Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (14 page)

Such a place was the House of Night Cries. In keeping with the park across the way, a hedge separated the manse's grounds from the street. Among its leafy greenery bloomed black-petaled and white-tipped mooncrisps, called by some Roses of the Shadowland. Droplets of mist shimmered on the petals under Liara's torchlight.

At the entrance, she paused.

"Step into my light," she commanded.

The Mouser hesitated, licking his lower lip uncertainly, suddenly nervous. Yet, he obeyed. She stood a few inches taller than he, and he gazed up into the brightness of her eyes, his heart hammering, his loins full of desire.

Perfunctorily, she leaned forward and kissed his right cheek. "I have paid your hire," she said, straightening, turning to leave him.

He caught her hand.

Liara jerked away, anger contorting her beautiful features as she raised the torch like a weapon and backed a step. "You are paid!" she shouted, clutching the hand he had grabbed to her breast as if he had injured her.

"I only touched..."

She lowered the torch, but her anger did not subside. "No man touches me for free!" she cried. "No man!"

Hurt, surrendering to his own rising anger, the Mouser shoved a hand into his purse, found a coin and tossed it at her feet.

The torchlight gleamed on a silver smerduk, and she laughed again with a harsh sound. "That would not get you in my door."
 
Then, Liara seemed to relent somewhat. Snatching a black mooncrisp from the hedge, she flung it into the Mouser's hands. "I cannot be courted with coins, my gray defender," she said with softer gentility. "If you wish, bring me a gift, and I will not turn you away. But when you choose your gift, be mindful that I have entertained the wealthiest men in Lankhmar. Then, come to me again. Come to me, and I will show you the finest perfections of love."

The Mouser opened his hands and let the mooncrisp fall into the street. "The Dark Butterfly," he said with bitter sadness. "You are only a harlot with a fancy nick-name."

Her eyes narrowed again. "You said you would never call me a whore."

Turning away, he spoke over his shoulder as he started back toward the park. "And I kept my word," he said specifically.

EIGHT

A SHIP ON THE SEA OF MISTS

F
afhrd kissed Ayla and patted the belly-dancer's backside playfully as he opened his room's door and let her out
 
into the dimly lit hallway. Flashing a smile, she wrapped herself in her veils and hurried downstairs.

In the darkness near the bed, Sharmayne fastened a blue silken cloak around her shoulders and pulled up the hood to conceal her face. Approaching the big Northerner, the noblewoman rose on tiptoe and lightly pressed her lips against his. "That was what I call a midsummer celebration," she whispered before she, too, hurried away.

Grinning, smugly pleased with himself, Fafhrd closed the door. Alone, with only a tiny lamplight for illumination, he drew a deep breath and sighed. Idly, he wondered where the Gray Mouser had gone and if his partner's evening had proved as pleasant.

Throwing the covers over the rumpled bed, he discovered a small quantity of wine remaining in one of the three bottles on the floor. With a single pull, he drained the last drop. Then gathering the empty bottles, he carried them to the window, pushed back the shutters, and cast them into the narrow alley below.

He lingered at the window, taking mischievous pleasure in the shattering crashes as the bottles exploded. The feather-soft touch of a random breeze played over his bare chest. Drawing a deep, refreshing breath, he sighed.

The fog still blanketed the city. As he watched, a thick finger of mist stole across the sill, dissipating even as it seemed to spill down the wall and flow over the floor. Abruptly, he stepped back, heart hammering, his brows knitting with suspicion and dread.

The wisp of fog in his room, no more than a tenuous vapor now, rose ghost-like into the air, like a spirit uncurling itself to stand erect. A shiver ran up Fafhrd's spine. Then some unlikely draft swirled through the room, caught the vapor, and bore it back outside.

With a carefully maintained calm, Fafhrd closed the shutters and locked them. The fight at the Cheap Street Plaza was still a fresh memory in his mind. He remembered the arcane tendrils of mist that had risen to crush and strangle the Ilthmarts. The screaming still echoed in his ears.

Not even the charms of two beautiful women, he discovered somewhat guiltily, had driven that terror from his heart. He had used Ayla and Sharmayne as distractions to hide from his fear. In their arms he had tried to forget what he had seen, what he had heard. But Ayla and Sharmayne were gone, and now his fear returned.

He couldn't quite explain it. He had seen men die horribly before, and he himself had faced vile deaths. Yet all the superstitious dread he thought he had left behind in the Cold Wastes seemed once again to press in upon him, and he could not shake a peculiar premonition.

Something lurked in the fog beyond his window, waiting. It waited for him.

Quietly, he walked to the lamp and turned the wick higher. Although the taller flame brightened the room a little, the shadows also seemed to darken and grow in number. Each time the light wavered or the wick sputtered, the shadows stirred, shifted, striking macabre poses on the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

Attempting to shake his black mood, Fafhrd picked up his lute and settled down on the bed with his back against the wall. His fingers brushed softly over the strings as stubbornly he tried to ignore the shadows. Instead, he thought of the noble-blooded Sharmayne and Ayla the dancer, the fine wine they had shared, the laughter that had so softly blessed his ears. The sweet smell of Sharmayne's perfume yet lingered in the bedclothes, mingled with the odor of passion-sweat. Barely audible, Fafhrd sang in a low voice.

"Nothing finer for me and you

Than the belly-jig danced by two,

Unless, of course, it be

The belly-jig danced by three—

Me and thee and thee!"

Abruptly, he stopped and listened. Not a sound drifted up through the floor from the tavern below; apparently, the customers had all gone home. Even the infernal cries of Aarth's followers seemed to have ceased. The unexpected silence hung about his shoulders like an oppressive weight.

He set his fingers to the strings again and prepared to pluck a note.

Fafhrd. ...

A draft teased the lamp's flame; the shadows whirled around the room and settled down again. Was it Fafhrd's imagination, or did they strike new and improbable postures? He was drunk, he decided, disgusted with himself. Setting the lute against the wall near the head of the bed, he crossed to the table and turned the wick down again.

"Take that, you tormenters or poor, inebriated sots," he said to the shadows. The deepening darkness seemed to drain them of life. Before he could truly gloat, a disharmonic chord, powerful of volume, rang through the small room with eerie effect. The Northerner jumped, nearly bashing his head on the low ceiling. When he spun about, he spied his lute, which had slipped from the place where he had leaned it and now lay upon the floor, its strings still vibrating faintly.

Fafhrd. . . .

His heart skipped a beat, and his mouth went dry. The darkness quivered and rippled, as if the shadows it had swallowed were struggling to get out. The room seemed suddenly too close, too small. The weak and tiny light retreated even farther into the lamp. The walls themselves began to pulse, and a labored, breathing sound whispered from the boards.

"Blood of Kos!" Fafhrd cried.

At Fafhrd's outburst, the room stilled. Then it all began again—darkness writhing like something alive, the breathing louder than ever. The pulsing became a painful thunder that filled his head and set his senses to swirling.

With a shout of terror, Fafhrd snatched up his sword from where it lay buried beneath the pile of his clothes. He whipped the blade from its sheath. For a moment, he hesitated, half in a panic. The walls of the room, like the chambers of some monstrous heart, throbbed. With another cry, he lunged, driving his point deep into the woodwork.

The pulsing ceased instantly. The room seemed to give a final long sigh, then a gasp that faded away.

Fafhrd pulled his sword free. For a long moment, he stood in the center of the room, breathing hard, his gaze darting nervously to every gloomy corner. Rubbing thumb and forefinger over his eyes, he shook his head as if to clear it. Perhaps he was drunk, after all.

Sheathing his sword, he sat down on the edge of the bed. With his hands wrapped around the guard-tangs, he leaned his head wearily on the weapon's pommel and closed his eyes. It had to be near dawn, he figured. A little sleep would help to clear his head and let him see things more rationally.

Hugging the sword to his chest, he tipped sideways and curled up on the blanket. The bed creaked under his shifting weight, but the soft feather mattresses embraced him with comfortable warmth. The pillow beneath his head smelled pleasantly of Sharmayne's expensive perfume, and a strand of Ayla's dark hair tickled his nose until he brushed it away. He turned over twice, finally settling on his back, and threw one arm over his eyes. At last, he lay still.

The lamplight flickered. The wick sputtered and hissed.

Slowly, Fafhrd uncovered his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Had he slept? He wasn't sure. But something had disturbed him, not a sound or a movement, something else. He sniffed, and inhaled the odor of a sweet perfume that was not Sharmayne's.

He knew that fragrance, though—Vlana's perfume.

The lamplight flickered once more. With careful deliberation, Fafhrd turned his head toward the window. The shutters, which he had closed and locked, hung open. Beyond the sill, the fog stirred and eddied.

Fafhrd. ...

It was not wind, nor the lute-strings, nor the effect of too much wine, nor his imagination. Vlana whispered his name. From somewhere in the dark and misty night, his one true love called him to rise from his bed and join her. How such a thing could be when she was dead, he did not understand, but he reached for his trousers and his boots. Wordless, he pulled them on.

  
Strapping Graywand around his waist, he went to the window and leaned out, seeing nothing but the fog. He would go down to her then, find her wherever she might be, make whatever amends he could for his part in her cruel and untimely death.

Leaving the room, he made his way down the stairs. Empty wine bottles, beer mugs, overturned stools and chairs lay scattered about the Silver Eel's floor. There was no sign of Cherig One-hand. With all his customers gone, no doubt he had retired to his own bed, leaving the clean-up until morning. Only an old brown dog glanced up at Fafhrd before it resumed eating the scraps that littered the floor.

Fafhrd slipped through the passage beneath the steps and opened the back door to emerge into Bones Alley. His open window and Vlana's whispering voice had suggested she might be waiting here, but he saw no one.

He thought he better understood the strange occurrence in his room now that he knew who was behind it. The fear he had earlier felt was gone, replaced almost by a sense of relief. He thought he understood now the strange occurrences in the Cheap Street Plaza and in his room. Something indeed waited in the fog. Or rather, someone. And she waited for him.

He did not yet see Vlana, nor did she speak his name again. As he gazed up and down the mist-filled alley, a lingering grief compelled him to speak.

"Why do you haunt me, love?" he whispered to the fog. "What do you want from me?"

A little way down the alley, the mist parted like a slowly opening curtain to reveal his beloved. A wind he couldn't feel teased the folds of diaphanous white silk that clothed her form, and black tresses whipped about her face. With mesmeric grace, her arms rose and fell in a serpentine undulation, while her hips floated in a tantalizing circle. One pale hand waved in the air, a gesture that seemed to invite him closer even as it warned him away.

"Vlana ..." he said, taking a single step before halting again.

She spun in a triplet pirouette and stopped, flinging out her arms, her eyes flashing like ice in sunlight. Pressing her palms firmly together beneath her chin, she began a new, far less sensuous dance. Her bare feet moved in a series of intricate patterns, while she held her upper body with rigid, courtly formality.

"I love you," he whispered, his voice pleading.

Again she stopped. Her cold gaze fixed him accusingly across the distance. With a dramatic toss of her head, she bent at the waist, and swung all her hair forward to conceal her face. Then straightening, she parted it with her hands. Vlana's face was gone, replaced by a glaring red-eyed skull whose teeth chattered an angry rhythm.

Fafhrd gave a cry of despair, but before the sound had escaped his lips, Vlana spun again. When she stopped, she wore her own beautiful face again. Reaching up with one hand, she drew down a piece of the mist and drew it teasingly across her face like a dancer’s veil. With a flourish, she tossed it away. Her fingers began to move with dazzling speed. Unable to tear his gaze away, Fafhrd watched, feeling stirrings, a strange excitement. Like frantic birds, her hands worked in the air, fluttering, fingers darting between fingers, nails tapping on palms, tips snapping together.