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chops and had tossed the bones into the hot fire, where they sputtered
merrily, Fafhrd settled back against the rocky wall and asked the Mouser to
let him look at the diamond eye.
The Mouser complied with some reluctance, once again experiencing repugnance
for the frostily-gleaming stone's tarry circlet. He had the feeling that
Fafhrd was going to do something unwise with the stone -- what, he didn't
know. But the Northerner merely glanced at it for a moment, almost puzzledly,
and then thrust it away in his pouch. The Mouser started to object, but Fafhrd
curtly replied that it was their common property. The Mouser could not but
agree.
They had decided to stand watch by turns, Fafhrd first. The Mouser snuggled
his cloak around him, and tucked under his head a pillow made of pouch and
folded hood. The coal fire flamed, the strange glow from the pit pulsed wanly.
The Mouser found it decidedly pleasant to be between the dry heat of the
former and the moist warmth of the latter, both spiced by the chill air from
outside. He watched the play of shadows through half-closed eyes. Fafhrd,
sitting between the Mouser and the flames, bulked reassuringly large,
wide-eyed, and alert. The Mouser's last thought as he drowsed off was that he
was rather glad that Fafhrd had the diamond. It made his own pillow that much
less bumpy.
He woke hearing an odd soft voice. The fire had burned low. For a frightening
moment he thought that a stranger had somehow come into the cave -
- perhaps muttering hypnotic words to put a sleepspell on his comrade. Then he
realized that the voice was the one Fafhrd had used last night, and that the
Northerner was staring into the diamond eye as if he were seeing limitless
visions there, and rocking it slowly to and fro. The rocking made the
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glittering beams from the gem synchronize with the pulsing glow in a way the
Mouser didn't like.
"Nehwon's blood," Fafhrd was murmuring, his voice almost a chant, "still
pulses strongly under its wrinkled rocky skin, and still bleeds hot and raw
from wounds in the mountains. But it needs the blood of heroes before it can
shape itself into the form of men."
The Mouser jumped up, grabbed Fafhrd by the shoulder and shook him gently.
"Those who truly worship Nehwon," Fafhrd went on entrancedly, as if nothing
had happened, "guard its mountain-wounds and wait and pray for the great day
of fulfillment when Nehwon shall wake again, this time in man's form, and rid
itself of the vermin called men."
The Mouser's shaking became violent and Fafhrd woke with a start --
only to assert that he had been awake all the time and that the Mouser had
been having a nightmare. He laughed at the Mouser's counter-assertions and
would not budge from his own. Nor would he give up the diamond, but tucked it
deep in his pouch, gave two huge yawns and fell asleep while the Mouser was
still expostulating.
The Mouser did not find his watch a pleasant one. In place of his former trust
in this rocky nook, he now scented danger in every direction and peered as
often at the steamy pit as at the black entrance beyond the glowing coals,
entertaining himself with vivid visions of a cooked priest somehow writhing
his way up. Meanwhile the more logical part of his mind dwelled on an
unpleasantly consistent theory that the hot inner layer of Nehwon was indeed
jealous of man and that the green hill was one of those spots where inner
Nehwon was seeking to escape its rocky jacket and form itself into all-
conquering man-shaped giants of living stone. The black Kleshite priests would
be Nehwon-worshippers eager for the destruction of all other men. And the
diamond eye, far from being a bit of valuable and harmless loot, was somehow
alive and seeking to enchant Fafhrd with its glittering gaze, and lead him to
an obscure doom.
Three times the Mouser tried to get the gem away from his comrade, the third
time by slitting the bottom of the Northerner's pouch. But though the
Mouser knew himself the most cunning cutpurse in Lankhmar, though perhaps a
trifle out of practice, Fafhrd each time hugged the pouch tighter to him and
muttered peevishly in his sleep and unerringly brushed away the Mouser's
questing hand. The Mouser thought of taking the diamond eye by force, but was
stopped by the unreasoning conviction that this would touch off murderous
resistance in the Northerner. Indeed, he had strong misgivings as to the state
in which his comrade would awake.
But when the cave-mouth finally lightened, Fafhrd roused himself with a shake
and a morning yawn and growl as stentorious and genial as any the Mouser had
ever winced at. Fafhrd acted with such chipper, clear-headed enthusiasm that
the Mouser's fears were quite blown away, or at least driven deep into the
back of his mind. The two adventurers had a cold-meat breakfast, and carefully
wrapped up and packed away the legs and shoulders that had been roasted during
the night.
Then while Fafhrd covered him with arrow nocked to taut bowstring, the
Mouser darted out and sprang to cover behind the outside of the stone
sheltering the entrance. Bobbing up here and there for quick glances over its
top, he scanned the cliff above the cave for any sign of ambushers. Holding
his sling at the ready, he covered Fafhrd while the latter rushed forth. After
a bit they satisfied themselves that there were at least no nearby lurkers in
the pale dawn, and Fafhrd led off with a swinging stride. The Mouser followed
briskly enough, but after a little while became possessed with a doubt. It
seemed to him that Fafhrd was not leading them straight along their course,
but swinging rather sharply off toward the left. It was hard to be at all
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sure, for the sun had still not broken through and the sky was filled with
purplish and yellowish scarflike clouds, while the Mouser could not tell for
certain just which way they had come yesterday, since things are very
different looking back than looking forward.
Nevertheless he voiced his doubts after a while, but Fafhrd replied with such
good-humored assurance, "The Cold Waste was my childhood playground, as
familiar to me as Lankhmar's mazy alleys or the swampways of the Great Salt
Marsh to you," that the Mouser was almost completely satisfied. Besides, the
day was windless, which pleased the Mouser no end, because of his worship of
warmth.
After a good half-day's trudging they mounted a snowy rise and the
Mouser's eyebrows rose incredulously at the landscape ahead: a tilted plain of
green ice smooth as glass. Its upper edge, which lay somewhat to their right,
was broken by jagged pinnacles, like the crest of a great smooth wave. Its
lower slope stretched down for a vast distance to their left, finally losing
itself in what looked like a white mist, while straight ahead there seemed to
be no end.
The plain was so green that it looked like a giddily enchanted ocean, tilted
at the command of some mighty magician. The Mouser felt sure it would reflect
the stars on a clear night.
He was somewhat horrified, though hardly surprised, when his comrade coolly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]