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evil tiding.
All motion ceased in that long low hall as Flindach, standing in the archway
framed in rich tapestries, raised one arm in a gesticulation demanding
silence. The attendant well-trained slaves stood at their posts, heads bowed
submissively; Gwaay remained as he was, looking directly at Flindach; and
Hasjarl, who had half-turned at the gong note, likewise awaited the
announcement. In a moment, they knew, Quarmal their father would step from
behind Flindach and smiling evilly would announce his horoscope. Always this
had been the procedure; and always, since each could remember, Gwaay and
Hasjarl had at this moment wished for Quarmal's death.
Flindach, arm lifted in dramatic gesture, began to speak.
"The casting of the horoscope has been completed and the finding has been
made. Even as the Heavens foretell is the fate of man fulfilled. I bring this
news to Hasjarl and Gwaay, the sons of Quarmal."
With a swift motion Flindach plucked a slender parchment tube from his belt
and, breaking it with his hands, dropped it crumpled at his feet. In almost
the same gesture he reached behind his left shoulder and stepping from the
shadow of the arch drew a peaked cowl over his head.
Throwing wide both arms, Flindach spoke, his voice seeming to come from afar:
"Quarmal, Lord of Quarmall, rules no more. The casting is fulfilled.
Let all within the walls of Quarmall mourn. For three days the place of the
Lord of Quarmall will be vacant. So custom demands and so shall it be. On the
morrow, when the sun enters his courtyard, that which remains of what was once
a great and puissant lord will be given to the flames. Now I go to mourn my
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Master and oversee the obsequies and prepare myself with fasting and with
prayer for his passing. Do you likewise."
Flindach slowly turned and disappeared into the darkness from which he had
come.
For the space of ten full heartbeats Gwaay and Hasjarl sat motionless.
The announcement came as a thunderclap to both. Gwaay for a second felt an
impulse to giggle and smirk like a child who has unexpectedly escaped
punishment and is instead rewarded; but in the back of his mind he was half-
convinced that he had known all along the outcome of the casting. However, he
controlled his childish glee and sat silent, staring.
On the other hand Hasjarl reacted as might be expected of him. He went through
a series of outlandish grimaces and ended with an obscene half-
smothered titter. Then he frowned, and turning said to Gwaay, "Heard you not
what said Flindach? I must go and prepare myself!" and he lurched to his feet
and paced silently across the room, out the broad-arched door.
Gwaay remained sitting for another few moments, frowning eyes narrowed in
concentration, as if he were puzzling over some abstruse problem which
required all his powers to solve. Suddenly he snapped his fingers and,
motioning for his slaves to precede him, made ready for his return to the
Lower Levels, whence he had come.Fafhrd had barely left the Ghost Hall when he
heard the faint rattle and clink of armed men moving cautiously. His
bemusement with Friska's charms vanished as if he had been doused with ice
water. He shrank into the deeper darkness and eavesdropped long enough to
learn that these were pickets of Hasjarl, guarding against an invasion from
Gwaay's Lower Levels -- and not tracking down Friska and himself as he'd first
feared. Then he made off swiftly for Hasjarl's Hall of Sorcery, grimly pleased
that his memory for landmarks and turnings seemed to work as well for mazy
tunnels as for forest trails and steep zigzag mountain escalades.
The bizarre sight that greeted him when he reached his goal stopped him on the
stony threshold. Standing shin-deep and stark naked in a steaming marble tub
shaped like a ridgy seashell, Hasjarl was berating and haranguing the great
roomful around him. And every man jack of them -- sorcerers, officers,
overseers, pages bearing great fringy towels and dark red robes and other
apparel -- was standing quakingly still with cringing eyes, except for the
three slaves soaping and laving their Lord with tremulous dexterity.
Fafhrd had to admit that Hasjarl naked was somehow more consistent --
ugly everywhere -- a kobold birthed from a hot-spring. And although his
grotesque child-pink torso and mismated arms were a-writhe and a-twitch in a
frenzy of apprehension, he had dignity of a sort.
He was snarling, "Speak, all of you, is there a precaution I have forgotten, a
rite omitted, a rat-hole overlooked that Gwaay might creep through? Oh, that
on this night when demons lurk and I must mind a thousand things and dress me
for my father's obsequies, I should be served by wittols!
Are you all deaf and dumb? Where's my great champion, who should ward me now?
Where are my scarlet grommets? Less soap there, you -- take that! You, Essem,
are we guarded well above? -- I don't trust Flindach. And Yissim, have we
guards enough below? -- Gwaay is a snake who'll strike through any gap. Dark
Gods, defend me! Go to the barracks, Yissim, get more men, and reinforce our
downward guards -- and while you're there, I mind me now, bid them continue
Friska's torture. Wring the truth from her! She's in Gwaay's plots -- this
night has made me certain. Gwaay knew my father's death was imminent and laid
invasion plans long weeks agone. Any of you may be his purchased spies! Oh
where's my champion? _Where are my scarlet grommets?"_
Fafhrd, who'd been striding forward, quickened his pace at mention of
Friska. A simple inquiry at the torture chamber would reveal her escape and
his part in it. He must create diversions. So he halted close in front of pink
wet steaming Hasjarl and said boldly, "Here is your champion, Lord. And he
counsels not sluggy defense, but some swift stroke at Gwaay! Surely your
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mighty mind has fashioned many a shrewd attacking stratagem. Launch you a
thunderbolt!"
It was all Fafhrd could do to keep speaking forcefully to the end and not let
his voice trail off as his attention became engrossed in the strange operation
now going on. While Hasjarl crouched stock-still with head a-twist, an
ashen-faced bath-slave had drawn out Hasjarl's left upper eyelid by its lashes
and was inserting into the hole in it a tiny flanged scarlet ring or grommet
no bigger than a lentil. The grommet was carried on the tip of an ivory wand
as thin as a straw, and the whole deed was being done by the slave with the
anxiety of a man refilling the poison pouches of an untethered rattlesnake --
if such an action might be imagined for purposes of comparison.
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