Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (6 page)

The Mouser stared hard at the little blond-haired huckster by his table. When he pulled out a gold coin, the child's eyes grew large, and she stood still, trembling like a small bird.

The coin seemed to move of its own accord from between the Mouser s thumb and forefinger, pausing between the next set of fingers, then the next before it made the journey back to thumb and forefinger. Nuulpha, as well as the child, watched in amazement.

The Mouser passed his other hand over the coin, then held up both his hands, turning his empty palms outward. The gold was gone, seemingly vanished into air.

Nuulpha snorted. "My wife does that trick, only she makes money disappear even faster."

Winking, the Mouser reached toward the child's ear and retrieved his coin, eliciting a girlish giggle as he held it close to her large eyes. "Count nothing on luck, my young merchant," he told her. "Do not even speak of luck or magic. This is an ill time for such things. Now, I will buy not just one, but all these dollies you call your poppets, and you will take this single gold coin, which is wealth enough to feed you and your family for a month."

"All my dollies?" the child exclaimed, her gaze locked greedily on the coin.

"All," the Mouser affirmed. "In return, you must promise me to make no more of these so-called lucky trinkets."

The child clearly didn't understand his request, but her desire for the coin was plain. "Oh, master," she said, "supposing I promise to make no more poppets for as long as the value of this pretty metal feeds my tummy?"

Nuulpha thumped the table, hooting with mirth. "The little beggar would haggle with you!"

The coin disappeared once again, seeming to melt inside the Mouser's closed fist. The child looked crestfallen, but the Mouser, opening his empty hand, blew on his palm, and closed his fist once more. When he opened his hand again, the coin was back. "One cannot ask a pretty little girl to starve," he said, "but so long as you can make this last, fashion no more poppets”.

The child nodded. Slowly, she set her basket on the edge of the table. With surprising speed, she shot out one hand and snatched the gleaming bit of gold, lest it should disappear again. "Now, master," she said, breathless with excitement, "you have the market to yourself, for I'm out of the business for a month or so at least—a lady of leisure!"

With that, she spun about and ran for the door, flung it open, and vanished into the foggy night of Lankhmar.

Cherig stomped across the tavern, scowling and waving his hand to disperse the fog that poured through the door the child had neglected to close. A kick from his booted foot sent it slamming shut.

When the Silver Eel's owner turned, the Mouser beckoned him over.

"Do you have a stove or hearthfire in your kitchen?" he asked, waiting for Cherig to nod before he put the basket of dolls into that one hand. "Burn these," he instructed. "They're probably harmless, but burn them, anyway. Every one of them." He tapped the rim of his mug with a fingertip. "Then we'll have another cup of your fine, delicious piss."

"At the rate you're consuming it," Cherig answered as he walked away, "I'll just bring the chamber pot, and you can serve yourselves."

When they were alone again, Nuulpha leaned once more across the table and whispered, "I'm impressed, not just with the generosity of my host, but with his wizardry. Why buy the dolls if you meant to destroy them?"

The Mouser looked askance, once more taking note of the Silver Eel's clientele. The volume of the conversations had risen to match the intake of liquor, and the clatter of dice elicited curses and growls with increasing frequency. In the too-easy laughter that issued from several knots of customers, there was a strained quality. The Mouser, a cautious man, observed it all and turned back to his guest.

"No wizardry," he answered quietly. "Just some simple sleight-of-hand." He raised his mug, adding with a brief smile before he drank, "it's a useful skill for impressing children and officers of the Overlord's Guard." Lowering his nearly empty mug again, he continued. "Your question brings our conversation back to the person whose name we shall not mention for fear of once again engaging your gag reflex."

Cherig reappeared long enough to place a full pitcher of beer between them.

"I can tell you only this," Nuulpha said in a voice turned serious. "Few men have ever seen Malygris, but his name is considered a curse in some quarters of the city. In the darkest dives and gutters, grown men shiver and turn away at mention of it."

"He could be Death's personal valet," the Mouser said, un-fazed, as he refilled his guest's mug, then his own, from the pitcher. "I still must find him."

"God's balls, man!" Nuulpha hesitated, then gulped from his beer. A quite audible thump sounded when he set it down again, and his gaze locked with his host's for a long moment, as if he were trying to probe the workings of the Mouser's mind.

The volume of the crowd seemed to rise around them, and yet, huddled over their table, isolated in the farthest shadow-filled corner, they might have been an island in a sea of noise.

With scant subtlety, wrapping his hands nervously around his mug, Nuulpha glanced over both his shoulders. "Most of the populace is too stupid or too complacent to notice the things that happen in this town,” he said, his voice a mixture of fear and bitterness, "but the common, lowly guards who work the streets have eyes and ears, nor are we fools." He took a short drink. "Three of Lankhmar's most powerful wizards have died of sickness this past year, and this even our great bloat of an Overlord knows. Yet, along with the rest of this city's pampered nobility, he disdains to observe that others have died—fortunetellers, charm peddlers, priests. Also common merchants, shopkeepers, housewives and whores ..."

He paused and looked sharply around again before continuing. "In the barracks, a few have dared to whisper the word,
plague."
The corporal frowned. "Their superiors had them whipped. I, myself, believe it is no plague." Touching the tip of a finger to his temple, he added, "I've been around, my friend, and I know a candle from a quarter moon. Some sorcery haunts the streets of Lankhmar, and something evil stalks our footsteps."

Nuulpha picked up his mug again, drained it, and looked uncomfortably away. "My host knows this, too," he said as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "I saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice when he warned that child to have no traffic with luck or magic."

The Mouser narrowed one eye, impressed with his guest's perceptive powers, as he reached for the pitcher again. The handle appeared fuzzier than it should have, and it took two tries for him to close his fingers around it. When he refilled their mugs, some of the amber contents splashed onto the table.

"I'll tell you honestly, good Captain," the Mouser said. "I know precious little, save that I must find this Maly... Malygris, and I haven't a clue where to begin." With a heavy sigh, he raised his mug in another salute to his guest. "Come, the subject has made us a pair of humorless gargoyles. See how you sit hunched over your beer?" He slapped his palm against the table. "No more of this tonight. Cherig's cellar is not yet dry, I'll wager, and that should be challenge enough for a pair of good men."

Nuulpha’s expression remained gloomy. Both hands clasping his mug, he stared down into its contents. "I like you well, gray friend," he whispered, "but if some geas compels you to pursue this madness, then pay heed." He lifted his gaze to meet the Mouser's black-eyed stare. "There is a rumor—no more than that. In one of the forbidden temples of the Ancient Gods that stand near the riverfront, some hint that Malygris has taken residence, although in which of those accursed and abandoned structures . . ."—he shrugged—"no one says. Treat this as you will, but remember: if you are caught trying to enter or disturb those ruins, it's Lankhmar's law that your lives are forfeit."

Grinning, the Mouser touched his mug to his guest's. "Well, if I'm arrested and hauled off to your famous city dungeon, I'll trust in you to effect for me an escape of such breathtaking derring-do that the bards will sing of it throughout this and the entire next season."

Picking up his mug, Nuulpha returned the salute. "Indeed," he answered, "however, that will cost you a considerably larger and more ornate bribe than this milk of Cherig's."

Once again, the Silver Eel's door opened. Raucous laughter preceded a pair of slender young men, whose richly embroidered black cloaks marked them as noblemen or sons of noblemen. The fog swirled around their feet and clung to their garments like thick smoke as they entered, and to the Mouser's inebriated eye it seemed that a wispy tendril shifted and coiled with noose-like menace around the throat of one of them, but the door closed and the clinging mist swiftly diffused in the growing heat of the tavern.

With the young men came their paramours, two elegantly clad beauties, whose gowns of splendid silks shimmered in the Silver Eel's shadowy lamplight, whose arms and fingers sparkled with jeweled rings and bracelets. Both women wore their hair piled high on their heads and held in place with glittering pins and combs. One stood tall and dark as a raven's wing, but it was the smaller blonde who held the Mouser's eye. A child, really, no more than fourteen, she appeared thin as a willow wand, yet possessed of a grace an older woman would have envied. Her gaze swept around the tavern, and for a brief instant, her eyes met the Mouser's.

With his mug halfway to his lips, the Mouser's heart froze. "Ivrian," he muttered, for it was the face of his one true love staring back at him across the smoky room.

Then, she turned away again and threw her arms around the neck of her lover, laughing at some comment from him, as the four of them moved into a corner to call for drinks.

Slowly, the Mouser sipped from his mug and set it down. The beer tasted bitter in his mouth. With an effort, he swallowed, his eyes still on the blond woman, who never looked his way again.

"Stirs your blood, does she?" Nuulpha said, turning his head to regard the foursome.

"She ..." the Mouser hesitated, his voice dropping to a soft whisper, "... reminds me of someone."

Nuulpha grinned as he reached for the pitcher to refill his mug. "You can buy an evening with her for half again what you gave the child."

The Mouser's eyes widened. "She's a prostitute?"

"I'm a man of the streets," Nuulpha said proudly. "I know them all. Her name is Liara, called by some the Dark Butterfly, and she belongs to the House of Night Cries on Face-of-the-Moon Street."

The Mouser fell silent as he regarded Liara. All the tables in the tavern were occupied, so she and her friends leaned against the wall, their celebratory spirits undampened. No common beer for them; Cherig stood at their elbows with four rare and delicate crystal goblets balanced on his tray as he poured wine of Tovilyis from a slender brown bottle. The lamplight gleamed on the blood-red wine, and the glasses shone like huge fiery rubies as hands reached out to seize them.

Liara clinked the rim of her goblet with her companion's, then rose on tiptoe to lightly kiss his lips. Her dark eyes, subtly shadowed with traces of kohl, locked with his as she tasted the expensive liquor, while with one hand he stroked her breast.

The Mouser rose suddenly, accidentally knocking over his stool. Grabbing his mug, he drained the contents and slammed it down again. "Got to pee," he told Nuulpha, slurring his words as he pushed away from the table.

He weaved carefully through the crowd. Beneath the stairs that led to the sleeping rooms on the upstairs level stood a narrow door. The knob tried to dodge his grasp, but on the third attempt his fingers caught and turned it. Beyond was a narrow hallway, then another door that opened outward into Bones Alley.

The white fog hung like a pall in the air, eerily still and cool upon his face. When the Mouser paused to stare up and down the alley, neither end was visible. So thick was the mist that it even obscured the rooftops of the buildings opposite the tavern.

The Mouser pushed the outer door closed, muffling the laughter of the Silver Eel's customers. In the silence, he walked several paces down the alley and loosened the front of his trousers.

The door opened again. A silhouetted figure turned quickly to the wall, muttering to himself as he raised a mug to drink, while fumbling one-handed with his clothing. The soft sound of his urination joined the Mouser's. "Leaks out fast as I put it in," the man grumbled drunkenly.

The Mouser grunted noncommittally as he watched the dark stain he was making on the inn's wall grow. His thoughts were on the prostitute, Liara, who so resembled his dead love. A dull ache grew in his heart, and he began to spell Ivrian’s name wetly above the stain as a pair of sentimental tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

Through the alcohol that dulled his senses, the Mouser heard soft footsteps coming up the alley. Yet another figure approached, emerging ghostlike out of the fog. Dark eyes locked on the Mouser, and from under the edge of a cloak, rose the long, broad blade of a sword.

"I'll ha yer purse, shorty," the newcomer ordered, leveling his point near the Mouser's nose. "An any other bauble or bit o' value ye might be holdin'."

The Mouser shifted his lower, hidden hand. "The most valuable thing I've got for you," he said, turning his body away from the wall just enough to whip his own slender blade from its sheath in a high head parry that knocked his foe's point away from his face and sent the larger sword flying, "is this piece of advice ..." His riposte put his own point beneath the taller man's chin. Suddenly empty-handed, the fellow's eyes snapped wide with surprise and fear.