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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] prefers the hairless land of Eevamarensee." The Mouser interjected _sotto voce_, "I also had imperious, insolent Hisvet, and you her brave, dramatic queen-slave Frix." Fafhrd went on, "Once, long ago, there were Friska and Ivivis, but they were Quarmall's slaves and then became free women at Tovilysis. Before them were Keyaira, Hirriwi, but they were princesses, invisibles, loves of one long, long night, daughters of dread Oomforafor and sib of murderous Faroomfar. Long before all of those, in Land of Youth, there were fair Ivrian Page 29 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html and slender Vlana. But they were girls, those lovely in-betweens (or actresses, those mysteries), and now they dwell with Death in Shadowland. So I'm but half a man. I need a _mate_. And so do you, perchance." "Fafhrd, you're mad! You prate of world-spanning wild adventures and then babble of what would make them impossible: wife, home, henchmen, duties. One dull night without girl or fight, and your brains go soft. Repeat, you're mad." Fafhrd reinspected the tavern and its stodgy inmates. "It stays dull, doesn't it," he remarked, "as if not one nostril had twitched or ear wiggled since I last looked. And yet it is a calm I do not trust. I feel an icy chill. Mouser -- " That one was looking past him. With little sound, or none at all, two slender persons had just entered the Silver Eel and paused appraisingly inside the lead-weighted iron-woven curtains that kept out fog and could turn sword thrusts. The one was tall and rangy as a man, blue-eyed, thin-cheeked, wide- mouthed, clad in jerkin and trousers of blue and long cloak of gray. The other was wiry and supple-seeming as a cat, green-eyed, compact of feature, short thick lips compressed, clothed similarly save the hues were rust red and brown. They were neither young nor yet near middle age. Their smooth unridged brows, tranquil eyes, evenly curving jaws, and long cheek-molding hair -- here silvery yellow, there black shot with darkest brown (in turn gold-shotten, or were those golden wires braided in?) -- proclaimed them feminine. That last attribute broke the congealed midnight trances of the assembled dullards, a half dozen of whom converged on the newcomers, calling low invitations and trailing throaty laughs. The two moved forward as if to hasten the encounter, with gaze unwaveringly ahead. And then, without an instant, pause or any collision, except someone recoiled slightly as if his instep had been trod on and someone else gasped faintly as if his short ribs had encountered a firm elbow, the two were past the six. It was as if they had simply walked through them, as a man would walk through smoke with no more fuss than the wrinkling of a nostril. Behind them, the ignored smoke fumed and wove a bit. Now there were in their way the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd, who had both risen and whose hands still indicated the hilts of their scabbarded swords without touching them. "Ladies -- " the Mouser began. "Will you take wine -- ?" Fafhrd continued. "Strengthened against night's chill," the Mouser concluded, sketching a bow, while Fafhrd courteously indicated the four-chaired table from which they'd just risen. The slender women halted and surveyed them without haste. "We might," the smaller purred. "Provided you let Rime Isle pay for the drinks," the taller concluded in tones bright and swift as running snow water. At the words "Rime Isle," the faces of the two men grew thoughtful and wondering, as if in another universe someone had said Atlantis or El Dorado or Ultima Thule. Nevertheless they nodded agreement and drew back chairs for the women. "Rime Isle," Fafhrd repeated conjuringly, as the Mouser did the honors with cups and jars. "As a child in the Cold Waste and later in my adolescent piratings, I've heard it and Salthaven City whispered of. Legend says the Claws point at it -- those thin, stony peninsulas that tip Nehwonland's last north-west corner." "For once legend speaks true," the electrum-haired woman in blue and gray said softly yet crisply, "Rime Isle exists today. Salthaven, too." "Come," said the Mouser with a smile, ceremoniously handing her her cup, "it's said Rime Isle's no more real than Simorgya." "And is Simorgya unreal?" she asked, accepting it. Page 30 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "No," he admitted with a somewhat startled, reminiscent look. "I once watched [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |