Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar)

by Robin Wayne Bailey

  "Decent food and plenty of it," the Mouser answered, passing the heavy bag to Nuulpha. "Everyone below, including Demptha, looked half-starved. A nobleman named Belit happened to cause me some irritation a night or two ago, so it amused me to strip his larders bare."

  "Lord Belit?" Nuulpha gave a soft whistle. "I wish I'd been with you for that."

  The Mouser shook his head. "Except for Fafhrd, there's no other man I'd take a-burgling. I'm not fool enough to risk a fight or capture on someone else's clumsiness."

  A look of hurt slipped over Nuulpha's features, but the Mouser slapped his arm. "No offense intended. But theft is a solo job, my friend. If you ever take it up, remember that. Trust no one."

  Nuulpha adjusted the bag on his shoulder. "But you and the Northerner..."

  "That's different," the Mouser said curtly. "I can't explain it, but that big lummox and I know each other in a manner that's not completely natural." He rolled his eyes melodramatically. "Distasteful as I find the idea, sometimes I think we're two halves of some very old soul."

  Suddenly he held up a hand for silence and, poised like an animal ready for flight, turned toward the alley's entrance.

  The sound of marching feet grew steadily clearer. Then a soft wavering radiance drifted down Hardstone Street. The Mouser loosened his thin sword in its sheath as he pressed himself against the warehouse wall into the deepest shadows.

  A squad of six soldiers bearing torches passed by without so much as a glance into the alley. Exhaling a soft breath, the Mouser stole up to the street, peered around the corner of the warehouse, and watched until the squad marched out of sight.

  "Let's go inside," the Mouser whispered, returning to Nuulpha. "Don't let the hinges squeak."

  "I oiled them," Nuulpha answered, sheathing his own sword and picking up the bag, which he had placed on the ground.

  "You're learning," the Mouser said with a nod and a grin. "I'll make a thief of you yet."

  Nuulpha led the way a little further down the alley and found the wooden handles of a pair of large doors. Carefully, he opened one just wide enough for them to slip inside. The hinges made no sound at all, but the bottom of the old door, which hung crookedly, scraped softly in the alley dust.

  Pulling the door shut, the Mouser reached for the stout four-by-four wooden bar that leaned against the wall nearby. As quietly as possible, he set it in place, sealing the doors. Relaxing a little, he surveyed the warehouse's stark interior. A score of thick square-cut beams supported the low ceiling, standing like anorexic sentinels guarding a vast dusty emptiness.

  A few paces away, crouched beside a wooden box, Nuulpha turned up the wick of a lantern. The dim blue flame within brightened, exuding a soft yellow glow that uplit the corporal's sharp-featured face. Seizing the bale, he lifted the lantern in one hand and the bag with the other.

  Just at the light's edge lay a huge crib that might once have served as a corn bin. The Mouser tugged open the lid and pulled back the latticed door before pausing. Pursing his lips, he turned slowly.

  "Speaking of my partner," he said quietly, "have you learned anything?"

  Nuulpha frowned. "No news at all," he said regretfully. "No one's seen him—the city guards aren't even looking for him. You, however, are a different matter. A certain Corporal Muulsh of the North Barracks is storming all over the city looking for you."

  The Mouser drew a finger down his right cheek. "Long scar?" he asked.

  Nuulpha nodded. "You know him?"

  "A peach of a fellow," the Mouser answered, turning away. He bent to the floor of the corn crib, found a metal ring embedded in the old boards, and curled his gloved fingers around it. Lifting a hidden trap door, he peered down into blackness.

  Demptha Negatarth had purchased this abandoned warehouse because of its precise location above one branch of Lankhmar's secret tunnels and had excavated this private access. Down this hole, down these narrow wooden steps, he and his followers came and went, bringing the helpless victims of Malygris's evil magic to hide them from Rokkarsh's night-prowling soldiers.

  He felt no small honor at being entrusted with such knowledge. Taking the bag from Nuulpha again, he motioned the corporal to go down. The light shone dimly up from the hole as the Mouser closed the crib door and lowered its heavy lid into place. Descending the first few steps, he lowered the trap door above his head.

  The ponderous weight of the earth seemed to close about him, and the smell of dirt and dampness filled his nostrils. A sense of unease settled upon him; he was no mole, and rooting around in the ground held no appeal. Fixing his eyes on the lantern’s glow, he descended as quickly as the heavy bag and the narrow steps allowed.

  Nuulpha waited at the bottom, his upturned face betraying a nervousness he hadn't shown before. His shoulders slumped, and he crouched subtly, though his head cleared the tunnel roof by inches.

  The Mouser knew how the corporal felt. The darkness possessed an intimidating solidity that the lantern barely penetrated. The closeness of the walls and the low narrow ceiling suffocated, and the earth still bore a fresh-dug odor. He could practically feel, he imagined, the hungry maggots and worms burrowing nearer.

  Perhaps because he felt so intensely the absence of his friend, he recalled the words of one of Fafhrd’s songs. Softly he whispered, seeking to buoy his spirits by mocking his own fear as he crept forward into the gloom.

  "Lay me down in the cold, dark ground;

  Make of the earth a soft round mound;

  Worms and maggots gather around

  To bear me off to Shadowland."

  The stale air seemed to shiver, and the lantern's flame reacted with a barely perceptible waver as if some undetectable wind had danced around it. The Mouser's skin crawled, and the hair stood on the nape of his neck.

  "There is a road we all must brave—

  King and peasant, saint and knave—

  No man is born who is not a slave

  To the Lord of Shadowland."

  With a shaking hand, Nuulpha turned up the lantern's wick another notch. The flame brightened a little, but failed to push back the darkness. "Have you no other song?" he grumbled.

  "A tisket, a tasket, two bodies in a casket," the Mouser persisted, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

  But suddenly he stopped. Catching Nuulpha's arm, he jerked his companion around. "You're trembling," he said. "So am I." He squeezed past Nuulpha, daring to venture a few paces beyond the boundary of the light, then stepped back into its amber circle. "Grown men shivering in the dark," he whispered. He licked his lips thoughtfully, admitting his fear, feeling it growing inside him like a pressure.

  "Why am I afraid?" he said, as much to himself as to Nuulpha. "I've been under the earth before. Why does this seem different?"

  "My heart is hammering," Nuulpha confessed in a hushed voice. "And there's weakness in my knees. It shames me . . ."

  "Then there's shame for both of us," the Mouser said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. He set down the bag of stolen victuals and put a hand over his own heart. "I am almost overwhelmed," he said. "As if I were wading deeper and deeper into some black sea..."

  "... About to be dragged down by some unseen tentacled monster ..." Nuulpha added, wiping sweat from his brow.

  Rubbing his chin, the Mouser paced to the very edge of the light and stopped with only his toes challenging the horrible border. He squinted into the blackness, half-expecting some red-eyed demon to stare back.

  "Eclipses," Nuulpha muttered, picking up the bag and going to the Mouser's side, "a Patriarch's death, all this damnable fog of late—bad omens, all, I tell you."

  Forcing down his fear, the Mouser ventured slowly forward. Yet he felt in his bones some pervasive, unseeable change in the tunnels, an unearthly strangeness that tainted the air. Even the very darkness, the shade and texture of the gloom, struck him suddenly as alien.

  They emerged finally from the narrow, man-made tunnel into a larger natural cavern. Here, too, the oppressive strange
ness dominated. The Mouser stood still and listened. Was it Nuulpha's breathing he heard, or his own? Or was it. . . something else.

  He thought of the rats and bats that should have occupied this underworld, the insects and countless crawling creatures. Yet no living thing dwelled here. He remembered wondering if some monster, stalking these grim passages, had eaten the rats. Now he wondered if, following some animal instinct, they simply had fled.

  Again, leaving Nuulpha on the tunnel threshold, he stepped beyond the range of the light to turn slowly in the darkness. Above, the ceiling's stalactites glimmered coldly with hints of phosphorescence, of crystal, and mica. In either direction, the cavern walls seemed to vanish, and the black gloom extended into some void, an infinity of fearsome night.

  "Glavas Rho," he whispered, invoking the memory of the herb-wizard who, in the absence of father or mother, had raised him through boyhood. "I think you have not prepared me for this."

  Nuulpha crept to his side. The lantern's wick was now turned as high as it would go, but the flame and its light seemed smaller than ever. He raised the lantern over his head, surrounding them both in a circle of faint radiance.

  The Mouser drew a circle in the air with his left hand, one of the holy signs of his spider-god. "Let no evil thing pass into this glow," he intoned, his black eyes glittering sharply.

  "Stop!" Nuulpha cried. The light wavered dramatically as, dropping the foodbag, the corporal clapped a hand around the Mouser's head and over his mouth. Instantly, he released the Mouser again, but spun him around. "You invite Malygris's curse with such careless words!"

  Stunned briefly, the Mouser hugged himself against the chill Nuulpha's words caused as he looked up into his comrade's stricken face. "Thank you, Captain," he said, recovering himself. Yet, a thought flashed through his mind—had he just doomed himself with that stupid charm-casting? He turned to stare once more into the void beyond the light, into the darkness that ate at his reason.

  "How easy it was to forget myself," he murmured to Nuulpha, "just once. Despite my cautions, despite knowing the danger, I acted according to my nature."

  He bit his lip. Did he dare tell Nuulpha more? A double dread shivered through him, fear of Malygris's wasting curse, and of something else—these tunnels and caverns. Something stirred here, something vaster and more inhumanly malevolent than any mere monster of his imagination. He knew it, though he couldn't explain his knowledge.

  Whatever it was, it was not Malygris.

  "Let's move on," Nuulpha urged, laying a hand gently on the Mouser's shoulder. "Demptha will be glad to receive this food."

  Turning, the Mouser forced a grin as he motioned for Nuulpha to lead the way. In truth, he suddenly preferred not to remain in one spot too long down here. "And Jesane?" he asked in a falsely jaunty voice, giving his thoughts to Demptha's daughter. "Will she be glad to receive me?"

  Nuulpha snorted, quickening his pace subtly, as if sensing something more than the Mouser at his back. "Despite what your eyes tell you, she's old enough to be your mother."

  The Mouser barked a laugh that sounded strained even to his ears. "Liar, and whoreson jealous dog!" he said, slapping Nuulpha's back. "You think you can turn my interest aside so easily? You want her for yourself."

  Nuulpha shook his head emphatically. "I have a loving wife," he reminded the Mouser. "She loves to spend my money, loves to order me about, loves to lie around slothfully. . . . But never mind. About Jesane, I speak the truth. She could be your mother. Mine, too, for that matter. And Demptha is a lot older than he looks."

  "But Demptha is far less enticing," the Mouser answered. He cast a backward glance as they left the cavern and entered a brick-walled tunnel. He knew it could only be a trick of the light, but the void seemed almost to stalk them.

  When I stop, it stops, he thought to himself. Yet each time I look around it seems just a little bit closer. He chewed his lip while Nuulpha continued obliviously on. Finding himself abruptly on the edge of the light, he hurried to catch up.

  A soul-wrenching scream ripped suddenly through the tunnels. Goosebumps rising on his flesh, heart hammering, the Mouser froze in his tracks and stared wide-eyed past Nuulpha into the forward darkness. The tunnels magnified the sound, and the echoes rattled from the stones. The food bag slipped from the corporal's grip, and the lantern trembled violently in his shaking hand. A man's cry of pain followed, then a cacophony of terrorized shrieking.

  Nuulpha spun about, his face a pale, distorted mask of fear. A moaning cry bubbled on his lips. Knocking the Mouser down, he ran back the way they had come.

  The light vanished with Nuulpha's fleeing figure, and darkness closed about the Mouser like a fist. Cowering, he flung himself against the wall, finding little comfort in having something solid at his back. The screams continued, long blood-curdling waves of horror. Blind in the darkness, the Mouser shot desperate looks up and down the tunnel. He whipped out his dagger, gasping, fear sucking breath from his lungs like a cat. "Nuulpha!" he called. "Nuulpha!"

  Then he clamped a hand over his own mouth, afraid that something unpleasant might hear and turn his way.

  He twisted toward the screams, and an icy wind seemed to brush his soul as suddenly he thought he recognized some cries among others. That's Mish's voice! That's Jesane! They issued from the Temple of Hates, he had no doubt. On hands and knees, clutching Catsclaw, he began to crawl forward, groping at the wall, feeling his way.

  A high-pitched child's shriek stung his heart. The little girl! he thought with an inward despairing cry. He lurched to his feet. With shambling steps he ran. He opened his mouth and screamed his own scream, a challenging and angry cry, feeling his throat tear with the ferocity of it. He hoped this time to draw the demons to himself and away from the temple—for demons there must surely be!

  Pain flashed. Stars exploded inside his skull. Rebounding from the wall, a bend in the passage, he fell backward with a groan and sprawled on the cold earth. The screams became fewer, weaker. Shaking off the impact, he struggled to his knees, fumbled about for Catsclaw, which had fallen from his grasp. His fingers brushed the dagger's hilt.

  The metal glimmered against his fingers. Light! He shot a look back over his shoulder. Nuulpha!

  The corporal crouched down beside him. "Forgive me!" he begged.

  The Mouser seized the lantern and ran ahead through the tunnel. The screams were no more than moans and groans now, yet no less terrible. "Which way?" he shouted, confronted with an unexpected intersection.

  "This way," Nuulpha said grimly, squeezing past, taking the lead with his naked short-sword in hand. The Mouser raced beside him through the new, wider passage, envisioning the carnage ahead.

  Even the moaning ceased. A dreadful silence filled the tunnels.

  Another turn, a few more paces, and they reached the Temple of Hates. The Mouser's mouth went dry as he gazed up the ancient stone staircase. The huge door at the top stood ominously closed. On its wooden surface, the cracked and painted face of some unknown demon or deity mocked them with its leer.

  Swallowing, the Mouser crept up the steps and put his hand against the door. At his touch, it swung open with a faint creaking. The lantern's light speared the darkness beyond the threshold, revealing only an empty corridor.

  "Black as a bat's arsehole," Nuulpha whispered, close behind him.

  The Mouser entered the passage with swift, soundless strides, exchanging his dagger for his sword. With the slender blade held on guard before him, he took each bend in the way and came to the seeming wall that separated the corridor from the Temple.

  Nuulpha kicked the appropriate stone. The hidden entrance slid back, and the Mouser sprang inside.

  Only darkness greeted them. Side by side, they moved through the chamber, shining the lantern about. The many columns that supported the low ceiling cast uncounted shadows, and every shadow seemed a threat. Yet no enemy accosted them.

  Every pallet lay empty. Blankets were cast aside, pillows scattered. No real signs of
a struggle, though. Water jars stood undisturbed; furniture sat upright; no traces of blood or violence.

  "Where'd they go?" Nuulpha whispered. "Where's Demptha?"

  The Mouser shook his head. His skin crawled as he looked about. The screaming he had heard were screams of death and slaughter. He had prepared himself for carnage and battle, not for this—this eerie emptiness.

  The light fell upon a small straw doll that lay on the floor. Picking it up, he thought of the little blond girl in whose arms he had last seen it. Was she dead? Should he grieve? He dropped the doll on the nearby pallet where she had slept and moved on uncertainly, searching every corner, every shadow.

  "Who put out the light?"

  Nuulpha had dropped out of sight behind the Mouser. The Mouser turned to find the corporal standing a few paces away near a table pointing to a fat candle, its wax still soft and warm. "All the lanterns, all the candles and torches," the corporal said. "They've all been recently extinguished."

  "Is there any other way out of here?" the Mouser asked. "Another tunnel or some secret passage Demptha might have shared with you?"

  Nuulpha shrugged as he lit the candle from the Mouser's lantern. He moved forward, turned slowly about, and shook his head. "I know of only the one way," he answered. A look of puzzlement settled over his face. "There's something else," he said, staring toward the ceiling. "It's too quiet."

  The Mouser listened. "The Midsummer celebration," he said with dawning awareness.

  "We're right under the Festival District," Nuulpha reminded. "We should hear traces of music and laughter."

  Grimly, the Mouser continued his search. The temple's acoustics were tricky. The silence might signify nothing more than a lull in the festivities. He put that puzzle aside to concentrate on the present mystery. Moving toward the farthest end of the temple, he shone his light on Demptha's long worktable. "Look," he said, summoning Nuulpha.

  Demptha's tarot cards lay scattered over the table and on the floor as if an angry hand had swept the deck aside.