She smiled at last. “What a question! Why, I speak — though not too well — Mingol, Kvarchish, High and Low Lankhmarese, Quarmallian, Old Ghoulish, Desert-talk, and three Eastern tongues.”

Fafhrd nodded. “That's good.”

“Forever why?”

“Because it means you are very civilized,” he answered.

“What's so great about that?” she demanded with a sour laugh.

“You should know, you're a culture dancer. In any case, I am interested in civilization.”

“One comes,” Essedinex hissed from the entry. “Vlana, the youth must—”

“He must not!"

“As it happens, I must indeed leave now,” Fafhrd said, rising. “Keep up the snow-bandages,” he instructed Vlana. “Rest until sundown. Then more brandy, with hot soup.”

“Why must you leave?” Vlana demanded, rising on an elbow.

“I made a promise to my mother,” Fafhrd said without looking back.

“Your mother!”

Stooping at the entry, Fafhrd finally did stop to look back. “I owe my mother many duties,” he said. “I owe you none, as yet.”

“Vlana, he must leave. It's the one,” Essedinex stage-whispered hoarsely. Meanwhile he was shoving at Fafhrd, but for all the youth's slenderness, he might as well have been trying to push a tree off of its roots.

“Are you afraid of him who comes?” Vlana was buttoning up her dress now.

Fafhrd looked at her thoughtfully. Then, without replying in any way whatever to her question, he ducked through the entry and stood up, waiting the approach through the persistent mist of a man in whose face anger was gathering.

This man was as tall as Fafhrd, half again as thick and wide, and about twice as old. He was dressed in brown sealskin and amethyst-studded silver except for the two massive gold bracelets on his wrists and the gold chain about his neck, marks of a pirate chief.

Fafhrd felt a touch of fear, not at the approaching man, but at the crystals which were now thicker on the tents than he recalled them being when he had carried Vlana in.