Swords and Ice Magic - By Fritz Leiber Page 0,19
of the current than did Black Racer. At mast height and ship's length ahead, the twin shimmer-sprights flew on like flags of silver lace against the dark. All almost silently.
“Fafhrd,” the Gray Mouser spoke very softly, as if reluctant to break the silver moonlight's spectral spell, “Tonight I clearly see that Nehwon is a vast bubble rising through waters of eternity, with continents and isles afloat inside.”
“Yes, and they'd move around ―the continents, I mean ― and bump each other,” Fafhrd said, softly too, albeit a little gruffly. “That is, providing they'd float at all. Which I most strongly doubt.”
“They move all orderly, in pre-established harmony,” the Mouser replied. “And as for buoyancy, think of the Sinking Land.”
“But then where'd be the sun and moon and stars and planets nine?” Fafhrd objected. “All in a jumble in the bubble's midst? That's quite impossible ― and ridiculous.”
“I'm getting to the stars,” the Mouser said. “They're all afloat in even stricter pre-established harmony in the Great Equatorial Ocean, which as we've seen this day and night, speeds around Nehwon's waist once each day ― that is, in its effects on the waterspouts, not on Racer. Why else, I ask you, is it also called the Sea of Stars?”
Fafhrd blinked, momentarily impressed against his will. Then he grinned. “But if this ocean's all afloat with stars,” he demanded, “why can't we see 'em all about our ship? Riddle me that, O Sage!”
The Mouser smiled back at him, very composedly.
“They're all of 'em inside the waterspouts,” he said, “which are gray tubes of water pointing toward heaven ― by which I mean, of course, the antipodes of Nehwon. Look up, bold comrade mine, at arching sky and heaven's top. You're looking at the same Great Equatorial Ocean we're afloat in, only halfway around Nehwon from Black Racer. You're looking down (or up, what skills it?) the tubes of the waterspouts there, so you can see the star at bottom of each.”
“I'm looking at the full moon too,” Fafhrd said. “Don't try to tell me that's at the bottom of a waterspout!”
“But I will,” the Mouser responded gently. “Recall the gigantic spout like speeding mesa we briefly saw far south of us last noon? That was the moonspout, to invent a word. And now it's raced to sky ahead of us, in half day since.”
“Fry me for a sardine!” Fafhrd said with great feeling. Then he sought to collect his comprehension. “And those folk on Nehwon's other side ― up there ― they're seeing a star at the bottom of each waterspout now around us here?”
“Of course not,” the Mouser said patiently. “Sunlight drowns out their twinkles for those folk. It's day up there, you see.” He pointed at the dark near the moon. “Up there, you see, they're bathed in highest noon, drenched in the light of sun, which now is somewhere near us, but hid from us by the thick walls of his sunspout, to coin a word wholly analogous to moonspout.”
“Oh, monstrous!” Fafhrd cried. “For if it's day up there, you little fool, why can't we see it here? Why can't we see up there Nehwon lands bathed in light with bright blue sea around 'em? Answer me that!”
“Because there are two different kinds of light,” the Mouser said with an almost celestial tranquillity. “Seeming the same by every local test, yet utterly diverse. First, there's direct light, such as we're getting now from moon and stars up there. Second, there is reflected light, which cannot make the really longer journeys, and certainly can't recross ― not one faint ray of it ― Nehwon's central space to reach us here.”
“Mouser,” Fafhrd said in a very small voice, but with great certainty, “you're not just inventing words, you're inventing the whole business ― on the spur of the moment as you go along.”
“Invent the Laws of Nature?” the Mouser asked with a certain horror. “That were far worse than darkest blasphemy.”
“Then in the name of all the gods at once!” Fafhrd demanded in a very large voice, “how can the sun be in a waterspout and not boil it all away in an instant in an explosion vast? Tell me at once.”
“There are some things man was not meant to know,” the Mouser said in a most portentous voice. Then, swiftly switching to the familiar, “or rather, since I am in no way superstitious, there are some things which have not yielded yet to our philosophy. An omission which in this instance I