The Second Book of Lankhmar

on."
           "No, Lady," Pshawri assured her, "it's the Captain's signals I'm getting. I know his vibes. And Snowtreader would never confuse him with that tricksy stranger god. What's more, the dog didn't howl this time, as he did so dolefully when the moon was high, but only whined — a sign he's scenting a live thing, no carrion corpse."
           Cif observed, "You're awfully fond of the Captain, aren't you? I pray Skama you're right. Lead on, then. The others will catch up."
           She was referring to the five dark forms between her and the cookfire and the other lights around the shaft head: Rill, Skullick, Groniger, Ourph, and Mother Grum, all grown curious. Beyond them and the little lights round the shaft head, the setting moon was just touching the horizon, as though going to earth amongst Rime Isle's central hills.

             * * * *

           Back at the now-lonely cookfire Fafhrd poured himself a half mug of simmering gahvey, tempered it with brandy, drank half of that off in one big hot swallow, and set himself to think shrewdly and systematically of the Gray Mouser's plight, as he'd told Afreyt he would.
           He discovered almost at once that his whirling, plunging thoughts and fancies were not to be tamed that way.
           Nor did the rest of the mug's contents, taken at a gulp, enforce tranquillity and logic upon stormy disorder.
           He paced around in a circle, breaking off when he found himself beginning to twist, jerk, and stamp in a frenzy of control-seeking.
           He shook his fingers in front of his face, as if trying to conjure things from empty air.
           In a sudden frantic reversal of attitude he asked himself whether he really wanted to rescue the Mouser at all. Let the Gray One escape by his own devices. He'd managed it often enough in the past, by Kos!
           He'd have liked to measure his wilder imaginings against Rill's practicality, Groniger's sturdy reason, Mother Grum's dogmatic witch-reasonings, or Ourph's Mingol fatalism. But they'd all traipsed off after the dowsers. He'd told Afreyt he wanted solitude, but now he asked himself how was a man to think without talking? He felt confused, light-headed, light in other ways, as if a puff of wind might knock him down.
           He looked at the things around him: the fire, the soup, the piled lumber, the girls' clothes warming, the shelter tent, its cots.
           He didn't need to talk to children, he told himself. Let them sleep. He wished he could.
           But his strange nervousness grew. Finally, to discharge it in action, he seized a fresh brandy jug with his right hand, hooked up a lamp with his other upper extremity, set out across the meadow after the dowsers.
           He walked unevenly, veering and correcting himself. He wasn't sure he wanted to catch up with the dowsers. But he had to be moving, or else explode.
         16
           In the cozy nest from which she'd been watching Fafhrd's every action, Fingers roused Gale by yanking the pale tuft of her fine maiden hair. "That hurt, you fiend," the Rimish girl protested, rubbing her eyes. "No one else ever summoned me from slumber so."
           "It hurts most where you love most," the cabin-girl recited as by rote, continuing in livelier tones, "I knew you'd want to be wide awake, dear demon, to hear the latest news of your hero uncle with the growly name."
           "Fafhrd?" Gale was all attention.
           "The same. He's just come out of the hole, cavorted around the fire, and now taken a lamp and a jar and gone off after your dark-haired aunt who's dowsing for your other uncle. I think he's fey and wants watching over."
           "Where are our clothes?" Gale asked at once, squirming half out of the nest.
           "The lady with the scarred hand set them to warm close by the fire before they all went off ahead of Fafhrd. Come on, I'll race you."
           "Someone will see us." Gale clapped her slender forearm across her barely budded breasts.
           "Not if we rush, Miss Prim and Proper."
           The two girls streaked to the fire through the frigid air and, looking around and giggling the while, hurried into their toasty clothes as swiftly as if they'd both been sailors. Then they moved out hand in hand, following Fafhrd's lamp, while the last sliver of full moon hid itself behind Rime Isle's central hills and the sky