawn in.

  She took it without demur or change of grin and gave him, as if in return,
a gold bracelet of doughnut shape large enough to fit his thick wrist. It was of the solid soft metal, he judged — massy enough by itself to balance his weird buoyancy.

  “Thank you, archer,” he said. She nodded and began to coil the line that the marines with caps of varying hue (should he think of them as Frix's color guard?) had let drop.

  His recognition of Floy having intensified his general awareness and brought pertinent memories close to hand, Fafhrd was able to greet the next two lady marines — the ones with pale green and yellow caps and lace-revealed underthings — with an easy, “Greetings, dear Bree, sweet Elowee."

  But although both smiled guardedly, neither ventured so much as a word in reply. Bree shook her head slightly but sharply, frowning, while demure Elowee rolled her eyes back toward the end of the line, where Frix stood, and worked her features as though to say, “She's in one of her moods. Be careful."

  Fafhrd recalled how he'd first met those two without their knowledge while he and Frix, wine cups in hand, were on a secret spying expedition to reawaken their venereal appetites. Entering a dark apartment, the Queen of the Air had led him to where black cushions closely circled a window in the floor that let upon a closet below, brightly lit by ranks of candles. Through painted gauze they'd observed these long-legged coltish creatures erotically ministering to each other. Bree enthusiastic and masterful, sometimes giving explicit directions, Elowee coy, protesting, and somewhat overheated (those candles!), even indignant. The infatuated pair had knelt closely side by side, kissing, fondling each other's small breasts, teasing the nipples big, and oft and anon a hand would drop down for a more thrilling and intrusive caress. After a while Frix had begun to whisper in Fafhrd's ear how the kneeling lovers might vary their touches were he the partner. He'd warned her the unconscious actors might overhear, but she'd assured him their ears had been well rubbed with a salve that reduced audition. Much later he'd discovered that things had not been as secret, or the actors as unknowing, as they'd seemed.