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closed? Is it that -- "
"Why, do you not know that?" she interrupted in surprise. "Do you not know
even the secret of his horrible peeping? He simply -- "
A dim velvet shape that chittered almost inaudibly shrill swooped past their
faces, and with a little shriek Friska hid her face in Fafhrd's chest and
clung to him tightly.
In combing his fingers through her heather-scented hair to show her no flying
mouse had found lodgment there and in smoothing his palms over her bare
shoulders and back to demonstrate that no bat had landed there either, Fafhrd
began to forget all about Hasjarl and the puzzle of his second sight -- and
his worries about the ceiling falling in on them too.
Following custom, Friska shrieked twice, very softly.
Gwaay languidly clapped his white, perfectly groomed hands and with a slight
nod motioned for the waiting slaves to remove the platters from the low table.
He leaned lazily into the deep-cushioned chair and through half-closed lids
looked momentarily at his companion before he spoke. His brother across the
table was not in a good humor. But then it was rare for Hasjarl to be other
than in a pet, a temper, or more often merely sullen and vicious. This may
have been due to the fact that Hasjarl was a very ugly man, and his nature had
grown to conform to his body; or perhaps it was the other way around.
Gwaay was indifferent to both theories; he merely knew that in one glance all
his memory had told him of Hasjarl was verified; and he again realized the
bitter magnitude of his hatred for his brother. However, Gwaay spoke gently in
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a low, pleasant voice:
"Well, how now, Brother, shall we play at chess, that demon game they say
exists in every world? 'Twill give you a chance to lord it over me again.
You always win at chess, you know, except when you resign. Shall I have the
board set before us?" and then cajolingly, "I'll give you a pawn!" and he
raised one hand slightly as if to clap again in order that his suggestion
might be carried out.
With the lash he carried slung to his wrist Hasjarl slashed the face of the
slave nearest him, and silently pointed at the massive and ornate chessboard
across the room. This was quite characteristic of Hasjarl. He was a man of
action and given to few words, at least away from his home territory.
Besides, Hasjarl was in a nasty humor. Flindach had torn him from his most
interesting and exciting amusement: torture! And for what? thought
Hasjarl: to play at chess with his priggish brother; to sit and look at his
pretty brother's face; to eat food that would surely disagree with him; to
wait the answer to the casting, which he already knew -- had known for years;
and finally to be forced to smile into the horrible blood-whited eyes of his
father, unique in Quarmall save for those of Flindach, and toast the House of
Quarmall for the ensuing year. All this was most distasteful to Hasjarl and he
showed it plainly.
The slave, a bloody welt swift-swelling across his face, carefully slid the
chessboard between the two. Gwaay smiled as another slave arranged the
chessmen precisely on their squares; he had thought of a scheme to annoy his
brother. He had chosen the black as usual, and he planned a gambit which he
knew his avaricious opponent couldn't refuse; one Hasjarl would accept to his
own undoing.
Hasjarl sat grimly back in his chair, arms folded. "I should have made you
take white," he complained. "I know the paltry tricks you can do with black
pebbles -- I've seen you as a girl-pale child darting them through the air to
startle the slaves' brats. How am I to know you will not cheat by fingerless
shifting your pieces while I deep ponder?"
Gwaay answered gently, "My paltry powers, as you most justly appraise them,
Brother, extend only to bits of basalt, trifles of obsidian and other volcanic
rocks conformable to my nether level. While these chess pieces are jet,
Brother, which in your great scholarship you surely know is only a kind of
coal, vegetable stuff pressed black, not even in the same realm as the very
few materials subject to my small magickings. Moreover, for you to miss the
slightest trick with those quaint slave-surgeried eyes of yours, Brother, were
matter for mighty wonder."
Hasjarl growled. Not until all was ready did he stir; then, like an adder's
strike, he plucked a black rook's pawn from the board and with a sputtering
giggle, snarled: "Remember, Brother? It was a pawn you promised!
Move!"
Gwaay motioned the waiting slave to advance his king's pawn. In like manner
Hasjarl replied. A moment's pause and Gwaay offered his gambit: pawn to
king-bishop's fourth! Eagerly Hasjarl snatched the apparent advantage and the
game began in earnest. Gwaay, his face easy-smiling in repose, seemed to be
less interested in the game than in the shadow play of the flickering lamps on
the figured leather upholsterings of calfskin, lambskin, snakeskin, and even
slave-skin and nobler human hide; seemed to move offhand, without plan, yet
confidently. Hasjarl, his lips compressed in concentration, was intent on the
board, each move a planned action both mental and physical. His concentration
made him for the moment oblivious of his brother, oblivious of all but the
problem before him; for Hasjarl loved to win beyond all computation.
It had always been this way; even as children the contrast was apparent.
Hasjarl was the elder; older by only a few months which his appearance and
demeanor lengthened to years. His long, misshapen torso was ill-borne on short
bandy legs. His left arm was perceptibly longer than the right; and his
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fingers, peculiarly webbed to the first knuckle, were gnarled and stubby with
brittle striated nails. It was as if Hasjarl were a poorly reconstructed
puzzle put together in such fashion that all the pieces were mismated and
awry.
This was particularly true of his features. He possessed his sire's nose,
though thickened and coarse-pored; but this was contradicted by the
thin-lipped, tightly compressed mouth continually pursed until it had assumed
a perpetual sphincterlike appearance. Hair, lank and lusterless, grew low on
his forehead; and low, flattened cheekbones added yet another contradiction.
As a lad, led by some perverse whim, Hasjarl had bribed coaxed, or more
probably browbeaten one of the slaves versed in surgery to perform a slight
operation on his upper eyelids. It was a small enough thing in itself, yet its
implications and results had affected the lives of many men unpleasantly, and
never ceased to delight Hasjarl. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]