this, for Lavas Laerk stopped the lieutenant who was about to hand Fafhrd a
sword, and stared with growing intentness at Fafhrd's left hand.
Puzzled, Fafhrd raised it, and Lavas Laerk cried, "Seize him!" and at the same
instant jerked something from Fafhrd's middle finger. Then Fafhrd remembered.
It was the ring.
"There can be no doubt about the workmanship," said Lavas Laerk, peering
cunningly at Fafhrd, his bright blue eyes giving the impression of being out of
focus or slightly crossed. "This man is a Simorgyan spy, or perhaps a Simorgyan
demon who has taken the form of a Northerner to allay our suspicions. He
climbed out of the sea in the teeth of a roaring storm, did he not? What man
among you saw any boat?"
"I saw a boat," ventured the steersman hurriedly. "A queer sloop with
triangular sail -- " But Lavas Laerk shut him up with a sidewise glance.
Fafhrd felt the point of a dirk at his back and checked his tightening muscles.
"Shall we kill him?" The question came from close behind Fafhrd's ear.
Lavas Laerk smiled crookedly up at the darkness and paused, as if listening to
the advice of some invisible storm wraith. Then he shook his head. "Let him live
for the present. He can show us where loot is hid. Guard him with naked swords."
Whereupon they all left the galley, clambering down ropes hung from the
prow onto rocks which the surf alternately covered and uncovered. One or two
laughed and jumped. A dropped torch hissed out in the brine. There was much
shouting. Someone began to sing in a drunken voice that had an edge like a rusty
knife. Then Lavas Laerk got them into a sort of order and they marched away,
half of them carrying torches, a few still hugging wineskins, sliding and slipping,
cursing the sharp rocks and barnacles which cut them when they fell, hurling
exaggerated threats at the darkness ahead, where strange windows glowed.
Behind them the long galley lay like a dead beetle, the oars sprawled out all askew
from the ports.
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They had marched for some little distance, and the sound of the breakers was
less thunderous, when their torchlight helped reveal a portal in a great wall of
black rock that might or might not have been a castle rather than a caverned cliff.
The portal was square and high as an oar. Three worn stone steps drifted with
wet sand led up to it. Dimly they could discern on the pillars, and on the heavy
lintel overhead, carvings partly obliterated by slime and incrustations of some
sort, but unmistakably Simorgyan in their obscure symbolism.
The crew, staring silently now, drew closer together. The ragged procession
became a tight knot. Then Lavas Laerk called mockingly, "Where are your guards,
Simorgya? Where are your fighting men?" and walked straight up the stone steps.
After a moment of uncertainty, the knot broke and the men followed him.
On the massive threshold Fafhrd involuntarily halted, dumbstruck by
realization of the source of the faint yellow light he had earlier noticed in the high
windows. For the source was everywhere: ceiling, walls, and slimy floor all
glowed with a wavering phosphorescence. Even the carvings glimmered. Mixed
awe and repugnance gripped him. But the men pressed around and against him,
and carried him forward. Wine and leadership had dulled their sensibilities and
as they strode down the long corridor they seemed little aware of the abysmal
scene.
At first some held their weapons ready to meet a possible foray or ambush,
but soon they lowered them negligently, and even sucked at the wineskins and
jested. A hulking oarsman, whose blond beard was patched with yellow scud from
the surf, struck up a chantey and others joined in, until the dank walls roared.
Deeper and deeper they penetrated into the cave or castle, along the wide,
winding, ooze-carpeted corridor.
Fafhrd was carried along by a current. When he moved too slowly, the others
jostled him and he quickened his pace, but it was all involuntary. Only his eyes
responded to his will, turning from side to side, drinking in details with fearful
curiosity: the endless series of vague carvings, wherein sea monsters and
unwholesome manlike figures and vaguely anthropomorphic giant skates or rays
seemed to come alive and stir as the phosphorescence fluctuated; a group of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]