Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar)

by Robin Wayne Bailey

  The thought of wine made him thirsty. Licking dry lips, he glided through thick grass down the riverbank’s gentle slope to the river's edge. Bending low, he put his fingers into the softly flowing water. Its strange warmth surprised him. Marveling, he drew his hand out and thrust it back in again, sending small ripples dancing into the darkness.

  Blood warm, he thought morbidly. With a curious trepidation, he raised his wet fingers and put them in his mouth. Only water. He chided himself for an overly imaginative fool. Cupping one palm, he took a deeper drink and wiped his hand on his cloak as he rose.

  Far down the shore, the faint light of a campfire glimmered. Gypsies, he expected. Still, lacking any other sense of Fafhrd's direction, he crept toward that flickering glow.

  The fire reminded him sadly of Demptha's great burned library and the blaze at Sadaster's estate. So many books—so much knowledge lost. His heart ached at the loss, and his chest swelled with anger.

  Yet, what was gained by anger alone? Once again, he put his mind to work searching for answers to questions he could barely form, convinced that Malygris alone was no longer their only foe. Sadaster and Demptha, he murmured to himself.

  What was the connection?

  Concealed by the grass and the darkness, a narrow drainage ditch crossed the Mouser's path, carrying sewage and run-off from the edge of the city to the river. The Mouser's next step landed several inches lower than anticipated, and his foot slipped in a black slime. The world tilted, and the sky spun sharply clockwise. Choking back an outcry, the Mouser toppled sideways with a muted splash.

  Muttering curses, he dragged himself up and scrambled out of the ditch. A miasma swam in his nostrils. Mud covered his garments, saturated them. Disgust wrinkling his face, he shook black filth from his hands and fingers. "Capricious gods!" he grumbled as he bent down and wiped his hands in the grass. Unsatisfied, he went back to the river's shore and plunged them in the water.

  Nothing could be done about his clothes. He sniffed himself and nearly gagged on the stench. Boots, trousers, sleeves, cloak—he took a mental inventory and cursed again. "What a world," he groused. "What a fine, pungent perfume for a dainty fellow like me!"

  Muffled voices, born over the water, drew the Mouser's attention from his smelly plight. He turned his head toward the distant campfire again, slowly rising. Now he spied a second, smaller flame. A torch, perhaps?

  He chewed his lower lip, listening, and his eyes narrowed suddenly. Despite the distance and the sound-distorting effect of the river, one of those voices carried a familiar note.

  Forgetting his condition, he began to run. The sloping ground dipped and rolled under his feet. His sheathed sword slapped his leg, and his hood fell away from his face. In the darkness, he stumbled, caught his balance, and kept running toward the campfire and the voices, which now were shouts, and one of them unmistakably belonged to Fafhrd!

  Cast by the campfire, elongated shadows shifted and stirred over the dark sward. At the heart of those shadows, Fafhrd spun and danced like a drunken fool with arms outstretched, hands grasping at the air, head thrown back with a drunkard's fascination for the stars.

  With a natural caution, the Mouser stopped just beyond the reach of the light and crouched in the grass. Only an idiot rushed headlong into a fight without assessing the situation, and he considered himself no idiot.

  But was this a fight? Though he had clearly heard two voices before, he saw no foe. Fafhrd shouted and cursed, and as the Mouser watched, the Northerner flung himself on the ground, twitching and kicking.

  In horror, the Mouser cursed caution and prepared to rush to Fafhrd's side.

  Before he could move, a chilling laugh rang out. "I can make this torment last all night," a voice said. "Tell me! Did you touch Laurian?"

  The Mouser flattened himself in the grass, his gaze searching. At the very eastern edge of the campfire's glow, barely visible in the night, a figure stood with grim expression and bitter eyes, one arm extended, fingers clutching air in a menacing gesture.

  Malygris!

  The Mouser knew the wizard instantly and without doubt. Breath caught in his throat, and excitement quickened his heart. Here at last was their foe!

  The wizard took a single step toward Fafhrd, crossing the tenuous border of darkness to stand just within the light of the campfire. His skin gleamed silver and orange, and the glow filled his angry gaze, lending it a queer quality.

  The Mouser almost gasped aloud, recalling an image of Malygris that Sheelba had conjured from a campfire in the dark of night. For an instant, image and man made a perfect match, right down to the arrogant pose.

  Then Malygris moved again and the match shattered. For one thing, the man was clothed in rags, and the Mouser noted the way he nursed an injured arm.

  Fafhrd thrust his huge sword into the ground. Using it like a crutch, he attempted to rise and made it to his knees. "How long will your torment last?" he shouted in answer.

  The Mouser ceased to listen. He rolled away from the edge of the light into deeper darkness. When he thought himself safely invisible, he rose and circled around behind Malygris, putting himself between the wizard and the city.

  Fafhrd continued to shout, and his gaze darted off at strange angles as he reacted to things the Mouser couldn't see. Yet the Northerner climbed unsteadily to his feet and leaned on the sword.

  Achieving the position he preferred, the Mouser drew his slender blade and crept down the easy slope, his boots making no sound in the soft grass and spongy earth. Malygris's broad back offered itself. If Fafhrd held the wizard's attention just a little longer, Scalpel would draw the precious, needed drop of heart-blood. Then let Sheelba work his magic and end this nightmare!

  The wizard howled with a soul-deep pain and anger that froze the Mouser in his tracks before he could strike the fatal thrust. Then, clutching suddenly at that injured arm, Malygris howled a second time.

  The Mouser saw his chance. Raising his sword, he rushed forward.

  "Small payment for the suffering you've brought," Fafhrd cried grimly.

  So suddenly did Malygris spin about that the Mouser was caught off-guard. The wizard ran straight into him, barely avoiding the rapier's deadly point. The impact whirled the Mouser about, and he crashed to the ground on his rump.

  For a brief moment, Malygris loomed above him, an expression of dark rage on his face. The Mouser caught a glimpse of a dagger sprouting from the injured arm and a black, spreading smear on the sleeve. Blood!

  The sight reminded him of his purpose. Clumsily, he thrust upward with his sword.

  Growling like a cornered animal, the wizard disappeared before the Mouser's open eyes. The Mouser leaped to his feet again. Swinging his thin sword like a whip, he slashed desperately at the air where his foe had been.

  A huge shadow fell over the earth as a figure blotted out the fire's glow. "My dagger for an appetizer!" Fafhrd roared fiercely. "Here comes the banquet!"

  His great sword whistled down at the Mouser's head. In astonishment, the Mouser danced lithely back, and his rapier came up not to meet the larger blade, but at an angle to deflect it.

  "There you are!" he cried, wondering how Malygris had come by his partner's weapon, for it was the wizard who attacked him, and there was no sign of Fafhrd. He eyed the massive sword, which looked improbably heavy in Malygris's thinly gnarled hands. "I see you're ready to dance. How fortunate for you there's still a place on my card!"

  The Mouser lunged forward in a straight thrust, bending his back knee almost to the earth to come under the great sword. With surprising speed, the larger sword smashed downward, blocking his effort, turning his point aside with such force the Mouser barely kept his grip.

  Yet keep it he did. With a flick of his wrist, he slashed his sword point at his opponent's hand, hoping to disarm with a cut. But Malygris moved marginally faster and turned the blow on the great sword's tangs.

  Undaunted, the Mouser attacked. With three swift, skipping steps he drove the wizard
toward the river. Malygris retreated adroitly, dodging the first thrust, ducking the second, turning the third away with the flat of his sword.

  Then the Mouser's eyes widened in surprise. The wizard— brazen fool!—attacked him straight on! The great sword whirled in his hands, becoming a dazzling blur that gleamed red and gold in the firelight. The Mouser scrambled back from a fierce attack, pressed to defend against a blade that could smash his own slender weapon into pieces.

  The great sword sang down toward his head again. With delicate artistry, the Mouser's Scalpel flashed out and kissed it away. At the same time, the Mouser danced in close. Catching the front of Malygris's tunic in his empty hand, he attempted to head-butt his foe.

  A massive hand came up and caught his face. Steel fingers squeezed. The Mouser felt himself lifted and flung bodily through the air. Managing to roll on the soft ground, he came up in a ready crouch with a greater respect for his enemy.

  Malygris advanced, then stopped with a sour expression on his face. Reaching up, he pinched his nostrils shut. "Piss and spit, man!" he cursed in a loud nasal voice. "Your stench is worse than your swordplay! Did you shit your pants in fear of me?"

  Stunned by this pronouncement, the Mouser sniffed himself. He coughed at the assault on his sensibilities. The smell of the ditch still clung. "It's a fair effluvia," he answered defensively. "Five silver smerduks an ounce, and all the rage with the dandies in the palace." He blinked, welcoming a chance to get his breath before the fight resumed. "How came you by my partner's sword?"

  Malygris's right eyebrow shot up. "I was about to ask how you come by that toothpick the Gray Mouser calls a weapon. Or how you suddenly happen to speak with his same smirking, half-witted sarcasm?"

  "Half-witted . . . ?" With narrowing eyes, the Mouser took a tighter grip on the hilt of his sword. "Well, this is certainly my very sword, Scalpel. But I shall be happy to give you a little of it."

  His foe took a defensive posture. "Then mine is the more generous nature, for this is my sword, Graywand, and you shall have half its length!"

  Yet no sooner had the wizard completed his boast than he fell back in a sudden fit of coughing. Gripped in both hands, the great sword wavered uncertainly. And though he struggled to keep his gaze upon the Mouser, the wizard's eyes widened with a quiet inner fear. He coughed harder, a deep wracking sound that issued from the depths of his lungs, and a thin scarlet spittle stained the corner of his lip.

  Slowly, the Gray Mouser lowered his sword. A chill of understanding and subtle horror passed through him. "And how is it," he said in a low voice, "that you cough with the same resonant note as Fafhrd Red-Hair did early this morning and again in his sleep this early evening?"

  Malygris's eyes flashed even through the sickness that filled them. "Play me no more games, madman! I am Fafhrd Red-Hair!"

  "I know," the Mouser said softly, sheathing his sword. "And do you not recognize your own blood-and-oath bound comrade?"

  The point of the great sword dipped to the ground. Fafhrd, wrapped in the illusory appearance of Malygris, stared strangely. "Mouser?" he said.

  The air around Fafhrd trembled as with heat-shimmer. Malygris, his angry demeanor, his rags and all melted away like vapor, leaving the tall copper-haired Northerner in his place. For a long moment, he gaped at the Mouser. Then his open mouth closed, and he leaned wearily on the sword he called Graywand.

  "I thought you were Malygris," he said, shaking his huge head in confusion. Then his voice turned bitter as he wiped his lip and shot a look toward the city. "He fooled us with another of his damned illusions to make good his escape."

  "He worked his magic on us both," the Mouser admitted. "To my eyes you were the image of him. Only the sound of your coughing stayed my hand, else I would have run you through."

  The rightward corner of Fafhrd's mouth curled upward in a grin or a sneer. "Spoken boldly, for a man dumped on his rump in the combat. I would surely have taken your head had I not noted the familiar tenor of your boasting. Only that stayed my hand, that and your gut-churning stench, which would keep any man at a distance." He waved a hand under his nose and rolled his eyes in a mock-faint. "Your smell surpasses ..."

  The Mouser interrupted him. "It's Malygris's curse, isn't it?" he said. "It's touched you, too." He bit his lip. A band tightened around his chest, and breath failed him for a moment as he regarded the only man he had ever deigned to call friend.

  Then something exploded inside him. He stamped his foot in the grass and smashed his fists on his thighs. "Did you think you could keep it secret?" he raged. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  His shouts rolled over the water, and the night carried his accusing words far up and down the riverbanks. He didn't care who heard; Malygris was gone, escaped, and out of the Mouser's thoughts completely. Fafhrd alone mattered.

  Not Malygris, not all of Lankhmar, not Sheelba. Only Fafhrd.

  "How would I have profited by telling you?" Fafhrd answered with a restrained tension that betrayed his own turmoil. "The only thing you can do is what we've tried and failed so far to do—kill the creator of this dismal curse and take a drop of his heart's blood to the one who can effect a cure."

  "And you thought you could do that best by sneaking off without me?" The Mouser shook his fists at the sky. Half-blinded by anger and a sense of betrayal he knew in his heart to be misplaced, he seized up the burning torch and hurled it toward the river, then scattered the campfire with a sweeping kick. Hot ash and sparks spiraled around him and upward into the dark night. "We are partners, Fafhrd—or we are nothing!"

  Fafhrd coughed again and hung his head. From deep-shadowed eyes made strange by the remaining pieces of fireglow he fixed the Mouser with a hard look. He put one hand on his chest as if to measure his own heartbeat.

  "This is no way for a man to die," he said, his voice little more than a whisper. "I feel it eating at me inside, like a tiny worm whose appetite is endless." He extended one hand toward his partner. "My grip is weaker. My breath is shorter. I don't have Sadaster’s magic to stave off the outward symptoms, nor his blindness to what is really happening." He swallowed. "I left you behind to spare you this."

  "You can't spare me!" The Mouser fairly screamed. "The risk is already before me. Did Sheelba not transport me as he did you? Did Laurian's ill-considered spell not drive me to . . ."

  Abruptly he shut up, and just as abruptly he mastered all his rage and fear. Such an emotional outburst shamed him. Fafhrd needed his friendship and his sword arm—not anger that should rightly be directed at their enemy.

  Reaching over a shoulder, he felt his upper back where the red welts of Liara's velvet whip still stung his flesh. "Well, never mind what it drove me to," he said at last, forcing a little chuckle as he went to Fafhrd's side, "though you'd love to hear the tale."

  Frowning, Fafhrd backed off a step and held up a hand. "I face a horrible enough end," he warned. "I beg you, come no closer lest I choke on your reek!"

  A grin broke over the Mouser's face and he flung his arms wide. "Then let it be a mercy killing!" he cried.

  With that, he leaped upon Fafhrd, wrapping arms and legs about his partner's torso, clinging and laughing and waggling his head under Fafhrd's nose while the Northerner made all manner of gagging and retching noises and tried to wrestle free.

  Finally they fell upon the ground, and Fafhrd lay still, eyes wide and staring, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth—a morbidly funny impersonation of death.

  The Mouser straddled Fafhrd's chest. "Now my stink is all over you," he announced victoriously.

  Fafhrd's eyes snapped closed; his head rolled limply to the side. "The curse in my body is bowing and scraping in the presence of a more potent and horrible force," he whispered.

  "Maybe I can drive it out completely," the Mouser suggested. Making a wad of the muddiest part of his cloak, he pressed it to Fafhrd's nose.

  Fafhrd's gag this time was genuine. With bunching muscles, he flung his partner off and got to his feet. "Physician
, the cure is worse than the disease." He snatched up his sword from where it had fallen and pushed the blade into the sheath on his belt.

  The Mouser picked himself up from the grass, straightened his cloak on his shoulders, and turned serious once more. With a grim note he answered, "Then together let's seek out the recommended medicine."

  By unspoken agreement, they turned away from the river and strode up the shallow slope toward the city. After only a few paces, they stopped again. Something gleamed in the grass. Bending down, Fafhrd retrieved his dagger. He held it up. The remaining light from the scattered campfire shone on the wetly incarnadined blade.

  Fafhrd growled low in his throat, then opened his mouth and drew the blade over his tongue and licked the blood away. "It's only from his arm," he said sternly, "yet it may have an effect."

  The Mouser nodded. "If only to make you hungry for the more potent stuff."

  Once again, they took to the alleyways and backstreets of nighted Lankhmar. Hooded, with hands on their weapon hilts, they kept to the shadows and sought the empty ways with Crypt Court their destination, there to consider the next course of action. Moving soundlessly past darkened shops and old, rat-infested tenements, they came finally to the warehouses and towering silos that bordered Grain Street.

  "We're not returning to Crypt Court," the Mouser announced suddenly. With a pinched look and a furrowed brow, he led the way into the broad open lane, forsaking the gloomy alleys, and headed northward at a rapid pace. "We're going to the Festival District, and to the House of Night Cries."

  Fafhrd grimaced. "Surely, Mouser, we face more important tasks than the slaking of your perverted lusts."

  The Mouser barely listened. His mind worked furiously as he turned a corner and started down Barter Street, which would take them to the Garden of Dark Delights and thence to Face-of-the-Moon Street. It all had begun in the Festival District, beneath its streets in the Temple of Hates. There Malygris had concocted the evil spell that Sheelba and Demptha Negatarth both said should have been beyond his meager conjurer's skill.