Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (29 page)

"... About to be dragged down by some unseen tentacled monster ..." Nuulpha added, wiping sweat from his brow.

Rubbing his chin, the Mouser paced to the very edge of the light and stopped with only his toes challenging the horrible border. He squinted into the blackness, half-expecting some red-eyed demon to stare back.

"Eclipses," Nuulpha muttered, picking up the bag and going to the Mouser's side, "a Patriarch's death, all this damnable fog of late—bad omens, all, I tell you."

Forcing down his fear, the Mouser ventured slowly forward. Yet he felt in his bones some pervasive, unseeable change in the tunnels, an unearthly strangeness that tainted the air. Even the very darkness, the shade and texture of the gloom, struck him suddenly as alien.

They emerged finally from the narrow, man-made tunnel into a larger natural cavern. Here, too, the oppressive strangeness dominated. The Mouser stood still and listened. Was it Nuulpha's breathing he heard, or his own? Or was it. . . something else.

He thought of the rats and bats that should have occupied this underworld, the insects and countless crawling creatures. Yet no living thing dwelled here. He remembered wondering if some monster, stalking these grim passages, had eaten the rats. Now he wondered if, following some animal instinct, they simply had fled.

Again, leaving Nuulpha on the tunnel threshold, he stepped beyond the range of the light to turn slowly in the darkness.
 
Above, the ceiling's stalactites glimmered coldly with hints of phosphorescence, of crystal, and mica. In either direction, the cavern walls seemed to vanish, and the black gloom extended into some void, an infinity of fearsome night.

"Glavas Rho," he whispered, invoking the memory of the herb-wizard who, in the absence of father or mother, had raised him through boyhood. "I think you have not prepared me for this."

Nuulpha crept to his side. The lantern's wick was now turned as high as it would go, but the flame and its light seemed smaller than ever. He raised the lantern over his head, surrounding them both in a circle of faint radiance.

The Mouser drew a circle in the air with his left hand, one of the holy signs of his spider-god. "Let no evil thing pass into this glow," he intoned, his black eyes glittering sharply.

"Stop!" Nuulpha cried. The light wavered dramatically as, dropping the foodbag, the corporal clapped a hand around the Mouser's head and over his mouth. Instantly, he released the Mouser again, but spun him around. "You invite Malygris's curse with such careless words!"

Stunned briefly, the Mouser hugged himself against the chill Nuulpha's words caused as he looked up into his comrade's stricken face. "Thank you, Captain," he said, recovering himself. Yet, a thought flashed through his mind—had he just doomed himself with that stupid charm-casting? He turned to stare once more into the void beyond the light, into the darkness that ate at his reason.

"How easy it was to forget myself," he murmured to Nuulpha, "just once. Despite my cautions, despite knowing the danger, I acted according to my nature."

He bit his lip. Did he dare tell Nuulpha more? A double dread shivered through him, fear of Malygris's wasting curse, and of something else—these tunnels and caverns. Something stirred here, something vaster and more inhumanly malevolent than any mere monster of his imagination. He knew it, though he couldn't explain his knowledge.
 

Whatever it was, it was not Malygris.

"Let's move on," Nuulpha urged, laying a hand gently on the Mouser's shoulder. "Demptha will be glad to receive this food."

Turning, the Mouser forced a grin as he motioned for Nuulpha to lead the way. In truth, he suddenly preferred not to remain in one spot too long down here. "And Jesane?" he asked in a falsely jaunty voice, giving his thoughts to Demptha's daughter. "Will she be glad to receive me?"

Nuulpha snorted, quickening his pace subtly, as if sensing something more than the Mouser at his back. "Despite what your eyes tell you, she's old enough to be your mother."

The Mouser barked a laugh that sounded strained even to his ears. "Liar, and whoreson jealous dog!" he said, slapping Nuulpha's back. "You think you can turn my interest aside so easily? You want her for yourself."

Nuulpha shook his head emphatically. "I have a loving wife," he reminded the Mouser. "She loves to spend my money, loves to order me about, loves to lie around slothfully. . . . But never mind. About Jesane, I speak the truth. She could be your mother. Mine, too, for that matter. And Demptha is a lot older than he looks."

"But Demptha is far less enticing," the Mouser answered. He cast a backward glance as they left the cavern and entered a brick-walled tunnel. He knew it could only be a trick of the light, but the void seemed almost to stalk them.

When I stop, it stops,
he thought to himself.
Yet each time I look around it seems just a little bit closer.
He chewed his lip while Nuulpha continued obliviously on. Finding himself abruptly on the edge of the light, he hurried to catch up.

A soul-wrenching scream ripped suddenly through the tunnels. Goosebumps rising on his flesh, heart hammering, the Mouser froze in his tracks and stared wide-eyed past Nuulpha into the forward darkness. The tunnels magnified the sound, and the echoes rattled from the stones. The food bag slipped from the corporal's grip, and the lantern trembled violently in his shaking hand. A man's cry of pain followed, then a cacophony of terrorized shrieking.

Nuulpha spun about, his face a pale, distorted mask of fear. A moaning cry bubbled on his lips. Knocking the Mouser down, he ran back the way they had come.

The light vanished with Nuulpha's fleeing figure, and darkness closed about the Mouser like a fist. Cowering, he flung himself against the wall, finding little comfort in having something solid at his back. The screams continued, long blood-curdling waves of horror. Blind in the darkness, the Mouser shot desperate looks up and down the tunnel. He whipped out his dagger, gasping, fear sucking breath from his lungs like a cat. "Nuulpha!" he called. "Nuulpha!"

Then he clamped a hand over his own mouth, afraid that something unpleasant might hear and turn his way.

He twisted toward the screams, and an icy wind seemed to brush his soul as suddenly he thought he recognized some cries among others.
That's Mish's voice! That's Jesane!
They
issued from the Temple of Hates, he had no doubt. On hands and knees, clutching Catsclaw, he began to crawl forward, groping at the wall, feeling his way.

A high-pitched child's shriek stung his heart.
The little girl!
he thought with an inward despairing cry. He lurched to his feet. With shambling steps he ran. He opened his mouth and screamed his own scream, a challenging and angry cry, feeling his throat tear with the ferocity of it. He hoped this time to draw the demons to himself and away from the temple—for demons there must surely be!

Pain flashed. Stars exploded inside his skull. Rebounding from the wall, a bend in the passage, he fell backward with a groan and sprawled on the cold earth. The screams became fewer, weaker. Shaking off the impact, he struggled to his knees, fumbled about for Catsclaw, which had fallen from his grasp. His fingers brushed the dagger's hilt.

The metal glimmered against his fingers. Light! He shot a look back over his shoulder. Nuulpha!

The corporal crouched down beside him. "Forgive me!" he begged.

The Mouser seized the lantern and ran ahead through the tunnel. The screams were no more than moans and groans now, yet no less terrible. "Which way?" he shouted, confronted with an unexpected intersection.

"This way," Nuulpha said grimly, squeezing past, taking the lead with his naked short-sword in hand. The Mouser raced beside him through the new, wider passage, envisioning the carnage ahead.

Even the moaning ceased. A dreadful silence filled the tunnels.

Another turn, a few more paces, and they reached the Temple of Hates. The Mouser's mouth went dry as he gazed up the ancient stone staircase. The huge door at the top stood ominously closed. On its wooden surface, the cracked and painted face of some unknown demon or deity mocked them with its leer.

Swallowing, the Mouser crept up the steps and put his hand against the door. At his touch, it swung open with a faint creaking. The lantern's light speared the darkness beyond the threshold, revealing only an empty corridor.

"Black as a bat's arsehole," Nuulpha whispered, close behind him.

The Mouser entered the passage with swift, soundless strides, exchanging his dagger for his sword. With the slender blade held on guard before him, he took each bend in the way and came to the seeming wall that separated the corridor from the Temple.

Nuulpha kicked the appropriate stone. The hidden entrance slid back, and the Mouser sprang inside.

Only darkness greeted them. Side by side, they moved through the chamber, shining the lantern about. The many columns that supported the low ceiling cast uncounted shadows, and every shadow seemed a threat. Yet no enemy accosted them.

Every pallet lay empty. Blankets were cast aside, pillows scattered. No real signs of a struggle, though. Water jars stood undisturbed; furniture sat upright; no traces of blood or violence.

"Where'd they go?" Nuulpha whispered. "Where's Demptha?"

The Mouser shook his head. His skin crawled as he looked about. The screaming he had heard were screams of death and slaughter. He had prepared himself for carnage and battle, not for this—this eerie emptiness.

The light fell upon a small straw doll that lay on the floor. Picking it up, he thought of the little blond girl in whose arms he had last seen it. Was she dead? Should he grieve? He dropped the doll on the nearby pallet where she had slept and moved on uncertainly, searching every corner, every shadow.

"Who put out the light?"

Nuulpha had dropped out of sight behind the Mouser. The Mouser turned to find the corporal standing a few paces away near a table pointing to a fat candle, its wax still soft and warm. "All the lanterns, all the candles and torches," the corporal said. "They've all been recently extinguished."

"Is there any other way out of here?" the Mouser asked. "Another tunnel or some secret passage Demptha might have shared with you?"

Nuulpha shrugged as he lit the candle from the Mouser's lantern. He moved forward, turned slowly about, and shook his head. "I know of only the one way," he answered. A look of puzzlement settled over his face. "There's something else," he said, staring toward the ceiling. "It's too quiet."

The Mouser listened. "The Midsummer celebration," he said with dawning awareness.

"We're right under the Festival District," Nuulpha reminded. "We should hear traces of music and laughter."

Grimly, the Mouser continued his search. The temple's acoustics were tricky. The silence might signify nothing more than a lull in the festivities. He put that puzzle aside to concentrate on the present mystery. Moving toward the farthest end of the temple, he shone his light on Demptha's long worktable. "Look," he said, summoning Nuulpha.

Demptha's tarot cards lay scattered over the table and on the floor as if an angry hand had swept the deck aside.

"Demptha would never have left those behind," Nuulpha said with certainty. "He painted them, himself." Bending, the corporal scooped up the fallen cards. Placing them with the others on the table, he assembled them once more into a neat deck. "Maybe he'll come back for them," Nuulpha added doubtfully.

On an impulse, the Mouser turned over the top card. The miniature painting revealed a long banquet table piled high with bones and skulls and body parts. In elaborate high-backed chairs sat a trio of skeletons clutching goblets of blood.

"The Feast of Fear," the Mouser said, dropping the card with a grunt. He went cold inside as a sudden black irony hit him. "I was bringing them a bag of food."

Nuulpha seized a torch from a sconce behind the table and lit it with his candle. "I'll go to Demptha's shop in the morning. Perhaps he'll turn up there."

The Mouser held out no such hope.

They returned with torch and lantern through the tunnels. Neither spoke. The Mouser's thoughts churned. He felt Fafhrd's absence acutely. With the Northerner beside him, he would have known his next move—or they would have figured it out together.

Instead, he felt defeated, stripped of important allies, and no closer to Malygris.

They came to the bag of food where Nuulpha had dropped it. Scowling, the Mouser gave it a savage kick and stormed on. Nuulpha quietly collected it and swung it over his shoulder. Food, after all, was food even in Lankhmar.

At last, they climbed the narrow wooden steps and went through the trap door into the warehouse on Hardstone Street. "Back where we began," the Mouser grumbled while Nuulpha closed the hidden entrance.

"What now, my gray friend?" Nuulpha asked.

The Mouser shrugged in frustration. "Go home to your wife, Nuulpha," he said. "I need time to think. Look for me tomorrow at the Silver Eel."

They left the warehouse together and strode up the alley to Hardstone Street. There, they paused once more, gazing up and down the empty avenue. A thick white fog had descended upon the city while they were underground. "More of this damnable stuff," Nuulpha said with an irritated frown. He poked his torch at the mist. "At least I've a light to find my way home."