This maneuver brought the Mouser back in turn to face Ississi, who was closing in again through coppery shreds, and this attack was in turn thwarted by the extensive billowing-out of a sheet of bold scarlet silk, which he had meant to present to the capable whore-turned-fisherwoman Hilsa, but now was as effectively reduced to scraps and tatters as any incarnadined sunset is by conquering night.
And so it went, each charming or at least clever fabric gift in turn sacrificed—brassy yellow satin for Hilsa’s comrade Rill, a rich brown worked with gold for Fafhrd, lovely sea-green and salmon-pink sheets (also for Cif), a sky-blue one (still another for Afreyt—to appease Fafhrd), a royal purple one for Pshawri (in honor of his first lieutenancy), and even one for Groniger (soberest black)—but each sheet successively defeating a dire attack by silvery sea demon or demoness, until the cabin had been filled with a most expensive sort of confetti and the bottom of the chest had been reached.
But by then, mercifully, the demonic attacks had begun to lessen in speed and fury, grow weaker and weaker, until they were but surly and almost aimless switchings-about (even floppings-about, like those of fish dying), while (most mercifully—almost miraculously) the dreadful suffocating pressure, instead of increasing or even holding steady, had started to fall off, to lessen, and now was continuing to do so, more and more swiftly.
What had happened was that when Seahawk had slid into the hole left by leviathan, the lead in her keel (which made her seaworthy) had tended to drag her down still farther, abetted by the mass of her great cargo, especially the bronze ingots and copper sheetings in it. But on the other hand, the greater part of her cargo by far consisted of items that were lighter than water—the long stack of dry, well-seasoned timber, the tight barrels of flour, and the woolen sacks of grain, all of these additionally having considerable amounts of air trapped in them (the timber by virtue of the tarred canvas sheathing it, the grain because of the greasy raw wool of the sacks, so they acted as so many floats). So long as these items were above the water they tended to press the ship more deeply into it, but once they were underwater, their effect was to drag Seahawk upward, toward the surface.
Now under ordinary conditions of stowage—safe, adequate stowage, even—all these items might well have broken loose and floated up to the surface individually, the timber stack emerging like a great disintegrating raft, the sacks bobbing up like so many balloons, while Seahawk continued on down to watery grave carrying along with it those trapped below decks and any desperately clinging seamen too shocked and terror-frozen to loosen their panic-grips.
But the imaginative planning and finicky overseeing the Mouser had given the stowage of the cargo at ‘Brulsk, so that Fafhrd or Cif or (Mog forbid!) Skor should never have cause to criticize him, and also in line with his determination, now he had taken up merchanting, to be the cleverest and most foresighted merchant of them all, taken in conjunction with the mildly sadistic fury with which he had driven the men at their stowage work, insured that the wedgings and lashings-down of this cargo were something exceptional. And then when, earlier today and seemingly on an insane whim, he had insisted that all those more-than-adequate lashings be doubled, and then driven the men to that work with even greater fury, he had unknowingly guaranteed Seahawk’s survival.
To be sure, the lashings were strained, they creaked and boomed underwater (they were lifting a whole sailing galley), but not a single one of them parted, not a single air-swollen sack escaped before Seahawk reached the surface.
.14.
And so it was that the Mouser was able to swim through the hatchway and see untamed blue sky again and blessedly fill his lungs with their proper element and weakly congratulate Mikkidu and a Mingol paddling and gasping beside him on their most fortunate escape. True, Seahawk was water-filled and awash, but she floated upright, her tall mast and bedraggled sail were intact, the sea was calm and windless still, and (as was soon determined) her entire crew had survived, so the Mouser knew there was no insurmountable obstacle in the way of their clearing her of water first by bailing, then by pumping (the oarholes could be plugged, if need be), and continuing their voyage. And if in the course of that clearing, a few fish, even a couple of big ones, should flop overside after a desultory snap or two (best be wary of all fish!) and then dive deep into their proper element and return to their own rightful kingdom—why, that was all in the Nehwonian nature of things.
.15.
A fortnight later, being a week after Seahawk’s safe arrival in Salthaven, Fafhrd and Afreyt rented the Sea Wrack and gave Captain Mouser and his crew a party, which Cif and the Mouser had to help pay for from the profits of the latter’s trading voyage. To it were invited numerous Isler friends. It coincided with the year’s first blizzard, for the winter gales had held off and been providentially late coming. No matter, the salty tavern was snug and the food and drink all that could be asked for—with perhaps one exception.
“There was a faint taste of wool fat in the fruit soup,” Hilsa observed. “Nothing particularly unpleasant, but noticeable.”
“That’ll have been from the grease in the sacking,” Mikkidu enlightened her, “which kept the salt sea out of ‘em, so they buoyed us up powerfully when we sank. Captain Mouser thinks of everything.”
“Just the same,” Skor reminded him sotto voce, “it turned out he did have a girl in the cabin all the while—and that damned chest of fabrics too! You can’t deny he’s a great liar whenever he chooses.”
“Ah, but the girl turned out to be a sea demon, and he needed the fabrics to defend himself from her, and that makes all the difference,” Mikkidu rejoined loyally.
“I never saw her as aught but a ghostly and silver-crested sea demon,” old Ourph put in. “The first night out from No-Ombrulsk I saw her rise from the cabin through the deck and stand at the taffrail, invoking and communing with sea monsters.”
“Why didn’t you report that to the Mouser?” Fafhrd asked, gesturing toward the venerable Mingol with his new bronze hook.
“One never speaks of a ghost in its presence,” the latter explained, “or while there is chance of its reappearance. It only gives it strength. As always, silence is silver.”
“Yes, and speech is golden,” Fafhrd maintained.
Rill boldly asked the Mouser across the table, “But just how did you deal with the sea demoness while she was in her guise? I gather you kept her tied up a lot, or tried to?”
“Yes,” Cif put in from beside him. “You were even planning at one point to train her to be a maid for me, weren’t you?” She smiled curiously. “Just think, I lost that as well as those lovely materials.”
“I attempted a number of things that were rather beyond my powers,” the Gray One admitted manfully, the edges of his ears turning red. “Actually, I was lucky to escape with my life.” He turned toward Cif. “Which I couldn’t have done if you hadn’t snatched me from the tainted gold in the nick of time.”
“Never mind, it was I put you amongst the tainted gold in the first place,” she told him, laying her hand on his on the table, “but now it’s been hopefully purified.” (She had directed that ceremony of exorcism of the ikons herself, with the assistance of Mother Grum, to free them of all baleful Simorgyan influence got from their handling by the demoness. The old witch was somewhat dubious of the complete efficacy of the ceremony.)
Later Skor described leviathan arching over Seahawk. Afreyt nodded appreciatively, saying, “I was once in a dory when a whale breached close alongside. It is not a sight to be forgotten.”
“Nor is it when viewed from the other side of the gunwale,” the Mouser observed reflectively. Then he winced. “Mog, what a head thump that would have been!”
III: The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars
.1.
Late one nippy afternoon of early Rime Isle spring, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser slumped pleasantly in a small booth in Salthaven’s Sea Wrack Tavern. Although they’d been on the Isle for only a year, and patronizing this tavern for an eight-month, the booth was recognized as theirs when either was in the place. Both men had been mildly fatigued, the former from supervising bottom repairs to Seahawk at the new moon’s low tide—and then squeezing in a late round of archery practice, the latter from bossing the carpentering of their new warehouse-and-barracks—and doing some inventorying besides. But their second tankards of bitter ale had about taken care of that, and their thoughts were beginning to float free.