Matriarchal Power
The story opens with the cold war between men and women of the Snow Clan heating up, in a manner of speaking, in the form of a snowball fight: "They trudged about like ghosts in their whitest furs, almost invisible against the new-fallen snow, always together in female groups, silent or at most hissing like angry shades.” It has already been established that a group of Snow Women is called a coven, and they are described as witches. This description builds upon the imagery of their being something either less or more than human.
The Vernacular
Sword and sorcery stories rely heavily on language to sustain a sense of time and place. This is true whether the characters swings a sword or actually is a sorcerer. When the magician master mentoring Mouse explains the downside of the black arts, the text says: “The forces black magic evokes are like two-edged poisoned swords with grips studded with scorpion stings.” Clearly, the comparison made in this simile is not one found in the lexicon of everyday discourse in a western, hard-boiled detective story or romance novel, although a stripped-down metaphor about dual-edged swords might well show up. The precise specificity of the dual-edged sword situates the setting quite efficiently.
Philosophy of Thieves
Krovas, the Grandmaster of the Thieves’ Guild, has apparently given quite a lot of thought to the deeper meanings of his chosen profession. “Nature works by subtle, secret means—man’s invisible seed, spider bite, the viewless spores of madness and of death, rocks that are born in earth’s unknown bowels, the silent stars a-creep across the sky—and we thieves copy her.” This contemplative philosophical view is occasioned by a labor dispute, however, so the full force of the outburst is not directed toward deep thinking, but rather putting someone in his place. The invisible force mentioned by Krovas as metaphors for successful thievery in that they occur without being seen, but thievery is also being presented as a metaphor for political power that operates and rules without being seen.
Wizard’s Work
“The Unholy Grail” is a revenge story featuring a plot in which Mouse—before he becomes the Gray Mouser—seeks vengeance for the murder of his master. He succeeds: “You know what has happened. My heart pains as though there were a fire under it and yet my skin is cased in ice. There is a stabbing in my joints as if long needles pierced clear through the marrow.” After this outpouring of similes comparing the agony of the attack upon, the intended target of Mouse’s revenge sums up the obvious by defining it as the work of a wizard. Underlings quickly agree and it takes mere seconds for unanimous agreement upon the likely identity of the perpetrator. It turns out black magic is very effective for taking revenge but leaves too much evidence behind.
A Girl Just Like Mom
“The Snow Women” is about a teenage Fefhrd caught in the struggle between loyalty to his widowed mother and the call of adventure beyond the horizon. He meets up with an actress named Vlana who further tempts him away from the duties of a son. Curiously, perhaps—or perhaps not so much—Vlana and Fefhrd’s mother seem not all that different from each. “Women are horrible. I mean, quite as horrible as men. Oh, is there anyone in the wide world that has aught but ice water in his or her veins?” This confirms that her desire to wreak vengeance upon the Thieves’ Guild has not abated. The metaphor is trickier. Perhaps it is a commentary on Vlana. Perhaps it is commentary coming from a deeper place about his mother. Likely as not, it is about both and affords insight into the surprisingly complex psyche of a barbarian rogue.
