Archiwum
- Index
- Burroughs, Edgar Rice Mars 08 Swords of Mars
- MARTIN FRITZ Dlaczego, dlaczego, dlaczego
- Holly Lisle World Gates 02 Wreck Of Heaven
- Jeff Head Dragon's Fury 2 Trodden Under
- Sandemo_Margit_17_Narzeczona_Fabiana
- Maberry Jonathan WilkośÂ‚ak
- Marquez_Gabriel_Garcia_ _Na_falszywych_papierach_w_Chile
- Haycox Ernest Pieklo w dolinie
- śąydowska wojna Grynberg Henryk
- Zwiadowcy 06 Obl晜źenie Macindaw Flanagan John
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- aeie.pev.pl
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kneeling before him -- for how long she had been there he could not say --
and proffering an ebony tray on which stood a squat stone jug and a copper
cup.
She knelt with one leg doubled, the other thrust behind her as in a fencing
lunge, stretching the short skirt of her green tunic, while her arms reached
the tray forward.
Her slim body was most supple -- she held the difficult pose effortlessly. Her
fine straight hair was pale as her skin -- both a sort of
ghost color. It occurred to the Mouser that she would look very well in his
closet, perhaps cherishing against her bosom the necklace of large black
pearls he had discovered piled behind a pewter statuette in one of Gwaay's
niches.
However, she was kneeling as far away from him as she could and still stretch
him the tray, and her eyes were most modestly downcast, nor would she even
flicker up their lids to his gracious murmurings -- which were all the
approach he thought suitable at this moment.
He seized the jug and cup. Ivivis drooped her head still lower in
acknowledgment, then flirted silently away.
The Mouser poured a finger of blood-red, blood-thick wine and sipped.
Its flavor was darkly sweet, but with a bitter undertaste. He wondered if it
were fermented from scarlet toadstools.
The black-and-white counters skittered rutchingly in obedience to
Gwaay's and the ancient's peerings. The pale torch flames bent to the
unceasing cool breeze, while the fan-slaves and their splayed bare feet on the
leather belts and the great unseen fans themselves on their ponderous axles
muttered unendingly, "Quarmall ... Quarmall is downward tall ... Quarmall ...
Quarmall is all..."
In an equally vast room many levels higher yet still underground -- a
windowless room where torches flared redder and brighter, but their brightness
nullified by an acrid haze of incense smoke, so that here too the final effect
was exasperating dimness -- Fafhrd sat at the table's foot.
Fafhrd was ordinarily a monstrously calm man, but now he was restlessly
drumming fist on thumb-root, on the verge of admitting to himself that he
wished the Gray Mouser were here, instead of back in Lankhmar or perchance off
on some ramble in the desert-patched Eastern Lands.
The Mouser, Fafhrd thought, might have more patience to unriddle the
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mystifications and crooked behavior-ways of these burrowing Quarmallians. The
Mouser might find it easier to endure Hasjarl's loathsome taste for torture,
and at least the little gray fool would be someone human to drink with!
Fafhrd had been very glad to be parted from the Mouser and from his vanities
and tricksiness and chatter when Hasjarl's agent had contacted him in
Lankhmar, promising large pay in return for Fafhrd's instant, secret, and
solitary coming. Fafhrd had even dropped a hint to the small fellow that he
might take ship with some of his Northerner countrymen who had sailed down
across the Inner Sea.
What he had not explained to the Mouser was that, as soon as Fafhrd was aboard
her, the longship had sailed not north but south, coasting through the vast
Outer Sea along Lankhmar's western seaboard.
It had been an idyllic journey, that -- pirating a little now and then,
despite the sour objections of Hasjarl's agent, battling great storms and also
the giant cuttlefish, rays, and serpents which swarmed ever thicker in the
Outer Sea as one sailed south. At the recollection Fafhrd's fist slowed its
drumming and his lips almost formed a long smile.
But now this Quarmall! This endless stinking sorcery! This torture-
besotted Hasjarl! Fafhrd's fist drummed fiercely again.
_Rules!_ -- he mustn't explore downward, for that led to the Lower
Levels and the enemy. Nor must he explore upward -- that way was to Father
Quarmal's apartments, sacrosanct. None must know of Fafhrd's presence. He must
satisfy himself with such drink and inferior wenches as were available in
Hasjarl's limited Upper Levels. (They called these dim labyrinths and crypts
_upper_!)
_Delays!_ -- they mustn't muster their forces and march down and smash
brother-enemy Gwaay; that was unthinkable rashness. They mustn't even shut off
the huge treadmill-driven fans whose perpetual creaking troubled Fafhrd's ears
and which sent the life-giving air on the first stages of its journey to
Gwaay's underworld, and through other rock-driven wells sucked out the stale -
- no, those fans must never be stopped, for Father Quarmal would frown on any
battle-tactic which suffocated valuable slaves; and from anything Father
Quarmal frowned on, his sons shrank shuddering.
Instead, Hasjarl's war-council must plot years-long campaigns weaponed chiefly
with sorcery and envisioning the conquest of Gwaay's Lower Levels a quarter
tunnel -- or a quarter mushroom field -- at a time.
_Mystifications!_ -- mushrooms must be served at all meals but never eaten or
so much as tasted. Roast rat, on the other hand, was a delicacy to be crowed
over. Tonight Father Quarmal would cast his own horoscope and for some reason
that superstitious starsighting and scribbling would be of incalculable
cryptic consequence. All maids must scream loudly twice when familiarities
were suggested to them, no matter what their subsequent behavior. Fafhrd must
never get closer to Hasjarl than a long dagger's cast -- a rule which gave
Fafhrd no chance to discover how Hasjarl managed never to miss a detail of
what went on around him while keeping his eyes fully closed almost all the
time.
Perhaps Hasjarl had a sort of short-range second sight, or perhaps the slave
nearest him ceaselessly whispered an account of all that transpired, or
perhaps -- well, Fafhrd had no way of knowing.
But somehow Hasjarl could see things with his eyes shut.
This paltry trick of Hasjarl's evidently saved his eyes from the irritation of
the incense smoke, which kept those of Hasjarl's sorcerers and of Fafhrd
himself red and watering. However, since Hasjarl was otherwise a most
energetic and restless prince -- his bandy-legged misshapen body and mismated
arms forever a-twitch, his ugly face always grimacing -- the detail of eyes
tranquilly shut was peculiarly jarring and shiversome.
All in all, Fafhrd was heartily sick of the Upper Levels of Quarmall though
scarcely a week in them. He had even toyed with the notion of double-
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crossing Hasjarl and hiring out to his brother or turning informer for his
father -- although they might, as employers, be no improvement whatever.
But mostly he simply wanted to meet in combat this champion of Gwaay's he kept
hearing so much of -- meet him and slay him and then shoulder his reward
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