The First Book of Lankhmar

after him," and then he found himself pulled down onto a great invisible pulsing shaggy bed three spans above the snow, and they told him "Cling!" and he clung to the long thick unseen hair, and then suddenly the living bed shot forward across the snow and off the rim and there tilted vertically so his feet pointed at the sky and his face at the Great Rift Valley —  and then the bed plunged straight down.
           The thin air roared past, and his beard and mane were whipped back by the speed of that plunge, but he tightened his grip on the handfuls of invisible hair, and a slender arm pressed him down from either side, so that he felt through the fur the throbbing heartbeat of the great invisible carpetlike creature they rode. And he became aware that somehow Hrissa had got under his arm, for there was the small feline face beside his, with slitted eyes and with beard-tuft and ears blown back. And he felt the two invisible girls' bodies alongside his.
           He realized that mortal eyes, could such have watched, would have seen only a large man clasping a large white cat and falling headfirst through empty space — but he would be falling much faster than any man should fall, even from such a vast height.
           Beside him Hirriwi laughed, as if she had caught his thought, but then that laughter broke off suddenly and the roaring of the wind died almost to utter silence. He guessed it was because the swiftly thickening air had deafened him.
           The great dark cliffs flashing upward a dozen yards away were a blur. Yet below him the Great Rift Valley was still featureless green — no, the larger details were beginning to show now: forests and glades and curling hair-thin streams and little lakes like dewdrops.
           Between him and the green below he saw a dark speck. It grew in size. It was the Mouser! — rather characteristically falling headfirst, straight as an arrow, with hands locked ahead of him and legs pressed together behind, probably in the faint hope that he might hit deep water.
           The creature they rode matched the Mouser's speed and then gradually swung its plunge toward him, flattening out more and more from the vertical, so that the Mouser was pressed against them. Arms visible and invisible clasped him then, pulling him closer, so that all five of the plungers were crowded together on that one great sentient bed.
           The creature's dive flattened still more then, halting its fall — there was a long moment while they were all pressed stomach-surgingly tight against the hairy back, while the trees still rushed up at them — and then they were coasting above those same treetops and spiraling down into a large glade.
           What happened next to Fafhrd and the Mouser went all in a great tumbling rush, much too swiftly: the feel of springy turf under their feet and balmy air sluicing their bodies, quick kisses exchanged, laughing, shouted congratulations that still sounded all muffled like ghost voices, something hard and irregular yet soft-covered pressed into the Mouser's hands, a last kiss — and then Hirriwi and Keyaira had broken away and a great burst of air flattened the grass and the great invisible flier was gone and the girls with it.
           They could watch its upward spiraling flight for a little, however, because Hrissa had gone away on it too. The ice-cat seemed to be peering down at them in farewell. Then she too vanished as the golden afterglow swiftly died in the darkening sky overhead.
           They stood leaning together for support in the twilight. Then they straightened themselves, yawning prodigiously, and their hearing came back. They heard the gurgling of a brook and the twittering of birds and a small, faint rustle of dry leaves going away from them and the tiny buzz of a spiraling gnat.
           The Mouser opened the invisible pouch in his hands.
           "The gems seem to be invisible too," he said, "though I can feel 'em well enough. We'll have a hard time selling them — unless we can find a blind jeweler."
           The darkness deepened. Tiny cold fires began to glow in his palms: ruby, emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and pure white.
           "No, by Issek!" the Gray Mouser said. "We'll only need to sell them by night — which is unquestionably the best time for trade in gems."
           The new-risen moon, herself invisible beyond the lesser mountains walling the