by Fritz Leiber
Along a narrow, dusty road two horsemen were cantering slowly toward the village of Soreev in the southernmost limits of the land of Lankhmar. They presented a somewhat battered appearance. The limbs of the larger, who was mounted on a chestnut gelding, showed several bruises, and there was a bandage around his thigh and another around the palm of his right hand. The smaller man, the one mounted on a gray mare, seemed to have suffered an equal number of injuries.
‘Do you know where we’re headed?’ said the latter, breaking a long silence. ‘We’re headed for a city. And in that city are endless houses of stone, stone towers without numbers, streets paved with stone, domes, archways, stairs. Tcha, if I feel then as I feel now, I’ll never go within a bowshot of Lankhmar’s walls.’
His large companion smiled.
‘What now, little man? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of—earthquakes?’
III
Thieves’ House
‘What’s the use of knowing the name of a skull? One would never have occasion to talk to it,’ said the fat thief loudly. ‘What interests me is that it has rubies for eyes.’
‘Yet it is written here that its name is Ohmphal,’ replied the black-bearded thief in the quieter tones of authority.
‘Let me see,’ said the bold, red-haired wench, leaning over his shoulder. She needed to be bold; all women were immemorially forbidden to enter Thieves’ House. Together the three of them read the tiny hieroglyphs.
ITEM: the skull Ohmphal, of the Master Thief Ohmphal, with great ruby eyes, and one pair of jeweled hands. HISTORY OF ITEM: the skull Ohmphal was stolen from the Thieves’ Guild by the priests of Votishal and placed by them in the crypt of their accursed temple. INSTRUCTIONS: the skull Ohmphal is to be recovered at the earliest opportunity, that it may be given proper veneration in the Thieves’ Sepulcher. DIFFICULTIES: the lock of the door leading to the crypt is reputed to be beyond the cunning of any thief to pick. WARNINGS: within the crypt is rumored to be a guardian beast of terrible ferocity.
‘Those crabbed letters are devilish hard to read,’ said the red-haired wench, frowning.
‘And no wonder, for they were written centuries ago,’ said the black-bearded thief.
The fat thief said, ‘I never heard tell of a Thieves’ Sepulcher, save the junkyard, the incinerator, and the Inner Sea.’
‘Times and customs change,’ the black-bearded thief philosophized. ‘Periods of reverence alternate with periods of realism.’
‘Why is it called the skull Ohmphal?’ the fat thief wondered. ‘Why not the skull of Ohmphal?’
The black-bearded thief shrugged.
‘Where did you find this parchment?’ the red-haired wench asked him.
‘Beneath the false bottom of a moldering chest in our storerooms,’ he replied.
‘By the gods who are not,’ chuckled the fat thief, still poring over the parchment, ‘the Thieves’ Guild must have been superstitious in those ancient days. To think of wasting jewels on a mere skull. If we ever get hold of Master Ohmphal, we’ll venerate him—by changing his ruby eyes into good hard money.’
‘Aye!’ said the black-bearded thief, ‘And it was just that matter I wanted to talk to you about, Fissif—the getting hold of Ohmphal.’
‘Oh, but there are—difficulties, as you, Krovas our master, must surely know,’ said the fat thief, quickly singing another tune. ‘Even today, after the passage of centuries, men still shudder when they speak of the crypt of Votishal, with its lock and its beast. There is no one in the Thieves’ Guild who can—’
‘No one in the Thieves’ Guild, that’s true!’ interrupted the black-bearded thief sharply. ‘But’—and here his voice began to go low—‘there are those outside the Thieves’ Guild who can. Have you heard that there is recently returned here to Lankhmar a certain rogue and picklock known as the Gray Mouser? And with him a huge barbarian who goes by the name of Fafhrd, but is sometimes called the Beast-Slayer? We have a score as you well know, to settle with both of them. They slew our sorcerer, Hristomilo. That pair commonly hunts alone—yet if you were to approach them with this tempting suggestion…’
‘But, Master,’ interposed the fat thief, ‘in that case, they would demand at least two-thirds of the profits.’
‘Exactly!’ said the black-bearded thief, with a sudden flash of cold humor. The red-haired wench caught his meaning, and laughed aloud. ‘Exactly! And that is just the reason why I have chosen you, Fissif, the smoothest of double-crossers, to undertake this business.’
The ten remaining days of the Month of the Serpent had passed, and the first fifteen days of the Month of the Owl, since those three had conferred. And the fifteenth day had darkened into night. Chill fog, like a dark shroud, hugged ancient stony Lankhmar, chief city of the land of Lankhmar. This night the fog had come earlier than usual, flowing down the twisting streets and mazy alleyways. And it was getting thicker.
In one street rather narrower and more silent than the rest—Cheap Street, its name—a square yellow torchlight shone from a wide doorway in a vast and rambling house of stone. There was something ominous in a single open door in a street where all other doors were barred against the darkness and the damp. People avoided this street at night. And there was reason for their fear. The house had a bad reputation. People said it was the den in which the thieves of Lankhmar gathered to plot and palaver and settle their private bickerings, the headquarters from which Krovas, the reputed Master Thief, issued his orders—in short, the home of the formidable Thieves’ Guild of Lankhmar.
But now a man came hurrying along this street, every now and then looking apprehensively over his shoulder. He was a fat man, and he hobbled a little, as if he had recently ridden hard and far. He carried a tarnished and ancient-looking copper box of about the size to contain a human head. He paused in the doorway and uttered a certain password—seemingly to the empty air, for the long hall ahead of him was empty. But a voice from a point inside and above the doorway answered, ‘Pass, Fissif. Krovas awaits you in his room.’ And the fat one said, ‘They follow me close—you know the two I mean.’ And the voice replied, ‘We are ready for them.’ And the fat one hurried down the hall.
For a considerable time, then, there was nothing but silence and the thickening fog. Finally a faint warning whistle came from somewhere down the street. It was repeated closer by and answered from inside the doorway.
Then, from the same direction as the first whistle came the tread of feet, growing louder. It sounded as if there were only one person, but the effulgence of the light from the door showed that there was also a little man, who walked softly, a little man clad in close-fitting garments of gray—tunic, jerkin, mouseskin cap and cloak.
His companion was rangy and copper-haired, obviously a northern barbarian from the distant lands of the Cold Waste. His tunic was rich brown, his cloak green. There was considerable leather about him—wristbands, headband, boots, and a wide tight-laced belt. Fog had wet the leather and misted the brass studding it. As they entered the square of light before the doorway, a frown furrowed his broad wide forehead. His green eyes glanced quickly from side to side. Putting his hand on the little man’s shoulder, he whispered:
‘I don’t like the looks of this, Gray Mouser.’
‘Tcha! The place always looks like this, as you well know,’ retorted the Gray Mouser sharply, his mobile lips sneering and dark eyes blazing. ‘They just do it to scare the populace. Come on, Fafhrd! We’re not going to let that misbegotten, double-dealing Fissif escape after the way he cheated us.’
‘I know all that, my angry little weasel,’ the barbarian replied, tugging the Mouser back. ‘And the idea of Fissif escaping displeases me. But putting my bare neck in a trap displeases me more. Remember, they whistled.’
‘Tcha! They always whistle. They like to be mysterious. I know these thieves, Fafhrd. I know them well. And you yourself have twice entered Thieves’ House and escaped. Come on!’
‘But I don’t know all of Thieves’ House,’ Fafh
rd protested. ‘There’s a modicum of danger.’
‘Modicum! They don’t know all of Thieves’ House, their own place. It’s a maze of the unknown, a labyrinth of forgotten history. Come on!’
‘I don’t know. It awakens evil memories of my lost Vlana.’
‘And of my lost Ivrian! But must we let them win because of that?’
The big man shrugged his shoulders and started forward.
‘On second thought,’ whispered the Mouser, ‘there may be something to what you say.’ And he slipped a dirk from his belt.
Fafhrd showed white teeth in grin and slowly pulled a big-pommeled longsword from its well-oiled scabbard.
‘A rotten weapon for infighting,’ murmured the Mouser in a comradely sardonical way.
Warily now they approached the door, each taking a side and sticking close to the wall. Holding the grip of his sword low, the point high, ready to strike in any direction, Fafhrd entered. The Mouser was a little ahead of him. Out of the corner of his eye Fafhrd saw something snakelike dropping down at the Mouser’s head from above, and struck at it quickly with his sword. This flipped it toward him and he caught it with his free hand. It was a strangler’s noose. He gave it a sudden sidewise heave and the man gripping the other end toppled out from a ledge above. For an instant he seemed to hang suspended in the air, a dark-skinned rogue with long black hair and a greasy tunic of red leather worked with gold thread. As Fafhrd deliberately raised his sword, he saw that the Mouser was lunging across the corridor at him, dirk in hand. For a moment he thought the Mouser had gone mad. But the Mouser’s dirk missed him by a hairbreadth and another blade whipped past his back.
The Mouser had seen a trapdoor open in the floor beside Fafhrd and a bald-headed thief shoot up, sword in hand. After deflecting the blow aimed at his companion, the Mouser slammed the trapdoor back and had the satisfaction of catching with it the blade of the sword and two left-hand fingers of the ducking thief. All three were broken and the muted yowl from below was impressive. Fafhrd’s man, spitted on the longsword, was quite dead.
From the street came several whistles and the sound of men moving in.
‘They’ve cut us off!’ snapped the Mouser. ‘Our best chance lies ahead. We’ll make for Krovas’ room. Fissif may be there. Follow me!’
And he darted down the corridor and up a winding stair, Fafhrd behind him. At the second level they left the stair and raced for a doorway from which yellow light shone.
It puzzled the Mouser that they had met with no interference. His sharp ears no longer caught sounds of pursuit. On the threshold he pulled up quickly, so that Fafhrd collided with him.
It was a large room with several alcoves. Like the rest of the building, the floor and walls were of smooth dark stone, unembellished. It was lit by four earthenware lamps set at random on a heavy cyprus table. Behind the table sat a richly robed, black-bearded man, seemingly staring down in extreme astonishment at a copper box and a litter of smaller objects, his hands gripping the table edge. But they had no time to consider his odd motionlessness and still odder complexion, for their attention was immediately riveted on the red-haired wench who stood beside him.
As she sprang back like a startled cat, Fafhrd pointed at what she held under one arm and cried, ‘Look, Mouser, the skull! The skull and the hands!’
Clasped in her slim arm was indeed a brownish, ancient-looking skull, curiously banded with gold from whose eye sockets great rubies sparkled and whose teeth were diamonds and blackened pearls. And in her white hand were gripped two neat packets of brown bones, tipped with a golden gleam and reddish sparkle. Even as Fafhrd spoke she turned and ran toward the largest alcove, her lithe legs outlined against silken garments. Fafhrd and the Mouser rushed after her. They saw she was heading for a small low doorway. Entering the alcove her free hand shot out and gripped a cord hanging from the ceiling. Not pausing, swinging at the hips, she gave it a tug. Folds of thick, weighted velvet fell down behind her. The Mouser and Fafhrd plunged into them and floundered. It was the Mouser who got through first, wriggling under. He saw an oblong of faint light narrowing ahead of him, sprang for it, grabbed at the block of stone sinking into the low doorway, then jerked his hand back with a curse and sucked at bruised fingers. The stone panel closed with a slight grating noise.
Fafhrd lifted the thick folds of velvet on his broad shoulders as if they were a great cloak. Light from the main rooms flooded into the alcove and revealed a closely mortised stone wall of uniform appearance. The Mouser started to dig the point of his dirk into a crack, then desisted.
‘Fafhrd I know these doors! They’re either worked from the other side or else by distant levers. She’s gotten clear away and the skull with her.’
He continued to suck the fingers that had come so near to being crushed, wondering superstitiously if his breaking of the trapdoor thief’s fingers had been a kind of omen.
‘We forget Krovas,’ said Fafhrd suddenly, lifting the drapes with his hand and looking back over his shoulder.
But the black-bearded man had not taken any notice of the commotion. As they approached him slowly they saw that his face was bluish-purple under the swarthy skin, and that his eyes bulged not from astonishment, but from strangulation. Fafhrd lifted the oily, well-combed beard and saw cruel indentations on the throat, seeming more like those of claws than fingers. The Mouser examined the things on the table. There were a number of jeweler’s instruments, their ivory handles stained deep yellow from long use. He scooped up some small objects.
‘Krovas had already pried three of the finger-jewels loose and several of the teeth,’ he remarked, showing Fafhrd three rubies and a number of pearls and diamonds, which glittered on his palm.
Fafhrd nodded and again lifted Krovas’ beard, frowning at the indentations, which were beginning to deepen in color.
‘I wonder who the woman is?’ said the Mouser. ‘No thief is permitted to bring a woman here on pain of death. But the Master Thief has special powers and perhaps can take chances.’
‘He has taken one too many,’ muttered Fafhrd.
Then the Mouser awoke to their situation. He had half-formulated a plan of effecting an escape from Thieves’ House by capturing and threatening Krovas. But a dead man cannot be effectively intimidated. As he started to speak to Fafhrd they caught the murmur of several voices and the sound of approaching footsteps. Without deliberation they retired into the alcove, the Mouser cutting a small slit in the drapes at eye level and Fafhrd doing the same.
They heard someone say, ‘Yes, the two of them got clean away, damn their luck! We found the alley door open.’
The first thief to enter was paunchy, white-faced, and obviously frightened. The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd immediately recognized him as Fissif. Pushing him along roughly was a tall, expressionless fellow with heavy arms and big hands. The Mouser knew him, too—Slevyas the Tight-lipped, recently promoted to be Krovas’ chief lieutenant. About a dozen others filed into the room and took up positions near the walls. Veteran thieves all, with a considerable sprinkling of scars, pockmarks, and other mutilations, including two black-patched eye sockets. They were somewhat wary and ill at ease, held daggers and shortswords ready, and all stared intently at the strangled man.
‘So Krovas is truly dead,’ said Slevyas, shoving Fissif forward. ‘At least that much of your story is true.’
‘Dead as a fish,’ echoed a thief who had moved closer to the table. ‘Now we’ve got us a better master. We’ll have no more of black-beard and his red-haired wench.’
‘Hide your teeth, rat, before I break them!’ Slevyas whipped out the words coldly.
‘But you are our master now,’ replied the thief in a surprised voice.
‘Yes, I’m the master of all of you, unquestioned master, and my first piece of advice is this: to criticize a dead thief may not be irreverent—but it is certainly a waste of time. Now, Fissif, where’s the jeweled skull? We all know it’s more valuable than a year’s pickpocketing, and that the Thieves’
Guild needs gold. So, no nonsense!’
The Mouser peering cautiously from his slit, grinned at the look of fear on Fissif’s fat-jowled face.
‘The skull, Master?’ said Fissif in a quavering sepulchral tone. ‘Why, it’s flown back to the grave from which we three filched it. Surely if those bony hands could strangle Krovas, as I saw with my own eyes, the skull could fly.’
Slevyas slapped Fissif across the face.
‘You lie, you quaking bag of mush! I will tell you what happened. You plotted with those two rogues, the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd. You thought no one would suspect you because you double-crossed them according to instructions. But you planned a double-double-cross. You helped them escape the trap we had set, let them kill Krovas, and then assured their escape by starting a panic with your tale of dead fingers killing Krovas. You thought you could brazen it out.’
‘But Master,’ Fissif pleaded, ‘with my own eyes I saw the skeletal fingers leap to his throat. They were angry with him because he had pried forth some of the jewels that were their nails and—’
Another slap changed his statement to a whining grunt.
‘A fool’s story,’ sneered a scrawny thief. ‘How could the bones hold together?’
‘They were laced on brass wires,’ returned Fissif in meek tones.
‘Nah! And I suppose the hands, after strangling Krovas, picked up the skull and carried it away with them?’ suggested another thief. Several sniggered. Slevyas silenced them with a look, then indicated Fissif with his thumb.
