Facing the city, Fafhrd said, “Salthaven.”
Studying the steaming, streaming, glittering white cliff and fiery peak beyond, the Mouser remembered the two scenes on his golden coins, all spent. This reminded him of the four silver coins he’d not been able to spend because they’d been snatched from his table at the Eel by the battered server, and of the two scenes on their faces: an iceberg and a monster. He turned round.
The monstreme was gone. Or rather, its last dissolving shards were sinking into the tranquil waters of the bay without sound or commotion, save that a little steam was rising.
Half-hurled, half-self-magicked from the monstreme’s bridge, where It had been gazing out in triumph over the welter of dire, frigid forms on the decks below, Its mind obsessed with evil, back into Its cramped black sphere, Khahkht cursed in voice like Fafhrd’s which midway became again a croak, “Damn to the depths of Hell Rime Isle’s strange gods! Their day will come, their dooms! Which now devise I whilst I snugly sleep….” It whipped the lid off the water-walled sun and spoke a spell that rotated the sphere until the sun was topmost, the Great Subequatorial Desert nethermost. It briefly fanned the former hot and then curled up in the latter and closed Its eyes, muttering, “…for even Khahkht is cold.” While on tall Stardock, Great Oomforafor listened to the news of the defeat, or setback rather, and of his dear daughters’ further treacheries, as told him by his furious, bedraggled son Prince Faroomfar, who’d been hurled back much as Khahkht.
As the Mouser turned back to the great white cliff, he realized that it must be made entire of salt—hence the seaport-name—and that the hot, volcanic waters coursing down it were dissolving it, which did much to account for the warm saltiness of ocean hereabouts and the swift melting of the frost monstreme. The last made all of magic ice, he mused, both stronger and weaker than the ordinary—as magic itself than life.
Fafhrd and he, looking toward the long wharf as they experienced sweetest relief and their ships drew steadily closer to it, saw two slender figures of different heights standing somewhat apart from the other seaside welcomers, who by that token and their proud attitudes and quietly rich garb—blue-gray the one, rust-red the other—must be individuals high in the councils of Rime Isle.
VIII: Rime Isle
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser supervised the mooring of Sea Hawk and Flotsam by bow and stern lines made fast round great wooden bollards, then sprang nimbly ashore, feeling unutterably weary, yet knowing that as captains they should not show it. They made their way to each other, embraced, then turned to face the crowd of Rime Isle men who had witnessed their dramatic arrival standing in a semicircle around the length of dock where their battered and salt-crusted ships were now moored.
Beyond the crowd stretched the houses of Salthaven port—small, stout and earth-hugging, as befitted this most northerly clime—in hues of weathered blue and green and a violet that was almost gray, except for those in the immediate neighborhood, which seemed rather squalid, where they were all angry reds and plague yellow.
Beyond Salthaven the low rolling land went off, gray-green with moss and heather, until it met the gray-white wall of a great glacier, and beyond that the old ice stretched until it met in turn the abrupt slopes of an active and erupting volcano, although the red glow of its lava and the black volume of its flamy smoke seemed to have diminished since they first glimpsed it from their ships.
The foremost of the crowd were all large, burly, quiet-faced men, booted, trousered, and smocked as fishers. Most of them bore quarterstaves, handling them as if they knew well how to use these formidable weapons. They curiously yet composedly eyed the twain and their ships, the Mouser’s broadbeamed and somewhat lubberly trader Flotsam with its small Mingol crew and squad of disciplined (a wonder!) thieves, Fafhrd’s trimmer galley Sea Hawk with its contingent of disciplined (if that can be imagined at all) berserkers. On the dock near the bollards where they’d made fast were Fafhrd’s lieutenant Skor, the Mouser’s—Pshawri—and two other crew members.
It was the quietness and composure of the crowd that puzzled and now began even to nettle the Mouser and Fafhrd. Here they’d sailed all this distance and survived almost unimaginable black hurricane-dangers to help save Rime Isle from a vast invasion of maddened and piratical Sea-Mingols bent on world-conquest, and there was no gladness to be seen anywhere, only stolidly appraising looks. There should be cheering and dancing and some northerly equivalent of maidens throwing flowers! True, the two steaming cauldrons of chowder borne on a shoulder-yoke by one of the fishermen seemed to betoken thoughtful welcome—but they hadn’t yet been offered any!
The mouth-watering aroma of the fish-stew now reached the nostrils of the crewmen lining the sides of the two vessels in various attitudes of extreme weariness and dejection—for they were at least half as spent as their captains and had no urge to conceal it—and their eyes slowly brightened and their jaws began to work sympathetically. Behind them the sun-dancing snug harbor, so recently black-skyed, was full of small ships riding at anchor, local fishing craft chiefly with the lovely lines of porpoises, but near at hand several that were clearly from afar, including a small trading galleon of the Eastern Lands and (wonder!) a Keshite junk, and one or two modest yet unfamiliar craft that had the disquieting look of coming from seas beyond Nehwon’s. (Just as there was a scatter of sailors from far-off ports in the crowd, peering here and there from between the tall Rime Islanders.)
And now the Rime Isler nearest the Twain walked silently toward them, flanked a pace behind by two others. He stopped a bare yard away, but still did not speak. In fact, he still did not seem so much to be looking at them as past them at their ships and crews, while working out some abstruse reckoning in his head. All three men were quite as tall as Fafhrd and his berserkers.
Fafhrd and the Mouser retained their dignity with some difficulty. Never did to speak first when the other man was supposed to be your debtor.
Finally the other seemed to terminate his calculations and he spoke, using the Low Lankhmarese that is the trade jargon of the northern world.
“I am Groniger, harbor master of Salthaven. I estimate your ships will be a good week repairing and revictualling. We will feed and board your crew ashore in the traders’ quarter.” He gestured toward the squalid red and yellow buildings.
“Thank you,” Fafhrd said gravely, while the Mouser echoed coolly, “Indeed, yes.” Hardly an enthusiastic welcome, but still one.
Groniger thrust out his hand, palm uppermost. “The charge,” he said loudly, “will be five gold pieces for the galley, seven for the tub. Payment in advance.”
Fafhrd’s and the Mouser’s jaws dropped. The latter could not contain his indignation, captain’s dignity or no.
“But we’re your sworn allies,” he protested, “come here as promised, through perils manifold, to be your mercenaries and help save you from the locust-swarm invasion of the raptorial Sea-Mingols counseled and led by evilest Khahkht, the Wizard of Ice.”
Groniger’s eyebrows lifted. “What invasion?” he queried. “The Sea-Mingols are our friends. They buy our fish. They may be pirates to others, but never to Rime Isle ships. Khahkht is an old wives’ tale, not to be credited by men of sense.”
“Old wives’ tale?” the Mouser exploded. “When we were but now three endless nights harried by Khahkht’s monstrous galley and sank it at last on your very doorstep. His invasion came that close to success. Did you not observe the universal blackness and hell-wind when he conjured the sun out of heaven three days running?”
“We saw some dark clouds blowing up from the south,” Groniger said, “under whose cover you approached Salthaven. They vanished when they touched Rime Isle—as all things superstitious are like to do. As for invasion, there were rumors of such an eruption some months back, but our council sifted ‘em and found ‘em idle gossip. Have any of you heard aught of a Sea-Mingol invasion since?” he asked loudly, looking from side to side at his fellow Rime Islers. They all shook their heads.
“So pay up!” he repeated, jogging his outthrust palm, while those behind him wagged their quarterstaves, firming their grips.
“Shameless ingratitude!” the Mouser rebuked, taking a moral tone as a leader of men. “What gods do you worship here on Rime Isle, to be so hardhearted?”
Groniger’s answer rang out distinct and cool. “We worship no gods at all, but do our business in the world clearheadedly, no misty dreams. We leave such fancies to the so-called civilized people: decadent cultures of the hot-house south. Pay up, I say.”
At that moment Fafhrd, whose height permitted him to see over the crowd, cried out, “Here are those coming who hired us, harbor master, and will give the lie to your disclaimers.”