“They ought to have an arrow that would shoot around corners,” Gale said apropos of hunting behind a standing stone. “That way you'd get your enemy if he hid behind a house or a tree trunk."

“It's an idea,” Fafhrd admitted.

“Maybe if the arrow had a little curve in it—” she speculated.

“No, then it would just tumble,” he told her. “The virtue of an arrow lies in its perfect straightness, its—"

“You don't have to tell me that,” she interrupted impatiently. “I keep hearing all about that, over and over, from Aunt Afreyt and cousin Cif when they lecture me about the Golden Arrow of Truth and the Golden Circles of Unity and all those.” The girl was referring to the closely guarded gold ikons that had been from time immemorial the atheist-holy relics of the Rime Isle fisherfolk.

That made Fafhrd think of the Golden Cube of Square Dealing, forever lost when the Mouser had hurled it to quell the vast whirlpool which had vanquished the Mingol fleet and threatened to sink his own in the great sea battle. Did it lie now in mucky black sea bottom near the Beach of Bleached Bones, or had it indeed vanished entire from Nehwon-world with the errant gods, Odin and Loki?

And that in turn made him wonder and worry a little about the Gray Mouser, who had sailed away a month ago in Seahawk on a trading expedition to No-Ombrulsk with half his thieves and Flotsam's Mingol crew and Fafhrd's own chief lieutenant Skor. The little man (Captain Mouser, now) had planned on getting back to Rime Isle before the winter blizzards.

Gale interrupted his musings. “Did Aunt Afreyt tell you, Captain Fafhrd, about cousin Cif seeing a ghost or something last night in the council hall treasury, which only she has a key to?” The girl was holding up the big target bag clutched against her so that he could pull out the arrows and return them over shoulder to their quiver.