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realists even in youth, or with sea-wanderers of one sort or another, come
like the rain -- or thunder-squall, and as swiftly gone.
All this being considered, things did seem to be working out quite well for
the two couples in the bed area.
And, truth to tell, this was a greater satisfaction and relief to the
Mouser and Fafhrd than either would admit even to himself. For each was indeed
beginning to find extended questing a mite tiring, especially ones like this
last which, rather than being one of their usual lone-wolf forays, involved
the recruitment and command of other men and the taking on of larger and
divided responsibilities. It was natural for them, after such exertions, to
feel that a little rest and quiet enjoyment was now owed them, a little
surcease from the batterings of fate and chance and new desire. And, truth to
tell, the ladies Cif and Afreyt were on the verge of admitting in their
secretest hearts something of the same feelings.
So all four of them found it pleasant during this particular Rime Isle
twilight to take a little bitter ale together and chat of this day's doings
and tomorrow's plans and reminisce about their turning of the Mingols and ask
each other gentle questions about the times before they'd all four met -- and
each flirt privily and cautiously with the notion that each now had two or
three persons on whom they might always rely fully, rather than one like-sexed
comrade only.
During the course of this gossiping Fafhrd mentioned again his and the
Mouser's fantasy that they were halves -- or perhaps lesser fractions,
fragments only -- of some noted or notorious past being, explaining why their
thoughts so often chimed together.
"That's odd," Cif interjected, "for Afreyt and I have had like notion and for
like reason: that she and I were spirit-halves of the great Rimish witch-queen
Skeldir, who held off the Simorgyans again and again in ancient times when
that island boasted an empire and was above the waves instead of under them.
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What was your hero's name -- or mighty rogue's? -- if that likes you better."
"I know not, lady, perhaps he lived in times too primitive for names, when man
and beast were closer. He was identified by his battle growling -- a leonine
cough deep in the throat whene'er he entered an encounter."
"Another like point!" Cif noted. "Queen Skeldir announced her presence by a
short dry laugh -- her invariable utterance when facing dangers, especially
those of a sort to astound and confound the bravest."
"Gusorio's my name for our beastish forebear," the Mouser threw in. "I
know not what Fafhrd thinks. Great Gusorio. Gusorio the Growler."
"Now he begins to sound like an animal," Afreyt broke in. "Tell me, have you
ever been granted vision or dream of this Gusorio, or heard perhaps in darkest
night his battle growl?"
But the Mouser was studying the dinted table top. He bent his head as
his gaze traveled across it.
"No, milady," Fafhrd answered for his abstracted comrade. "At least not
I. It's something we heard of a witch or fortune-teller, figment, not fact.
Have you ever heard Queen Skeldir's short dry laugh, or had sight of that
fabled warrior sorceress?"
"Neither I nor Cif," Afreyt admitted, "though she is in the Isle's history
parchments."
But even as she answered him, Fafhrd's questioning gaze strayed past her. She
looked behind and saw the Sea Wrack's open doorway and the gathering night.
Cif stood up. "So it's agreed we dine at Afreyt's in a half hour's time?"
The two men nodded somewhat abstractedly. Fafhrd leaned his head to the right
as he continued to stare past Afreyt, who with a smile obligingly shifted hers
in the opposite direction.
The Mouser leaned back and bent his head a little more as his gaze trailed
down from the tabletop to its leg.
Fafhrd observed, "Astarion sets soon after the sun these nights.
There's little time to observe her."
"God forbid I should stand in the evening star's way," Afreyt murmured
humorously as she too arose. "Come, cousin."
The Mouser left off watching the cockroach as it reached the floor. It had
limped interestingly, lacking a mid leg. He and Fafhrd drank off their
bitters, then slowly followed their ladies out and down the narrow street, the
one's eyes thoughtfully delving in the gutter, as if there might be treasure
there, the other's roving the sky as the stars winked on, naming those he knew
and numbering, by altitude and direction, those he didn't.
*.5.*
Their work well launched, Sheelba retired to Marsh center and Ningauble toward
his cavern, the understorm abating, a good omen. While the three gods smiled,
invigorated by their cursing. The slum corner of Heaven they occupied now
seemed less chilly to Issek and less sweatily enervating to Kos, while
Mog's devious mind spider-stepped down more pleasant channels.
Yes, the seed was well planted, and left to germinate in silence, might have
developed as intended, but some gods, and some sorcerers too, cannot resist
boasting and gossiping, and so by way of talkative priests and midwives and
vagabonds, word of what was intended came to the ears of the mighty, including
two who considered themselves well rid of Fafhrd and the Mouser and did not
want them back in Lankhmar at all. And the mighty are great worriers and spend
much time preventing anything that troubles their peace of mind.
And so it was that Pulgh Arthonax, penurious and perverse overlord of
Lankhmar, who hated heroes of all description -- but especially fair-
complected big ones like Fafhrd -- and Hamomel, thrifty and ruthless grand
master of the Thieves Guild there, who detested the Mouser generally as a
freelance competitor and particularly as one who had lured twelve promising
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apprentices away from the Guild to be his henchmen -- these two took counsel
together and commissioned the Assassins' Order, an elite within the Slayers'
Brotherhood, to dispatch the Twain in Rime Isle before they should point toe
toward Lankhmar. And because Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel were both most miserly
magnates and insatiably greedy withal, they beat down the Order's price as far
as they could and made it a condition of the commission that three-fourths of
any portable booty found on or near the doomed Twain be returned to them as
their lawful share.
So the Order drew up death warrants, chose by lot two of its currently
unoccupied fellows, and in solemn secret ceremony attended only by the Master
and the Recorder, divested these of their identities and rechristened them the
Death of Fafhrd and the Death of the Gray Mouser, by which names only they
should henceforth be known to each other and within the profession until the
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