The First Book of Lankhmar

throaty voice, that so well matched half the laughter he had once heard in a snowfall, now said, "You shall judge all of me."

             * * * *

           Fafhrd woke in the dark and touched the girl beside him. As soon as he knew she was awake too, he grasped her by the hips. When he felt her body stiffen, he lifted her into the air and held her above him as he lay flat on his back.
           She was wondrous light, as if made of pastry or eiderdown, yet when he laid her beside him again, her flesh felt as firm as any, though smoother than most.
           "Let us have a light, Hirriwi, I beg you," he said.
           "That were unwise, Faffy," she answered in a voice like a curtain of tiny silver bells lightly brushed. "Have you forgotten that now I am wholly invisible? — which might tickle some men, yet you, I think..."
           "You're right, you're right, I like you real," he answered, gripping her fiercely by the shoulders to emphasize his feelings, then guiltily jerking away his hands as he thought of how delicate she must be.
           The silver bells clashed in full laughter, as if the curtain of them had been struck a great swipe. "Have no fears," she told him. "My airy bones are grown of matter stronger than steel. It is a riddle beyond your philosophers and relates to the invisibility of my race and of the animals from which it sprang. Think how strong tempered glass can be, yet light goes through it. My cursed brother Faroomfar has the strength of a bear for all his slimness while my father Oomforafor is a very lion despite his centuries. Your friend's encounter with Faroomfar was no final test — but oh how it made him howl — Father raged at him — and then there are the cousins. Soon as this night be ended — which is not soon, my dear; the moon still climbs — you must return down Stardock. Promise me that. My heart grows cold at the thought of the dangers you've already faced — and was like ice I know not how many times this last three-day."
           "Yet you never warned us," he mused. "You lured me on."
           "Can you doubt why?" she asked. He was feeling her snub nose then and her apple cheeks, and so he felt her smile too. "Or perhaps you resent it that I let you risk your life a little to win here to this bed?"
           He implanted a fervent kiss on her wide lips to show her how little true that was, but she thrust him back after a moment.
           "Wait, Faffy dear," she said. "No, wait, I say! I know you're greedy and impetuous, but you can at least wait while the moon creeps the width of a star. I asked you to promise me you would descend Stardock at dawn."
           There was a rather long silence in the dark.
           "Well?" she prompted. "What shuts your mouth?" she queried impatiently. "You've shown no such indecision in certain other matters. Time wastes, the moon sails."
           "Hirriwi," Fafhrd said softly, "I must climb Stardock."
           "Why?" she demanded ringingly. "The poem has been fulfilled. You have your reward. Go on, and only frigid fruitless perils await you. Return, and I'll guard you from the air — yes, and your companion too — to the very Waste." Her sweet voice faltered a little. "O Faffy, am I not enough to make you forego the conquest of a cruel mountain? In addition to all else, I love you — if I understand rightly how mortals use that word."
           "No," he answered her solemnly in the dark. "You are wondrous, more wondrous than any wench I've known — and I love you, which is not a word I bandy — yet you only make me hotter to conquer Stardock. Can you understand that?"
           Now there was silence for a while in the other direction.
           "Well," she said at length, "you are masterful and will do what you will do. And I have warned you. I could tell you more, show you reasons counter, argue further, but in the end I know I would not break your stubbornness — and time gallops. We must mount our own steeds and catch up with the moon. Kiss me again. Slowly. So."

             * * * *

           The Mouser lay across the foot of the bed under the amber globes and contemplated Keyaira, who lay lengthwise with her slender apple-green shoulders and tranquil sleeping face propped by many pillows.
           He took up the corner of a sheet and moistened it with wine from a cup set against his knee and with it rubbed Keyaira's slim right