Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitués (he’d learned as he was leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no disturbances, least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded himself—if it had really ever happened), and he had found pleasure in watching the slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning fishers and sailors, two low-voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and a sprinkling of eccentrics and puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute misery, a skinny graybeard who peppered his ale, and a very slender silent woman in bone-gray touched with silver who sat alone at a back table and had the most tranquil (and not unhandsome) face imaginable. At first he’d thought her another whore, but no one had approached her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any notice of her, and she hadn’t even been drinking, so far as he could recall.
Last night he’d returned and found much the same crowd (and the same pleasant relief from his own boredom), and tonight he found himself looking forward to visiting the place again—after he’d been to the harbor and scanned south and east away for Seahawk.
.4.
At that moment Rill came around the next corner and hailed him cheerily, waving a hand that showed a red scar across the palm—memento of an injury that had created a bond between herself and Fafhrd. The dark-haired whore-turned-fisherwoman was neatly and soberly clad—a sign that she was not at the moment engaged in either of her trades.
They chatted together, at ease with each other. She told him about today’s catch of cod and asked after the Mouser (when now expected) and his and Fafhrd’s men and how Fafhrd’s stump was holding up (she was the one person he could talk to about that) and about his general health and how he was sleeping.
“If badly,” she said, “Mother Grum has useful herbs—or I might be of help.”
As she said that last, she chuckled, gave him an inquiring sidewise smile, and tugged his hook with her scarred forefinger, permanently crooked by the same deep burn that had left a red track across her palm. Fafhrd smiled back gratefully, shaking his head.
At that moment Pshawri came up with Skullick behind him to report on the day’s work and other doings, and after a moment Rill went off. Some of Fafhrd’s men had found employment on the new building going up where the Salt Herring had stood, a couple had worked on Flotsam, while the remainder had been cod-fishing with those men of the Mouser’s who were not on Seahawk.
Pshawri made his report in a jaunty yet detailed and dutiful manner that reminded Fafhrd of the Mouser (he’d picked up some of his captain’s mannerisms), which both irritated and amused Fafhrd. For that matter all the Mouser’s thieves, being wiry and at least as short as he, reminded Fafhrd of his comrade. A pack of Mousers—ridiculous!
He stopped Pshawri’s report with a “Content you, you’ve done well. You too, Skullick. But see that your mates stay out of the Wrack and Ruin. Here, take these.” He gave the young berserk his bow and quiver. “No, I’ll be supping out. Leave me, now.”
And so he continued on alone toward the Sea Wrack and the docks under the bright twilight, called here the violet hour. After a bit he realized with faint surprise and a shade of self-contempt why he was hurrying and why he had avoided Afreyt’s bed and turned down Rill’s comradely invitation—he was looking forward to another evening of watching and spinning dreams about the silent slender woman in bone-white and silver at the Wrack and Ruin, the woman with the so-distant eyes and tranquil, not unhandsome face. Lord, what romantical fools men were, to overpass the known and good in order to strain and stretch after the mysterious merely unknown. Were dreams simply better than reality? Had fancy always more style? But even as he philosophized fleetingly of dreams, he was wending ever deeper into this violet-tinged one.
.5.
Familiar voices raised in vehemence pulled him partially out of it. Down the side lane he was crossing he saw Cif and Groniger talking excitedly together. He would have stolen onward unseen, returning entirely to his waking dream, but they spotted him.
“Captain Fafhrd, have you heard the ill news?” the grizzle-haired harbor master called as he approached with long strides. “The treasury’s been looted of its gold-things, and Zwaaken who was guarding them struck dead!”
The small russet-clad woman with golden glints in her dark brown hair who came hurrying along with him amplified, “It happened no longer ago than sunset. We were close by in the council hall, ready to share the guard duty after dark (you’ve heard of last night’s apparition?) when there came a cry from the vault and a blue flash from the cracks around the door. Zwaaken’s face was frozen in a grimace and his clothes smoked … all the ikons were gone.”
It was strange, but Fafhrd barely took in what Cif was saying. Instead he was thinking of how even she was beginning to remind him of the Mouser and to behave like the Gray One. They said that people long in love began to resemble each other. Could that apply so soon?
“Yes, now it’s not just the Gold Cube of Square Dealing we lack,” Groniger put in. “All, all gone.”
His bringing in that roused Fafhrd again a little and nettled him. Altogether, in fact, he strangely found himself more irritated than interested or concerned by the news, though of course he would have liked to help Cif, who was the Mouser’s darling.
“I’ve heard of your ghost,” he told her. “All the rest is news. Is there any particular way in which I can help you now?”
They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had been a somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by himself again, he added, “You can call on my men for help if you need it in your search for the thieves. They’re at their dormitory.”
“On which you owe me rent,” Groniger put in automatically. Fafhrd graciously ignored that. “Well,” he said, “I wish you good luck in your hunt. Gold is valuable stuff.” And with a little bow he turned and continued on his way. When he’d gone some distance he heard their voices again, but could no longer make out what they were saying—which meant their words happily weren’t for him.
He reached the harbor while the violet light was still bright across the sky and realized with a throb of pleasure that that was one reason he had been in such a hurry and impatient of all else. The few folk about moved or stood quietly, unmindful of his coming. The air was still. He crossed to the dock’s verge and scanned searchingly south and southeast to where violet sky met unruffled gray sea in a long horizon line, with never a cloud or smudge of haze between.
No sign of a sail or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and Seahawk remained somewhere in the seaworld beyond.
But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before light failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the smooth salt cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland to the west, the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the right, Flotsam was moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light wooden pier that would be taken up when the winter gales arrived and to which a few ship’s boats and other small harbor craft were moored. Among these was Flotsam’s small sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in the habit of going out alone—more training in making do with a hook for a left hand—and also a narrow, mastless, shallow craft, little more than a shaped plank, that was new to him.
.6.
The violet light was draining away from the sky now and he once more scanned the southern and southeastern horizon and the long expanse of water between—a magical emptiness that drew him powerfully. Still no sign. He turned away regretfully and there, coming across the dock so as to arrive at its verge a score of feet from him, where the pier extended into the harbor, was his silent, tranquil-faced lady of the Sea Wrack. She might have been an apparition for all the notice the few dock-folk took of her; she almost brushed a sailor as she passed him by and he never moved. Behind her faint voices called to her from the town (what were they concerned about—a hunt for something? Fafhrd had forgotten) and the shadows came down from the north, driving out the last violet tones from the heavens. The silent woman had a pouch at her hip that clinked once faintly while her pale hands drew round her a silver-glinting bone-white robe that also shadowed her face. And then as she passed closest to him, she turned her head so that her black-edged green eyes looked straight into his, and she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth a short gold arrow which she showed him and then slipped into her pouch, which clinked again, and then she smiled at him for three heartbeats a smile that was at once familiar and strange, aloof and alluring, and then turned her head forward and went out onto the pier.