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complied with the direction. The rainbow light of the meshed jewels spilled
upward, dimly showing the room to be low-ceilinged and rather large. It
appeared to be empty except for the table and, indistinct in the far left
corner behind him, a dark low shape which the Mouser did not like. It might be
a hassock or a fat, round, black pillow. Or it might be ... The Mouser wished
Fafhrd hadn't made his last suggestion.
From ahead of him a rippling, silvery voice quite unlike the first called,
"Your jewels, like no others I have ever seen, gleam in the absence of all
light."
Scanning piercingly across the table and box, the Mouser could see no sign of
the second caller. Evening out his own voice, so it was not breathy with
apprehension, but bland with confidence, he said, to the emptiness, "My gems
are like no others in the world. In fact, they come not from the world, being
of the same substance as the stars. Yet you know by your test that one
of them is harder than diamond."
"They are truly unearthly and most beautiful jewels," the sourless silvery
voice answered. "My mind pierces them through and through, and they are what
you say they are. I shall advise Ogo to pay your asking price."
At that instant the Mouser heard behind him a little cough and a dry, rapid
scuttling. He whirled around, dirk poised to strike. There was nothing to be
seen or sensed, except for the hassock or whatever, which had not moved.
The scuttling was no longer to be heard.
He swiftly turned back, and there across the table from him, her front
illumined by the twinkling jewels, stood a slim naked girl with pale straight
hair, somewhat darker skin, and overlarge eyes staring entrancedly from a
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child's tiny-chinned, pouty-lipped face.
Satisfying himself by a rapid glance that the jewels were in their proper
pattern under their mesh and none missing, he swiftly advanced Cat's
Claw so that its needle point touched the taut skin between the small yet
jutting breasts. "Do not seek to startle me so again!" he hissed. "Men --
aye, and girls -- have died for less."
The girl did not stir by so much as the breadth of a fine hair; neither did
her expression nor her dreamy yet concentrated gaze change, except that her
short lips smiled, then parted to say honey-voiced, "So you are the Gray
Mouser. I had expected a crouchy, sear-faced rogue, and I find ... a prince."
The very jewels seemed to twinkle more wildly because of her sweet voice and
sweeter presence, striking opalescent glimmers from her pale irises.
"Neither seek to flatter me!" the Mouser commanded, catching up his box and
holding it open against his side. "I am inured, I'll have you know, to the
ensorcelments of all the world's minxes and nymphs."
"I speak truth only, as I did of your jewels," she answered guilelessly. Her
lips had stayed parted a little, and she spoke without moving them.
"Are you the Eyes of Ogo?" the Mouser demanded harshly, yet drawing
Cat's Claw back from her bosom. It bothered him a little, yet only a little,
that the tiniest stream of blood, like a black thread, led down for a few
inches from the prick his dirk had made.
Utterly unmindful of the tiny wound, the girl nodded. "And I can see through
you, as through your jewels, and I discover naught in you but what is noble
and fine, save for certain small subtle impulses of violence and cruelty,
which a girl like myself might find delightful."
"There your all-piercing eyes err wholly, for I am a great villain,"
the Mouser answered scornfully, though he felt a pulse of fond satisfaction
within him.
The girl's eyes widened as she looked over his shoulder somewhat
apprehensively, and from behind the Mouser the dry and thick voice croaked
once more, "Keep to business! Yes, I will pay you in gold your offering price,
a sum it will take me some hours to assemble. Return at the same time tomorrow
night and we will close the deal. Now shut the box."
The Mouser had turned around, still clutching his box, when Ogo began to
speak. Again he could not distinguish the source of the voice, though he
scanned minutely. It seemed to come from the whole wall.
Now he turned back. Somewhat to his disappointment, the naked girl had
vanished. He peered under the table, but there was nothing there. Doubtless
some trapdoor or hypnotic device...
Still suspicious as a snake, he returned the way he had come. On close
approach, the black hassock appeared to be only that. Then as the door to the
outside slid open noiselessly, he swiftly obeyed Ogo's last injunction,
snapping shut the box, and departed.
* * * *
Fafhrd gazed tenderly at Nemia lying beside him in perfumed twilight,
while keeping the edge of his vision on his brawny wrist and the pouch pendant
from it, both of which his companion was now idly fondling.
To do Nemia justice, even at the risk of imputing a certain cattiness to the
Mouser, her charms were neither overblown, nor even ample, but only ...
sufficient.
From just behind Fafhrd's shoulder came a spitting hiss. He quickly turned his
head and found himself looking into the crossed blue eyes of a white cat
standing on the small bedside table beside a bowl of bronze chrysanthemums.
"Ixy!" Nemia called remonstratingly yet languorously.
Despite her voice, Fafhrd heard behind him, in rapid succession, the click of
a bracelet opening and the slightly louder click of one closing.
He turned back instantly, to discover only that Nemia had meanwhile clasped on
his wrist, beside the browned-iron bracelet, a golden one around which
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sapphires and rubies marched alternately in single file.
Gazing at him from betwixt the strands of her long dark hair, she said
huskily, "It is only a small token which I give to those who please me ...
greatly."
Fafhrd drew his wrist closer to his eyes to admire his prize, but mostly to
palpate his pouch with the fingers of his other hand, to assure himself that
it bulged as tightly as ever.
It did, and in a burst of generous feeling he said, "Let me give you one of my
gems in precisely the same spirit," and made to undo his pouch.
Nemia's long-fingered hand glided out to prevent. "No," she breathed.
"Let never the gems of business be mixed with the jewels of pleasure. Now if
you should choose to bring me some small gift tomorrow night, when at the same
hour we exchange your jewels for my gold and my letters of credit on
Glipkerio, underwritten by Hisvin the Grain Merchant..."
"Right," Fafhrd said briefly, concealing the relief he felt. He'd been an
idiot to think of giving Nemia one of the gems -- and with it a day's
opportunity to discover its abnormalities.
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