The Second Book of Lankhmar

by Fritz Leiber

  However, he outwardly showed none of this wondering, but merely asked, as if idly, ‘So your father is also Lord Null, and you and he and Frix regularly travel back and forth between the big and little worlds?’

  ‘Show him, dear Frix,’ Hisvet commanded lazily, lifting slim fingers to mask a yawn, as though the hand-and-dagger game had begun to bore her.

  Frix moved back against the wall until her head with its natural jet-black sheath and copper-gleaming plaits, for she had thrown back her hood, was between the cages of the pocket-viper and the most enraged scorpion. Her dark eyes were a sleepwalker’s, fixed on things infinitely remote. The scorpion darted his moist white sting between the bars rat-inches from her ear, the viper’s trifid tongue vibrated angrily against her cheek, while his fangs struck the silver rounds and dripped venom that wetted oilily her yellow silken shoulder, but she seemed to take no note whatever of these matters. The fingers of her right hand, however, moved along a row of medallions decorating the glow-worm tank behind her, and without looking down, she pressed two at once.

  The painting of the girl and crocodile moved swiftly upward, revealing the foot of a dark steep stairway.

  ‘That leads without branchings to my father’s and my house,’ Hisvet explained.

  The painting descended. Frix pressed two other medallions and the companion painting of man and leopardess rose, revealing a like stairway.

  ‘While that one ascends directly by way of a golden rat-hole to the private apartments of whoever is Lankhmar’s seeming overlord, now Glipkerio Kistomerces,’ Hisvet told the Mouser as the second painting slid down into place. ‘So you see, beloved, our power goes everywhere.’ And she lifted her dagger and touched it lightly to his throat. The Mouser let it rest there a space before taking its tip between fingers and thumb and moving it aside. Then he as gently caught hold of the tip of one of Hisvet’s braids, she offering no resistance, and began to unweave the fine silver wires from the finer silver-blonde hairs.

  Frix still stood like a statue between fang and sting, seeming to see things beyond reality.

  ‘Is Frix one of your breed?—combining in some fashion the finest of human and ratly qualities,’ the Mouser asked quietly, keeping up with the task which, he told himself, would eventually and after an admittedly weary amount of unbraiding, allow him to arrive at his heart’s desire.

  Hisvet shook her head languorously, laying aside her dagger. ‘Frix is my dearest slave and almost sister, but not by blood. Indeed she is the dearest slave in all Nehwon, for she is a princess and perchance by now a queen in her own world. While a-travel between worlds, she was ship-wrecked here and beset by demons, from whom my father rescued her, at the price that she serve me forever.’

  At this, Frix spoke at last, though without moving else but her lips and tongue, not even her eyes to look at them. ‘Or until, sweetest mistress, I three times save your life at entire peril of my own. That has happened once now, aboard Squid, when the dragon would have gobbled you.’

  ‘You would never leave me, dear Frix,’ Hisvet said confidently.

  ‘I love you dearly and serve you faithfully,’ Frix replied. ‘Yet all things come to an end, O blessed Demoiselle.’

  ‘Then I shall have the Gray Mouser to protect me, and you unneeded,’ Hisvet countered somewhat pettishly, lying on an elbow. ‘Leave us for the nonce, Frix, for I would speak privately with him.’

  With merriest smile Frix came from between the deadly cages, made a curtsy toward the bed, resumed her yellow mask and swiftly went off through the second unsecret doorway, curtained with filmy silver.

  Still lifted on her elbow, Hisvet turned toward the Mouser her slender form and her taper-face alight with beauty. He reached toward her eagerly, but she captured his questing hands in her cool fingers and fondling them asked, or rather stated, her eyes feeding on his, ‘You will love me forever, will you not, who dared the dark and fearsome tunnels of the rat-world to win me?’

  ‘That will I surely, O Empress of Endless Delights,’ the Mouser answered fervently, maddened by desire and believing his words to the ends of the universe of his feelings—almost.

  ‘Then I think it proper to relieve you of this,’ Hisvet said, putting the fingers of her two hands to his temple, ‘for it would be an offense against myself and my supreme beauty to depend on a charm when I may now wholly depend on you.’

  And with only the tiniest tweak of pain inflicted, she deftly squeezed with her fingernails the silver dart from under the Mouser’s skin, as any woman might squeeze out a blackhead or whitehead from the visage of her lover. She showed him the dart gleaming on her palm. He for his part felt no change in his feelings whatever. He still adored her as divinity—and the fact that previously in his life he had never put any but momentary trust in any divinity whatever seemed of no importance at all, at least at this moment.

  Hisvet laid a cool hand on the Mouser’s side, but her red eyes were no longer languorously misty; they were sparklingly bright. And when he would have touched her similarly she prevented him, saying in most businesslike fashion, ‘No, no, not quite yet! First we must plan, my sweet—for you can serve me in ways which even Frix will not. To begin, you must slay me my father, who thwarts me and confines my life unbearably, so that I may be imperatrix of all and you by most favored consort. There will be no end to our powers. Tonight, Lankhmar! Tomorrow, all Nehwon! Then…the conquest of other universes beyond the waters of space! The subjugation of the angels and demons, of heaven itself and hell! At first it may be well that you impersonate my father, as you have Grig—and done most cleverly, by my own witnessing, pet. You are of men the most like me in the world for deceptions, darling. Then—’

  She broke off at something she saw in the Mouser’s face. ‘You will of course obey me in all things?’ she asked sharply, or rather asserted.

  ‘Well…’ the Mouser began.

  The silver drape billowed to the ceiling and Frix dashed in on silent-silken slippers, her yellow robe and hood lying behind her.

  ‘Your masks! Your masks!’ she cried. ‘’Ware! ’Ware!’ And she whirled over them to their necks an opaque violet coverlet, hiding Hisvet’s violet-robed form, the Mouser’s unclad body, and the tray between them. ‘Your father comes with armed attendants, lady!’ And she knelt by the head of the bed nearest Hisvet and bowed her yellow-masked head, assuming a servile posture.

  Hardly were the white and violet masks in place and the silver curtains settled to the floor than the latter were jerked rudely aside. Hisvin and Skwee appeared, both unmasked, followed by three pike-rats. Despite the presence of the huge vermin in their cages, the Mouser found it hard to banish the illusion that all the rats were actually five feet and more tall.

  Hisvin’s face grew dusky red as he surveyed the scene. ‘Oh, most monstrous!’ he cried at Hisvet. ‘Shameless filth! Loose with my own colleague!’

  ‘Don’t be dramatic, Daddy,’ Hisvet countered, while to the Mouser she whispered tersely, ‘Slay him now. I’ll clear you with Skwee and the rest.’

  The Mouser, fumbling under the coverlet over the side of the bed for Scalpel, while presenting a steady white be-diamonded mask at Hisvin, said blandly, ‘Calm yourself, counthillor. If your divine daughter chootheth me above all other ratth and men, ith it my fault, Hithvin? Or herth either? Love knowth no ruleth.’

  ‘I’ll have your head for this, Grig,’ Hisvin screeched at him, advancing toward the bed.

  ‘Daddy, you’ve become a puritanical dodderer,’ Hisvet said sharply, almost primly, ‘to indulge in antique tantrums on this night of our great conquest. Your day is done. I must take your place on the Council. Tell him so, Skwee. Daddy darling, I think you’re just madly jealous of Grig because you’re not where he is.’

  Hisvin screamed, ‘O dirt that was my daughter!’ and snatching with youthful speed a stiletto from his waist, drove it at Hisvet’s neck betwixt violet mask and coverlet—except that Frix, lunging suddenly on her knees, swung her open left hand hard between, as
one bats a ball.

  The needlelike blade drove through her palm to the slim dagger’s hilt and was wrenched from Hisvin’s grasp.

  Still on one knee, the bright blade transfixing her out-stretched left palm and dripping red a little, Frix turned toward Hisvin and advancing her other hand graciously, she said in clear, winning tones, ‘Govern your rage for all our sakes, dear my dear mistress’s father. These matters can be composed by quiet reason, surely. You must not quarrel together on this night of all nights.’

  Hisvin paled and retreated a step, daunted most likely by Frix’s preternatural composure, which indeed was enough to send shivers up a man’s or even a rat’s spine.

  The Mouser’s fumbling hand closed around Scalpel’s hilt. He prepared to spring out and dash back to Grig’s apartment, snatching up his bundle of clothes on the way. At some point during the last score or so heartbeats, his great undying love for Hisvet had quietly perished and was now beginning to stink in his nostrils.

  But at that instant the violet drapes were torn apart and there rushed from the Mouser’s chosen escape route the rat Hreest in his gold-embellished black garb and brandishing rapier and dirk. He was followed by three guardsmen-rats in green uniforms, each with a like naked sword. The Mouser recognized the dirk Hreest held—it was his own Cat’s Claw.

  Frix moved swiftly behind the head of the bed to the post she’d earlier taken between viper and scorpion cage, the stiletto still transfixing her left hand like a great pin. The Mouser heard her murmur rapidly, ‘The plot thickens. Enter armed rats at all portals. A climax nears.’

  Hreest came to a sudden halt and cried ringingly at Skwee and Hisvin, ‘The dismembered remains of Councillor Grig have been discovered lodged against the Fifth Level sewer’s exit-grill! The human spy is impersonating him in Grig’s own clothes!’

  Not at the moment, except for mask, the Mouser thought, and making one last effort cried out, ‘Nonthenthe! Thithe ith midthummer madneth! I am Grig! It wath thome other white rat got tho foully thlain!’

  Holding up Cat’s Claw and eyeing the Mouser, Hreest continued, ‘I discovered this dagger of human device in Grig’s apartment. The spy is clearly here.’

  ‘Kill him in the bed,’ Skwee commanded harshly, but the Mouser, anticipating a little the inevitable, had rolled out from under his sheets and now took up guard position naked, the white mask cast aside, Scalpel gleaming long and deadly in his right hand, while his left, in lieu of his dirk, held his belt and Scalpel’s limp scabbard, both doubled.

  With a weird laugh Hreest lunged at him, rapier a-flicker, while Skwee drew sword and came leaping across the foot of the bed, his boot crunching glass against tray beneath the coverlet.

  Hreest got a bind on Scalpel, carrying both long swords out to the side, and stepping in close stabbed with Cat’s Claw. The Mouser struck his own dirk aside with his doubled belt and drove his left shoulder into Hreest’s chest, slamming him back against two of his green uniformed sword-rats, who were thereby forced to give ground too.

  At almost the same instant the Mouser parried high to the side with Scalpel, deflecting Skwee’s rapier when its point was inches from his neck. Then swiftly changing fronts, he fenced a moment with Skwee, beat the rat’s blade aside, and lunged strongly. The white-clad rat was already in retreat across the foot of the bed, from the head of which Hisvet, now unmasked, watched critically, albeit a little sulkily, but the Mouser’s point nevertheless reached Skwee’s sword-wrist and pinked it halfway through.

  By this time the third green-clad rat, a giant relatively seven feet tall, who had to duck through the doorway, came lunging fiercely, though a little slowly. Meanwhile Hreest was picking himself up from the floor, while Skwee dropped his dagger and switched his rapier to his unwounded hand.

  The Mouser parried the giant’s lunge, a hair’s-breadth from his naked chest, and riposted. The giant counter-parried in time, but the Mouser dropped Scalpel’s tip under the other’s blade and continuing his riposte, skewered him through the heart.

  The giant’s jaw gaped, showing his great incisors. His eyes filmed. Even his fur seemed to dull. His weapons dropped from his nerveless hands and he stood dead on his feet a moment before starting to fall. In that moment the Mouser, squatting a little on his right leg, kicked out forcefully with his left. His heel took the giant in the breastbone, pushing his corpse off Scalpel and sending it careening back against Hreest and his two green-clad sword-rats.

  One of the pike-rats leveled his weapon for a run at the Mouser, but at that moment Skwee commanded loudly, ‘No more single attacks! Form we a circle around him!’

  The others were swift to obey, but in that brief pause Frix dropped open the silver-barred door that was one end of the scorpion’s cage, and despite her dagger-transfixed hand lifted the cage and heaved it sharply, sending its fearsome occupant flying to land on the foot of the bed, where it jigged about, big by comparison as a large cat, clashing its claws; rattling its chelicerae, and menacing with its sting over its head.

  Most of the rats directed their weapons at it. Snatching up her dagger, Hisvet crouched at the opposite corner from it, preparing to defend herself from her pet. Hisvin dodged in back of Skwee.

  At the same time Frix dropped her good hand to the medallions on the glow-worm tank. The painting of man and leopardess rose. The Mouser didn’t need the prompting of her wild smile and over-bright eyes. Snatching up the gray bundle of his clothes, he dashed up the dark steel stairs three at a time. Something hissed past his head and struck with a zing the riser of a stone step above and clattered down. It was Hisvet’s long dagger and it had struck point-first. The stairway grew dark and he began taking its steps only two at a time, crouching low as he could and peering wide-eyed ahead. Faintly he heard Skwee’s shrill command, ‘After him!’

  Frix with a grimace drew Hisvin’s stiletto from her palm, lightly kissed the bleeding wound, and with a curtsey presented the weapon to its owner.

  The bedroom was empty save for those two and Hisvet, who was drawing her violet robe around her, and Skwee, who was knotting with spade teeth and good hand a bandage round his injured wrist.

  Pierced by a dozen thrusts and oozing dark blood on the violet carpet, the scorpion still writhed on its back, its walking legs and great claws a-tremble, its sting sliding a little back and forth.

  Hreest, the two green sword-rats, and the three pike-rats had gone in pursuit of the Mouser and the clatter of their boots up the steep stairs had died away.

  Frowning darkly, Hisvin said to Hisvet, ‘I still should slay you.’

  ‘Oh Daddy dear, you don’t understand at all what happened,’ Hisvet said tremulously. ‘The Gray Mouser forced me at sword’s point. It was a rape. And at sword’s point under the coverlet he compelled me to say those dreadful things to you. You saw I did my best to kill him at the end.’

  ‘Pah!’ Hisvin spat, turning half aside.

  ‘She’s the one should be slain,’ Skwee asserted, indicating Frix, ‘She worked the spy’s escape.’

  ‘Most true, oh mighty councillor,’ Frix agreed. ‘Else he would have killed at least half of you, and your brains are greatly needed—in fact, indispensable, are they not?—to direct tonight’s grand assault on Lankhmar Above?’ She held out her red-dripping palm to Hisvet and said softly, ‘That’s twice, dear mistress.’

  ‘For that you shall be rewarded,’ Hisvet said, setting her lips primly. ‘And for helping the spy escape—and not preventing my rape!—you shall be whipped until you can no longer scream—tomorrow.’

  ‘Right joyfully, milady—tomorrow,’ Frix responded with a return of something of her merry tones. ‘But tonight there is work must be done. At Glipkerio’s palace in the Blue Audience Chamber. work for all three of us. And at once, I believe, milord,’ she added deferentially, turning to Hisvin.

  ‘That’s true,’ Hisvin said with a start. He scowled back and forth between his daughter and her maid three times, then with a shrug, said, ‘Come.’

 
‘How can you trust them?’ Skwee demanded.

  ‘I must,’ Hisvin said. ‘They’re needful if I am properly to control Glipkerio. Meanwhile your place is that of supreme command, at the council table. Siss will be needing you. Come!’ he repeated to the two girls. Frix worked the medallions. The second painting rose. They went all three up the stairs.

  Skwee paced the bed-chamber alone, head bowed in angry thought, automatically overstepping the corpse of the giant sword-rat and circling the still-writhing scorpion. When he at last stopped and lifted his gaze, it was to rest it on the vanity table bearing the black and white bottles of the size-change magic. He approached that table with the gait of a sleepwalker or one who walks through water. For a space he played aimlessly with the vials, rolling them this way and that. Then he said aloud to himself, ‘Oh why is it that one can be wise and command a vast host and strive unceasingly and reason with diamond brilliance, and still be low as a silverfish, blind as a cutworm? The obvious is in front of our toothy muzzles and we never see it—because we rats have accepted our littleness, hypnotized ourselves with our dwarfishness, our incapacity, and our inability to burst from our cramping drain-tunnels, to leap from the shallow but deadly jail-rut, whose low walls lead us only to the stinking rubbish heap or narrow burial crypt.’

  He lifted his ice-blue eyes and glared coldly at his silver-furred image in the silver mirror. ‘For all your greatness, Skwee,’ he told himself, ‘you have thought small all your rat’s life. Now for once, Skwee, think big!’ And with that fierce self-command, he picked up one of the white vials and pouched it, hesitated, swept all the white vials into his pouch, hesitated again, then with a shrug and a sardonic grimace swept the black vials after them and hurried from the room.