15
A fortnight later, being a week after Seahawk's safe arrival in Salthaven, Fafhrd and Afreyt rented the Sea Wrack and gave Captain Mouser and his crew a party, which Cif and the Mouser had to help pay for from the profits of the latter's trading voyage. To it were invited numerous Isler friends. It coincided with the year's first blizzard, for the winter gales had held off and been providentially late coming. No matter, the salty tavern was snug and the food and drink all that could be asked for — with perhaps one exception.
“There was a faint taste of wool fat in the fruit soup,” Hilsa observed. “Nothing particularly unpleasant, but noticeable."
“That'll have been from the grease in the sacking,” Mikkidu enlightened her, “which kept the salt sea out of ‘em, so they buoyed us up powerfully when we sank. Captain Mouser thinks of everything."
“Just the same,” Skor reminded him sotto voce, “it turned out he did have a girl in the cabin all the while — and that damned chest of fabrics too! You can't deny he's a great liar whenever he chooses."
“Ah, but the girl turned out to be a sea demon, and he needed the fabrics to defend himself from her, and that makes all the difference,” Mikkidu rejoined loyally.
“I never saw her as aught but a ghostly and silver-crested sea demon,” old Ourph put in. “The first night out from No-Ombrulsk I saw her rise from the cabin through the deck and stand at the taffrail, invoking and communing with sea monsters."
“Why didn't you report that to the Mouser?” Fafhrd asked, gesturing toward the venerable Mingol with his new bronze hook.
“One never speaks of a ghost in its presence,” the latter explained, “or while there is chance of its reappearance. It only gives it strength. As always, silence is silver."
“Yes, and speech is golden,” Fafhrd maintained.
Rill boldly asked the Mouser across the table, “But just how did you deal with the sea demoness while she was in her guise? I gather you kept her tied up a lot, or tried to?"
“Yes,” Cif put in from beside him. “You were even planning at one point to train her to be a maid for me, weren't you?” She smiled curiously. “Just think, I lost that as well as those lovely materials."
“I attempted a number of things that were rather beyond my powers,” the Gray One admitted manfully, the edges of his ears turning red. “Actually, I was lucky to escape with my life.” He turned toward Cif. “Which I couldn't have done if you hadn't snatched me from the tainted gold in the nick of time."
“Never mind, it was I put you amongst the tainted gold in the first place,” she told him, laying her hand on his on the table, “but now it's been hopefully purified.” (She had directed that ceremony of exorcism of the ikons herself, with the assistance of Mother Grum, to free them of all baleful Simorgyan influence got from their handling by the demoness. The old witch was somewhat dubious of the complete efficacy of the ceremony.)
Later Skor described leviathan arching over Seahawk. Afreyt nodded appreciatively, saying, “I was once in a dory when a whale breached close alongside. It is not a sight to be forgotten."
“Nor is it when viewed from the other side of the gunwale,” the Mouser observed reflectively. Then he winced. “Mog, what a head thump that would have been!"
III: The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars
1
Late one nippy afternoon of early Rime Isle spring, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser slumped pleasantly in a small booth in Salthaven's Sea Wrack Tavern. Although they'd been on the Isle for only a year, and patronizing this tavern for an eight-month, the booth was recognized as theirs when either was in the place. Both men had been mildly fatigued, the former from supervising bottom repairs to Seahawk at the new moon's low tide — and then squeezing in a late round of archery practice, the latter from bossing the carpentering of their new warehouse-and-barracks — and doing some inventorying besides. But their second tankards of bitter ale had about taken care of that, and their thoughts were beginning to float free.
Around them they heard the livening talk of other recuperating laborers. At the bar they could see three of their lieutenants grousing together — Fafhrd-tall Skor, and the somewhat reformed small thieves Pshawri and Mikkidu. Behind it the keeper lit two thick wicks as the light dimmed as the sun set outside.
Frowning as he pared a thumbnail with razor-keen Cat's Claw, the Mouser said, “I am minded of how scarce seventeen moons gone we sat just so in Silver Eel Tavern in Lankhmar, deeming Rime Isle a legend. Yet here we are."
“Lankhmar,” Fafhrd mused, drawing a wet circle with the firmly socketed iron hook that had become his left hand after the day's bow bending, “I've heard somewhere of such a city, I do believe. ‘Tis strange how oftentimes our thoughts do chime together, as if we were sundered halves of some past being, but whether hero or demon, wastrel or philosopher, harder to say."
“Demon, I'd say,” the Mouser answered instantly, “a demon warrior. We've guessed at him before. Remember? We decided he always growled in battle. Perhaps a were-bear."
After a small chuckle at that, Fafhrd went on, “But then (that night twelve moons gone and five in Lankhmar) we'd had twelve tankards each of bitter instead of two, I ween, yes, and lacing them too with brandy, you can bet — hardly to be accounted best judges ‘twixt phantasm and the veritable. Yes, and didn't two heroines from this fabled isle next moment stride into the Eel, as real as boots?"
Almost as if the Northerner hadn't answered, the small, gray-smocked, gray-stockinged man continued in the same thoughtful reminiscent tones as he'd first used, “And you, liquored to the gills — agreed on that! — were ranting dolefully about how you dearly wanted work, land, office, sons, other responsibilities, and e'en a wife!"
“Yes, and didn't I get one?” Fafhrd demanded. “You too, you equally then-drunken destiny-ungrateful lout!” His eyes grew thoughtful also. He added, “Though perhaps comrade or co-mate were the better word — or even those plus partner."
“Much better all three,” the Mouser agreed shortly. “As for those other goods your drunken heart was set upon — no disagreement there! — we've got enough of those to stuff a hog! — except, of course, far as I know, for sons. Unless, that is, you count our men as our grown-up unweaned babes, which sometimes I'm inclined to."
Fafhrd, who'd been leaning his head out of the booth to look toward the darkening doorway during the latter part of the Mouser's plaints, now stood up, saying, “Speaking of them, shall we join the ladies? Cif and Afreyt's booth ‘pears to be larger than ours."
“To be sure. What else?” the Mouser replied, rising springily. Then, in a lower voice, “Tell me, did the two of them just now come in? Or did we blunder blindly by them when we entered, sightless of all save thirst quench?"