Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (33 page)

The Mouser barked a short laugh and then gave an exaggerated shrug. "I don't know!" he said. "But can it be coincidence that two women we know are dead under arcane circumstances, and that both were magically preserving their beauty against all nature?"

Fafhrd scratched the new copper-colored beard on his cheeks. He hadn't shaved for days now, and the short growth itched. "What has any of that to do with the reason we are here, namely Malygris?"

"I don't know!" the Mouser said again, waving his hands irritably as he rose to his feet. Abruptly he froze in mid-gesture. "Or maybe I do know. To strike at Laurian's husband, Malygris created his thrice-cursed curse. Jesane and her father worked to bring some comfort to innocent victims of that curse."

"That's pretty thin," Fafhrd scoffed.

"Perhaps," the Gray Mouser admitted. "But there's one thing I know well enough." Forcing a grin, he put a hand to his stomach. "I'm so hungry I could eat a Quarmallian ox."

Fafhrd raised an eyebrow and glanced at the empty dwellings that surrounded them. "You'd better keep that face of yours out of sight," he said, rising to his feet. "I’ll find breakfast. You see if you can find us a room around here."

Scratching his head, the Mouser turned in a slow circle. "Can we afford this neighborhood?" he asked.

Fafhrd patted his purse. "It's in our price range," he answered. "I wasn't fool enough to leave Sadaster's house without a few choice baubles."

"Well if price is no object," the Mouser said with a dainty curtsey, "I'll find your Lordship a rathole with a view."

"I'll settle for a solid floor."

Fafhrd adjusted the hood of his cloak to conceal his face as he started back through the alley to Nun Street. The smell of smoke hung in the air as he reached the thoroughfare, and to the north, a black plume rose into the blue sky.

At first, he considered joining the crowd he knew would be gathered to watch the fire. There would be plenty of pockets to pick and purse strings to cut. However, the Thieves' Guild would no doubt have agents working the same crowd, and though he longed for an excuse to tangle with that group again, now was not the time.

He worked his way west, keeping to narrow roads and back streets, until he came to the river. A pair of barges, majestically graceful for their cumbersome size and design, sailed past with pennons streaming in the wind, headed for Lankhmar's southern lands. A few fishing boats, trawling close to the shores, bounced on the barges' powerful wakes.

Standing in the dusty, rutted track that paralleled the river, Fafhrd scanned the banks with an intense gaze, noting an old woman with her basket of laundry, a fisherman half asleep over a cane pole, a trio of young boys skipping stones. For a moment, he envied them their simple, carefree lives.

But they weren't really carefree, he reminded himself. If he had learned nothing else he knew this, that everyone struggled. The old woman probably worked to support herself. The fisherman waited patiently for the fish that would feed his family. The children—perhaps they wondered where they would sleep next, and would they be safe?

He looked at them again, those citizens of Lankhmar, willing himself to see past the surface, through the illusion. They were poor; their clothes gave that away. They were brave, too; they went about their tasks and their lives, while others in the city hid from the madness that pervaded the city.

He wondered what ghosts they carried around.

Stepping off the road, he followed the grassy bank until he reached the old woman's side. Her back was bent and arched as she leaned over the water. The knobby ridges of her spine showed right through the threadbare black dress she wore. A frayed brown ribbon wound through her gray hair and held it in a knot on top of her head, exposing the deep wrinkles carved into her bird-like neck and high-cheeked face.

As Fafhrd's shadow fell across the water, she froze. Then, tossing a sopping wad of cloth into the basket at her side, she sat stiffly back on her heels and looked up wordlessly. Her eyes, though they contained a certain fear, revealed more—a deep resignation, perhaps even boredom, that let her face death, if such this giant represented, with an almost imperious dignity.

"Don't worry, grandmother," Fafhrd said as he reached into his purse. He pulled out a necklace of amethysts and silver beads, thinking of Sameel and Laurian, from whose room he had taken it. Kneeling down, he spread the precious ornament upon the wet clothes and forced a smile. Briefly, he touched her shoulder. Then he concealed the necklace beneath a damp fold. "Something for a rainy day."

The old woman gazed at her mysterious benefactor for a long, suspicious moment before her eyes flickered to the basket. Fafhrd rose quietly and moved back to the road, feeling a rare satisfaction. He thought Laurian would be pleased, too. He shot a final glance back over his shoulder—and paused.

For an instant, as she rose half-crouched over her basket, her black dress hanging on her frail form like an old loose robe, she reminded him of someone else. He recalled another thin figure draped in black—the fisherman, poling his skiff across the river late at night, the pilot who, in a stranger form, had sailed upon a sea of fog through his dreams.

He had been looking for that figure, he realized, as he scanned the riverbanks again. Instead, he had found the old woman, so thin and gray, at the end of her days. Repressing a shiver as he watched her from a distance, he wondered, was this an omen of his own demise?

The old woman rearranged the items in her basket. Kneeling down again, she took another garment and dipped it in the river. Gathering it wet, she scrubbed it determinedly between her gnarly knuckles, her face stern, almost impassive, as she returned to her common task.

Fafhrd lifted his head and drew a deep breath. If she was an omen, she also represented a lesson. Life, however short, went on. He felt a slight tightening in his chest, the threat of a cough, a barely perceptible weakness, but he chuckled to himself. Despite her newly gained wealth, the old woman went on with her job. He also had a job to do, a task to complete.

And suddenly he knew how he would do it.

Turning, he began to whistle as he walked toward the wharves. The morning sun warmed his face, and the sweet smell that rose off the water refreshed his spirit. Even the breeze that played in the ropes and cables of the ships at dock, and the lapping of the waves that set the boards to creaking, sounded like music—the music of life.

If the merchants at the heart of Lankhmar were too timid to venture out and open their shops, not so the common laborers who worked the riverfront. A line of sweaty, bare-chested workmen loaded barrels aboard a waiting bireme. A captain called commands to his crew. A teary-eyed girl, blond hair sparkling in the sunlight, blue cloak stirring about her like gossamer in the wind, waved a hanky at her sweetheart.

A half block eastward from the wharves on curvy Eel Street, Fafhrd used a thin gold ring to purchase a quantity of hot, buttered fish, which the pinch-faced old merchant carefully rolled in the stout, broad mint leaves that grew south of Lankhmar. At another shop across the road, he paid several tik-pennies for two loaves of bread and a round of pale cheese. For another tik-penny, the proprietor's wife offered him a worn cloth sack to carry his purchases.

At yet another shop, he bought an earthen jug and several beans of precious gahvey. Back at the wharves, he lingered for a final time inside a shop that sold ships' supplies, purchasing two pitch torches, an oil lamp, and a tinder box.

With his shopping in the sack slung over his shoulder, he made his way back to Crypt Court. The Mouser hailed him with a wave from a third-floor window.

Fafhrd beckoned his companion to join him by the fountain, where he spread out his feast. The fish, though cool, still smelled with a mouth-watering richness as he set them on the fountain's low wall. Next, he gathered handfuls of dry grass that grew between the court's flagstones and added bits of old twigs and rotten splinters of wood that he found in the shadows of the buildings. Using the tinderbox, he soon had a small fire going.

"You're in a good mood," the Mouser noted as he reached Fafhrd's side.

"I feel good," Fafhrd answered as he filled the jug he'd bought with water from the fountain. He placed it in the flames to boil and gestured toward the sack. "Carve us some cheese and slice the bread."

Lifting the cheese close to his hawkish nose, the Mouser inhaled deeply and let go a noisy sigh. Catsclaw came out of its sheath. Carving a thin slice, the Mouser popped it into his mouth, closed his eyes, and sighed again. Then, noticing Fafhrd's actions, his jaw gaped.

"Is that gahvey?" he asked eagerly.

Fafhrd nodded as he ground the precious black beans vigorously between his palms and sprinkled them into the jug of water. "Did you find us an apartment?"

"With a solid floor, as your Lordship requested," he said, carving a slice of bread. "But watch the stairs as you go up, and don't put any weight at all on the bannisters."

Leaning their backs against the fountain wall, they ate, savoring the minty butter-flavored fish, the strong cheese, and the fresh bread. When the gahvey was ready, they pulled it from the fire with gloved fingers and waited for it to cool sufficiently. They drank, passing the jar between them.

"We're not alone," Fafhrd whispered suddenly as he cast a subtle glance toward an upper-level window where a small face had appeared briefly and quickly disappeared.

"They're quick," the Mouser said, sipping the gahvey. "I noticed them earlier. I believe we've discovered where the city's street urchins spend their nights."

With a bite of bread at his lips, Fafhrd hesitated. He'd spent his own youth in the comparative luxury afforded by his mother's high station in the Cold Wastes. As the leader of the Snow Clan, and a Snow Witch herself, her tent had never lacked for heat, nor furs to wear, nor food to eat. In his own distant land, he was practically a prince.

Slowly he lowered the morsel from his mouth and placed it beside the remains of their meal. There was still some fish left, some bread, and plenty of cheese. Taking his own dagger, he carved the cheese and bread into neat slices and arranged it all along the fountain's wall.

"What are you doing?" the Mouser asked, setting the gahvey jar aside and reaching for another bite of fish.

Fafhrd rapped the Mouser's knuckles with the flat of the dagger's blade. "A good deed," he explained. "You've stuffed yourself enough. A fat partner will be useless to me later."

The Mouser stuck out his tongue. Then patting his stomach, he released a loud belch in Fafhrd's direction. "Speaking of useless," he said, pointing to his companion's other purchases, "why buy torches? The lantern will serve us well and safely come nightfall, but an unshielded firestick could send this entire court up in flames. And between us, I've seen enough fire for one day."

"The lantern's to light our newfound nest," Fafhrd said. "The torches are for another purpose." Without offering further explanation, he drained the last of the gahvey and rose to his feet.
 
"I propose to sleep," he announced, stretching. "I think we have a long night ahead of us."

Still seated, the Mouser leaned back on his hands and regarded Fafhrd queerly. "I think you have some plan stewing in that fine brain of yours," he said.

"Leave the leftovers for the children," Fafhrd continued as if the Mouser had not spoken. Leaning over the fountain, he filled the jar with water. "And light the lantern now before I douse our little fire. There's oil enough in it to last."

Rising slowly, the Mouser shrugged. "Well, if we feed them a little now, maybe they won't try to knock us in the head while we sleep." Selecting a small burning twig from the fire, he touched it to the lantern's wick and lowered the perforated metal shield over the flame.

Fafhrd upended the jar. A loud hissing and sputtering followed as fire and water met. A cloud of steam and smoke boiled upward, and the air smelled of ash.

Again, Fafhrd thought of the splendid books in Sadaster's library, all lost to flames, and once more, he grieved. But when melancholy threatened to descend upon him, he fought it off with a little song.

"Now I've had my bread,

And I'm very well fed,
 

So off to bed, sing hey!
 

Lay down my head,
 

Sleep like the dead—
 

It's sundown, end of the day!"

With the fire extinguished and the lantern lit, they made their way out of the sunlight and into the gloom of the ramshackle building the Mouser had chosen for them. The wooden stairs creaked and shivered under their weight as they climbed to a third-floor apartment.

"Don't touch the bannister," the Mouser warned again, his voice automatically dropping to a whisper. He placed his palm on the once-ornate support to show how loose and rotten it had become.

"The finest suite in Lankhmar," Fafhrd said, frowning as he followed his partner into their rooms. Just past the threshold, a man-sized hole perforated the floor. Pausing, he peered down into the dirty rooms below, then stepped carefully around it, feeling the boards give menacingly beneath his every step. "I hope the rats appreciate such luxury."