The First Book of Lankhmar

so swiftly."
           "They can last an eternity," Keyaira breathed in his ear. "Make them last, Mouse."

             * * * *

           Fafhrd woke shaking with cold. The pink globes were gray and tossing in icy gusts from the open door. Snow had blown in on his clothes and gear scattered across the floor and was piled inches deep on the threshold, across which came also the only illumination — leaden daylight.
           A great joy in him fought all these grim gray sights and conquered them.
           Nevertheless he was naked and shivering. He sprang up and beat his clothes against the bed and thrust his limbs into their icy stiffness.
           As he was buckling his ax belt, he remembered the Mouser down in the chimney, helpless. Somehow all night, even when he'd spoken to Hirriwi of the Mouser, he'd never thought of that.
           He snatched up his pack and sprang out on the ledge.
           From the corner of his eye he caught something moving behind him. It was the massive door closing.
           A titan gust of snow-fisted wind struck him. He grabbed the rough rock pillar to which he'd last night planned to tie the rope and hugged it tight. The gods help the Mouser below! Someone came sliding and blowing along the ledge in the wind and snow and hugged the pillar lower down.
           The gust passed. Fafhrd looked for the door. There was no sign of it. All the piled snow was redrifted. Keeping close hold of pillar and pack with one hand, he felt over the rough wall with the other. Fingernails no more than eyes could discover the slightest crack.
           "So you got tossed out too?" a familiar voice said gaily. " I was tossed out by ice gnomes, I'll have you know.
           "Mouser!" Fafhrd cried. "Then you weren't — ? I thought — "
           "You never thought of me once all night, if I know you," the Mouser said. "Keyaira assured me you were safe and somewhat more than that. Hirriwi would have told you the same of me if you'd asked her. But of course you didn't."
           "Then you too — ?" Fafhrd demanded, grinning with delight.
           "Yes, Prince Brother-in-Law," the Mouser answered him, grinning back.
           They pommeled each other around the pillar a bit — to battle chill, but in sheer high spirits too.
           "Hrissa?" Fafhrd asked.
           "Warm inside, the wise one. They don't put out the cat here, only the man. I wonder, though.... Do you suppose Hrissa was Keyaira's to begin with and that she foresaw and planned..." His voice trailed off.
           No more gusts had come. The snowfall was so light they could see almost a league — up to the Hat above the snow-streaked ledges of the Face and down to where the Ladder faded out.
           Once again their minds were filled, almost overpowered by the vastness of Stardock and by their own Predicament: two half-frozen mites precariously poised on a frozen vertical world only distantly linked with Nehwon.
           To the south there was a pale silver disk in the sky — the sun. They'd been abed till noon.
           "Easier to fashion an eternity out of an eighteen-hour night," the Mouser observed.
           "We galloped the moon deep under the sea," Fafhrd mused.
           "Your girl promise to make you go down?" the Mouser asked suddenly.
           Fafhrd nodded his head. "She tried."
           "Mine too. And not a bad idea. The summit smells, by her account. But the chimney looks stuffed with snow. Hold my ankles while I peer over. Yes, packed solid all the way down. So — ?"
           "Mouser," Fafhrd said, almost gloomily, "whether there's a way down or no, I must climb Stardock."
           "You know," the Mouser answered, "I am beginning to find something in that madness myself. Besides, the east wall of Stardock may hold an easy route to that lush-looking Rift Valley. So let's do what we can with the bare seven hours of light left us. Daytime's no stuff to fashion eternities."

             * * * *

           Mounting the ledges of the Face was both the easiest and hardest climbing they'd had yet to do. The ledges were wide, but some of them sloped outward and were footed with rotten shale that went skidding away into space at a touch, and now and again there were brief traverses which had to be done by narrow cracks and main strength, sometimes swinging by their hands alone.
           And