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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] his hook through the earth he uncovered. He scraped three like swaths behind the first, baring a space about as big as a trapdoor, and then repeated the process, going an inch deeper. Meanwhile Pshawri was approaching Cif, fumbling his pouch and babbling, "Sweet Lady, I am responsible for this dire mishap to my captain. I alone am guilty. Here, let me show you." Without ceasing his work, Fafhrd called sharply, "Forget that, Pshawri, and come here. I have an errand for you." But when that one did not seem to hear his words, only continuing to stare desperately at Cif and now groping at her arms to draw her attention, Fafhrd signed to her to draw the madman aside and hear his mouthings, meanwhile commanding, "You, Skullick, then! Come here!" When his young sergeant swiftly obeyed, though not without an uneasy glance toward Pshawri, Fafhrd instructed him tersely, while keeping on with his scrapings, "Skullick, run like the wind back to the barracks. Find Skor and Mikkidu. Bid them haste here with one or two men apiece bringing heavy work gloves, scoops, shovels, pails, lanterns, and ropes. Don't try to explain anything -- here, take my ring. Then do you choose a man each of the Mouser's men and mine -- and a Mingol -- and come on after with planks and the instruments needful for shoring a shaft, more rope, pulleys, food, fuel, water, a keg of brandy, blankets, the medicine case. Come as soon as these can be gathered. Use the dogcarts. Mannimark to remain in command at the barracks. Any questions? No? Then go!" Skullick went. Instantly Rill took his place. "Fafhrd," she said urgently, "Afreyt and Groniger bid me tell you that whatever you believe we saw or think we saw, deceived perhaps by a phantom, the Mouser, at the end, raced with preternatural speed toward Elvenhold and then took cover. They go to hunt him. They urge you join them, after sending for lanterns, the dogs Racer and Gripper, and an unwashed piece of the Mouser's intimate clothing." Fafhrd left off scraping out the square hole, which was five or six inches deep, to look around questioningly at those who had been listening. "Captain, he sank into the ground where you are digging," said Ourph the Mingol. "I saw." "It's true," growled Mother Grum, "though he grew somewhat insubstantial at the end." Page 78 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Cif broke away from the importunate Pshawri to aver with great certitude, "He went down there. I touched his pate and top hair before he sank away." Pshawri followed behind her, crying, "Here, Lady, I've found it. Here is the proof I lied to the Captain when I told him yesternight I brought up nothing from my Maelstrom dive." It was a skeleton cube of smooth metal big as an infant's fist with something dark wedged inside. The metal looked like silver in the moonlight, but Cif knew that without question it was gold --the Rimish ikon that the Mouser had slung into the Great Maelstrom's center to quieten it after the wrecking of the Sea-Mingol armada. "My taking of this from the whirlpool's maw," mad-eyed Pshawri proclaimed, "though meant to please him, has been the means of my captain's doom. As he himself feared might hap. Gods, was ever man so cruelly self- deceived?" "Why did you lie to him, then?" Fafhrd asked. "And why did you so desire to possess it?" "I may not tell you," Pshawri said miserably. "That is a private matter between myself and the Captain. Gods, what's to do? What is to do?" "We keep on digging here," Fafhrd decided, suiting action to word. "Rill, tell Afreyt and Groniger of my decision." "First let me make your work here easier," that one said, bringing the leviathan lantern from behind her and planting it on the ground next the square hole Fafhrd was digging, then snapping the fingers of her right hand thrice. "Burn without heat," she said simultaneously. The simple magic worked. Leviathan light white as new-fallen snow, pure history, sprang into being and illumined the surroundings like a piece of the full moon brought down to earth, so that every dirt grain inside the new-digged square seemed individually visible. Fafhrd thanked her duly and Rill made off briskly toward Elvenhold. Fafhrd turned back and said, "Pshawri, sit across the hole from me and feel through the new dirt uncovered by each of my ax scrapes. Two hands work faster than a hook. Gale! You -- and Fingers here -- come and kneel beside me and clear off to either side the earth my ax scrapes up. Now I'm through the frozen turf, I can take deeper swaths. Pshawri, while you are feeling for the Mouser's head, tell us, coolly and clearly, all that your conscience will allow about your Maelstrom dive." "You think he may yet survive?" Cif asked falteringly, as though doubting her own wild hopes. "Madam," said Fafhrd, "I've known the Gray One for some time. It never does to underestimate his resourcefulness under adversity or coolth in peril." *.11.* Tight-packed upright in dirt, as if he had been honored with a Rimish pit burial, the Mouser became aware of a lump in his throat which, as he observed it, slowly grew larger and harder and began to involve or elicit twitching sensations in his cheeks and his mouth's roof, and like painful feelings or impulses toward movement, deep in his chest. A tension grew in that whole area and there began the faintest buzzing in his ears. All these sensations continued to increase without respite. He recalled that his last breath had been drawn while he still saw the moon. With a tremendous effort of will he fought down the urge to gulp in a great breath (which could fill his mouth with dust, set him coughing and gasping -- not to be thought of!). He began very slowly (almost experimentally, you might say, except it had to be done -- and soon!) to inhale, at first through his nostrils but swiftly switching to his barely parted lips, where his tongue Page 79 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html could wet them and, moving from side to side, push back intrusive particles of earth, keep them at bay -- somewhat like the approved technique for smoking hashish whereby one draws in thin whifflets of air on either side of the pipe to dilute the rich fumes. (Ah, mused the Mouser, the wondrous freedom of the tongue inside the mouth! No matter how the body were confined. Folk appreciated it insufficiently.) And all the while he was drawing cold sips of precious lifegiving air that had been stored between the particles of solid ground, and while letting no more dirt grains pass his lips than he could easily swallow. Why, in this fashion, he speculated, he might eventually move through the ground, taking in earth at his anterior end, perhaps -- who knows? -- extracting nutriment from it and then excreting it in a fecal trail. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |