The Second Book of Lankhmar

girls as gathering flowers and weaving garlands whilst fancying themselves little wives and mothers — "
           " — and put them all to the sword and cut their wives' throats!" Afreyt finished. "Oh, we gathered flowers too, sometimes."
           Fafhrd chuckled, then his voice grew grave. "And so you've inherited full council membership. Groniger always mentions you with respect, though I think he has suspicions of something between us — and now you've somehow discovered a stray old god or two whom you think you can trust not to betray you, or delude you with senile ravings, and he's told you of a great two-pronged Mingol invasion of Rime Isle preparatory to world conquest, and on the strength of that you went to Lankhmar and hired the Mouser and me to be your mercenary captains, using your own fortunes for the purpose, I fancy — "
           "Cif is the council treasurer," she assured him with a meaningful crook of her lips. "She's very good at figures and accounts — as I am with the pen and words, the council's secretary."
           "And yet you trust this god," Fafhrd pressed on, "this old god who loves gallows and seems to draw strength from them. Myself, I'm very suspicious of all old men and gods. In my experience they're full of lechery and avarice — and have a long lifetime's experience of evil to draw on in their twisty machinations."
           "Agreed," Afreyt said. "But when all's said and done, a god's a god. Whatever nasty itches his old heart may have, whatever wicked thoughts of death and doom, he must first be true to his god's nature: which is, to hear what we say and hold us to it, to speak truth to man about what's going on in distant places, and to prophecy honestly — though he may try to trick us with words if we don't listen to him very carefully."
           "That does agree with my experience of the breed," Fafhrd admitted. "Tell me, why is this called the Hill of the Eight-Legged Horse?"
           Without a blink at the change of subject, Afreyt replied, "Because it takes four men to carry a coffin or the laid-out corpse of one who's been hanged — or died any other way. Four men — eight legs. You might have guessed."
           "And what is this god's name?"
           Afreyt said: "Odin."
           Fafhrd had the strangest feeling at the gong-beat sound of that simple name — as if he were on the verge of recalling memories of another lifetime. Also, it had something of the tone of the gibberish spoken by Karl Treuherz, that strange otherworlder who had briefly come into the lives of Fafhrd and the Mouser astride the neck of a two-headed sea serpent whilst they were in the midst of their great adventure-war with the sapient rats of Lankhmar Below-Ground. Only a name — yet there was the feeling of walls between world disturbed.
           At the same time he was looking into Afreyt's wide eyes and noting that the irises were violet, rather than blue as they had seemed in the yellow torchlight of the Eel — and then wondering how he could see any violet at all in anything when that tone had some time ago faded entirely from the sky, which was now full night except that the moon a day past full had just now lifted above the eastern highland.
           From beyond Afreyt a light voice called tranquilly, attuned to the night, "The god sleeps."
           One of the girls was standing before the mouth of the bower, a slim white shape in the moonlight, clad only in simple frock that was hardly more than a shift and left one shoulder bare. Fafhrd marvelled that she was not shivering in the chill night air. Her two companions were dimmer shapes behind her.
           "Did he give any trouble, Mara?" Afreyt called. (Fafhrd felt a strange feeling at that name, too.) "Nothing new," the girl responded.
           Afreyt said, "Well, put on your boots and hooded cloak — May and Gale, you also — and follow me and the foreign gentleman, out of earshot, to Salthaven. You'll be able to visit the god at dawn, May, to bring him milk?"
           "I will."
           "Your children?" Fafhrd asked in a whisper.
           Afreyt shook her head. "Cousins. Meanwhile," she said in a voice that was likewise low, but businesslike, "you and I will discuss your instant expedition with the berserks to Cold Harbor."
           Fafhrd nodded, although his eyebrows rose a little. There was a fugitive movement in the air overhead and