The Second Book of Lankhmar

you're busy seeing to the unshipping of the great bellows at the smith-forge preparatory to its conveyance here."
           "Lady," Mikkidu said, his face lightening up, "I do believe I get a glimmering of your intention."
           "And so do I!" was voiced admiringly by Skullick, who'd been listening in.
           "Good!" Cif told the latter. "Then you can take charge here whilst I'm away."
           And she dragged Fafhrd's ring off her thumb and gave it to Skullick.
         21
           Pshawri broke a pane of ice to free the waters of Last Spring for easy imbibing.
           When he had lapped his fill he backed away, dancing his thanks in a solemn little jig such as no one had ever seen him foot. He was a secretive young man.
           He ended his jig with a slow rotation widdershins, scanning his still, chill, hazy-white surroundings from right to left. Darkfire's smoke plume was a smudge in the northern milk-sky. His gaze lingered studiously on the southwest and south, as though he expected pursuers there, and from the height to which he roved it, either flying ones or else very big and tall indeed.
           He was at the boundary between the Moor and barren Lava Lands, though a dusting of snow hid the blackness of the latter, blurring the distinction.

       He undid one button of his pouch hanging against his belly in front and carefully wormed out the bottle Afreyt had given him, mindful of the pouch's precious contents, and drank off half the remnant of fortified sweet wine, toasting the smoke plume. Then he bore the bottle back to the spring, submerged it until it was almost full, recorked it and returned it to his pouch. After rebuttoning the latter, he felt it over with a gesture curiously reminiscent of a pregnant woman feeling for movement.
           He sketched a second jig that included a stamping defiance toward the south-southwest, then turned and loped away north.
         22
           Toward evening the girl Fingers woke refreshed in the bed at Cif's house she'd occupied night before last. She slid herself from under the blanket without waking Gale, slipped into one of the two robes of toweling lying across the foot, belted it, and wandered down to the large kitchen, where Afreyt, similarly clad, stood beside a narrow door of gray driftwood with a row of pegs and two small windows of horn in the wall alongside it. The pegs were empty save for two, whence hung a worn robe larger than her own and an iron-studded belt bearing sheathed dirk and small-ax, with boots set below.
           "I bathe in steam," the tall lady said. "Will you join me?"
           "Gratefully, Lady," the girl replied. "You heap me with kindnesses I can never repay."
           "My privilege," Afreyt replied. "In return you might tell me of Ilthmar and Tovilyis, where I've never been." Her violet eyes twinkled. "And scrub my back." She hung her robe, Fingers copying her, on an empty peg and led the way into a narrow chamber consisting of four wide driftwood steps and dimly lit by four small windows, and shut the door behind them. Beside it were a longhandled dipper and two buckets, the farther one filled with water, the near with round stones glowing dark red toward their center and toasting Fingers's calves and knees as she passed close to them. Afreyt poured two-and-a-half dippers of water into the hot rocks. There was an explosive sizzling and clouds of steam enveloped them. Afreyt seated herself on the third step, Fingers following suit, and noting or divining the girl's looks of surprise and mild alarm at the increase in the moist heat, remarked, "It teases the heart a little, does it not? Do not fear to inhale deeply. Move down a step if it's uncomfortable," she advised.
           "It does indeed, Lady," Fingers agreed, but held her level.
           "Now tell me of foul filthy Ilthmar and its nasty rat god," Afreyt suggested. "In what figure is he shown or depicted?"
           "In that of a man, Lady, with a rat's head and long tail. On ritual occasions his human priests wear a rat mask, carry a long snaky whip resembling a giant rat's tail, and go naked or robed according to the nature of the rite."
           "How is the relationship between humanity and the ratty kind rationalized?" Afreyt inquired.
           "In olden times, when rats had their cities aboveground, they warred with and enslaved a race of giants. Ourselves, Lady,