He selected a lead ball from his pouch, centered it in the strap and, sighting quickly but carefully, whirled it twice round his head and loosed. The thunk as it struck square on was unexpectedly loud and resounding. Some Rimelanders applauded.
Afreyt came hurrying back to tell him not to do that again—it might offend god Odin. Can’t do anything right this morning, the Mouser told himself sourly.
But the incident had given him a thought. He said to Cif,”Say. maybe I was demonstrating the sling in my speech last night when I whirled the cube of square dealing a round on its cord. Do you recall?
Sometimes I get drunk on my own words and don’t remember too well.”
She shook her head. “Perhaps you were,” she said. “Or perhaps you were dramatizing the Great Maelstrom which will swallow the Sun Mingols. Oh, that wondrous speech!”
Meanwhile they had come abreast of Gallows Hill and Afreyt had halted the march. He strolled over with Cif to find out why and for farewells—this was about as far as they’d planned to come.
To his surprise he discovered that Afreyt had set the two men with spades and several others to digging up the gallows, to unrooting it entire, and also had had its bearers set down the litter in front of the little grove of gorse on the north side of the hill, and part its curtains. While he watched puzzledly, he saw the girls May and Gale emerge from the grove, walking slowly and carefully and going through the motions of assisting someone—only there was no one there.
Except for the men trying to rock the gallows loose, everyone had grown quite silent, watchfully attentive.
In low undertones Cif told the Mouser the girls’ names and what was going on.
“You mean to say that’s Odin god they’re helping? and they’re able to see him?” he whispered back. “I remember now. Afreyt said she was taking him along, but—Can you see him at all?”
“Not very distinctly in this sunlight,” she admitted. “But I have done so, by twilight. Afreyt says Fafhrd saw Odin most clearly in the dusk, evening before last. It’s given only to Afreyt and the girls to see him clearly.”
The strange slow pantomime was soon concluded. Afreyt cut a few spiny branches of gorse and put them in the litter (“So he’ll feel at home,” Cif explained to the Mouser) and started to draw the curtains, but, “He wants me inside with him,” Gale announced in her shrill childish voice. Afreyt nodded. the little girl climbed in with a shrug of resignation, the curtains were drawn at last, and the general hush broke.
Lord, what idiocy! the Mouser thought. We two-footed fantasies will believe anything. And yet it occurred to him uneasily that he was a fine one to talk, who’d heard a god speak out of a fire and had his own body usurped by one. Inconsiderate creatures, gods were.
With a rush and a shout the gallows came down and its base up out of the earth, spraying dirt around, and a half dozen stalwart Rimelanders lifted it onto their shoulders and prepared to carry it so, marching single file after the litter.
“Well, they could use it as a battering ram, I suppose,” the Mouser muttered. Cif gave him a look.
Final farewells were said then and last messages for Fafhrd given and mutual assurances of courage until victory and death to the invader, and then the expedition went marching off in great swinging strides, rhythmically. The Mouser, standing with Cif as he watched them go toward the Deathlands, got the impression they were humming under their breaths, “Mingols to their deaths must go,” song and stepping to its tune. He wondered if he’d begun to say those verses aloud, so that they’d picked it up from him. He shook his head.
But then he and Cif turned back alone, and he saw it was a bright day, pleasantly cool, with the breeze ruffling the heather and wildflowers waving on their delicate stems, and his spirits hegan to rise. Cif wore her russets in the shape ofa short gown, rather than her customary trousers, and her dark golden-glinting hair was loose, and her movements were unforced and impulsive. She still had reserve, but it was not that of a councilman, and the Mouser remembered how thrilling last night’s kiss had been, before he’d decided it didn’t mean anything. Two fat lemmings popped out just ahead of them and stood on their hind legs, inspecting them, before ducking behind a bush.
In stopping so as not to overrun them, Cif stumbled and he caught her and after a moment drew her to him. She yielded for a moment hefore she drew away, smiling at him troubledly.
“Gray Mouser,” she said softly, “I am attracted to you, but I have told you how you resemhle the god Loki—and last night when you swayed the Isle with your great oratory that resemblance was even more marked. I have also told you of my reluctance to take the god home with me (making me hire Hilsa and Rill, two familiar devils, to take care of him). Now I find, doubtless because of the resemblance, a kindred hesitation wiih respect to you, so that perhaps it is best we remain captain and councilwoman until the defense of Rime Isle is accomplished and I can sort you out from the god.”
The Mouser took a long breath and said slowly that he supposed that was best, thinking meanwhile that gods surely interfered with one’s private life. He was mightily tempted to ask her whether she expected him to turn to Hilsa and Rill (devils or no) to be comforted, but Joubted she would he inclined to allow him a god’s liberties to that degree (granted he desired such), no matter how Freat the resemblance between them.
In this impasse, he was rather relieved to see beyond Cif’s shoulder that which allowed him to say, “Speaking of she-demons. who are these that are coming from Salthaven?”
Cif turned at that, and therr true enough were Rill and Hilsa hurrying toward them through the heather, with Mother Grum plodding along behind, dark figure to their colorful ones. And although it was bright day three hours and more, Rill carried a lit torch. It was hard to see the flame in the sunlight. but they could mark by the way its shimmer made the heather waver beyond. And as the two harlots drew closer, it was evident that their faces were brimming with excitement and a story to tell, which was poured forth on their arrival and on the Mouser asking drily: “Why are you trying to light up the day, Rill?”
“The god spoke to us but now, most clearly from the Flame Den fire,” she began, “saying, ‘Darkfire, Darkfire, take me to Darkfire. Follow the flame—”’
Hilsa broke in. “’—go as it bends,’ the god said cracklingly, ‘turn as it wends, all in my name.’ “ Rill took it up again, “So I lit a fresh torch from the Flame Den blaze for him to travel in, and we carefully marked the flame and followed as it leaned, and it has led us to you!”
“And look,” Hilsa broke in as Mother Grum came up,”now the flame would have us go to the mountain. It points toward her!” And she waved with her other hand north toward the icefall and the silent black scoriac peak beyond with its smoke-plume blowing west.
Cif and the Mouser dutifully looked at the torch’s ghostly flame, narrowing their eyes. After a bit, “The flame does lean over,” the Mouser said, “but I think that’s just because it’s burning unevenly. Something in the grain of the wood or its oils and resins—”
No, indubitably it motions us toward Darkfire,” Cif cried excitedly. “Lead on, Rill,” and the women all turned sharply north. making for the glacier.
“But ladies, we have hardly time for a trip upmountain,” the Mouser called after protestingly, “what with preparations to be made for the Isle’s defense and tomorrow’s sailing against the Mingols.”
“The god has commanded,” Cif told him overshoulder. “He knows best.”
Mother Grum said in her growly voice, “I doubt not he intends us to make a closer journey than mountaintop. Roundabout is nearer than straight, I ween.”
And with that mystifying remark the women went on, and the Mouser shrugged and perforce followed after, thinking what fools these women were to be scurrying afer a burning bush or branch as if it were the very god, even if the flame did bend most puzzlingly. (And he had heard fire speak, night before last.) Well, at any rate, he wasn’t really needed for today’s repairs on Flotsam; Pshawri could boss the crew as well as he, or at least well enough. Best keep an eye on Cif while this odd fit was on her and see she—or her three strangely sorted god-servants—came to no harm.