Swords and Ice Magic - By Fritz Leiber Page 0,60
puzzlement and disapproval.
Groniger reared up and thundered at him, “You dare to laugh at the gathered authority of Rime Isle? You, who come bursting in accompanied by women of the streets and your own trespassing crewmen?”
The Mouser managed to control his laughter and listen with the most open, honest expression imaginable, injured innocence incarnate.
Groniger went on, shaking his finger at the other, “Well, there he stands, councilors. a chief receiver of the misappropriated gold, perchance even of the gold cube of honest dealing. The man who came to us out of the south with tales of magic storms and day turned night and vanished hostile vessels and a purported Mingol invasion ― he who has, as you perceive, Mingols amongst his crew ― the man who paid for his dockage in Rime Isle gold!”
Cif stood up at that, her eyes blazing, and said, “Let him speak, at least, and answer this outrageous charge, since you won't take my word.”
A councilman rose beside Groniger. “Why should we listen to a stranger's lies?”
Groniger said, “I thank you, Dwone.”
Afreyt got to her feet. “No, let him speak. Will you hear nothing but your own voices?”
Another councilman got up.
Groniger said, “Yes. Zwaakin?”
That one said, “No harm to hear what he has to say. He may convict himself out of his own mouth.” Cif glared at Zwaaken and said loudly, “Tell them, Mouser!”
At that moment the Mouser, glancing at Rill's torch (which seemed to wink at him) felt a godlike power invading and possessing him to the tips of his fingers and toes ― nay, to the end of his every hair. Without warning ― in fact, without knowing he was going to do it at all he ran forward across the room and sprang atop the table where its sides were clear toward Cif's end.
He looked around compellingly at all (a sea of cold and hostile faces, mostly), gave them a searching stare, and then ― well, as the godlike force possessed every part of him utterly, his mind was perforce driven completely out of himself, the scene swiftly darkened, he heard himself beginning to say something in a mighty voice, but then he (his mind) fell irretrievably into an inner darkness deeper and blacker than any sleep or swound.
Then (for th~ Mouser) no time at all passed ... or an eternity.
His return to awareness (or rebirth, rather, it seemed that massive a transition) began with whirling yellow lights and grinning. open-mouthed, exalted faces mottling the inner darkness, and the sense of a great noise on the edge of the audible and of a resonant voice speaking words of power, and then without other warning the whole bright and deafening scene materialized with a rush and a roar and he was standing insolently tall on the massive council table with what felt like a wild (or even demented) smile on his lips, while his left fist rested jauntily on his hip and his right was whirling around his head the golden queller (or cube of square dealing, he reminded himself) on its cord. And all around him every last Rimelander ― councilmen, guards, common fishers, women (and Cif, Afrayt, Rill, Hilsa, Mikkidu, needless to say) ― was staring at him with rapturous adoration (as if he were a god or legendary hero at least) and standing on their feet (some jumping up and down) and cheering him to the echo! Fists pounded the table, quarterstaves thudded the stony floor resoundingly. While torchmen whirled their sad flambeaux until they flamed as yellow-bright as Rill's.
Now in the name of all the gods at once, the Mouser asked himself, continuing however to grin, Whatever did I tell or promise them to put them all in such a state? In the fiend's name, what?
Groniger swiftly mounted the other end of the table, boosted by those beside him, waved for silence, and as soon as he'd got a little of that commodity assured the Mouser in a great feelingful voice, advancing to make himself heard, “We'll do it ― oh, we'll do it! I myself will lead out the Rimic contingent, half our armed citizenry, across the Deathlands to Fafhrd's aid against the Widdershins, while nwone and Zwaaken will man the armed fishing fleet with the other half and follow you in Flotsam against the Sunwise Mingols. Victory!”
And with that the hall resounded with cries of “Death to the Mingols!” “Victory!” and other cheers the Mouser couldn't quite make out. As the noise passed its peak, Groniger shouted, "Wine!
Let's