Swords Of Lankhmar[Мечи Ланкмара] fagm-5

by Фриц Ройтер Лейбер

  Aboard _Squid_, Slinoor gave orders for lights to burn all night and an all-hands watch to be kept. While the black kitten, forsaking the crow's nest, paced the rail nearest the docks, from time to time uttering an anxious mew and eyeing the dark streets as if with mingled temptation and dread.

  For a while Glipkerio soothed his nerves by observing the subtle torturing of Reetha, designed chiefly to fray her nerves rather than her flesh, and by auditing her hours-long questioning by well-trained inquisitors, who sought to hammer from her the admission that the Gray Mouser was leader of the rats — as his shrinking to rat-size seemed surely to prove — and also force her to divulge a veritable hand-book of information on the Mouser's magical methods and sorcerous strategems. The girl truly entranced Glipkerio: she reacted to threats, evil teasings, and relatively minor pain in such a lively, unwearying way.

  But after a while he nonetheless grew bored and had a light supper served him in the sunset's red glow on his sea-porch outside the Blue Audience Chamber and beside the head of the great copper chute where balanced the great leaden spindle, which he reached out and touched from time to time for reassurance. He hadn't lied to Hisvin, he told himself smugly; he _did_ have at least one other secret weapon, albeit it wasn't a weapon of offense, but rather the ultimate opposite. Pray, though, he wouldn't have to use it! Hisvin had promised that at midnight he would work his spell against the assaulting rats, and thus far Hisvin had never failed — had he not conquered the rats of the grain fleet? — while his daughter and her maid had ways of soothing Glipkerio that amazingly did not involve whippings. He had seen with his own eyes Hisvin slay rats with his spell — while on his own part he had arranged for all soldiers and police to be in the South Barracks at midnight listening to that tiresome Olegnya Mingolsbane. He had done his part, he told himself; Hisvin would do his; and at midnight his troubles and vexations would be done.

  But it was such a long time until midnight! Once more boredom engulfed the black-togaed, purple-pansy coroneted, beanpole monarch, and he began to think wistfully of whips and Reetha. Beyond all other men, he mused, an overlord, burdened by administration and ceremonies, had no time for even the most homely hobbies and innocent diversions.

  Reetha's questioners, meanwhile, gave up for the day and left her in Samanda's charge, who from time to time described gloatingly to the girl the various all-out thrashings and other torments the palace mistress would visit on her as soon as her namby-pamby inquisitors were through with her. The much-abused maid sought to comfort herself with the thought that her madcap gray rescuer might somehow regain his proper size and return to work again her escape. Surely, and despite all the nasty insinuations she had endured, the Gray Mouser was rat-size against his will. She recalled the many fairy tales she had heard of lizard- and frog-princes restored to handsomeness and proper height by a maiden's loving kiss, and despite her miseries, her eye-browless eyes grew dreamy.

  The Mouser squinted through Grig's notched mask at the glorious Council Chamber and the other members of the Supreme Thirteen. Already the scene had become oppressively familiar to him, and he was damnably tired of lisping. Nevertheless, he gathered himself for a supreme effort, which at least was one that tickled his wits.

  His coming here had been simplicity itself, and inevitability too. Upon reaching the Fifth Level after parting with Hreest and his pike-rats, rat-pages had fallen in beside him at the foot of the white marble stairs, and a rat-chamberlain had gone solemnly before him, ringing an engraved silver bell which probably once had tinkled from the ankle of a temple dancer in the Street of the Gods in the world above. Thus, footing it grandly himself with the aid of his sapphire-topped ivory staff, though still hobbling a little, he had been wordlessly conducted into the Council Chamber and to the very chair which he now occupied.

  The chamber was low but vast, pillared by golden and silver candlesticks doubtless pilfered from palaces and churches overhead. Among them were a few of what looked like jeweled scepters of office and maces of command. In the background, toward the distant walls and half hid by the pillars, were grouped rat-pikemen, waiters, and other servants, litter-bearers with their vehicles, and the like.

  The chamber was lit by golden and silver cages of fire-beetles and night-bees and glow-wasps large as eagles, and so many of them that the pulsing of their light was barely apparent. The Mouser had decided that if it became necessary to create a diversion, he would loose some of the glow-wasps.

  Within a central circle of particularly costly pillars was set a great round table, about which sat evenly spaced the Thirteen, all masked and clad in white hoods and robes, from which white-gloved rat-hands emerged.

  Opposite the Mouser and on a slightly higher chair sat Skwee, well remembered from the time he had crouched on the Mouser's shoulder threatening to sever the artery under his ear. On Skwee's right sat Siss, while on his left was a taciturn rat whom the rest addressed as Lord Null. Alone of the Thirteen, this lumpy Lord Null was clad in robe, hood, mask, and gloves of black. There was something hauntingly familiar about him, perhaps because the hue of his garb recalled to the Mouser Svivomilo and also Hreest.

  The remaining nine rats were clearly apprentice members, promoted to fill the gaps in the Circle of Thirteen left by the white rats slain aboard _Squid_, for they never spoke and when questions were voted, only bobbingly agreed with the majority opinion among Skwee, Siss, Lord Null, and Grig — that is, the Mouser — or if that opinion were split two to two, abstained.

  The entire tabletop was hidden by a circular map of what appeared to be well-tanned and buffed human skin, the most delicate and finely pored. The map itself was nothing but innumerable dots: golden, silver, red and black, and thick as fly-specks in the stall of a slum fruit-merchant. At first the Mouser had been able to think of nothing but some eerie, dense starfield. Then it had been revealed to him, by the references the others made to it, that it was nothing more or less than a map of all the rat-holes in Lankhmar!

  At first this knowledge hadn't made the map come to life for the Mouser. But then gradually he had begun to see in the apparently randomly clustered and twisty-trailed dots the outlines of at least the principal buildings and streets of Lankhmar. Of course, the whole plot of the city was reversed, because viewed from below instead of above.

  The golden dots, it had turned out, stood for rat-holes unknown to humans and used by rats; the red, for holes known to humans yet still used by rats; the silver, for holes unknown to humans, but not currently employed by the dwellers undeneath; while the black dots designated the holes known to humans and avoided by the rodents of Lankhmar Below.

  During the entire council session, three slim female rat-pages silently went about, changing the color of rat-holes and even dotting in new ones, according to information whispered them by rat-pages, who ceaselessly came and went on equally silent paws. For this purpose, the three females used rat-tail brushes each made of a single, stiffined horsehair frayed at the tip, which they employed most dexterously, and each had slung in a rack at the waist four ink-pots of the appropriate colors.

  What the Mouser had learned during the council session had been, simply yet horribly, the all-over plan for the grand assault on Lankhmar Above, which was to take place a half-hour before this very midnight: detailed information about the disposition of pike companies, crossbow detachments, dagger groups, poison-weapon brigades, incendiaries, lone assassins, child-killers, panic-rats, stink-rats, genital-snappers and breast-biters and other berserkers, setters of man-traps such as trip-cords and needle-sharp caltrops and strangling nooses, artillery brigades which would carry up piecemeal larger weapons to be assembled above ground, until his brain could no longer hold all the data.

  He had also learned that the principal attacks were to be made on the South barracks and especially on the Street of the Gods, hitherto spared.

  Finally he learned that the aim of the rats was not to exterminate humans or drive them from Lankhmar, but to force an unconditional surrender f
rom Glipkerio and enslave the overlord's subjects by that agreement and a continuing terror so that Lankhmar would go on as always about its pleasures and business, buying and selling, birthing and dying, sending out of ships and caravans, gathering of grain — especially grain! — but ruled by the rats.

  Fortunately all this briefing had been done by Skwee and Siss. Nothing had been asked of the Mouser — that is, Grig — or of Lord Null, except to supply opinions on knotty problems and lead in the voting. This had also provided the Mouser with time to devise ways and means of throwing a cat into the rats' plans.

  Finally the briefing was done and Skwee asked around the table for ideas to improve the grand assault-not as if he expected to get any.

  But at this point the Mouser rose up — somewhat crippled, since Grig's damnably ill-fitting rat-boots were still giving him the cramp — and taking up his ivory staff laid its tip unerringly on a cluster of silver dots at the west end of the Street of Gods.

  "Why ith no aththault made here?" he demanded. "I thuggetht that at the height of the battle, a party of ratth clad in black togath iththue from the temple of the Godth _of_ Lankhmar. Thith will convinthe the humanth ath nothing elthe that their very godth — the godth of their thity — have turned againtht them — been tranthformed, in fact, to ratth!"

  He swallowed hard down his raw, wearied throat. Why the devil had Grig had to have a lisp?

  His suggestion appeared for a moment to stupefy the other members of the Council. Then Siss said, wonderingly, admiringly, enviously, and as if against his will, "I never thought of that."

  Skwee said, "The temple of the Gods _of_ Lankhmar has long been avoided by man and rat alike, as you well know, Grig. Nevertheless…"

  Lord Null said peevishly, "I am against it. Why meddle with the unknown? The humans of Lankhmar fear and avoid the temple of their city's gods. So should we."

  The Mouser glared at the black-robed rat through his mask slits. "Are we mithe or ratth?" he demanded. "Or are we even cowardly, thuperthtitiouth men? Where ith your ratly courage, Lord Null? Or thovereign, thkeptical, ratly reathon? My thratagem will cow the humanth and prove forever the thuperior bravery of ratth! Thkwee! Thith! Ith it not tho?"

  The matter was put to a vote. Lord Null voted nay, Siss and the Mouser and — after a pause — Skwee voted aye, the other nine bobbed, and so Operation Black Toga, as Skwee christened it, was hastily added to the battle plans.

  "We have over four hours in which to organize it," Skwee reminded his nervous colleagues.

  The Mouser grinned behind his mask. He had a feeling that the Gods _of_ Lankhmar, if ever roused, would side with the city's human inhabitants. Or would they? — he wondered belatedly.

  In any case, his business and desire now was to get out of the Council Chamber as soon as possible. A stratagem instantly suggested itself to him. He waved to a page.

  "Thummon a litter," he commanded. "Thith deliberathion hath tired me. I feel faint and am troubled by leg cramp. I will go for a thhort while to my home and wife to retht me."

  Skwee looked around at him. "Wife?" the white rat asked incredulously.

  Instantly the Mouser answered, "Ith it any buthineth of yourth if it ith my whim to call my mithtreth my wife?"

  Skwee still eyed him for a bit, then shrugged.

  The litter arrived almost immediately, borne by two very brawny, half-naked rats. The Mouser rolled into it gratefully, laying his ivory staff beside him, commanded "To my home!" and waved a gentle good-bye to Skwee and Lord Null as he was carried joggingly off. He felt himself at the moment to be the most brilliant mind in the whole universe and thoroughly deserving of a rest, even in a rat burrow. He reminded himself he had at least four hours to go before Sheelba's spell wore off and he became once more human size. He'd done his best for Lankhmar, now he must think of himself. He lazily wondered what the comforts of a rat home would be like. He must sample them before escaping above ground. It really had been a damnably tiring council session after all that had gone before.

  Skwee tuned to Lord Null as the litter disappeared by stages beyond the pillars and said through his be-diamonded white mask, "So Grig has a mistress, the old misogynist! Perhaps it's she who has quickened his mind to such new brilliancies as Operation Black Toga."

  "I still don't like that one, though you outvoted me and I must go along," chittered the other irritably from behind his black vizard. "There's too much uncertainty tonight. The final battle about to be joined. A magically transformed human spy reported in Lankhmar Below. The change in Grig's character. That rabid mouse running widdershins a-foam at the jaws, outside the Council Chamber, and which squeaked thrice when you slew him. The uncustomary buzzing of the night-bees in Siss's chambers. And now this new operation adopted on the spur of the moment — "

  Skwee clapped Lord Null on the shoulder in friendly fashion. "You're distraught tonight, comrade, and see omens in every night-bug," he said. "Grig at all events had one most sound notion. We all could do with a little rest and refreshment. Especially you before your all-important mission. Come."

  And turning the table over to Siss, he and Lord Null went to a curtained alcove just off the Council Chamber, Skwee ordering on the way that food and drink be brought them.

  When the curtains were closed behind them, Skwee seated himself in one of the two chairs beside the small table there and took off his mask. In the pulsing violet light of the three silver-caged glow-wasps illuminating the alcove, his long, white-furred, blue-eyed snout looked remarkably sinister.

  "To think," he said, "that tomorrow my people will be masters of Lankhmar Above. For millennia we rats have planned and built, tunneled and studied and striven, and now in less than six hours — it's worth a drink! Which reminds me, comrade, isn't it time for your medicinal draught" Lord Null hissed with consternation, prepared to lift his black mask distractedly, dipped his black-gloved right fore-member into his pouch, and came up with a tiny white vial.

  "Stop!" Skwee commanded with some honor, capturing the black-gloved wrist with a sudden grab. "If you should drink _that one_ now — "

  "I _am_ nervous tonight, nervous to frustration," the other admitted, returning the white vial to his pouch and coming up with a black one. Before draining its contents, he lifted his black mask entirely. The face behind was not a rat's, but the seamed and beady-eyed visage, rat-small, of Hisvin the grain-merchant.

  The black draught swallowed, he appeared to experience relief and easement of tension. The worry lines in his face were replaced by those of thought.

  "Who is Grig's mistress, Skwee?"' he speculated suddenly. "No common slut, I'll swear, or vanity-puffed courtesan."

  Skwee shrugged his hunchy shoulders and said cynically, "The more brilliant the enchanted male, the stupider the enchanting female."

  "No!" Hisvin said impatiently. "I sense a brilliant and rapacious mind here that is not Grig's. He was ambitious once, you know, sought your position, then his fires sank to coals glowing through wintery ash."

  "That's true," Skwee agreed thoughtfully. "Who has blown him alight again?" Hisvin demanded, now with anxious suspicion. "_Who_ is his mistress, Skwee?"

  Fafhrd pulled up the Mingol mare before that iron-hearted beast should topple from exhaustion — and had trouble doing it, so resolute unto death was that grim creature. Yet once stopped, he felt her legs giving under her and he dropped quickly from the saddle lest she collapse from his weight. She was lathered with sweat, her head hung between her trembling forelegs, and her slatted ribs worked like a bellows as she gasped whistlingly.

  He rested his hand lightly on her shaking shoulders. She never could have made Lankhmar, he knew. They were less than halfway across the Great Salt Marsh.

  Low moonlight, striking from behind, washed with a faint gold the gravel of the causeway road and yellowly touched the tops of thorn tree and cactus, but could not yet slant down to the Marsh's sea-grassed floor and black bottoms.

  Save for the hum and crackle of insects and the calls of n
ight birds, the moonlight-brushed area was silent — yet would not be so for long, Fafhrd knew with a shudder.

  Ever since the preternatural emergence of the three black riders from the crash of waves over the Sinking Land and their drumming unshakable pursuit of him through the deepening night, he had been less and less able to think of them as mere vengeful Ilthmar brigands, and more and more conceived them as a supernatural black trinity of death. For miles now, besides, something huge and long-legged and lurching, though never distinctly seen, had been pur-suing him through the Marsh, keeping pace with him at the distance of a spear cast. Some giant familiar or obedient djinn of the black horsemen seemed most likely.

  His fears had so worked on him that Fafhrd had finally put the mare to her extremest gallop, outdistancing the hoof-noise of the pursuit, though with no effect on the lurching shape and with the inevitable present result. He drew Graywand and faced back toward the new-risen gibbous moon.

  Then very faintly he began to hear it: the muted rhythmic drumming of hooves on gravel. They were coming.

  At the same moment, from the deep shadows where the giant familiar should be, he heard the Gray Mouser call hoarsely, "This way, Fafhrd! Toward the blue light. Lead your mount. Make it swift!"

  Grinning even as the hairs lifted on his neck, Fafhrd looked south and saw a shaped blue glow, like a round-topped, smallish, blue-lit window in the blackness of the Marsh. He plunged down the causeway's slanting south side toward it, pulling the mare after him, and found underfoot a low ridge of firm ground rather than mud. He moved ahead eagerly through the dark, digging in his heels and leaning forward as he dragged his spent mount. The blue window looked a little above his head now. The drumming coming up from the east was louder.