The Knight and Knave of Swords

by Fritz Leiber

  Skullick said, almost religiously, "As if, after pacing, the Captain shot off through solid earth under the sea like a bolt of lightning. If such can be imagined."

  Groniger just shook his head, a study in sorely tried skepticism. Pshawri said to Cif, lifting his elbows, "Lady, would you please unbutton my pouch for me?"

  She was studying the red-scored pads of her left ring finger and thumb, where the cord had taken skin as it had jerked away from between them, but she quickly complied with his instructions, being careful not to use these two digits in the process.

  He plunged his cupped hands into his pouch and went on saying, "Now tie the cord around the button—no, through the central button hole of the pouch flap. Use a square knot. Although it is not moving now, this thing is best securely confined. I don't trust it anymore, no matter what it's told us."

  Cif followed the further instructions without argument, saying, "I thoroughly agree with you, Lieutenant Pshawri. In fact, I don't think the cinder cube has been tracing the Mouser's movements underground at all, except perhaps at first to start us off."

  The knot was firmly tied. As Pshawri withdrew his hands she closed the flap on the pouch and he buttoned its three buttons.

  "Then to what power do you think it's responding?" Rill asked, getting to her feet.

  "To Loki's," Cif averred. "I think he wants to lead us on a wild goose chase across the sea. It has all the earmarks of his handiwork: a fascinating lure, strange developments mixed with painful surprises." She popped her injured finger and thumb into her mouth and sucked them.

  "It does seem like his tricksy behavior," Rill agreed.

  "He's an outlaw god, all right," Mother Grum nodded. "And vengeful. Likely the one who sent Captain Mouser down."

  "What's more," mumbled Cif, talking around her fingers, "I think I know the way to scotch his plots and perhaps return the Mouser to us."

  "Dowsers ahoy!" a bright new voice called out. They turned and saw Afreyt coming briskly across the Meadow carrying a hamper woven of reeds.

  She went on, "There's news from the digging I thought you all should know, but Cif especially. By the way, where's Fafhrd?"

  "We haven't seen him, Lady," Pshawri told her.

  "Why should he be here?" Groniger asked blankly.

  "Why, he left off digging to rest and think alone," Afreyt explained as she reached them and set the hamper on the grass. "But then Udall and another saw him take a jug and lamp and head out after you. They had nothing to do and watched him until he was halfway to you, Udall said."

  "We've none of us seen him," Cif assured her.

  "But then where are Gale and Fingers?" Afreyt next asked. "Their cot in the shelter tent was empty and their clothes gone that had been warming beside the fire. I thought they must have followed after Fafhrd, like they'd been doing all night."

  "We haven't seen pelt or paws of them either," Cif insisted. "But what's this news you promised?"

  "But then where in Nehwon..." Afreyt began, looking around at the others. They all shook their heads. She told herself, "Leave it," and Cif, "This should please you, I think. We'd driven the sideways corridor about fifteen paces in ... the digging went faster than straight down—it was a soft sand stretch—and the shoring was easier, despite the added task of roofing ... when we found this embedded halfway up the face."

  And she handed Cif a grit-flecked dirk scabbard.

  "Cat's Claw's?"

  "The same."

  "Right!" Cif said as she examined it eagerly.

  "And it was lying horizontal, point end toward us," Afreyt went on, "as if the earth had torn it from his belt as he was being dragged or somehow gotten along, or as though he had left it that way as a clue for us."

  "It proves that Captain Mouser's down below, all right," Skullick voiced.

  "It does give weight to the two earlier findings of the dirk and cowl," Groniger admitted.

  "And so you can understand," Afreyt went on, "why I wanted to tell Fafhrd about it at once. And you, of course, Cif. But what's been happening with the dowsing? What's brought you here to the coast? You surely haven't traced him this far—or have you?"

  So Cif told Afreyt how the dowsing had gone and how the bob had tried to escape on the last trial of its powers and was no longer trusted, and also her guess that Loki was behind it all.

  Afreyt commented at that, "Fafhrd himself warned me the evidence from dowsing would be uncertain and ambiguous compared with the clues got from actual digging, which he thought should be kept up in any case, to hold open an exit from the underworld for the Gray One at the same point he'd entered it. And you may very well be right about Loki trying to lead us astray. He was a tricksy god, as you know better than I, loving destruction above all else. For that matter, old Odin wasn't reliable either, taking Fafhrd's hand after the loving worship we'd provided him."

  Pshawri interposed, "Lady Cif, just before the Lady Afreyt joined us, you said you'd thought of a way to foil Loki's plots and clear the way for Captain Mouser's return."

  Cif nodded. "Since the cube cinder is of no use to us as a talisman, I think that one of us should take it and hurl it into the flame pit, the molten lava lake of volcano Darkfire, hopefully returning god Loki to his proper element and perchance assuaging his ire against the Captain."

  "And lose forever one of Rime Isle's ikons, the Gold Cube of Square Dealing?" Groniger protested.

  "That gold's forever tainted with the stranger god's essence," Mother Grum informed him, "something I cannot exorcise. Cif's rede is good."

  "A golden ikon can be refashioned and resanctified," old Ourph pointed out. "Not so a man."

  "I cannot muster argument against such action, though it seems to me sheerest superstition," said Groniger wearily. "This morn's events have taken me out of my own element of reason."

  "And if it must be done," Cif went on, "you, Pshawri, are the one to attempt it. You raped the cube cinder from the Maelstrom's maw. You should be the one returns it to the fire."

  "If the damned thing will let itself be hurled into the flame pit," Skullick burst out, his irreverence at last regenerated. "You'll hurl it and it'll take flight the gods know where."

  "I'll find a way to constrain it, never fear," the young lieutenant assured him, an uncustomary iron in his voice. He turned to Cif.

  "From my heart's depths I thank you, Lady, for that task. When I wrested that accursed object from the whirlpool, I do now believe I doomed Captain Mouser to his present plight. It is my dearest desire to wipe out that fault."

  "Now wait a moment, all of you," Afreyt cut in. "I am myself inclined to agree with you about the Queller and Darkfire. It strikes me as the wise thing to do. But this is a step may mean the life or death of Captain Mouser. I do not think that we should take it without the agreement of Captain Fafhrd, his lifelong comrade and forever. I wear his ring, it's true, yet in this matter would not speak for him. So I come back to it: where's Fafhrd?"

  "Who are these coming toward us from Salthaven?" Rill interrupted in an arresting voice. "If I don't mistake their identities, they may bring news bearing on that question."

  The fog blanket to the east was finally breaking up and shredding under the silent bombardment of the sun's bright beams, although the latter were losing a little of their golden strength as the orb mounted and the sky became heavy. Through the white rags and tatters two slight and white-clad figures trudged: who waved their hands and broke into a run upon seeing that they were observed. As they drew closer it was to be seen that the redhead's eyes were large in her small face but the silver-blonde's larger still.

  "Aunt Afreyt!" Gale called as soon as they got near. "We've had a great adventure and we've got the most amazing news to tell!"

  "Never mind that now," Afreyt answered somewhat shortly. "Tell us, where's Fafhrd?"

  "How did you know?" Gale's eyes grew larger still. "Well, I was going to build up to it, but since you ask right off: Uncle Fafhrd has swum up into the sky to board a cloud ship of Ar
ilia or flag a flier from Stardock. I think he's looking for help in finding Uncle Mouser."

  "Stop talking nonsense," Cif burst out.

  "Fafhrd can't swim through air," Afreyt pointed out.

  "Sea tunnels of Simorgya! Cloud ships of Arilia!" Groniger protested. "That's too much nonsense for a cold summer morning."

  "But it's what happened," the girl insisted. "Why, Aunt Afreyt, you yourself saw Fafhrd and Mara flying high through air when the invisible princess Hirriwi of Stardock rescued them from Hellfire on her invisible fish of air. Fingers saw more than I did. She'll tell you."

  The Ilthmar cabin-girl said, "Aboard Weasel the sailors all assured me that the strangest sorts of vessels dock at Rime Isle, including the cloud galleons of the Queendom of the Air. And I did see Captain Fafhrd swimming strongly atop the fog toward a cloud that could have been such a vessel."

  "Arilia is a fable, child," Groniger assured her gently. "Sailors tell all sorts of lies. Actually Rime Isle's the least fantastic place in all of Nehwon."

  "But Uncle Fafhrd did mount up the sky," Gale reaffirmed stubbornly. "I don't know how. Maybe Princess Hirriwi taught him to fly and he never told us about it. He's awfully modest. But he did it. We both saw him."

  "All right, all right," Cif told her. "I think you'd best just tell us the whole story from the beginning."

  Afreyt said, "But first you need a cup of wine to calm you down and also warm you. You've been long out on a chilly morning that may go down in legend." She opened her hamper, took out a jug of fortified sweet wine and two small silver mugs, filled them halfway, and made both children drink them down. This led to serving wine to all the others.

  Gale said, "Fingers should start it. At the beginning I was asleep."

  Fingers told them, "Captain Fafhrd came back from the diggings just after the rest of you all went off. He drank some gahvey and brandy and began to pace up and down, frowning and rubbing his wrist against his forehead as if he were trying to think out some problem. He got very nervous and fey. Finally he took up a jug, hung a lamp on his hook, and went off after you. I waked Gale and told her I thought he needed watching."

  "That's right," Gale took over. "So we jumped out of bed and ran to the fire and got dressed."

  "That explains it," Afreyt interjected.

  "What?" Pshawri asked.

  "Why Udall kept watching Fafhrd so long. Go on, dear."

  Gale continued, "It was easy to follow Uncle Fafhrd because of his lamp. The darkness was fading anyway, the stars going out. At first we didn't try to catch up with him or let him know we were behind him."

  "You were afraid he'd send you back," Cif guessed.

  "That's right. At first he seemed to be following you, but where you turned south he kept straight on east. It was getting quite light now, but the sun was still in hiding. Every so often he'd stop and look ahead at the fog and the rooftops and the wind-chime arch sticking up out of it and lift his head to scan the sky above it—that's when I saw the little fleet of clouds—and raise his hand before his face to invoke the gods and ask their help."

  "That was the hand that had the jug in it?" Afreyt asked.

  "It must have been," the girl replied, "for I don't recall the lamp going up and down.

  "And then Uncle Fafhrd began to run in the strangest slow way, he seemed to float and almost stop between each step. Of course, we started to run too. We were all into the fog by now, which seemed to slow him and support him at the same time, so his steps were longer.

  "The fog got over our heads and hid him from us. We got to the Moon Arch and Fingers started to climb it before I could tell her that was frowned on. She got above the fog and called down..."

  Gale stretched a hand toward Fingers, who continued, "Truly, gentles, I saw Captain Fafhrd swimming strongly through the top of the fog, up its long white slope, while a good distance beyond him, the goal of his mighty self-sailing, there was—I know the eyes can be fooled and my mind was full of the sailors' tales, nevertheless, my word as a novice witch—there was a dense cloud that looked very much like a white ship with a high stern-castle. Sunlight flashed from its silver brightwork.

  "Then that same sun got into my eyes and I stopped seeing anything clearly. I'd called some of it down to Gale and I climbed down and told her the rest."

  Gale took up again. "We ran through Salthaven to the eastern headland. The fog was breaking up and burning off, but we couldn't see anything clearly. When we got there, the Maelstrom was seething and mists rising from it. But overhead it was clear and I could see Uncle Fafhrd, very high now, beside the white cloud-ship, showing only its keel. There were five gulls around him. Then the mists from below came between us. I thought you should know, Aunt Afreyt. But since it was on the way to the diggings, we decided to tell Aunt Cif first."

  Fingers added, "I saw what she saw, gentles. But Captain Fafhrd was very far off then. It could have been a very large marine bird—a sea mandragon escorted by five sea hawks."

  The listeners looked at each other.

  "This rings true," Afreyt said quite softly. "I feared that Fafhrd was fey when he was last down the shaft."

  "You believe what these girls tell us?" Groniger asked only somewhat incredulously.

  "To be sure she does," Mother Grum answered.

  "But why would he go to air folk," Skullick wanted to know, "to get advice on someone lost underground?"

  "You can't guess the designs of a fey one," Rill told him.

  "But what of the Gray Mouser now?" Cif addressed Afreyt. "As Fafhrd's spokeswoman, what say you to sending Pshawri to Darkfire?"

  "Let him go, of course, and luck with him. Luck and quietus to Loki," that lady responded without hesitation. "Here's provisions for you, Lieutenant." From her hamper she gave him a small loaf and a hard sausage and the near empty sweet-wine jug, which would do to carry cool water he'd get at Last Spring on the way.

  After a quick glance to assure himself the others were otherwise occupied, Pshawri said to Afreyt in a low voice, "Lady, would you add to your kindnesses one further favor?" and when she nodded, handed her a folded paper indited in violet ink with broken green seals. "Keep this for me. Should I not return (such things happen), give it to Captain Fafhrd, if he's back. Otherwise read it yourself—and show it to Lady Cif at your discretion."

  "I'll do that," she said softly, and then resuming her normal voice, called, "Cif dear, you'll take over for Fafhrd and me at the digging. I'll give you Fafhrd's ring."

  "Can you doubt it?" Cif replied, turning back from Mother Grum, with whom she'd been conferring.

  Afreyt went on, "For it's now my turn to do some thinking about a lost one—and to see that these two outwearied girls do some sound sleeping. I'll take them to your place, Cif, and see to all there. Skama, shield me from feyness, except it be your inspiration."

  So without more ceremony the three parties separated: Pshawri north toward distant, smoke-trailing Darkfire; Cif, Skullick, and Rill back to the diggings; Afreyt, Groniger, and the weary old and young pairs to Salthaven.

  Trudging with the last party, and suddenly looking every bit as tired as Afreyt had described her, Fingers recited as by someone already asleep and dreaming,

  "After the dog has eaten out his heart,

  The cat his liver, and his secret parts

  Uprooted and devoured by the hog,

  He shall sleep sounder then than any log,

  A shadow prince enrobed by moonlit fog."

  "Was that your brother, Princess?" Gale asked, wrinkling her nose. "You know the nicest poems, I must say."

  After a moment Afreyt inquired thoughtfully, "But what kind of a poem was it, dear Fingers? Where did it come from?"

  Still somewhat in a sleepy singsong, the weary child responded, "It is the augmented third stanza of a Quarmallian death spell effective only in its entirety." She shook her head and blinked her eyes and came more awake. "Now how did I know that?" she asked. "My mother was born in Quarmall, that is true, but that was another
of the things we weren't supposed to tell most people."

  "Yet she taught you this Quarmall death spell," Afreyt stated.

  Fingers shook her head decidedly. "My mother never dealt in death spells, nor taught me any. She is a white witch, truly." She looked puzzledly at Gale and then up at Afreyt and asked, "Why does a memory wink off whenever you try to watch it closely? Is it because we cannot live forever?"

  19

  As consciousness next glimmered, glowed, and then shone noontide bright in the Gray Mouser's skull, he would have been certain he was dreaming, for in his nostrils was the smell of Lankhmar earth, richly redolent of the grainfields, the Great Salt Marsh, the river Hlal, the ashes of innumerable fires, and the decay of myriad entities, a unique melange of odors, and he was ensconced in one of the secretmost rooms of all Lankhmar City, one he knew well although he had visited it only once. How could his underground journeying possibly have carried him so far, two thousand leagues or more, one tenth the way at least around all Nehwon world?—except that he had never in his life had a dream in which the furniture and actors were so clearly distinct and open to scrutiny in all their details.

  But as we know, it was the Mouser's custom on waking anywhere not to move more than an eye muscle or make the least sound, even that of a deeper breath, until he had taken in and thoroughly mastered the nature of his surroundings and his own circumstances amongst them.

  He was comfortably seated cross-legged about a Lankhmar cubit (a forearm's length) behind a narrow low table beside the foot of the wide bed, sheeted in white silk curiously coarse of weave, in the combined underground bedroom and boudoir of the rat princess Hisvet, his most tormenting one-time paramour, daughter of the wealthy grain merchant Hisvin, in the buried city of Lankhmar Below. He knew it was that room and no other by its pale violet hangings, silver fittings, and a half hundred more apposite details, chiefest perhaps two painted panels in the far wall depicting an unclad maiden and crocodile erotically intertwined and a youth and leopardess similarly entangled. As had been the case some five years ago, the room was lit by narrow tanks of glow worms at the foot of the walls, but now also by silver cages hanging cornice-high and imprisoning flashing firebeetles, glow wasps, nightbees, and diamond-flies big as robins or starlings. While on the low table before him rested a silver waterclock with visible pool, upon the center of which a large drop fell every third breath or dozenth heartbeat, making circular ripples, and a cut crystal carafe of pale golden wine, reminding him he was abominably thirsty.