Meanwhile he said, “The Snow Women do not love you. Nor is Mor my mother your friend.”
“Do they think to frighten me with ice crystals?” Vlana demanded contemptuously. “Why, I know of Eastern fire sorceries compared to which their feeble magickings—”
“But you are in their territory now, at the mercy of their element, which is crueler and subtler than fire,” Fafhrd interposed, brushing away the last of the bulgings, so that the hoops stood up again and the leather stretched almost flat between them. “Do not underrate their powers.”
“Thank you for saving my tent from being crumpled. But now—and swiftly—go.”
She spoke as if of trivial matters, but her large eyes were thoughtful.
Just before snaking under the back wall, Fafhrd looked over his shoulder. Vlana was gazing at the side wall again, holding the empty cup he had given her, but she caught his movement and, now smiling tenderly, put a kiss on her palm and blew it toward him.
Outside the cold had grown bitter. Nevertheless, Fafhrd went to his clump of evergreens, drew his cloak closely around him, dropped its hood over his forehead, tightened the hood’s drawstring, and sat himself facing Vlana’s tent.
When the cold began to penetrate his furs, he thought of Vlana.
Suddenly he was crouching and had loosened his knife in its sheath.
A figure was approaching Vlana’s tent, keeping to the shadows when it could. It appeared to be clad in black.
Fafhrd silently advanced.
Through the still air came the faint sound of fingernails scratching leather.
There was a flash of dim light as the doorway was opened.
It was bright enough to show the face of Vellix the Venturer. He stepped inside and there was the sound of lacings being drawn tight.
Fafhrd stopped ten paces from the tent and stood there for perhaps two dozen breaths. Then he softly walked past the tent, keeping the same distance.
There was a glow in the doorway of the high, conical tent of Essedinex. From the stables beyond, a horse whickered twice.
Fafhrd crouched and peered through the low, glowing doorway a knife-cast away. He moved from side to side. He saw a table crowded with jugs and cups set against the sloping wall of the tent opposite the doorway.
To one side of the table sat Essedinex. To the other, Hringorl.
On the watch for Hor, Harrax, or Hrey, Fafhrd circled the tent. He approached it where the table and the two men were faintly silhouetted. Drawing aside his hood and hair, he set his ear against the leather.
“Three gold bars—that’s my top,” Hringorl was saying surlily. The leather made his voice hollow.
“Five,” Essedinex answered, and there was the slup of wine mouthed and swallowed.
“Look here, old man,” Hringorl countered, his voice at its most gruffly menacing, “I don’t need you. I can snatch the girl and pay you nothing.”
“Oh no, that won’t do, Master Hringorl.” Essedinex sounded merry. “For then the Show would never return again to Cold Corner, and how would your tribesmen like that? Nor would there be any more girls brought you by me.”
“What matter?” the other answered carelessly. The words were muffled by a gulp of wine, yet Fafhrd could hear the bluff in them. “I have my ship. I can cut your throat this instant and snatch the girl tonight.”
“Then do so,” Essedinex said brightly. “Only give me a moment for one more quaff.”
“Very well, you old miser. Four gold bars.”
“Five.”
Hringorl cursed sulfurously. “Some night, you ancient pimp, you will provoke me too far. Besides, the girl is old.”
“Aye, in the ways of pleasure. Did I tell you that she once became an acolyte of the Wizards of Azorkah?—so that she might be trained by them to become a concubine of the King of Kings and their spy in the court at Horborixen. Aye, and eluded those dread necromancers most cleverly when she had gained the erotic knowledge she desired.”
Hringorl laughed with a forced lightness. “Why should I pay even one silver bar for a girl who has been possessed by dozens? Every man’s plaything.”
“By hundreds,” Essedinex corrected. “Skill is gained only by experience, as you know well. And the greater the experience, the greater the skill. Yet this girl is never a plaything. She is the instructress, the revelator; she plays with a man for his pleasure, she can make a man feel king of the universe and perchance—who knows?—even be that. What is impossible to a girl who knows the pleasure-ways of the gods themselves—aye, and of the arch-demons? And yet—you won’t believe this, but it’s true—she remains in her fashion forever virginal. For no man has ever mastered her.”
“That will be seen to!” Hringorl’s words were almost a laughing shout. There was the sound of wine gulped. Then his voice dropped. “Very well, five gold bars it is, you usurer. Delivery after tomorrow night’s Show. The gold paid against the girl.”
“Three hours after the Show, when the girl’s drugged and all’s quiet. No need to rouse the jealousy of your fellow tribesmen so soon.”
“Make it two hours. Agreed? And now let’s talk of next year. I’ll want a black girl, a full-blooded Kleshite. And no five-gold-bar deal ever again. I’ll not want a witchy wonder, only youth and great beauty.”
Essedinex answered, “Believe me, you won’t ever again desire another woman, once you’ve known and—I wish you luck—mastered Vlana. Oh, of course, I suppose—”
Fafhrd reeled back from the tent a half dozen paces and there planted his feet firm and wide, feeling strangely dizzy, or was it drunk? He had early guessed they were almost certainly talking of Vlana, but hearing her name spoken made a much greater difference than he’d expected.
The two revelations, coming so close, filled him with a mixed feeling he’d never known before; an overmastering rage and also a desire to laugh hugely. He wanted a sword long enough to slash open the sky and tumble the dwellers in paradise from their beds. He wanted to find and fire off all the Show’s sky-rockets into the tent of Essedinex. He wanted to topple Godshall with its pines and drag it across all the actors’ tents. He wanted—
He turned around and swiftly made for the stable tent. The one groom was snoring on the straw beside an empty jug and near the light sleigh of Essedinex. Fafhrd noted with a fiendish grin that the horse he knew best happened to be one of Hringorl’s. He found a horse collar and a long coil of light, strong rope. Then, making reassuring mumbles behind half-closed lips, he led out the chosen horse—a white mare—from the rest. The groom only snored louder.
He again noted the light sleigh. A risk-devil seized him and he unlaced the stiff, pitchy tarpaulin covering the storage space behind the two seats. Beneath it among other things was the Show’s supply of rockets. He selected three of the biggest—with their stout ash tails they were long as ski sticks—and then took time to relace the tarpaulin. He still felt the mad desire for destruction, but now it was under a measure of control.
Outside he put the collar on the mare and firmly knotted to it one end of the rope. The other end he fashioned into a roomy noose. Then, coiling the rest of the rope and gripping the rockets under his left elbow, he nimbly mounted the mare and walked it near the tent of Essedinex. The two dim silhouettes still confronted each other across the table.
He whirled the noose above his head and cast. It settled around the apex of the tent with hardly a sound, for he was quick to draw in the slack before it rattled against the tent’s wall.
The noose tightened around the top of the tent’s central mast. Containing his excitement, he walked the mare toward the forest across the moon-bright snow, paying out the rope. When there were only four coils of it left, he urged the mare into a lope. He crouched over the collar, holding it firm, his heels clamped to the mare’s sides. The rope tightened. The mare strained. There was a satisfying, muffled crack behind him. He shouted a triumphant laugh. The mare plunged on against the rope’s irregular restraint. Looking back, he saw the tent dragging after them. He saw fire and heard yells of surprise and anger. Again he shouted his laughter.
At the edge of the forest he drew his knife and slashed the rope. Vaulting down, he buzzed approvingly in the mare’s ear and gave her a slap on the flank that set her cantering toward the stable. He considered firing off the rockets toward the fallen tent, but decided it would be anticlimactic. With them still clamped under his elbow, he walked into the edge of the woods. So hidden, he started home. He walked lightly to minimize footprints, found a branch of fringe pine and dragged it behind him and, when he could, he walked on rock.