At this point Fafhrd had to speak most sharply and shrewdly to the Mouser to get him to admit that he — the Mouser — had suspected for days that the shimmer-sprights were girls, albeit girls with a strong admixture of the supernatural, insofar as any admixture of anything is able to affect the essential girlness of any such being, which isn't much.
But the Mouser did eventually make the admission although his mind had not the edge-of-sleep honesty of Fafhrd's and tended to drift off to musings on his bubble-cosmos. Yet under strong prompting by Fafhrd he even confessed to his encounter with the sun-red vermilion-eyed shimmer-girl last noon, when he'd looked afire, and upon Fafhrd's insistence recalled the exact words she'd said to him in dream.
“Your red girl spoke of Life and pressing on south to immortality and paradise,” Fafhrd summed up thoughtfully, “whilst my dark dear talked of Death and turning back north toward Shadowland and Lankhmar and Cold Waste.” Then, with swift-growing excitement and utter amazement at his own insight, “Mouser, I see it all! There are two different pairs of shimmer-girls! The daytime ones (you spoke with one of those) are children of the sun and messengers from the fabled Land of Gods at Nehwon's Life Pole. While the night-timers, replacing them from dusk to dawn, are minions of the moon, White Huntress’ daughters, owing allegiance to the Shadowland, which lies across the world from the Life Pole.”
“Fafhrd, hast thou thought,” the Mouser spoke from a brown study, “how nicely calculated must be the height and diameter of each waterspout-tube, so that the star at its bottom is seen from every spot in other half of Nehwon (up there, when it's night there) but from no spot in our half down here? — which incidentally explains why stars are brightest at zenith, you see all of each, not just a lens or biconvex meniscus. It seems to argue that some divinity must—” At that point the impact of Fafhrd's words at last sank in and he said in tones less dreamy, “Two different sets of girls? Four girls in all? Fafhrd, I think you're overcomplicating things. By Ildritch's Scimitar—”
“There are two sets of girl twins,” Fafhrd overrode him. “That much is certain though all else be lies. And mark you this, Small Man, your sun-girls mean us ill though seeming to promise good, for how reach immortality and paradise except by dying? How reach Godsland except by perishing? The whiles the sun, pure light or no, is baleful, hot, and deadly. But my moon-girls, seeming to mean us ill, intend good only — being at once as cool and lovely as the moon. She said to me in dream, ‘Turn back to Death,’ which sounds dire. But you and I have lived with Death for dozen years and ta'en no lasting hurt — just as she said herself, ‘for that's the only way to stay alive. Seek Death to ‘scape from him!’ So steer we north at once! — as she directed. For if we keep on south, deeper and deeper into torrid realm of sun ('Beware the sun,’ she said!) we'll die for sure, betrayed by your false, lying girls of fire. Recall, her merest touch made your chest smoke. While my girl said, ‘Suspect all flaming youth and scarlet shes,’ capping my argument.”
“I don't see that at all,” the Mouser said. “I like the sun myself. I always have. His searching warmth is best of medicines. It's you who love the cold and clammy dark, you Cold Waste savage! My girl was sweet and fiery pink with life, while yours was gloomy-spoken and as livid as a corpse, on your own admission. Take her word for things? Not I. Besides, by Ildritch's Scimitar — to get back to that — the simplest explanation is always the best as well as the most elegant. There are two shimmer-girls only, the one I spoke in dream and the one you spoke — not four buzzing about bewilderingly and changing guard at dawn and dusk, to our and their confusion. The two girls — only two! — look the same in outward seeming — copper by day, silver by night — but inwardly mine is angel, yours deadly valkyr. As was revealed in dream, your surest guide.”
“Now you are quibbling,” Fafhrd said decisively, “and are making my head spin, to boot, with ‘wildering words. This much is clear to me: We must get ready, and ready Black Racer, to steer north, as my poor lovely moon-girl strongly advised me more than once.”
“But Fafhrd,” the Mouser protested, “we tried again and again to steer north yesterday and failed each time. What reason have you to suppose, you big lug—”
Fafhrd cut in with, “'Trust only in the moon,’ she said. ‘Wait for her certain sign.’ So wait we, for the nonce, and watch. Look at the sea and sky, idiot boy, and be amazed.”
The Mouser was indeed. While they had been disputing, intent only on the cuts and thrusts and parries and ripostes of their word-duel, the smooth surface of the racing Sea of Stars had changed from sleek and slick to matte yet ripply. Great vibrations were speeding across it, making the leopard-boat quiver. The moon-silvered lines of foam were blowing over it less predictably — the hurricane itself, though diminished no whit, was getting flukey, the wind now hot, now cold about their necks. While in the sky were clouds at last, coming in swiftly from northwest and east at once and mounting toward the moon. All of nature seemed to cringe apprehensively, as if in anticipation of some dire event about to hap, heralding war in heaven. The two silvery shimmer-sprights appeared to share this foreboding or presentiment, for they ‘gan fly about most erratically, their lace wildly aflow, uttering high cheeping cries and whistlings of alarm against the unnatural silence and at last parting so that one hovered agitatedly to the southeast above the prow, the other near the stern to the northwest.
The rapidly thickening clouds had blotted out most of the stars and mounted almost to the moon. The wind held still, exactly equalling the current's speed. Black Racer poised, as if at crest of a gigantic wave. For an instant the sea seemed to freeze. Silence was absolute.
The Mouser looked straight up and uttered from the back of his throat a half choked, high pitched little scream that froze his comrade's blood. After mastering that shock, Fafhrd looked up too — at just which instant it grew very dark. The hungry clouds had blotted out the moon.
“Why did you so cry out?” he demanded angrily.
The Mouser answered with difficulty, his teeth chattering, “Just before the clouds closed on her, the moon moved.”
“How could you know that, you little fool, when the clouds were moving? — which always makes the moon seem to move.”
“I don't know, but as sure as I stand firm-footed here, I saw it! The moon began to move.”
“Well, if the moon be in a waterspout, as you claim, she's subject to all whims of wind and wave. So what's so blood-curdlingly strange in her moving?” Fafhrd's frantic voice belied the reasonableness of his question.
“I don't know,” the Mouser repeated in a curiously small, strained voice, his teeth still clinking together, “but I didn't like it.”
The shimmer-spright at the stern whistled thrice.
Her nervously twisting, lacy, silver luminescence stood out plainly in the black night, as did her sister's at the prow.
“It is the sign!” Fafhrd cried hoarsely. “Ready to go about!” And he threw his full weight against the tiller, driving it steerside and so the rudder loadside, to steer them north. Black Racer responded most sluggishly, but did break the grip of current and wind to the extent of swinging north a point or two, no more.
A long flat lightning flash split the sky and showed the gray sea to the horizon's rim, where they now saw two giant waterspouts, the one due south, the other rushing in from the west. Thunder crashed like armies or armadas meeting at an iron-sonorous Armageddon.