The Second Book of Lankhmar

through all the motions of talking, and the winsome maids through those of attending her every word, as animatedly as before. Whatever was she saying?
           While carefully maintaining all underground breathing routines, he concentrated his attention on other channels of sensation than the visual, seeking to widen and deepen, and bringing to bear all his inner powers, and after a time his efforts were rewarded.
           The next heavy drop fell into the pool of the waterclock with an audible dulcet plash! He almost, but not quite, gave a start.
           Almost immediately a glow wasp buzzed and a diamond-fly whirred its transparent wings against the wire-thin pale bars.
           Hisvet leaned back on her elbows and said in silver tones, "At ease, girls."
           They appeared to relax their attention — a little, at any rate.
           She tapped three fingers against the ruby rondure of her lips as she yawned prettily. "My, that was a most lengthy and boring lecture," she commented. "Yet you endured it most commendably, dear Threesie," she addressed the dark-haired maid. "And you too, Foursie," she told the fair-haired one. She picked up from beside her a long emerald-headed pin and flourished it playfully. "There was not once the need for me to make use of this upon either of you," she said, laughing, "to recall to attention the willful wandering mind and wake the lazy dreamer."
           Both girls shaped their lips to appreciative smiles, while giving the pin most sour looks.
           Hisvet handed it to Foursie, who bore it somewhat gingerly across the room to a drawered chest topped with cosmetics and mirrors, and inserted it into a spherical black cushion that held jewel-headed others such, compassing all the hues of the rainbow.
           Meanwhile Hisvet addressed Threesie, whose eyes widened as she listened. "During my talk I twice got the distinct impression that we were being spied on by an evil intelligence, one of the criminous sort my father deals with, or one of our own enemies or a cast-off lover perchance." She searched her gaze around the walls, lingering somewhat overlong, the Mouser felt, in his direction.
           "I will meditate on it," she continued. "Dear Threesie, fetch me my silver-inlaid black opal figure of the world of Nehwon which I call the Opener of the Way."
           Threesie nodded dutifully and went to the same chest Foursie had just visited, passing her midway.
           "Dear Foursie," Hisvet greeted the blonde, "fetch me a beaker of white wine. My throat has grown quite dry with all that stupid talking."
           Foursie bowed her fair-thatched head and came to the low table set against the wall behind which the Mouser was embedded in earth invisible to him. He studied her appreciatively as she unstoppered the carafe he'd so disastrously snatched at and neatly filled a shining glass so tall and narrow it looked like a measuring tube. Her white uniform tunic was secured down the front with large circular jet buttons.
           Returning to her mistress, she went down on her knees without bending her slender body in any other way and proffered the refreshment.
           "Taste it first," Hisvet instructed.
           Getting this instruction, not uncommonly given servants by aristocrats, Foursie threw back her head and poured a short gush of the fluid between her parted lips without touching them to the glass, which she next held out to show its level was perceptibly decreased.
           Hisvet accepted it, saying, "That was well executed, Foursie. Next time don't wait for instruction. And you might lick your lips and smile to show that you enjoyed."
           Foursie bobbed her head.
           "Dear demoiselle," Threesie called from where she knelt at the chest of drawers, "I cannot find the Opener."
           "Have you searched carefully for it?" Hisvet called back, her voice becoming slightly thin. "It is an oblate sphere big as two thumbs, inset with silver bounding the continents and flat diamonds for the cities and a larger amethyst and turquoise making the death and life poles."
           "Dear demoiselle, I know the Opener," Threesie called respectfully.
           Hisvet, who was looking at Foursie again, shrugged her shoulders, then set the narrow glass to her lips and downed its contents in three swallows. "That was refreshing." Again the lip pats.
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