Modern classics of fanta.., p.21
Modern Classics of Fantasy, page 21
The sailors crowded aft as Slinoor emerged from the cabin with his officers and began to issue low-voiced orders. The Mouser caught “Slay Hisvet or her maid on sight. They’re not women but were-rats or worse,” and then the last of Slinoor’s orders: “Poise your parties below the hatch or trap by which you enter. When you hear the bosun’s whistle, move!”
The effect of this “Move !” was rather spoiled by a tiny twing and the arms-master clapping his hand to his eye and screaming. There was a flurry of movement among the sailors. Cutlasses struck at a pale form that scurried along the deck. For an instant a rat with a crossbow in his hands was silhouetted on the starboard rail against the moon-pale mist. Then the starsman’s crossbow twanged and the dart winging with exceptional accuracy or luck knocked the rat off the rail into the sea.
“That was a whitey, lads!” Slinoor cried. “A good omen!”
Thereafter there was some confusion, but it was quickly settled, especially when it was discovered that the starsman had not been struck in the eye but only near it, and the beweaponed parties moved off, one into the cabin, two forward past the mainmast, leaving on deck a skeleton crew of four.
The fabric the Mouser had been scraping parted and he most carefully eased out of the shredded hem an iron tik (the Lankhmar coin of least value) with half its edge honed to razor sharpness and began to slice with it in tiny strokes at the nearest loop of the line binding him. He looked hopefully toward Fafhrd, but the latter’s head still hung at a senseless angle.
A whistle sounded faintly, followed some ten breaths later by a louder one from another part of the hold, it seemed. Then muffled shouts began to come in flurries; there were two screams, something thumped the deck from below, and a sailor swinging a rat squeaking in a net dashed past the Mouser.
The Mouser’s fingers told him he was almost through the first loop. Leaving it joined by a few threads, he began to slice at the next loop, bending his wrist acutely to do it.
An explosion shook the deck, stinging the Mouser’s feet. He could not conjecture its nature and sawed furiously with his sharpened coin. The skeleton crew cried out and one of the helmsmen fled forward but the other stuck by the tiller. Somehow the gong clanged once, though no one was by it.
* * * *
THEN Squid’s sailors began to pour up out of the hold, half of them without weapons and frantic with fear. They milled about. The Mouser could hear sailors dragging Squid’s boats, which were forward of the mainmast, to the ship’s side. The Mouser gathered that the sailors had fared most evilly below, assaulted by batallions of black rats, confused by false whistles, slashed and jabbed from dark corners, stung by darts, two struck in the eye and blinded. What had completed their rout was that, coming to a hold of un-sacked grain, they’d found the air above it choked with grain dust from the recent churnings and scatterings of a horde of rats, and Frix had thrown in fire from beyond, exploding the stuff and knocking them off their feet though not setting fire to the ship.
At the same time as the panic-stricken sailors, there also came on deck another group, noted only by the Mouser—a most quiet and orderly file of black rats that went climbing around him up the mainmast. The Mouser weighed crying an alarm, although he wouldn’t have wagered a tik on his chances of survival with hysterical be-cutlassed sailors rat-slashing all around him.
In any case his decision was made for him in the negative by Skwee, who climbed on his left shoulder just then. Holding on by a lock of the Mouser’s hair, Skwee leaned out in front of him, staring into the Mouser’s left eye with his own two wally blue ones under his black-plumed silver helmet. Skwee touched pale paw to his buck-toothed lips, enjoining silence, then patted the little sword at his side and jerked his rat-thumb across his rat-throat to indicate the penalty for silence broken. Thereafter he retired into the shadows by the Mouser’s ear, presumably to watch the routed sailors and wave on and command his own company—and keep close to the Mouser’s jugular vein. The Mouser kept sawing with his coin.
The starsman came aft followed by three sailors with two white lanterns apiece. Skwee crowded back closer between the Mouser and the mast, but touched the cold flat of his sword to the Mouser’s neck, just under the ear, as a reminder. The Mouser remembered Hisvet’s kiss. With a frown at the Mouser the starsman avoided the mainmast and had the sailors hang their lanterns to the aftermast and the crane fittings and the forward range of the afterdeck, fussing about the exact positions. He asserted in a high babble that light was the perfect military defense and counter-weapon, and talked wildly of light-entrenchmente and light palisades, and was just about to set the sailors hunting more lamps, when Slinoor limped out of the cabin bloody-foreheaded and looked around.
“Courage, lads,” Slinoor shouted hoarsely. “On deck we’re still masters. Let down the boats orderly, lads, we’ll need ‘em to fetch the marines. Run up the red lamp! You there, gong the alarm!”
Someone responded, “The gong’s gone overboard. The ropes that hung it—gnawed!”
At the same time thickening waves of fog came out of the east, shrouding Squid in deadly moonlit silver. A sailor moaned. It was a strange fog that seemed to increase rather than diminish the amount of light cast by the moon and the atarsmen’s lantern. Colors stood out, yet soon there was only white wall beyond the Squid’s rails.
Slinoor ordered, “Get up the spare gong! Cook, let’s have your biggest kettles, lids and pots—anything to beat an alarm!”
There were two splashing thumps as Squid’s boats hit the water.
Someone screamed agonizingly in the cabin.
Then two things happened together. The mainsail parted from the mast, falling to starboard like a cathedral ceiling in a gale, its lines and ties to the mast gnawed loose or sawed by tiny swords. It floated darkly on the water, dragging the boom wide. Squid lurched to starboard.
At the same time a horde of black rats spewed out of the cabin door and came pouring over the taffrail, the latter presumably by way of the stern lights. They rushed at the humans in waves, springing with equal force and resolution whether they landed on pike points or tooth-clinging to noses and throats.
* * * *
THE sailors broke and made for the boats, rats landing on their backs and nipping at their heels. The officers fled too. Slinoor was carried along, crying for a last stand. Skwee came out with his sword on the Mouser’s shoulder and bravely waved on his suicidal soldiery, chittering high, then leaped down to follow in their rear. Four white rats armed with crossbows knelt on the crane fittings and began to crank, load and fire with great efficiency.
Splashings began, first two and three, then what sounded like a half dozen together, mixed with screams. The Mouser twisted his head around and from the corner of his eye saw the last two of Squid’s sailors leap over the side. Straining a little further around yet, he saw Slinoor clutch to his chest two rats that worried him and follow the sailors. The four white-furred arbalasters leaped down from the crane fittings and raced toward a new firing position on the prow. Hoarse human cries came up from the water and faded off. Silence fell on Squid like the fog, broken only by the inevitable chitterings and those few now.
When the Mouser turned his head aft again, Hisvet was standing before him. She was dressed in close-fitting black leather from neck to elbows and knees, looking most like a slim boy, and she wore a black leather helmet fitting down over her temples and cheeks like Skwee’s silver one, her white hair streaming down in a tail behind making her plume. A slim dagger was scabbarded on her left hip.
“Dear, dear Dirksman,” she said softly, smiling with her little mouth, “You at least do not desert me,” and she reached out and almost brushed his cheek with her fingers. Then, “Bound!” she said, seeming to see the rope for the first time and drawing back her hand. “We must remedy that, Dirksman.”
“I would be most grateful, White Princess,” the Mouser said humbly. Nevertheless, he did not let go his sharpened coin, which although somewhat dulled had now sliced almost halfway through a third loop.
“We must remedy that,” Hisvet repeated a little absently, her gaze straying beyond the Mouser. “But my fingers are too soft and unskilled to deal with such mighty knots as I see. Frix will release you. Now I must hear Skwee’s report on the afterdeck. Skwee-skwee-skwee!”
As she turned and walked aft the Mouser saw that her hair all went through a silver-ringed hole in the back top of her black helmet. Skwee came running Past the Mouser and when he had almost caught up with Hisvet he took position to her right and three rat-paces behind her, strutting with forepaw on sword-hilt and head held high, like a captain-general behind his empress.
As the Mouser resumed his weary sawing of the third loop, he looked at Fafhrd bound to the rail and saw that the black kitten was crouched fur-on-end on Fafhrd’s neck and slowly raking his cheek with the spread claws of a forepaw while the Northerner still snored garglingly. Then the kitten dipped its head and bit Fafhrd’s ear. Fafhrd groaned piteously, but then came another of the gargling snores. The kitten resumed its cheek-raking. Two rats, one white, one black, walked by and the kitten wauled at them softly yet direly. The rats stopped and stared, then scurried straight toward the afterdeck, presumably to report the unwholesome condition to Skwee or Hisvet.
* * * *
THE Mouser decided to burst loose without more ado, but just then the four white arbalasters came back dragging a brass cage of frightenedly cheeping wrens the Mouser remembered seeing hanging by a sailor’s bunk in the forecastle. They stopped by the crane fittings again and started a wren-shoot. They’d release one of the tiny terrified flutterers, then as it winged off bring it down with a well-aimed dart—at distances up to five and six yards, never missing. Once or twice one of them would glance at the Mouser narrowly and touch the dart’s point.
Frix stepped down the ladder from the afterdeck. She was now dressed like her mistress, except she had no helmet, only the tight silver hairnet, though the silver rings were gone from her wrists.
“Lady Frix!” the Mouser called in a light voice, almost gayly. It was hard to say how one should speak on a ship manned by rats, but a high voice seemed indicated.
She came towards him smiling, but “Frix will do better,” she said. “Lady is such a corset title.”
“Frix then,” the Mouser called, “on your way would you scare that black witch cat from our poppy-sodden friend? He’ll rake out my comrade’s eye.”
Frix looked sideways to see what the Mouser meant, but still kept stepping toward him.
“I never interfere with another person’s pleasures or pains, since it’s hard to be certain which are which,” she informed him, coming close. “I only carry out my mistress’s directives. Now she bids me tell you be patient and of good cheer. Your trials will soon be over. And this withal she sends you as a remembrancer.” Lifting her mouth, she kissed the Mouser softly on each upper eyelid.
The Mouser said, “That’s the kiss with which the green priestess of Djil seals the eyes of those departing this world.”
“Is it?” Frix asked softly.
“Aye, ‘tis,” the Mouser said with a little shudder, continuing briskly, “So now undo me these knots, Frix, which is something your mistress has directed. And then perchance give me a livelier smack—after I’ve looked to Fafhrd.”
“I only carry out the directives of my mistress’ own mouth,” Frix said, shaking her head a little sadly. “She said nothing to me about untieing knots. But doubtless she will direct me to loose you shortly.”
“Doubtless,” the Mouser agreed, a little glumly, forbearing to saw with his coin at the third loop while Frix watched him. If he could but sever at once three loops, he told himself, he might be able to shake off the remaining ones in a not impossibly large number of heartbeats.
As if on cue, Hisvet stepped lightly down from the afterdeck and hastened to them.
“Dear mistress, do you bid me undo the Dirksman his knots?” Frix asked at once, almost as if she wanted to be told to.
“I will attend to matters here,” Hisvet replied hurriedly. “Go you to the afterdeck, Frix, and harken and watch for my father. He delays overlong this night.” She also ordered the white cross bow-rats, who’d winged their last wren, to retire to the afterdeck.
* * * *
AFTER Frix and the rats had gone, Hisvet gazed at the Mouser for the space of a score of heartbeats, frowning just a little, studying him deeply with her red-irised eyes.
Finally she said with a sigh, “I wish I could be certain.”
“Certain of what, White Princessship?” the Mouser asked.
“Certain that you love me truly,” she answered softly yet downrightly, as if he surely knew. “Many men—aye and women too and demons and beasts—have told me they loved me truly, but truly I think none of them loved me for myself (save Frix, whose happiness is in being a shadow) but only because I was young or beautiful or a demoiselle of Lankhmar or dreadfully clever or had a rich lather or was dowered with power, being blood-related to the rats, which is a certain sign of power in more worlds than Nehwon. Do you truly love me for myself, Gray Mouser?”
“I love you most truly indeed, Shadow Princess,” the Mouser said with hardly an instant’s hesitation. “Truly I love you for yourself alone, Hisvet. I love you more dearly than aught else in Nehwon—aye, and in all other worlds too and heaven and hell besides.”
Just then Fafhrd, cruelly clawed or bit by the kitten, let off a most piteous groan indeed with a dreadful high note in it, and the Mouser said impulsively, “Dear Princess, first chase me that were-cat from my large friend, for I fear it will be his blinding and death’s bane, and then we shall discourse of our great loves to the end of eternity.”
“That is what I mean,” Hisvet said softly and reproachfully. “If you loved me truly for myself, Gray Mouser, you would not care a feather if your closest friend or your wife or mother or child were tortured and done to death before your eyes, so long as my eyes were upon you and I touched you with my fingertips. With my kisses on your lips and my slim hands playing about you, my whole person accepting and welcoming you, you could watch your large friend there scratched to blindness and death by a cat—or mayhap eaten alive by rats—and be utterly content, I have touched few things in this world, Gray Mouser. I have touched no man, or male demon or larger male beast, save by the proxy of Frix. Remember that, Gray Mouser.”
“To be sure, Dear Light of my Life!” the Mouser replied most spiritedly, certain now of the sort of self-adoring madness with which he had to deal, since he had a touch of the same mania and so was well-acquainted with it “Let the barbarian bleed to death by pinpricks! Let the cat have his eyes! Let the rats banquet on him to his bones! What skills it while we trade sweet words and caresses, discoursing to each other with our entire bodies and our whole souls!”
Meanwhile, however, he had started to saw again most fiercely with his now-dulled coin, unmindful of Hisvet’s eyes upon him. It joyed him to feel Cat’s Claw lying against his ribs.
“That’s spoken like my own true Mouser,” Hisvet said with most melting tenderness, brushing her fingers so close to his cheek that he could feel the tiny chill zephyr of their passage. Then, turning, she called, “Holla, Frix! Send to me Skwee and the White Company. Each may bring with him two black comrades of his own choice. I have somewhat of a reward for them, somewhat of a special treat. Skwee! Skwee-skwee-skwee!”
What would have happened then, both instantly and ultimately, is impossible to say, for at that moment Frix hailed, “Ahoy!” into the fog and called happily down, “A black sail! Oh Blessed Demoiselle, it is your father!”
* * * *
OUT of the pearly fog to starboard came the shark’s-fin triangle of the upper portion of a black sail, running alongside Squid aft of the dragging brown mainsail. Two boathooks a small ship’s length apart came up and clamped down on the starboard middeck rail while the black sail flapped. Frix came running lightly forward and secured to the rail midway between the boathooks the top of a rope ladder next heaved up from the black cutter (for surely this must be that dire craft, the Mouser thought).
Then up the ladder and over the rail came nimbly an old man of Lankhmar dressed all in black leather and on his left shoulder a white rat clinging with right forepaw to a cheek-flap of his black leather cap. He was followed swiftly by two lean, bald Mingols with faces yellow-brown as old lemons, each shoulder-bearing a large black rat that steadied itself by a yellow ear.
At that moment, most coincidentally, Fafhrd groaned again, more loudly, and opened his eyes and cried out in the faraway moan of an opium-dreamer, “Millions of black monkeys! Take him off, I say! Tis a black fiend of hell torments me! Take him off!”
At that the black kitten raised up, stretched out its small evil face, and bit Fafhrd on the nose. Disregarding this interruption, Hisvet threw up her hand at the newcomers and cried clearly, “Greetings, oh Cocommander my Father! Greetings, peerless rat captain Grig! Clam is conquered by you, now Squid by me, and this very night, after small business of my own attended to, shall see the perdition of all this final fleet. Then it’s Movarl estranged, the Mingols across the Sinking Land, Glipkerio hurled down, and the rats ruling Lankhmar under my overlordship and yours!”
