Ill Met in Lankhmar and Ship of Shadows

by Leiber, Fritz;

  After he’d done and got his applause, he found his throat dry despite his skald’s training, but when he sought to wet it, he discovered that his mug was empty and his jug too, though he didn’t feel in the least drunk; he had talked all the liquor out of him, he told himself, a little of the stuff escaping in each glowing word he’d spoken.

  The Mouser was in like plight and not drunk either—though inclined to pause mysteriously and peer toward infinity before answering question or making remark. This time he suggested, after a particularly long infinity-gaze, that Fafhrd accompany him to the Eel while he purchased a fresh supply.

  “But we’ve a lot of wine left in our jug,” Ivrian protested. “Or at least a little,” she amended. It did sound empty when Vlana shook it. “Besides, you’ve wine of all sorts here.”

  “Not this sort, dearest, and first rule is never mix ’em,” the Mouser explained, wagging a finger. “That way lies unhealth, aye, and madness.”

  “My dear,” Vlana said, sympathetically patting Ivrian’s wrist, “at some time in any good party all the men who are really men simply have to go out. It’s extremely stupid, but it’s their nature and can’t be dodged, believe me.”

  “But, Mouse, I’m scared. Fafhrd’s tale frightened me. So did yours—I’ll hear that big-headed, black, ratty familiar a-scratch at the shutters when you’re gone, I know I will!”

  It seemed to Fafhrd she was not afraid at all, only taking pleasure in frightening herself and in demonstrating her power over her beloved.

  “Darlingest,” the Mouser said with a small…hiccup, “there is all the Inner Sea, all the Land of the Eight Cities, and to boot all the Trollstep Mountains in their sky-scraping grandeur between you and Fafhrd’s frigid specters or—pardon me, my comrade, but it could be—hallucinations admixed with coincidences. As for familiars, pish! They’ve never in the world been anything but the loathy, all-too-natural pets of stinking old women and womanish old men.”

  “The Eel’s but a step, Lady Ivrian,” Fafhrd said, “and you’ll have beside you my dear Vlana, who slew my chiefest enemy with a single cast of that dagger she now wears.”

  With a glare at Fafhrd that lasted no longer than a wink, but conveyed “What a way to reassure a frightened girl!” Vlana said merrily, “Let the sillies go, my dear. ’Twill give us chance for a private chat, during which we’ll take ’em apart from wine-fumy head to restless foot.”

  So Ivrian let herself be persuaded and the Mouser and Fafhrd slipped off, quickly shutting the door behind them to keep out the night-smog. Their rather rapid steps down the stairs could clearly be heard from within. There were faint creakings and groanings of the ancient wood outside the wall, but no sound of another tread breaking or other mishap.

  Waiting for the four jugs to be brought up from the cellar, the two newly met comrades ordered a mug each of the same fortified wine, or one near enough, and ensconced themselves at the least noisy end of the long serving counter in the tumultuous tavern. The Mouser deftly kicked a rat that thrust black head and shoulders from his hole.

  After each had enthusiastically complimented the other on his girl, Fafhrd said diffidently, “Just between ourselves, do you think there might be anything to your sweet Ivrian’s notion that the small dark creature with Slivikin and the other Guild-thief was a wizard’s familiar, or at any rate the cunning pet of a sorcerer, trained to act as go-between and report disasters to his master or to Krovas or to both?”

  The Mouser laughed lightly. “You’re building bugbears—formless baby ones unlicked by logic—out of nothing, dear barbarian brother, if I may say so. Imprimis, we don’t really know the beastie was connected with the Guild-thieves at all. May well have been a stray catling or a big bold rat—like this damned one!” He kicked again. “But, secundus, granting it to be the creature of a wizard employed by Krovas, how could it make useful report? I don’t believe in animals that talk—except for parrots and such birds, which only…parrot—or ones having an elaborate sign language men can share. Or perhaps you envisage the beastie dipping its paddy paw in a jug of ink and writing its report in big on a floor-spread parchment?

  “Ho, there, you back of the counter! Where are my jugs? Rats eaten the boy who went for them days ago? Or he simply starved to death while on his cellar quest? Well, tell him to get a swifter move on and meanwhile brim us again!

  “No, Fafhrd, even granting the beastie to be directly or indirectly a creature of Krovas, and that it raced back to Thieves’ House after our affray, what could it tell them there? Only that something had gone wrong with the burglary at Jengao’s. Which they’d soon suspect in any case from the delay in the thieves’ and bravos’ return.”

  Fafhrd frowned and muttered stubbornly, “The furry slinker might, nevertheless, convey our appearances to the Guild masters, and they might recognize us and come after us and attack us in our homes. Or Slivikin and his fat pal, revived from their bumps, might do likewise.”

  “My dear friend,” the Mouser said condolingly, “once more begging your indulgence, I fear this potent wine is addling your wits. If the Guild knew our looks or where we lodge, they’d have been nastily on our necks days, weeks, nay, months ago. Or conceivably you don’t know that their penalty for freelance or even unassigned thieving within the walls of Lankhmar and for three leagues outside them is nothing less than death, after torture if happily that can be achieved.”

  “I know all about that and my plight is worse even than yours,” Fafhrd retorted, and after pledging the Mouser to secrecy told him the tale of Vlana’s vendetta against the Guild and her deadly serious dreams of an all-encompassing revenge.

  During his story the four jugs came up from the cellar, but the Mouser only ordered that their earthenware mugs be refilled.

  Fafhrd finished, “And so, in consequence of a promise given by an infatuated and unschooled boy in a southern angle of the Cold Waste, I find myself now as a sober—well, at other times—man being constantly asked to make war on a power as great as that of Karstak Ovartamortes, for as you may know, the Guild has locals in all other cities and major towns of this land, not to mention agreements including powers of extradition with robber and bandit organizations in other countries. I love Vlana dearly, make no mistake about that, and she is an experienced thief herself, without whose guidance I’d hardly have survived my first week in Lankhmar, but on this one topic she has a kink in her brains, a hard knot neither logic nor persuasion can even begin to loosen. And I, well, in the month I’ve been here I’ve learned that the only way to survive in civilization is to abide by its unwritten rules—far more important than its laws chiseled in stone—and break them only at peril, in deepest secrecy, and taking all precautions. As I did tonight—not my first hijacking, by the by.”

  “Certes t’would be insanity to assault the Guild direct, your wisdom’s perfect there,” the Mouser commented. “If you cannot break your most handsome girl of this mad notion, or coax her from it—and I can see she’s a fearless, self-willed one—then you must stoutly refuse e’en her least request in that direction.”

  “Certes I must,” Fafhrd agreed, adding somewhat accusingly, “though I gather you told her you’d have willingly slit the throats of the two we struck senseless.”

  “Courtesy merely, man! Would you have had me behave ungraciously to your girl? ’Tis measure of the value I was already setting then on your goodwill. But only a woman’s man may cross her. As you must, in this instance.”

  “Certes I must,” Fafhrd repeated with great emphasis and conviction. “I’d be an idiot taking on the Guild. Of course if they should catch me they’d kill me in any case for freelancing and highjacking. But wantonly to assault the Guild direct, kill one Guild-thief needlessly, only behave as if I might—lunacy entire!”

  “You’d not only be a drunken, drooling idiot, you’d questionless be stinking in three nights at most from that emperor of diseases, Death. Malicious attacks
on her person, blows directed at the organization, the Guild requites tenfold what she does other rule-breakings. All planned robberies and other thefts would be called off and the entire power of the Guild and its allies mobilized against you alone. I’d count your chances better to take on single-handed the host of the King of Kings rather than the Thieves’ Guild’s subtle minions. In view of your size, might, and wit you’re a squad perhaps, or even a company, but hardly an army. So, no least giving-in to Vlana in this one matter.”

  “Agreed!” Fafhrd said loudly, shaking the Mouser’s iron-thewed hand in a near crusher grip.

  “And now we should be getting back to the girls,” the Mouser said.

  “After one more drink while we settle the score. Ho, boy!”

  “Suits.” The Mouser dug into his pouch to pay, but Fafhrd protested vehemently. In the end they tossed coin for it, and Fafhrd won and with great satisfaction clinked out his silver smerduks on the stained and dinted counter also marked with an infinitude of mug circles, as if it had been once the desk of a mad geometer. They pushed themselves to their feet, the Mouser giving the rathole one last light kick for luck.

  At this, Fafhrd’s thoughts looped back and he said, “Grant the beastie can’t paw-write, or talk by mouth or paw, it still could have followed us at distance, marked down your dwelling, and then returned to Thieves’ House to lead its masters down on us like a hound!”

  “Now you’re speaking shrewd sense again,” the Mouser said. “Ho, boy, a bucket of small beer to go! On the instant!” Noting Fafhrd’s blank look, he explained, “I’ll spill it outside the Eel to kill our scent and all the way down the passageway. Yes, and splash it high on the walls too.”

  Fafhrd nodded wisely. “I thought I’d drunk my way past the addled point.”

  Vlana and Ivrian, deep in excited talk, both started at the pounding rush of footsteps up the stairs. Racing behemoths could hardly have made more noise. The creaking and groaning were prodigious and there were the crashes of two treads breaking, yet the pounding footsteps never faltered. The door flew open and their two men rushed in through a great mushroom top of night-smog which was neatly sliced off its black stem by the slam of the door.

  “I told you we’d be back in a wink,” the Mouser cried gayly to Ivrian, while Fafhrd strode forward, unmindful of the creaking floor, crying, “Dearest heart, I’ve missed you sorely,” and caught up Vlana despite her voiced protests and pushings-off and kissed and hugged her soundly before setting her back on the couch again.

  Oddly, it was Ivrian who appeared to be angry at Fafhrd then, rather than Vlana, who was smiling fondly if somewhat dazedly.

  “Fafhrd, sir,” she said boldly, little fists set on her narrow hips, her tapered chin held high, her dark eyes blazing, “my beloved Vlana has been telling me about the unspeakably atrocious things the Thieves’ Guild did to her and to her dearest friends. Pardon my frank speaking to one I’ve only met, but I think it quite unmanly of you to refuse her the just revenge she desires and fully deserves. And that goes for you too, Mouse, who boasted to Vlana of what you would have done had you but known, who in like case did not scruple to slay my very own father—or reputed father—for his cruelties!”

  It was clear to Fafhrd that while he and the Gray Mouser had idly boozed in the Eel, Vlana had been giving Ivrian a doubtless empurpled account of her grievances against the Guild and playing mercilessly on the naive girl’s bookish, romantic sympathies and high concept of knightly honor. It was also clear to him that Ivrian was more than a little drunk. A three-quarters empty flask of violet wine of far Kiraay sat on the low table next them.

  Yet he could think of nothing to do but spread his big hands helplessly and bow his head, more than the low ceiling made necessary, under Ivrian’s glare, now reinforced by that of Vlana. After all, they were in the right. He had promised.

  So it was the Mouser who first tried to rebut.

  “Come now, pet,” he cried lightly as he danced about the room, silk-stuffing more cracks against the thickening night-smog and stirring up and feeding the fire in the stove, “and you too, beauteous Lady Vlana. For the past month Fafhrd has been hitting the Guild-thieves where it hurts them most—in their purses a-dangle between their legs. His highjackings of the loot of their robberies have been like so many fierce kicks in their groins. Hurts worse, believe me, than robbing them of life with a swift, near painless sword slash or thrust. And tonight I helped him in his worthy purpose—and will eagerly do so again. Come, drink we up all.” Under his handling, one of the new jugs came uncorked with a pop and he darted about brimming silver cups and mugs.

  “A merchant’s revenge!” Ivrian retorted with scorn, not one whit appeased, but rather angered anew. “Ye both are at heart true and gentle knights, I know, despite all current backsliding. At the least you must bring Vlana the head of Krovas!”

  “What would she do with it? What good would it be except to spot the carpets?” the Mouser plaintively inquired, while Fafhrd, gathering his wits at last and going down on one knee, said slowly, “Most respected Lady Ivrian, it is true I solemnly promised my beloved Vlana I would help her in her revenge, but that was while I was still in barbarous Cold Corner, where blood-feud is a commonplace, sanctioned by custom and accepted by all the clans and tribes and brotherhoods of the savage Northerners of the Cold Waste. In my naïveté I thought of Vlana’s revenge as being of that sort. But here in civilization’s midst, I discover all’s different and rules and customs turned upside-down. Yet—Lankhmar or Cold Corner—one must seem to observe rule and custom to survive. Here cash is all-powerful, the idol placed highest, whether one sweat, thieve, grind others down, or scheme for it. Here feud and revenge are outside all rules and punished worse than violent lunacy. Think, Lady Ivrian, if Mouse and I should bring Vlana the head of Krovas, she and I would have to flee Lankhmar on the instant, every man’s hand against us; while you infallibly would lose this fairyland Mouse has created for love of you and be forced to do likewise, be with him a beggar on the run for the rest of your natural lives.”

  It was beautifully reasoned and put…and no good whatsoever. While Fafhrd spoke, Ivrian snatched up her new-filled cup and drained it. Now she stood up straight as a soldier, her pale face flushed, and said scathingly to Fafhrd kneeling before her, “You count the cost! You speak to me of things”—she waved at the many-hued splendor around her—“of mere property, however costly, when honor is at stake. You gave Vlana your word. Oh, is knighthood wholly dead? And that applies to you, too, Mouse, who swore you’d slit the miserable throats of two noisome Guild-thieves.”

  “I didn’t swear to,” the Mouser objected feebly, downing a big drink. “I merely said I would have,” while Fafhrd could only shrug again and writhe inside and gulp a little easement from his silver mug. For Ivrian was speaking in the same guilt-showering tones and using the same unfair yet heart-cleaving womanly arguments as Mor his mother might have, or Mara, his deserted Snow Clan sweetheart and avowed wife, big-bellied by now with his child.

  In a master stroke, Vlana tried gently to draw Ivrian down to her golden seat again. “Softly, dearest,” she pleaded. “You have spoken nobly for me and my cause, and believe me, I am most grateful. Your words revived in me great, fine feelings dead these many years. But of us here, only you are truly an aristocrat attuned to the highest proprieties. We other three are naught but thieves. Is it any wonder some of us put safety above honor and word-keeping, and most prudently avoid risking our lives? Yes, we are three thieves and I am outvoted. So please speak no more of honor and rash, dauntless bravery, but sit you down and—”

  “You mean they’re both afraid to challenge the Thieves’ Guild, don’t you?” Ivrian said, eyes wide and face twisted by loathing. “I always thought my Mouse was a nobleman first and a thief second. Thieving’s nothing. My father lived by cruel thievery done on rich wayfarers and neighbors less powerful than he, yet he was an aristocrat. Oh, you’re co
wards, both of you! Poltroons!” she finished, turning her eyes flashing with cold scorn first on the Mouser, then on Fafhrd.

  The latter could stand it no longer. He sprang to his feet, face flushed, fists clenched at his sides, quite unmindful of his down-clattered mug and the ominous creak his sudden action drew from the sagging floor.

  “I am not a coward!” he cried. “I’ll dare Thieves’ House and fetch you Krovas’ head and toss it with blood a-drip at Vlana’s feet. I swear that, witness me, Kos the god of dooms, by the brown bones of Nalgron my father and by his sword Graywand here at my side!”

  He slapped his left hip, found nothing there but his tunic, and had to content himself with pointing tremble-armed at his belt and scabbarded sword where they lay atop his neatly folded robe—and then picking up, refilling splashily, and draining his mug.

  The Gray Mouser began to laugh in high, delighted, tuneful peals. All stared at him. He came dancing up beside Fafhrd, and still smiling widely, asked, “Why not? Who speaks of fearing the Guild-thieves? Who becomes upset at the prospect of this ridiculously easy exploit, when all of us know that all of them, even Krovas and his ruling clique, are but pygmies in mind and skill compared to me or Fafhrd here? A wondrously simple, foolproof scheme has just occurred to me for penetrating Thieves’ House, every closet and cranny. Stout Fafhrd and I will put it into effect at once. Are you with me, Northerner?”

  “Of course I am,” Fafhrd responded gruffly, at the same time frantically wondering what madness had gripped the little fellow.

  “Give me a few heartbeats to gather needed props, and we’re off!” the Mouser cried. He snatched from a shelf and unfolded a stout sack, then raced about, thrusting into it coiled ropes, bandage rolls, rags, jars of ointment and unction and unguent, and other oddments.

  “But you can’t go tonight,” Ivrian protested, suddenly grown pale and uncertain-voiced. “You’re both…in no condition to.”