The Second Book of Lankhmar

narrow, snugly abutting planks of the deck, his head toward the prow, his chin propped on his hands, still observing the night-sprights.
           "You know how groups of stars sometimes wink out mysteriously on clearest Nehwon nights?" the Mouser said lightly and bemusedly.
           "That's true enough, they do," Fafhrd agreed, somewhat sleepily.
           "That must be because the tubes of their waterspout-walls are bent enough, by a strong gale perchance, to hide their light, keep it from getting out."
           Fafhrd mumbled, "If you say so."
           After a considerable pause the Mouser asked in the same tones, "Is it not passing strange to think that in the heart of each dark, gray spout out there dotting the main, there burns (without any heat) a jewel of blinding, purest diamond light?"
           Fafhrd managed what might have been a weighty sigh of agreement.
           After another long pause the Mouser said reflectively, as one who tidied up loose ends, "It's easy now to see, isn't it, that the spouts small and great must all be tubes? For if they were solid water by some strange chance, they'd suck the oceans dry and fill the heavens with heaviest clouds — nay, with the sea! You get my point?"
           But Fafhrd had gone to sleep. In his sleep he dreamed and in that dream he rolled over on his back and one of the shimmer-sprights parted from her sister and winged down to flutter close above him: a long and slender, black-haired form, moon pale, appareled in finest silver-shot black lace that witchingly enhanced her nakedness. She was gazing down at him tenderly yet appraisingly, with eyes that would have been violet had there been more light. He smiled at her. She slightly shook her head, her face grew grave, and she flowed down against him head to heel, her wraithlike fingers busy at the great bronze buckle of his heavy belt, while with long, night-cool cheek pressed 'gainst his fevered one, she whispered softly and yet most clearly in his ear, each word a symbol finely drawn in blackest ink on moon-white paper, "Turn back, turn back, my dearest man, to Shadowland and Death, for that's the only way to stay alive. Trust only in the moon. Suspect all other prophecies but mine. So now, steer north, steer strongly north."
           In his dream Fafhrd replied, "I can't steer north, I've tried. Love me, my dearest girl," and she answered huskily, "That's as may hap, my love. Seek Death to 'scape from him. Suspect all flaming youth and scarlet shes. Beware the sun. Trust in the moon. Wait for her certain sign."
           At that instant Fafhrd's dream was snatched from him and he roused numbly to the Mouser's sharp cries and to the chilling fugitive glimpse of a face narrow, beauteous, and of most melancholy mien, pale violet-blue of hue and with eyes like black holes. This above wraithlike, like-complected figure, and all receding swift as thought amidst a beating of black wings.
           Then the Mouser was shaking him by the shoulders and crying out, "Wake up, wake up! Speak to me, man!"
           Fafhrd brushed his face with the back of his hand and mumbled, "Wha' happ'n?"
           Crouched beside him, the Mouser narrated rapidly and somewhat breathlessly, "The shimmer-sprights grew restless and 'gan play about the mast like corposants. One buzzed around me shrilly like a wasp, and when I'd driven it off, I saw the other nosing you from toe to waist to head, then nuzzling your neck. Your flesh grew silver-white, as white as death, the whiles the corposant became your glowing shroud. I greatly feared for you and drove it off."
           Fafhrd's muddied eyes cleared somewhat whilst the Mouser spoke and when the latter was done, he nodded and said knowingly, "That would be right. She spoke me much of death and at the end she looked like it, poor sibyl."
           "Who spoke?" the Mouser asked. "What sibyl?"
           "The shimmer-girl, of course," Fafhrd told him. "You know what I mean."
           He stood up. His belt began to slip. He stared down wide-eyes at the undone buckle, then drew it up and hooked it together swiftly.
           "Fafhrd, I don't know what you're talking of," the Mouser denied, his expression suddenly hooded. "Girl? What girl? Art seeing mirages? Has lack of erotic exercise addled your wits? Have you turned moon-mad lunatic?"
           At this point Fafhrd had to speak most sharply and shrewdly to