On the world of Nehwon and in the land of Simorgya, six days fast
sailing south from Rime Isle, 2 handsome silvery personages conversed
intimately yet tensely in a dimly and irregularly lit hall of pillars
open overhead to the darkness. Very strange was that illumination —
greenish and yellowish by turns, it seemed to come chiefly from grotesquely
shaped rugs patching the Stygian floor and lapping the pillars’ <c.f. Stygia>
bases and also from slowly moving globes and sinuosities that floated
about at head height and wove amongst the pillars, softly dimming and
brightening like lethargic and plague-stricken giant fireflies.

Mordroog said sharply, “Caught you that thrill, sister? — faint
and far north away, yet unmistakably ours.”

Issisi replied eagerly, “The same, brother, as we felt two days
agone — our mystic gold dipped deep in the sea for a space, then out
again.”

“The same indeed, sister, though this time with a certain ambiguity
as to the out — whether that or otherwise gone”, Mordroog assented.

“Yet the now-confirmed clue is certain and bears only one interpretation:
our chiefest treasures, that were our most main guards,
raped away long ages agone — and now at long last we know the culprits,
those villainous pirates of Rime Isle!", breathed Issisi.

"Long, long ages agone, before ever Simorgya sank (and the fortunate
island kingdom became the dark infernal realm) — and their
vanishment the hastener or very agent of that sinking. But now we have
the remedy — and who knows when our treasure’s back what long
sunken things may rise in spouting wrath to consternate the world?
Your attention, sister!", snapped Mordroog.

The abysmal scene darkened, then brightened as he dipped his
hand into the pouch at his waist and brought it out again holding something
big as a girl’s fist. The floating globes and sinuosities moved inward
inquisitively, jogging and jostling each other. Their flaring glows
rebounded through the murk from a lacy yet massy small gold globe
showing between his thin clawed silver fingers — its twelve thick edges
like those of a hexahedron embedded in the surface of a sphere and
curving conformably to that structure. He proferred it to her. The golden
light gave the semblance of life to their hawklike features.

“Sister,” he breathed, “it is now your task, and geas laid upon
you, to proceed to Rime Isle and regain our treasure, taking vengeance
or not as opportunity affords and prudence counsels — whilst I maintain
here, unifying the forces and regathering the scattered allies
against your return. You will need this last cryptic treasure for your
protection and as a hound to scent out its brothers in the world above.”

Now for the first time Issisi seemed to hestitate and her eagerness
to abate.

“The way is long, brother, and we are weak with waiting,” she
protested wailing. “What was once a week’s fast sailing will be for me
three black moons of torturesome dark treading, press I on ever so
hard. We have become the sea’s slaves, brother, and carry always the
sea’s weight. And I have grown to abhor the daylight.”

“We have also the sea’s strength,” he reminded her commandingly,
“and though we are weak as ghosts on land, preferring darkness and
the deep, we also know the old ways of gaining power and facing even
the sun. It is your task, sister. The geas is upon you. Salt is heavy but
blood is sweet. Go, go, go!”

Wherewith she snatched the goldy ghost-globe from his grip,
plunged it into her pouch, and turning with a sudden flirt made off, the
living lamps scattering to make a dark northward route for her.

With the last “Go,” a small bubble formed at the corner of Mordroog’s
thin snarling silvery lips and slowly grew in size as it mounted
from these dark deeps up toward the water’s distant surface.

* * *

Three months after the events aforenarrated, Fafhrd was at archery
practice on the heath north of Salthaven City on Rime Isle’s southeastern
coast — one more self-imposed, self-devised and self-taught lesson
of many in learning the mechanics of life for one lacking a left
hand, lost to Odin during the repulse of the Widder Sea Mingols from
the isle’s western shores. He had firmly affixed a tapering, thin, fingerlong
iron rod (much like a swordblade’s tang) to the midst of his bow
and wedged it into the corresponding deep hole in the wooden wrist
heading the close-fitting leather stall, half the length of his forearm and
dotted with holes for ventilation, that covered his newly healed stump
— with the result that his left arm terminated in a serviceably if somewhat
unadjustably clutched bow.

Here near town the heath was grass mingled with ankle-high
heather, here and there dotted with small clumps of gorse, in and out of
which the occasional pair of plump lemmings played fearlessly, and
man-high gray standing stones. These last had perhaps once been of religious
significance to the now atheistical Rime Islers — who were atheists
not in the sense that they did not believe in gods (that would have
been very difficult for any dweller in the world of Nehwon) but that
they did not socialize with any such gods or harken in any way to their
commands, threats, and cajolings. They (the standing stones) stood
about like so many mute gray grizzle bears.

Except for a few compact white clouds a-hang over the isle, the
late afternoon sky was clear, windless, and surprisingly balmy for this
late in autumn, in fact on the very edge of winter and its icy, snowladen
gales.

Gale accompanied Fafhrd in his practicing. The silver-blonde thirteen-
year-old girl now trudged about with him collecting arrows — half
of them transfixing his target, which was a huge ball. To keep his bow
out of the way Fafhrd carried it as if over his shoulder, maimed left
arm closely bent upward.

“They ought to have an arrow that would shoot around corners,”
Gale said apropos of hunting behind a standing stone. “That way
you’d get your enemy if he hid behind a house or a treetrunk.”

“It’s an idea,” Fafhrd admitted.

“Maybe if the arrow had a little curve in it —” she speculated.

“No, then it would just tumble,” he told her. “The virtue of an arrow
lies in its perfect straightness, its —”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” she interrupted impatiently. “I
keep hearing all about that, over and over, from Aunt Afreyt and cousin
Cif when they lecture me about the Golden Arrow of Truth and the
Golden Circles of Unity and all those.” The girl was referring to the
closely guarded gold ikons that had been from time immemorial the
atheist-holy relics of the Rime Isle fisherfolk.

That made Fafhrd think of the Golden Cube of Square Dealing,
forever lost when the Mouser had hurled it to quell the vast whirlpool
which had vanquished the Mingol fleet and threatened to sink his own
in the great sea battle. Did it lie now in mucky black sea bottom near
the Beach of Bleached Bones or had it indeed vanished entire from Nehwon-
world with the errant gods Odin and Loki?

And that in turn made him wonder and worry a little about the
Gray Mouser, who had sailed away a month ago in Seahawk on a trading
expedition to No-Ombrulsk with half his thieves and Flotsam’s
Mingol crew and Fafhrd’s own chief lieutenant Skor. The little man
(Captain Mouser, now) had planned on getting back to Rime Isle before
the winter gales.

Gale interrupted his musings. “Did Aunt Afreyt tell you, Captain
Fafhrd, about cousin Cif seeing a ghost or something last night in the
council hall treasury, which only she has a key to?” The girl was holding
up the big target bag clutched against her so that he could pull out
the arrows and return them over shoulder to their quiver.

“I don’t think so,” he temporized. Actually he hadn’t seen Afreyt
today, or Cif either for that matter. For the past few nights he hadn’t
been sleeping at Afreyt’s but with his men and the Mouser’s at the
dormitory they rented from Groniger, Salthaven’s harbor master and
chief councilman, the better to supervise the mischievous thieves in the
Mouser’s absence — or at least that was an explanation on which he
and Afreyt could safely agree. “What did the ghost look like?”

“It looked very mysterious,” Gale told him, her pale blue eyes
widening above the bag which hid the lower part of her face. “Sort of
silvery and dark, and it vanished when Cif went closer. She called
Groniger, who was around, but they couldn’t find anything. She told
Afreyt it looked like a princess-lady or a big thin fish.”

“How could something look like a woman and a fish?” Fafhrd
asked with a short laugh, tugging out the last arrow.

“Well, there are mermaids, aren’t there?” she retorted triumphantly,
letting the bag fall.

“Yes,” Fafhrd admitted, “though I don’t expect Groniger would
agree with us. Say,” he went on, his face losing for a bit its faintly
drawn, worried look, “put the target bag behind that rock. I’ve
thought of a way to shoot around corners.”

"Oh, good!” She rolled the target bag close against the back of
one of the ursine, large gray stones and they walked off a couple of
hundred yards. Fafhrd turned. The air was very still. A distant small
cloud hid the low sun, though the sky was otherwise very blue and
bright. He swiftly drew an arrow and laid it against the short wooden
thumb he’d affixed to the bow near its center just above its tang. He
took a couple of shuffling steps while his frowning eyes measured the
distance between him and the rock. Then he leaned suddenly back and
discharged the arrow high into the air. It went up, up, then came swiftly
down — close behind the rock, it looked.

“That’s not around a corner,” Gale protested. “Anybody can do
that. I meant sideways.”

“You didn’t say so,” he told her. “Corners can be up or down or
sideways right or left. What’s the difference?”

"Up-corners you can drop things around.”

“Yes indeed you can!” he agreed and in a sudden frenzy of exercise
that left him breathing hard sent the rest of the arrows winging successively
after the first. All of them seemed to land close behind the
standing stone — all except the last, which they heard clash faintly
against rock — but when they’d walked up to where they could see,
they found that all but the last arrow had missed. The feathered shafts
stood upright, their points plunged into the soft earth, in an oddly
regular little row that didn’t quite reach the target-bag — all but the
last, which had gone through an edge of the bag at an angle and hung
there, tangled by its three goosefeather vanes.

“See, you missed,” Gale said, “all but the one that glanced off the
rock.”

“Yes. Well, that’s enough shooting for me,” he decided and while
she pulled up the arrows and carefully teased loose the last, he loosened
the bow’s tang from its wood socket, using the back of his knife blade
as a pry, then unstrung the bow and hung it across his back by its loose
string around his chest, then fitted a wrought iron hook into the wristsocket,
wedging it tight by driving the head of the hook against the
stone. He winced as he did that last, for his stump was still tender, and
the dozen last shots he’d made had tried it.

As they walked toward the low-roofed, soft-colored homes of Salthaven,
the setting sun on their backs, Fafhrd studied the gray standing
stones and asked Gale, “What do you know about the old gods Rime
Isle had? — before the Rime men got atheism.”

"They were a pretty wild, lawless lot, Aunt Afreyt says — sort of
like Captain Mouser’s men before they became soldiers, or your berserks
before you tamed them down." She went on with growing enthusiasm,
“They certainly didn’t believe in any Golden Arrow of
Truth, or Golden Ruler of Prudence, or Little Gold Cup of Measured
Hospitality — mighty liars, whores, murderers, and pirates, I guess, all
of them.”

Fafhrd nodded. “Maybe Cif’s ghost was one of them,” he said.

A tall, slender woman came toward them from a violet-toned
house. When Afreyt neared them she called to Gale, “So that’s where
you were. Your mother was wondering.” She looked at Fafhrd. “How
did the archery go?”

“Captain Fafhrd hit the target almost every time,” Gale answered
for him. “He even hit it shooting around corners! And I didn’t help
him a bit fitting his bow or anything.”

Afreyt nodded.

Fafhrd shrugged.

“I told Fafhrd about Cif’s ghost,” Gale went on. “He thought it
might be one of the old Rime goddesses — Rin the Moon-runner, one
of those.”

Afreyt’s narrow blonde eyebrows arched. “You go along now,
your mother wants you.”

“Can I keep the target for you?” the girl asked Fafhrd.

He nodded, lifted his left elbow, and the big ball dropped down.
Gale rolled it off ahead of her. The target-bag was smoky red with dye
from the snowberry root and the last rays of the sun setting behind
them gave it an angry glare and Afreyt and Fafhrd each had the
thought that Gale was rolling away the sun.

When they were gone he turned to Afreyt, asking, “What’s this
nonsense about Cif meeting a ghost?”

“You’re getting skeptical as an Isler,” she told him unsmiling. “Is
something that robs a councilman of his wits and half his strength nonsense?”

“The ghost did that?” he asked as they began to walk slowly toward
town.

She nodded. “When Gwaan pushed into the dark treasury past
Cif, he was clutched and struck senseless for an hour’s space — and has
since not left his bed.” Her long lips quirked. “Or else-he stumbled in
the churning shadows and struck his head ‘gainst the wall — there’s
that possibility too, since he has lost his memory for the event.”

“Tell me about it more circumstantially,” Fafhrd requested.

“The council session had lasted well after dark, for the waning gibbous
moon had just risen,” she began, “Cif and I being in attendance
as treasurer and scribe. Zwaaken and Gwaan called on Cif for an inventory
of the ikons of the virtues — ever since the loss of the Gold
Cube of Square-Dealing (though in a good cause) they’ve fretted about
them. Cif accordingly unlocked the door to the treasury and then hesitated
on the threshold. Moonlight striking in through the small barred
window (she told me later) left most of the treasure chamber still in the
dark and there was something unfamiliar about the arrangement of the
things she saw that sounded a warning to us. Also, there was a faint
noxious marshy scent —”

“What does that window look on?” Fafhrd asked.

“The sea. Gwaan pushed past her impatiently (and most discourteously)
and then she swears there was a faint blue smoke like muted
lightning and in that trice she seemed to see a silent skinny figure of silver
fog embrace Gwaan hungrily. She got the impression, she said, of a
weak ghost seeking to draw strength from the living. Gwaan gave a
choking cry and pitched to the floor. When torches were brought in (at
Cif’s behest) the chamber was otherwise empty, but the Gold Arrow of
Truth had fallen from its shelf and lay beneath the window, the other
ikons had been moved slightly from their places, as if they’d been
feebly groped, while on the floor were narrow patches, like footprints,
of stenchful black bottom muck.”

“And that was all?” Fafhrd asked as the pause lengthened. When
she’d mentioned the thin silvery fog figure, he’d been reminded of
someone or something he’d seen lately, but then in his mind a black
curtain fell on that particular recollection-flash.

Afreyt nodded. “All that matters, I guess. Gwaan came to after an
hour, but remembered nothing, and they’ve put him to bed, where he
stays. Cif and Groniger have set special watch on all the Rimic gold tonight.”

Suddenly Fafhrd felt bored with the whole business of Cif’s ghost.
His hind didn’t want to move in that direction. “Those councilmen of
yours, all they ever worry about is gold — they’re misers all!” he
burst out at Afreyt.

“That’s true enough,” she agreed with him — which annoyed
Fafhrd for some reason. “They still criticize Cif for giving the Cube to
the Mouser along with other moneys in her charge, and talk still of impeaching
her and confiscating her farm — and maybe mine.”

“Ah, the ingrates! And Groniger’s one of the worst — he’s already
dunning me for last week’s rent on the men’s dormitory, barely two
days overdue.”

Afreyt nodded. “He also complains your berserks caused a disturbance
last week at the Sea Wrack tavern.”

“Oh he does, does he?” Fafhrd commented, quieting down.

“How are the Mouser’s men behaving?” she asked.

“Pshawri keeps ‘em in line well enough,” he told her. “Not that
they don’t need my supervision while the Gray One’s away.”

"Seahawk will have returned before the gales, I’m sure of that,”
she said quietly.

“Yes,” Fafhrd said.

They had come opposite her house and now she went inside with a
smiled farewell. She did not invite him to dinner, which was somehow
annoying, although he would have refused; and although she had
glanced once or twice toward his stump, she had not asked how it fared
— which was tactful, but also somehow annoying.

Yet the irritation was momentary, for her mention of the Sea
Wrack had started his mind off in a new direction which fully occupied
it as he walked a little more rapidly. The past few days he had been feeling
out of sorts with almost everyone around him, weary of his lefthand
problems, and perversely lonely for Lankhmar with its wizards
and criminous folks, its smokes (so different from this bracing northern
sea-air) and sleazy grandeurs. Then night before last he’d wandered
into the Sea Wrack, Salthaven’s chief tavern since the Salt Herring had
burned, and discovered a certain comfort in observing the passing scene
there while sipping a pint or two of black ale.

Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitues (he’d learned
as he was leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no
disturbances, least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded
himself — if it had really ever happened) and he had found
pleasure in watching the slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning
fishers and sailors, two low-voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and
a sprinkling of eccentrics and puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute
misery, a skinny graybeard who peppered his ale, and a very slender silent
woman in bone-gray touched with silver who sat alone at a back
table and had the most tranquil (and not unhandsome) face imaginable.
At first he’d thought her another whore, but no one had approached
her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any notice of her, and
she hadn’t even been drinking, so far as he could recall.

Last night he’d returned and found much the same crowd (and the
same pleasant relief from his own boredom) and tonight he found himself
looking forward to visting the place again — after he’d been to the
harbor and scanned south and east away for Seahawk.

At that moment Rill came around the next corner and hailed him
cheerily, waving a hand that showed a red scar across the palm —
memento of an injury that had created a bond between herself and
Fafhrd. The dark-haired whore-turned-fisherwoman was neatly and
soberly clad — a sign that she was not at the moment engaged in either
of her trades.

They chatted together, at ease with each other. She told him about
today’s catch of cod and asked after the Mouser (when now expected)
and his and Fafhrd’s men and how Fafhrd’s stump was holding up (she
was the one person he could talk to about that) and about his general
health and how he was sleeping.

“If badly,” she said, “Mother Grum has useful herbs — or I
might be of help.”

As she said that last, she chuckled, gave him an inquiring sidewise
smile, and tugged his hook with her scarred forefinger, permanently
crooked by the same deep burn that had left a red track across her
palm. Fafhrd smiled back gratefully, shaking his head.

At that moment Pshawri came up with Skullick behind him to report
on the day’s work and other doings, and after a moment Rill went
off. Some of Fafhrd’s men had found employment on the new building
going up where the Salt Herring had stood, a couple had worked on
Flotsam, while the remainder had been cod-fishing with those men of
the Mouser’s who were not on Seahawk.

Pshawri made his report in a jaunty yet detailed and dutiful manner
that reminded Fafhrd of the Mouser (he’d picked up some of his
captain’s mannerisms) which both irritated and amused Fafhrd. For
that matter all the Mouser’s thieves, being wiry and at least as short as
he, reminded Fafhrd of his comrade. A pack of Mousers — ridiculous!

And so he continued on alone toward the Sea Wrack and the docks
under the bright twilight, called here the violet hour. After a bit he realized
with faint surprise and a shade of self-contempt why he was hurrying
and why he had avoided Afreyt’s bed and turned down Rill’s comradely
invitation — he was looking forward to another evening of
watching and spinning dreams about the silent slender woman in bonewhite
and silver at the Wrack and Ruin, the woman with the so distant
eyes and tranquil, not unhandsome face. Lord, what romantical fools
men were, to overpass the known and good in order to strain and
stretch after the mysterious merely unknown. Were dreams simply better
than reality? Had fancy always more style? But even as he philosophized
fleetingly of dreams, he was wending ever deeper into this violet-
tinged one.

Familiar voices raised in vehemence pulled him partially out of it.
Down the side lane he was crossing he saw Cif and Groniger talking excitedly
together. He would have stolen onward unseen, returning entirely
to his waking dream, but they spotted him.

“Captain Fafhrd, have you heard the ill news?” the grizzle-haired
harbor master called as he approached with long strides. “The Treasury’s
been looted of its gold-things, and Zwaaken who was guarding
them struck dead!”

The small russet-clad woman with golden glints in her dark brown
hair who came hurrying along with him amplified, “It happened no
longer ago than sunset. We were close by in the council hall, ready to
share the guard duty after dark (you’ve heard of last night’s apparition?)
when there came a cry from the vault and a blue flash from the
cracks around the door. Zwaaken’s face was frozen in a grimace and
livid burns came out on his corpse. All the ikons were gone.”

It was strange, but Fafhrd barely took in what Cif was saying. Instead
he was thinking of how even she was beginning to remind him of
the Mouser and to behave like the Gray One. They said that people long
in love began to resemble each other. Could that apply so soon?

“Yes, now it’s not just the Gold Cube of Square Dealing we lack,”
Groniger put in. “All, all gone.”

His bringing in that roused Fafhrd again a little and nettled him.
Altogether, in fact, he strangely found himself more irritated than interested
or concerned by the news, though of course he would have
liked to help Cif, who was the Mouser’s darling.

“I’ve heard of your ghost,” he told her. “All the rest is news. Is
there any particular way in which I can help you now?”

They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had
been a somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by
himself again, he added, “You can call on my men for help if you need
it in your search for the thieves. They’re at their dormitory.”

“On which you owe me rent,” Groniger put in automatically.

Fafhrd graciously ignored that. “Well,” he said, “I wish you good
luck in your hunt. Gold is valuable stuff.” And with a little bow he
turned and continued on his way. When he’d gone some distance he
heard their voices again, but could no longer make out what they were
saying — which meant their words happily weren’t for him.

He reached the harbor while the violet light was still bright across
the sky and realized with a throb of pleasure that that was one reason
he had been in such a hurry and impatient of all else. The few folk
about moved or stood quietly, unmindful of his coming. The air was
still. He crossed to the dock’s verge and scanned searchingly south and
southeast to where violet sky met unruffled gray sea in a long horizon
line, with never a cloud or smudge of haze between.

No sign of a sail or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and Seahawk
remained somewhere in the seaworld beyond.

But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before light
failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the
smooth salt cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland
to the west, the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the
right, Flotsam was moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light
wooden pier that would be taken up when the winter gales arrived and
to which a few ship’s boats and other small harbor craft were moored.
Among these was Flotsam’s small sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in
the habit of going out alone — more training in making do with a hook
for a left hand — and also a narrow, mastless, shallow craft, little more
than a shaped plank, that was new to him.

The Violet light was draining away from the sky now and he once
more scanned the southern and southeastern horizon and the long expanse
of water between — a magical emptiness that drew him powerfully.
Still no sign. He turned away regretfully and there, coming across
the dock so as to arrive at its verge a score of feet from him, where the
pier extended into the harbor, was his silent, tranquil-faced lady of the
Sea Wrack. She might have been an apparition for all the notice the
few dock-folk took of her, she almost brushed a sailor as she passed
him by and he never moved. Behind her, faint voices called to her from
the town (what were they concerned about? —a hunt for something?
Fafhrd had forgotten) and the shadows came down from the north,
driving out the last violet tones from the heavens. The silent woman
had a pouch at her hip that chinked once faintly while her pale hands
drew round her a silver-glinting bone-white robe that also shadowed
her face. And then as she passed closest to him, she turned her head so
that her black-edged green eyes looked straight into his, and she put her
hand into her bosom and drew forth a short gold arrow which she
showed him and then slipped into her pouch, which chinked again, and
then she smiled at him for three heartbeats a smile that was at once
familiar and strange, aloof and alluring, and then turned her head forward
and went out onto the pier.

And Fafhrd followed her, not knowing behind his forehead, or
really caring, whether her gaze or smile had cast an actual enchantment
upon him, but only that this was the direction in which he wanted to go,
away from the toils and puzzlements and responsibilities and boredoms
of Salthaven and toward the vasty south and the Mouser and Lankhmar
— her way and whatever mysteries she stood for. Another part of
his mind, a part linked chiefly with his feet and hands (though one of
them was only a hook), wanted also to follow her on account of the
golden arrow, though he could no longer remember why that was important.

As he stepped down onto the wooden pier she reached its end and
stepped onto the new narrow craft he’d noticed, and then without casting
off or any other preparatory action, she lifted wide her arms as she
faced the prow and the pale gray twilight, her back to him, so that her
robe spread out to either side, and it bellied forward as if with an unseen
wind, and she and her slight craft moved away toward the harbor
mouth across the unruffled waters.

And then he felt on his right cheek a steady breeze blowing silently
from the west, and he boarded the sailing dory and cast off and let
down the centerboard and ran up the small sail and made it fast and
then, taking its sheet in his right hand and controlling the tiller with his
hook, sailed out noiselessly after her. He wondered a little (but not very
much) why no one called after them or even appeared to watch them,
their craft moving as if by magic and hers so strangely and with such a
strange sail.

Exactly how long they glided on in this fashion he did not know or
care, but the gray sky darkened to black night and stars came out
around her hooded head, and the gibbous moon rose, dimming the
stars a little, and was for a while before them and then behind (their
craft must have turned in a very wide circle and headed north, it
seemed), so that the moon’s deathly white light no longer dazzled his
eyes but was reflected softly from his dory’s wind-rounded sail and
made the Sea-Wrack woman’s bone-white silvery robes stand out ahead
on her shining craft as they ever bellied forward to either side of her.
Very steady was the silent wind that did that, and under its urging his
craft gained upon hers so that at the last they almost seemed to touch.
He wished that she would turn her head so that he could see more of
her, yet at the same time he wanted them to go sailing on enchantedly
forever.

And then it seemed to him that the sea itself had tilted imperceptibly
upwards so that their noiselessly locked craft were mounting together
toward the moon-dimmed stars. And at that point she turned
around and moved slowly toward him and he likewise rose and moved
effortlessly toward her, without any effect whatsoever on the dreamlike
motion of their two craft as they mounted ever onward and upward.
And she smiled the wondrous smile again at him and looked at him
with love, and beyond her hooded head great weaving streamers of soft
red and green and pale blue luminescence mounted toward the zenith
(he knew them to be the northern lights) as though she stood at the altar
of a great cathedral with all its stained glass windows shedding a glory
upon her. Glancing fleetingly to either side, he saw without great surprise
or any fear that their two craft were indeed mounting toward the
stars on a great tongue of dark solid water that rose with precipice to
either side, like a vast wall, from the moonlit sea far below. But all he
had thought for was her proudly smiling face and daring, dancing gaze,
enshrined by the aurora, that summed up for him all the allure of
mystery and adventure.

She dipped then into the pouch at her waist and brought up the
gold arrow and proffered it to him, holding it by either end in her
dainty slim-fingered hands, and the moonlight showed him her small
pearly teeth as she smiled.

Then he noted that his hook, which seemed to have a will of its
own, had reached out and encircled the short shaft of the arrow between
her hands and was tugging at it, while his right hand, which appeared
to be operating with like independence of his bewitched mind,
had shot forward, grasped the bulging pouch by its neck, and ripped it
from her waist.

At that, her loving gaze grew fiercely desirous and her smile
widened and grew wild and she tugged sharply back on the arrow so
that it bent acutely at its midst, and the blue component of the aurora
flaring behind her seemed to enter into her body and flash in her gaze
and glow along her arms and hands, and the golden arrow glowed
brighter still, a blue aura all around it, and Fafhrd’s hook glowed
equally, and there was a dazzling shower of blue sparks where hook
and shaft met. Glad was Fafhrd then for the wooden wrist between his
stump and his hook, for his every hair rose on end and he felt a prickling,
tickling strangeness all over his skin.

But still his hook dragged blindly at the arrow and now it came
away with it, sharply bent but no longer blue-glowing. He snatched it
off the hook with forefinger and thumb of his right hand, which still
clutched the bag. And then as he backed away into his dory, he saw her
loving countenance lengthening into a snout, her green eyes bulging
and moving apart, swimming sidewise across her face, her pale skin
turning to silvery scales, while her sweet mouth widened and gaped to
show row upon row of razorlike triangular teeth.

She darted at him, he thrust out his left arm to fend her off, her
jaws met with a great snap, while those dreadful teeth closed on his
hook with a wrench and a clash.

And then all was tumult and swirling confusion, there was a clangor
and a roaring in his ears, the solid water gave way and he and his
craft plunged down, down, down, gut-wrenchingly, to the sea’s surface
and without check or hindrance as far again below it — until he and his
dory were suddenly floating in a great tunnel of air floored, walled, and
roofed by water, as far below the sea’s surface as the water-wall had
risen above it — and extending up to that surface just as the wall had
stretched down to it. This incredible tunnel was lit silver by the misshapen
moon glaring down it and greenish yellow by a general phosphorescence
in its taut, watery walls, from within which monstrous
fish-faces moped and mowed at him and nuzzled the dory’s hull. The
other craft and the metamorphozing woman were gone.

The weirdness of the scene (together with the horrid transformation
of the Sea-Wrack woman) had banished his bewitchment and
brought all his mind alive. He knelt in the dory’s midst, peering about.
And now the roaring in his ears increased and a great wind began to
blow up the tunnel from the deeps, filling the dory’s small sail and driving
it along toward the mad moon. As this infernal gale swiftly grew to
a hurricane, Fafhrd threw himself flat, anchoring himself by gripping
the base of the dory’s mast in the bend of his left elbow (for his hook
was gone and his right hand had other employment). Silvery green
water flashed by, foam streamed back from the prow. And now a
steady thunder began to resound from the deeps behind, adding itself
to the tumultuous roaring, and it flashed through his frantic thoughts
that such a sound might be caused by the tunnel closing up behind him,
further increasing the might of the wind blowing him up this great silvery
throat.

Space opened. The dory leaped like a flying fish, skiddingly struck
roiled black water, righted itself, and floated flat — while from behind
came a final thunderous crack.

It was as if the sea herself had spat them forth, then shut her
watery lips.

In shorter space of time than he’d have thought possible without
magic, before even his breathing had evened out, the sea calmed and
the dory rode lonely and alone on its dark surface. Southward the
moon shone. Its rays gleamed on the fracture where his hook had been
bitten off. He realized that his right hand still gripped the neck of the
bag he’d grabbed from Cif’s ghost (or the Sea-Wrack woman, or whatever),
while still clipped between his thumb and forefinger was a bent
gold arrow.

Northward a ghostly aurora was glimmering, fading, dying. And
in the same direction the lights of Salthaven gleamed, closer than he’d
have guessed. He got out the single oar, set it across the stern, and began
to scull homeward against the steady breeze, keeping wary watch
on the silent black waters all around the dory.

* * *

Fafhrd was once more at archery practice on the heath of gray
standing stones, companioned by Gale. But today a brisk north wind
was singing in the heather and bending the gorse — forerunner more
than likely of winter’s first gale . . . and still no sign of Seahawk and
the Mouser.

Fafhrd had slept late this morning and so had many another Rime
Isler. It had been past midnight when he’d wearily sculled up to the
docks, but the port had been awake with the theft of civic treasures and
his own disappearance, and he’d been confronted at once by Cif, Groniger,
and Afreyt — Rill too, and Mother Grum, and several others. It
turned out that after Fafhrd’s vanishment (none had noted his actual
departure — an odd thing, that) a rumor had been bruited about
(though hotly denied by the ladies) that he had made way with gold
ikons. Great was the rejoicing when he revealed that he had got them
all safely back (save for the sharp bend in the Arrow of Truth) and an
extra one besides — one which, as Fafhrd was quick to point out, might
well be the lost Cube of Square Dealing, its edges systematically deformed
to curves. Groniger was inclined to doubt this and much concerned
about both deformations, but Fafhrd was philosophic.

He said, “A crooked Arrow of Truth and a rounded-off Cube of
Square Dealing strike me as about right for this world, more in line
with accepted human practices.”

His account of his adventures on, above, and below the sea and of
the magic Cif’s ghost had worked and her horrid last transformation
had produced reactions of wonder and amazement — and some
thoughtful frowning. Afreyt had asked some difficult questions about
his motives for following the Sea-Wrack woman, while Rill had smiled
knowingly.

As for the identity of Cif’s ghost, only Mother Grum had strong
convictions. “That’ll be somewhat from sunken Simorgya,” she’d
said, “come to repossess their pirated baubles.”

Groniger had disputed that last, claiming the ikons had always
been Rime Isle’s, and the old witch had shrugged.

Now Gale asked him as they collected arrows, “And the fish-lady
bit your hook off just like that?”

“Yes, indeed,” he assured her. “I’m having Mannimark forge me
a new one — of bronze. You know, that hook saved me twice — I’m
getting to feel quite fond of it — once from the blue essence of lightning
bolt coursing through the sea monster’s extremities and once from having
another chunk of my left arm bitten off.”

Gale asked, “What was it that made you suspicious of the fishlady,
so that you followed her?”

“Come on with those arrows, Gale,” he told her. “I’ve thought of
a new way to shoot around corners.”

This time he did it by aiming into the wind so that it carried his arrow
in a sidewise curve behind the gray standing stone hiding the red
bag. Gale said it was almost as much cheating as dropping an arrow in
from above, but later they found he’d hit his target.