The Second Book of Lankhmar

entertainment for Loki) and Mother Grum to be our doorwoman and ensure our privacy.
           "That night went as I'd guessed it would. Loki had indeed taken up permanent residence in the fire here and after a while I was able to talk with him and get some answers to questions, though nothing of profit to Rime Isle as yet. I made arrangements with the Ilthmart for the Flame Den to be reserved one night each week, and like bargains with Hilsa and Rill to come on those nights and entertain the god and keep him happy. Hilsa, has the god been with you tonight?" she called to the woman feeding the fire, the one with red stockings.
           "Twice," that one replied matter-of-factly in a husky voice. "Slipped from the fire invisibly and back again. He's content."
           "Your pardon, Lady Cif," the Mouser interposed, "but how do these professional women find such close commerce with an invisible god to be? What's it like? I'm curious."
           Cif looked toward them where they sat by the fire.
           "Like having a mouse up your skirt," Hilsa replied with a short chuckle, swinging a red leg.
           "Or a toad," her companion amended. "Although he dwells in the flames, his person is cold." Rill had laid aside her cat's cradle and joined her hands, fingers interweaving, to make shadow-faces on the wall, of prick-eared gigantic werewolves, great sea serpents, dragons, and long-nosed, long-chinned witches. "He likes these hobgoblins," she commented.
           The Mouser nodded thoughtfully, watching them for a while, and then back to the fire.
           Cif continued, "Soon the god, I could tell, was beginning to get the feel of Nehwon, fitting his mind to her, stretching it out to her farthest bounds, and his oracles became more to the point. Meantime Afreyt, with whom I conferred daily, was caring for old Odin out on the moor in much the same way (though using girls to comfort and appease him instead of full-grown women, he being an older god), eliciting prophecies of import.
           "Loki it was who first warned us that the Mingols were on the move, mustering horse-ships against Rime Isle, mounting under Khahkht's urgings toward a grand climacteric of madness and rapine. Afreyt put independent question to Odin and he confirmed it — they were together in the tale at every point.
           "When asked what we must do, they both advised — again independently — that we seek out two certain heroes in Lankhmar and have them bring their bands to the Isle's defence. They were most circumstantial, giving your names and haunts, saying you were their men, whether or not you knew it in this life, and they did not change their stories under repeated questioning. Tell me, Gray Mouser, have you not known the god Loki before? Speak true."
           "Upon my word, I haven't, Lady Cif," he averred, "and am no more able than you to explain the mystery of our resemblance. Though there is a certain weird familiarity about the name, and Odin's too, as if I'd heard them in dreams or nightmares. But however I rack my brains, it comes no clearer."
           "Well," she resumed after a pause, "the two gods kept up their urgings that we seek you out and so half a year ago Afreyt and I took ship for Lankhmar on Hlal — with what results you know."
           "Tell me, Lady Cif," the Mouser intejected, rousing himself from his fire-peerings, "how did you and tall Afreyt get back to Rime Isle after Khahkht's wizardrous blizzard snatched you out of the Silver Eel?"
           "It transpired as swiftly as our journey there was long," she said. "One moment we were in his cold clutch, battered and blinded by wind-driven ice, our ears assaulted by a booming laughter. The next we had been taken in charge by two feminine flying creatures who whirled us at dizzying speed through darkness to a warm cave where they left us breathless. They said they were a mountain king's two daughters."
           "Hirriwi and Keyaira, I'll be bound!" the Mouser exclaimed. "They must be on our side."
           "Who are those?" Cif inquired.
           "Mountain princesses Fafhrd and I have known in our day. Invisibles like our revered fire-dweller here." He nodded toward the flames. "Their father rules in lofty Stardock."
           "I've heard of that peak and dread Oomforafor, its king, whom some say is with his son Faroomfar an ally of Khahkht. Daughters against father and brother — that