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away."
Fafhrd chuckled. His imagination was stirred, so that he saw the fabled land
of Simorgya, not lightless and covered with great drifts of sea ooze, but as it once
might have been, alive with ancient industry and commerce, strong with alien
wizardry. Then the picture changed and he saw a long, narrow, twenty-oared
galley, such as his people made, driving ahead into a stormy sea. There was the
glint of gold and steel about the captain on the poop, and the muscles of the
steersman cracked as he strained at the steering oar. The faces of the warrior-
rowers were exultantly eager, dominated by the urge to rape the unknown. The
whole ship was like a thirsty spearhead. He marveled at the vividness of the
picture. Old longings vibrated faintly in his flesh. He felt the ring, ran his finger
over the carving of the ship and monster, and again chuckled.
The Mouser fetched a stubby, heavy-wicked candle from the cabin and fixed it
in a small horn lantern that was proof against the wind. Hanging at the stern it
pushed back the darkness a little, not much. Until midnight it was the Mouser's
watch. After a while Fafhrd slumbered.
He awoke with the feeling that the weather had changed and quick work was
wanted. The Mouser was calling him. The sloop had heeled over so that the
starboard pontoon rode the crests of the waves. There was chilly spray in the
wind. The lantern swung wildly. Only astern were stars visible. The Mouser
brought the sloop into the wind, and Fafhrd took a triple reef in the sail, while
waves hammered the bow, an occasional light crest breaking over.
When they were on their course again, he did not immediately join the
Mouser, but stood wondering, for almost the first time, how the sloop would
stand heavy seas. It was not the sort of boat he would have built in his Northern
homeland, but it was the best that could be gotten under the circumstances. He
had caulked and tarred it meticulously, replaced any wood that looked too weak,
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substituted a triangular sail for the square one, and increased the height of the
bow a trifle. To offset a tendency to capsize, he had added outriggers a little
astern of the mast, getting the strongest, truest wood for the long crosspieces,
carefully steaming them into the proper shape. It was a good job, he knew, but
that didn't change the fact that the boat had a clumsy skeleton and many hidden
weaknesses. He sniffed the raw, salt air and peered to windward through
narrowed eyes, trying to gauge the weather. The Mouser was saying something,
he realized and he turned his head to listen.
"Throw the ring away before she blows a hurricane!"
He smiled and made a wide gesture that meant "No." Then he turned back to
gaze at the wild glimmering chaos of darkness and waves to windward. Thoughts
of the boat and the weather dropped away, and he was content to drink in the
awesome, age-old scene, swaying to keep balance, feeling each movement of the
boat and at the same time sensing, almost as if it were something akin to himself,
the godless force of the elements.
It was then the thing happened that took away his power to react and held
him, as it were, in a spell. Out of the surging wall of darkness, emerged the
dragon-headed prow of a galley. He saw the black wood of the sides, the light
wood of the oars, the glint of wet metal. It was so like the ship of his imaginings
that he was struck dumb with wonder as to whether it was only another vision, or
whether he had had a foreglimpse of it by second sight, or whether he had
actually summoned it across the deeps by his thoughts. It loomed higher, higher,
higher.
The Mouser cried out and pushed over the tiller, his body arched with the
mighty effort. Almost too late the sloop came out of the path of the dragon-
headed prow. And still Fafhrd stared as at an apparition. He did not hear the
Mouser's warning shout as the sloop's sail filled from the other side and slammed
across with a rush. The boom caught him in the back of the knees and hurled him
outward, but not into the sea, for his feet found the narrow pontoon and he
balanced there precariously. In that instant an oar of the galley swung down at
him and he toppled sideways, instinctively grasping the blade as he fell. The sea
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