Ill Met in Lankhmar and Ship of Shadows

by Leiber, Fritz;

  EARLY BIRD BOOKS

  FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

  BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—

  NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!

  Ill Met in Lankhmar and Ship of Shadows

  Two Novellas

  Fritz Leiber

  Contents

  Ill Met in Lankhmar

  Ship of Shadows

  About the Author

  Ill Met in Lankhmar

  Silent as specters, the tall and the fat thief edged past the dead, noose-strangled watch-leopard, out the thick, lock-picked door of Jengao the Gem Merchant, and strolled east on Cash Street through the thin black night-smog of Lankhmar, City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes.

  East on Cash it had to be, for west at the intersection of Cash and Silver was a police post with unbribed guardsmen in browned-iron cuirasses and helms, restlessly grounding and rattling their pikes, while Jengao’s place had no alley entrance or even window in its stone walls three spans thick and the roof and floor almost as strong and without trap doors.

  But tall, tight-lipped Slevyas, master thief candidate, and fat, darting-eyed Fissif, thief second class, brevetted first class for this operation, with a rating of talented in double-dealing, were not in the least worried. Everything was proceeding according to plan. Each carried thonged in his pouch a much smaller pouch of jewels of the first water only, for Jengao, now breathing stentoriously inside and senseless from the slugging he’d suffered, must be allowed, nay, nursed and encouraged, to build up his business again and so ripen it for another plucking. Almost the first law of the Thieves’ Guild was never kill the hen that laid brown eggs with a ruby in the yolk, or white eggs with a diamond in the white.

  The two thieves also had the relief of knowing that, with the satisfaction of a job well done, they were going straight home now, not to a wife, Aarth forbid!—or to parents and children, all gods forfend!—but to Thieves’ House, headquarters and barracks of the all-mighty Guild which was father to them both and mother too, though no woman was allowed inside its ever-open portal on Cheap Street.

  In addition there was the comforting knowledge that although each was armed only with his regulation silver-hilted thief’s knife, a weapon seldom used except in rare intramural duels and brawls, in fact more a membership token than a weapon, they were nevertheless most strongly convoyed by three reliable and lethal bravos hired for the evening from the Slayers’ Brotherhood, one moving well ahead of them as point, the other two well behind as rear guard and chief striking force, in fact almost out of sight—for it is never wise that such convoying be obvious, or so believed Krovas, Grandmaster of the Thieves’ Guild.

  And if all that were not enough to make Slevyas and Fissif feel safe and serene, there danced along soundlessly beside them in the shadow of the north curb a small, malformed or at any rate somewhat large-headed shape that might have been a small dog, a somewhat undersized cat, or a very big rat. Occasionally it scuttled familiarly and even encouragingly a little way toward their snugly felt-slippered feet, though it always scurried swiftly back into the darker dark.

  True, this last guard was not an absolutely unalloyed reassurance. At that very moment, scarcely twoscore paces yet from Jengao’s, Fissif tautly walked for a bit on tiptoe and strained his pudgy lips upward to whisper softly in Slevyas’ long-lobed ear, “Damned if I like being dogged by that familiar of Hristomilo, no matter what security he’s supposed to afford us. Bad enough that Krovas employs or lets himself be cowed into employing a sorcerer of most dubious, if dire, reputation and aspect, but that—”

  “Shut your trap!” Slevyas hissed still more softly.

  Fissif obeyed with a shrug and occupied himself even more restlessly and keenly than was his wont in darting his gaze this way and that, but chiefly ahead.

  Some distance in that direction, in fact just short of the Gold Street intersection, Cash was bridged by an enclosed second-story passageway connecting the two buildings which made up the premises of the famous stone-masons and sculptors Rokkermas and Slaarg. The firm’s buildings themselves were fronted by very shallow porticos supported by unnecessarily large pillars of varied shape and decoration, advertisements more than structural members.

  From just beyond the bridge there came two low, brief whistles, signal from the point bravo that he had inspected that area for ambushes and discovered nothing suspicious and that Gold Street was clear.

  Fissif was by no means entirely satisfied by the safety signal. To tell the truth, the fat thief rather enjoyed being apprehensive and even fearful, at least up to a point. A sense of strident panic overlaid with writhing calm made him feel more excitingly alive than the occasional woman he enjoyed. So he scanned most closely through the thin, sooty smog the frontages and overhangs of Rokkermas and Slaarg as his and Slevyas’ leisurely seeming yet un-slow pace brought them steadily closer.

  On this side the bridge was pierced by four small windows, between which were three large niches in which stood—another advertisement—three life-size plaster statues, somewhat eroded by years of weather and dyed varyingly tones of dark gray by as many years of smog. Approaching Jengao’s before the burglary, Fissif had noted them with a swift but comprehensive overshoulder glance. Now it seemed to him that the statue to the right had indefinably changed. It was that of a man of medium height wearing cloak and hood, who gazed down with crossed arms and brooding aspect. No, not indefinably quite—the statue was a more uniform dark gray now, he fancied, cloak, hood, and face; it seemed somewhat sharper featured, less eroded; and he would almost swear it had grown shorter!

  Just below the niche, moreover, there was a scattering of gray and raw white rubble which he didn’t recall having been there earlier. He strained to remember if during the excitement of the burglary, with its lively leopard-slaying and slugging and all, the unsleeping watch-corner of his mind had recorded a distant crash, and now he believed it had. His quick imagination pictured the possibility of a hole or even door behind each statue, through which it might be given a strong push and so tumbled onto passersby, himself and Slevyas specifically, the right-hand statue having been crashed to test the device and then replaced with a near twin.

  He would keep close watch on all three statues as he and Slevyas walked under. It would be easy to dodge if he saw one start to overbalance. Should he yank Slevyas out of harm’s way when that happened? It was something to think about.

  Without pause his restless attention fixed next on the porticos and pillars. The latter, thick and almost three yards tall, were placed at irregular intervals as well as being irregularly shaped and fluted, for Rokkermas and Slaarg were most modern and emphasized the unfinished look, randomness, and the unexpected.

  Nevertheless it seemed to Fissif, his wariness wide awake now, that there was an intensification of unexpectedness, specifically that there was one more pillar under the porticos than when he had last passed by. He couldn’t be sure which pillar was the newcomer, but he was almost certain there was one.

  Share his suspicions with Slevyas? Yes, and get another hissed reproof and flash of contempt from the small, dull-seeming eyes.

  The enclosed bridge was close now. Fissif glanced up at the right-hand statue and noted other differences from the one he’d recalled. Although shorter, it seemed to hold itself more strainingly erect, while the frown carved in its dark gray face was not so much one of philosophic brooding as sneering contempt, self-conscious cleverness, and conceit.

  Still, none of the three statues toppled forward as he and Slevyas walked under the bridge. However, something else happened to Fissif at that moment. One of the pillars winked at hi
m.

  The Gray Mouser—for so Mouse now named himself to himself and Ivrian—turned around in the right-hand niche, leaped up and caught hold of the cornice, silently vaulted to the flat roof, and crossed it precisely in time to see the two thieves emerge below.

  Without hesitation he leaped forward and down, his body straight as a crossbow bolt, the soles of his ratskin boots aimed at the shorter thief’s fat buried shoulder blades, though leading him a little to allow for the yard he’d walk while the Mouser hurtled toward him.

  In the instant that he leaped, the tall thief glanced up overshoulder and whipped out a knife, though making no move to push or pull Fissif out of the way of the human projectile speeding toward him. The Mouser shrugged in full flight. He’d just have to deal with the tall thief faster after knocking down the fat one.

  More swiftly than one would have thought he could manage, Fissif whirled around then and thinly screamed, “Slivikin!”

  The ratskin boots took him high in the belly. It was like landing on a big cushion. Writhing aside from Slevyas’ first thrust, the Mouser somersaulted forward, turning feet over head, and as the fat thief’s skull hit a cobble with a dull bong he came to his feet with dirk in hand, ready to take on the tall one. But there was no need. Slevyas, his small eyes glazed, was toppling too.

  One of the pillars had sprung forward, trailing a voluminous robe. A big hood had fallen back from a youthful face and long-haired head. Brawny arms had emerged from the long, loose sleeves that had been the pillar’s topmost section, while the big fist ending one of the arms had dealt Slevyas a shrewd knockout punch on the chin.

  Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser faced each other across the two thieves sprawled senseless. They were poised for attack, yet for the moment neither moved.

  Each discerned something inexplicably familiar in the other.

  Fafhrd said, “Our motives for being here seem identical.”

  “Seem? Surely must be!” the Mouser answered curtly, fiercely eyeing this potential new foe, who was taller by a head than the tall thief.

  “You said?”

  “I said, ‘Seem? Surely must be!’”

  “How civilized of you!” Fafhrd commented in pleased tones.

  “Civilized?” the Mouser demanded suspiciously, gripping his dirk tighter.

  “To care, in the eye of action, exactly what’s said,” Fafhrd explained. Without letting the Mouser out of his vision, he glanced down. His gaze traveled from the belt and pouch of one fallen thief to those of the other. Then he looked up at the Mouser with a broad, ingenuous smile.

  “Sixty-sixty?” he suggested.

  The Mouser hesitated, sheathed his dirk, and rapped out, “A deal!” He knelt abruptly, his fingers on the drawstrings of Fissif’s pouch. “Loot you Slivikin,” he directed.

  It was natural to suppose that the fat thief had been crying his companion’s name at the end. Without looking up from where he knelt, Fafhrd remarked, “That…ferret they had with them. Where did it go?”

  “Ferret?” the Mouser answered briefly. “It was a marmoset!”

  “Marmoset,” Fafhrd mused. “That’s a small tropical monkey, isn’t it? Well, might have been, but I got the strange impression that—”

  The silent, two-pronged rush which almost overwhelmed them at that instant really surprised neither of them. Each had been expecting it, but the expectation had dropped out of conscious thought with the startlement of their encounter.

  The three bravos racing down upon them in concerted attack, two from the west and one from the east, all with swords poised to thrust, had assumed that the two highjackers would be armed at most with knives and as timid or at least cautious in weapons-combat as the general run of thieves and counter-thieves. So it was they who were surprised and thrown into confusion when with the lightning speed of youth the Mouser and Fafhrd sprang up, whipped out fearsomely long swords, and faced them back to back.

  The Mouser made a very small parry in carte so that the thrust of the bravo from the east went past his left side by only a hair’s breath. He instantly riposted. His adversary, desperately springing back, parried in turn in carte. Hardly slowing, the tip of the Mouser’s long, slim sword dropped under that parry with the delicacy of a princess curtsying and then leaped forward and a little upward, the Mouser making an impossibly long-looking lunge for one so small, and went between two scales of the bravo’s armored jerkin and between his ribs and through his heart and out his back as if all were angelfood cake.

  Meanwhile Fafhrd, facing the two bravos from the west, swept aside their low thrusts with somewhat larger, down-sweeping parries in seconde and low prime, then flipped up his sword, long as the Mouser’s but heavier, so that it slashed through the neck of his right-hand adversary, half decapitating him. Then he, dropping back a swift step, readied a thrust for the other.

  But there was no need. A narrow ribbon of bloodied steel, followed by a gray glove and arm, flashed past him from behind and transfixed the last bravo with the identical thrust the Mouser had used on the first.

  The two young men wiped and sheathed their swords. Fafhrd brushed the palm of his open right hand down his robe and held it out. The Mouser pulled off right-hand gray glove and shook the other’s big hand in his sinewy one. Without word exchanged, they knelt and finished looting the two unconscious thieves, securing the small bags of jewels. With an oily towel and then a dry one, the Mouser sketchily wiped from his face the greasy ash-soot mixture which had darkened it, next swiftly rolled up both towels and returned them to his own pouch. Then, after only a questioning eye-twitch east on the Mouser’s part and a nod from Fafhrd, they swiftly walked on in the direction Slevyas and Fissif and their escort had been going.

  After reconnoitering Gold Street, they crossed it and continued east on Cash at Fafhrd’s gestured proposal.

  “My woman’s at the Golden Lamprey,” he explained.

  “Let’s pick her up and take her home to meet my girl,” the Mouser suggested.

  “Home?” Fafhrd inquired politely, only the barest hint of question in his voice.

  “Dim Lane,” the Mouser volunteered.

  “Silver Eel?”

  “Behind it. We’ll have some drinks.”

  “I’ll pick up a jug. Never have too much juice.”

  “True. I’ll let you.”

  Several squares farther on Fafhrd, after stealing a number of looks at his new comrade, said with conviction, “We’ve met before.”

  The Mouser grinned at him. “Beach by the Mountains of Hunger?”

  “Right! When I was a pirate’s ship-boy.”

  “And I was a wizard’s apprentice.”

  Fafhrd stopped, again wiped right hand on robe, and held it out. “Name’s Fafhrd. Ef ay ef aitch ar dee.”

  Again the Mouser shook it. “Gray Mouser,” he said a touch defiantly, as if challenging anyone to laugh at the sobriquet. “Excuse me, but how exactly do you pronounce that? Faf-hrud?”

  “Just Faf-erd.”

  “Thank you.” They walked on.

  “Gray Mouser, eh?” Fafhrd remarked. “Well, you killed yourself a couple of rats tonight.”

  “That I did.” The Mouser’s chest swelled and he threw back his head. Then with a comic twitch of his nose and a sidewise half-grin he admitted, “You’d have got your second man easily enough. I stole him from you to demonstrate my speed. Besides, I was excited.”

  Fafhrd chuckled. “You’re telling me? How do you suppose I was feeling?”

  Later, as they were crossing Pimp Street, he asked, “Learn much magic from your wizard?”

  Once more the Mouser threw back his head. He flared his nostrils and drew down the corners of his lips, preparing his mouth for boastful, mystifying speech. But once more he found himself twitching his nose and half grinning. What the deuce did this big fellow have that kept him from putting on his usual acts?
“Enough to tell me it’s damned dangerous stuff. Though I still fool with it now and then.”

  Fafhrd was asking himself a similar question. All his life he’d mistrusted small men, knowing his height awakened their instant jealousy. But this clever little chap was somehow an exception. Quick thinker and brilliant swordsman too, no argument. He prayed to Kos that Vlana would like him.

  On the northeast corner of Cash and Whore a slow-burning torch shaded by a broad gilded hoop cast a cone of light up into the thickening black night-smog and another cone down on the cobbles before the tavern door. Out of the shadows into the second cone stepped Vlana, handsome in a narrow black velvet dress and red stockings, her only ornaments a silver-sheathed and hilted dagger and a silver-worked black pouch, both on a plain black belt.

  Fafhrd introduced the Gray Mouser, who behaved with an almost fawning courtesy, obsequiously gallant. Vlana studied him boldly, then gave him a tentative smile. Fafhrd opened under the torch the small pouch he’d taken off the tall thief. Vlana looked down into it. She put her arms around Fafhrd, hugged him tight, and kissed him soundly. Then she thrust the jewels into the pouch on her belt.

  When that was done, he said, “Look, I’m going to buy a jug. You tell her what happened, Mouser.”

  When he came out of the Golden Lamprey he was carrying four jugs in the crook of his left arm and wiping his lips on the back of his right hand. Vlana was frowning. He grinned at her. The Mouser smacked his lips at the jugs. They continued east on Cash. Fafhrd realized that the frown was for more than the jugs and the prospect of stupidly drunken male revelry. The Mouser tactfully walked ahead, ostensibly to lead the way. When his figure was little more than a blob in the thickening smog, Vlana whispered harshly, “You had two members of the Thieves’ Guild knocked out cold and you didn’t cut their throats?”

  “We slew three bravos,” Fafhrd protested by way of excuse.

  “My quarrel is not with the Slayers’ Brotherhood, but that abominable Guild. You swore to me that whenever you had the chance—”