Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber

by Fritz Leiber

  “Well, don’t,” he told her shortly.“Think of the jewels we’ve won instead. And behave yourself with our new friends. Get some wine inside you and relax. I mean to enjoy myself tonight. I’ve earned it.”

  She nodded and clutched his arm in agreement and for comfort and sanity. They hurried to catch up with the dim figure ahead.

  The Mouser, turning left, led them a half square north on Cheap Street to where a narrower way went east again. The black mist in it looked solid.

  “Dim Lane,” the Mouser explained.

  Vlana said,“Dim’s too weak—too transparent a word for it tonight,” with an uneven laugh in which there were still traces of hysteria and which ended in a fit of strangled coughing.

  She gasped out, “Damn Lankhmar’s night-smog! What a hell of a city!”

  “It’s the nearness here of the Great Salt Marsh,” Fafhrd explained.

  And he did indeed have part of the answer. Lying low betwixt the Marsh, the Inner Sea, the River Hlal, and the southern grain fields watered by canals fed by the Hlal, Lankhmar with its innumerable smokes was the prey of fogs and sooty smogs.

  About halfway to Carter Street, a tavern on the north side of the lane emerged from the murk. A gape-jawed serpentine shape of pale metal crested with soot hung high for a sign. Beneath it they passed a door curtained with begrimed leather, the slit in which spilled out noise, pulsing torchlight, and the reek of liquor.

  Just beyond the Silver Eel the Mouser led them through an inky passageway outside the tavern’s east wall. They had to go single file, feeling their way along rough, slimily bemisted brick.

  “Mind the puddle,” the Mouser warned. “It’s deep as the Outer Sea.”

  The passageway widened. Reflected torchlight filtering down through the dark mist allowed them to make out only the most general shape of their surroundings. Crowding close to the back of the Silver Eel rose a dismal, rickety building of darkened brick and blackened, ancient wood. From the fourth-story attic under the ragged-guttered roof, faint lines of yellow light shone around and through three tightly latticed windows. Beyond was a narrow alley.

  “Bones Alley,” the Mouser told them.

  By now Vlana and Fafhrd could see a long, narrow wooden outside stairway, steep yet sagging and without a rail, leading up to the lighted attic. The Mouser relieved Fafhrd of the jugs and went up it quite swiftly.

  “Follow me when I’ve reached the top,” he called back. “I think it’ll take your weight, Fafhrd, but best one of you at a time.”

  Fafhrd gently pushed Vlana ahead. She mounted to the Mouser where he now stood in an open doorway, from which streamed yellow light that died swiftly in the night-smog. He was lightly resting a hand on a big, empty, wrought-iron lamp-hook firmly set in a stone section of the outside wall. He bowed aside, and she went in.

  Fafhrd followed, placing his feet as close as he could to the wall, his hands ready to grab for support. The whole stairs creaked ominously and each step gave a little as he shifted his weight onto it. Near the top, one step gave way with the muted crack of half-rotted wood. Gently as he could, he sprawled himself hand and knee on as many steps as he could get, to distribute his weight, and cursed sulphurously.

  “Don’t fret, the jugs are safe,” the Mouser called down gayly.

  Fafhrd crawled the rest of the way and did not get to his feet until he was inside the doorway. When he had done so, he almost gasped with surprise.

  It was like rubbing the verdigris from a cheap brass ring and revealing a rainbow-fired diamond of the first water. Rich drapes, some twinkling with embroidery of silver and gold, covered the walls except where the shuttered windows were—and the shutters of those were gilded. Similar but darker fabrics hid the low ceiling, making a gorgeous canopy in which the flecks of gold and silver were like stars. Scattered about were plump cushions and low tables, on which burned a multitude of candles. On shelves against the walls was neatly stacked like small logs a vast reserve of candles, numerous scrolls, jugs, bottles, and enameled boxes. In a large fireplace was set a small metal stove, neatly blacked, with an ornate firepot. Also set beside the stove was a tidy pyramid of thin, resinous torches with frayed ends—fire-kindlers and other pyramids of small, short logs and gleamingly black coal.

  On a low dais by the fireplace was a couch covered with cloth of gold. On it sat a thin, pale-faced, delicately handsome girl clad in a dress of thick violet silk worked with silver and belted with a silver chain. Silver pins headed with amethysts held in place her high-piled black hair. Round her shoulders was drawn a wrap of snow-white serpent fur. She was leaning forward with uneasy-seeming graciousness and extending a narrow white hand which shook a little to Vlana, who knelt before her and now gently took the proffered hand and bowed her head over it, her own glossy, straight, dark-brown hair making a canopy, and pressed its back to her lips.

  Fafhrd was happy to see his woman playing up properly to this definitely odd, though delightful situation. Then looking at Vlana’s long, redstockinged leg stretched far behind her as she knelt on the other, he noted that the floor was everywhere strewn—to the point of double, treble, and quadruple overlaps—with thick-piled, close-woven, many-hued rugs of the finest quality imported from the Eastern Lands. Before he knew it, his thumb had shot toward the Gray Mouser.

  “You’re the Rug Robber!”he proclaimed.“You’re the Carpet Crimp!—and the Candle Corsair too!” he continued, referring to two series of unsolved thefts which had been on the lips of all Lankhmar when he and Vlana had arrived a moon ago.

  The Mouser shrugged impassive-faced at Fafhrd, then suddenly grinned, his slitted eyes a-twinkle, and broke into an impromptu dance which carried him whirling and jigging around the room and left him behind Fafhrd, where he deftly reached down the hooded and long-sleeved huge robe from the latter’s stooping shoulders, shook it out, carefully folded it, and set it on a pillow.

  The girl in violet nervously patted with her free hand the cloth of gold beside her, and Vlana seated herself there, carefully not too close, and the two women spoke together in low voices, Vlana taking the lead.

  The Mouser took off his own gray, hooded cloak and laid it beside Fafhrd’s. Then they unbelted their swords, and the Mouser set them atop folded robe and cloak.

  Without those weapons and bulking garments, the two men looked suddenly like youths, both with clear, close-shaven faces, both slender despite the swelling muscles of Fafhrd’s arms and calves, he with long red-gold hair falling down his back and about his shoulders, the Mouser with dark hair cut in bangs, the one in brown leather tunic worked with copper wire, the other in jerkin of coarsely woven gray silk.

  They smiled at each other. The feeling each had of having turned boy all at once made their smiles embarrassed. The Mouser cleared his throat and, bowing a little, but looking still at Fafhrd, extended a loosely spread-fingered arm toward the golden couch and said with a preliminary stammer, though otherwise smoothly enough, “Fafhrd, my good friend, permit me to introduce you to my princess. Ivrian, my dear, receive Fafhrd graciously if you please, for tonight he and I fought back to back against three and we conquered.”

  Fafhrd advanced, stooping a little, the crown of his red-gold hair brushing the be-starred canopy, and knelt before Ivrian exactly as Vlana had. The slender hand extended to him looked steady now, but was still quiveringly a-tremble, he discovered as soon as he touched it. He handled it as if it were silk woven of the white spider’s gossamer, barely brushing it with his lips, and still felt nervous as he mumbled some compliments.

  He did not sense that the Mouser was quite as nervous as he, if not more so, praying hard that Ivrian would not overdo her princess part and snub their guests, or collapse in trembling or tears, for Fafhrd and Vlana were literally the first beings that he had brought into the luxurious nest he had created for his aristocratic beloved—save the two love birds that twittered in a silver cage hanging to the other side of the fireplace from the dais.

  Despite his shrewdness and cyn
icism, it never occurred to the Mouser that it was chiefly his charming but preposterous coddling of Ivrian that was making her doll-like.

  But now as Ivrian smiled at last, the Mouser relaxed with relief, fetched two silver cups and two silver mugs, carefully selected a bottle of violet wine, then with a grin at Fafhrd uncorked instead one of the jugs the Northerner had brought, and near-brimmed the four gleaming vessels and served them all four.

  With no trace of stammer this time, he toasted, “To my greatest theft to date in Lankhmar, which willy-nilly I must share fifty-fifty with—” He couldn’t resist the sudden impulse “—with this great, long-haired, barbarian lout here!” And he downed a quarter of his mug of pleasantly burning wine fortified with brandy.

  Fafhrd quaffed off half of his, then toasted back, “To the most boastful and finical little civilized chap I’ve ever deigned to share loot with,” quaffed off the rest, and with a great smile that showed white teeth, held out his empty mug.

  The Mouser gave him a refill, topped off his own, then set that down to go to Ivrian and pour into her lap from their small pouch the gems he’d filched from Fissif. They gleamed in their new, enviable location like a small puddle of rainbow-hued quicksilver.

  Ivrian jerked back a-tremble, almost spilling them, but Vlana gently caught her arm, steadying it. At Ivrian’s direction, Vlana fetched a blueenameled box inlaid with silver, and the two of them transferred the jewels from Ivrian’s lap into its blue velvet interior. Then they chatted on.

  As he worked through his second mug in smaller gulps, Fafhrd relaxed and began to get a deeper feeling of his surroundings. The dazzling wonder of the first glimpse of this throne room in a slum faded, and he began to note the ricketiness and rot under the grand overlay.

  Black, rotten wood showed here and there between the drapes and loosed its sick, ancient stinks.

  The whole floor sagged under the rugs, as much as a span at the center of the room. Threads of night-smog were coming through the shutters, making evanescent black arabesques against the gilt. The stones of the large fireplace had been scrubbed and varnished, yet most of the mortar was gone from between them; some sagged, others were missing altogether.

  The Mouser had been building a fire there in the stove. Now he pushed in all the way the yellow-flaring kindler he’d lit from the fire-pot, hooked the little black door shut over the mounting flames, and turned back into the room. As if he’d read Fafhrd’s mind, he took up several cones of incense, set their peaks a-smolder at the fire-pot, and placed them about the room in gleaming, shallow brass bowls. Then he stuffed silken rags in the widest shutter-cracks, took up his silver mug again, and for a moment gave Fafhrd a very hard look.

  Next moment he was smiling and lifting his mug to Fafhrd, who was doing the same. Need of refills brought them close together. Hardly moving his lips, the Mouser explained, “Ivrian’s father was a duke. I slew him. A most cruel man, cruel to his daughter too, yet a duke, so that Ivrian is wholly unused to fending for herself. I pride myself that I maintain her in grander state than her father did with all his servants.”

  Fafhrd nodded and said amiably,“Surely you’ve thieved together a charming little palace.”

  From the couch Vlana called in her husky contralto, “Gray Mouser, your Princess would hear an account of tonight’s adventure. And might we have more wine?”

  Ivrian called, “Yes, please, Mouser.”

  The Mouser looked to Fafhrd for the go-ahead, got the nod, and launched into his story. But first he served the girls wine. There wasn’t enough for their cups, so he opened another jug and after a moment of thought uncorked all three, setting one by the couch, one by Fafhrd where he sprawled now on the pillowy carpet, and reserving one for himself. Ivrian looked apprehensive at this signal of heavy drinking ahead, Vlana cynical.

  The Mouser told the tale of counter-thievery well, acting it out in part, and with only the most artistic of embellishments—the ferret-marmoset before escaping ran up his body and tried to scratch out his eyes—and he was interrupted only twice.

  When he said,“And so with a whish and a snick I bared Scalpel —” Fafhrd remarked, “Oh, so you’ve nicknamed your sword as well as yourself?”

  The Mouser drew himself up. “Yes, and I call my dirk Cat’s Claw. Any objections? Seem childish to you?”

  “Not at all. I call my own sword Graywand. Pray continue.” And when he mentioned the beastie of uncertain nature that had gamboled along with the thieves (and attacked his eyes!), Ivrian paled and said with a shudder, “Mouser! That sounds like a witch’s familiar!”

  “Wizard’s,” Vlana corrected. “Those gutless Guild-villains have no truck with women, except as fee’d or forced vehicles for their lust. But Krovas, their current king, is noted for taking all precautions, and might well have a warlock in his service.”

  “That seems most likely; it harrows me with dread,” the Mouser agreed with ominous gaze and sinister voice, eagerly accepting any and all atmospheric enhancements of his performance.

  When he was done, the girls, eyes flashing and fond, toasted him and Fafhrd for their cunning and bravery. The Mouser bowed and eye-twinklingly smiled about, then sprawled him down with a weary sigh, wiping his forehead with a silken cloth and downing a large drink.

  After asking Vlana’s leave, Fafhrd told the adventurous tale of their escape from Cold Corner—he from his clan, she from an acting troupe—and of their progress to Lankhmar, where they lodged now in an actors’ tenement near the Plaza of Dark Delights. Ivrian hugged herself to Vlana and shivered large-eyed at the witchy parts of his tale.

  The only proper matter he omitted from his account was Vlana’s fixed intent to get a monstrous revenge on the Thieves’ Guild for torturing to death her accomplices and harrying her out of Lankhmar when she’d tried freelance thieving in the city before they met. Nor of course did he mention his own promise—foolish, he thought now—to help her in this bloody business.

  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 her 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, Mouser, I’m scared. Fafhrd’s tale frightened me. So did yours—I’ll hear that familiar a-scratch at the shutters when you’re gone, I know I will!”

  “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 Cold Corner and its silly sorcerers. 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.”

  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, and the girls heard th
eir light steps down the stairs.

  Waiting for the four jugs to be brought up from the Eel’s 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?”

  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. How could that vermin make useful report? I don’t believe in animals that talk—except for parrots and such birds, which only… parrot.

  “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 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 would that tell them there? Only that something had gone wrong with the burglary at Jengao’s.”

  Fafhrd frowned and muttered stubbornly, “The furry slinker might, nevertheless, somehow convey our appearances to the Guild masters, and they might recognize us and come after us and attack us in our homes.”

  “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 thieving within the walls of Lankhmar is nothing less than death, after torture, if happily that can be achieved.”