Swords Against the Shadowland

ONE THE MOUSER'S DREAM

Deep underground, beneath the busiest streets of fabled Lankhmar City, in a shadowed corner of the secret Temple of Hates, the wizard Malygris wiped heat-sweat from his brow, leaned slender hands on his worktable, and laughed.

The triumphantly evil sound of his mirth echoed on the blackened stone walls of the narrow, rectangular chamber and among the many squat columns that supported its claustrophobically low ceiling before it drifted up the carefully concealed ventilation shafts, through the sewers and the sewer gratings, to touch the ears of a throng of celebrants who wandered through the Festival District on the first night of Midsummer's Moon, but the only one who noticed tilted his head and dismissed the sound as an amusing trick of the wind and gave his attention once more to the pretty harlot he had rented for the evening.

The yellow light from a pair of half-melted candles glimmered on the cucurbits and alembics assembled on the worktable. A stack of dusty books cluttered one corner of the scarred, wooden surface. Powder-filled vials, beakers of strangely colored liquids, and small bowls of pungent herbs, along with metal instruments, some gleaming, some scorched black by flame, were scattered about in seemingly haphazard fashion.

With two sweeps of his voluminously sleeved arms, Malygris swept the table clear, leaving only the candles and a single alembic. Glass shattered and books fluttered through the air like terrorized birds unable to take flight.

Pushing back the hood of his robe to reveal a shaved head, he bent close, dark eyes glittering, to stare at the blood-red vapor that slowly swirled inside the bulbous vessel. As he watched, a tendril of that unholy mist rose up through the vessel's tapering neck, pushed and prodded at the unyielding stopper, retreated, then probed the stopper again.

Malygris ran the tip of one unnaturally long finger around and around the outside of the stopper. There was no more laughter in him. His face contorted into a mask of jealousy and rage.

"I have you now, Sadaster, my enemy," he hissed in a whisper that was more serpentine than human. "Thief of my one, true love. Often have I struck at thee, and always have you thwarted my revenge. Nevermore, Sadaster, nevermore."

Malygris picked up the alembic with the red vapor, caressed it in his hands, ran the cool glass down the soft tissue of his throat as he sighed an almost erotic sigh, then pressed it to his breast. Closing his browless eyes, he felt the beat of his heart against the delicate vessel.

With an almost imperceptible subtlety, the vapor began to pulse, matching his heart rhythm for rhythm.

Malygris drew back the hand that clutched the fruit of his vile researches. A silken sleeve slithered down his bony, hairless arm as some faint doubt made him pause. Then, breath held, he dashed the alembic to the floor.

The glass exploded, but without so much as a hint of sound. For a moment, the red vapor pooled among the glistening shards before it began to float upward, writhing gracefully, like a ribbon on an updrafting wind.

The candles sputtered in sudden fury, spitting hot wax across the table and upon one of Malygris's blue-veined hands, eliciting from the wizard a sharp cry of pain and surprise. Without seeming cause, the flames extinguished themselves, leaving Malygris in the subterranean dark.

The wisp rose up through the roof of the Temple of Hates, up through layers of earth, through the smooth granite paving that made Festival Street. The celebrants of Midsummer's Moon, well on their way to drunkenness, took no notice as it climbed higher and higher into the night, caught a current of breeze, and wafted across unsuspecting Lankhmar, becoming more and more tenuous, then finally invisible, to a mansion on Nun Street in the River District.

The home of the mage, Sadaster, was the envy of the city's nobles. Within its gates and high walls, orange and lemon groves poured out their heady perfume, and every flower known to the world of Nehwon, no matter the season, that was not poisonous blossomed. A fountain of purest white stone created a pleasant, soothing trickle while wind chimes made random music.

In the master bedroom of this wondrous house, Sadaster lay with his beautiful wife, Laurian, asleep on his arm with only a sheet of thin red silk to cover them. Midsummer's Moon floated at zenith, but the glow of the bright star, Shadah, suspended on the horizon, spilled straight through the window. In its radiance, he admired Laurian's sweet face and felt his heart fill with love. The first signs of age marked the corners of her eyes and her lips, and gleaming in the starlight, he spied a single silver hair. Yet he loved those eyes and lips and that softly textured hair more than life.

The mist, no longer a ribbon, filtered down around the mansion, undetected by wizardly wards or protections, and waited.

Sadaster moved ever so gently so as not to awaken his wife as he kissed her hair. All traces of silver vanished from those beloved locks. With the tip of his little finger, he brushed the outer corners of her eyes and her mouth, erasing the evidence of time.

Even as he completed these simple magicks, he wept quietly, for he knew that his spells could only hide the effects of aging and that someday, Laurian, the great blessing of his life, would go to the Shadowland, as all mortals did, leaving him, with his wizard's lifespan, lonely and alone.

Drying his tears, Sadaster hugged his wife closer, and put away such thoughts. Beyond the sill, Shadah twinkled hypnotically like a rare jewel, and the night wind played a gentle lullaby. Inhaling the fragrances that rose from the garden, Sadaster at last surrendered to sleep.

The mist waited no more. It entered the room through the walls and the roof, through the floor and through the window. Unseeable tendrils seeped toward the bed, flowed upon the silken sheets, and touching the nostrils of the sleeping mage, wormed their way into his body.

Without waking, Sadaster gave a small cough.

The Gray Mouser woke from a troubling dream and sat slowly up on the thin blanket that made his pallet. The campfire he had made to keep away the mountain leopards had burned down to red-glowing embers. Only a few tiny flames flickered here and there among the coals.

On the other side of the fire, Fafhrd, his companion, lay stretched out under a blanket too small to cover his huge frame, his bare feet and legs sticking out from one end. A strangely troubled expression creased Fafhrd's sleeping face, and without waking, he closed one giant hand slowly around the leather sheath of the great sword he called Graywand and clutched it to his body.

Unable to shake the perplexing dream from his mind, the Mouser rose slowly to his feet. The wind blew cool and moist against his face and down the unlaced neck of his rumpled gray silk tunic as he turned his gaze up toward the stars. In the north, the seven-starred constellation called the Targe shone serenely, and directly above it, bright Shadah. The Mouser scratched his head.

A low moan drew his attention back to Fafhrd as his friend sat up, rubbed a hand through the tangled locks of his red-gold hair, and shook himself. Fafhrd looked toward the Mouser with an expression that said he was still not quite awake. "Little friend," Fafhrd grumbled, "the strangest dream has come to me."

The Mouser’s frown deepened. "And to me," he answered, bending toward his pallet to retrieve his weapon belt, from which depended a slender sword and dagger.

"I dreamed of a jealous wizard ..." Fafhrd started to explain. Then, as if for the first time, he took note of the Mouser s actions and came fully alert. His voice dropped to the barest whisper, and one hand closed about the hilt of the great sword. "Have I been a sleepy-eyed, dull-eared slaggard? Does some danger steal upon us?" His eyes suddenly widened. "I was on watch!"

"You fell asleep," the Mouser said, keeping his voice low. "Later, I'll poke merciless fun of you for it. For now, though, I spy no immediate threat." Fastening the sword belt around his waist, he turned back to his partner. "It is no small matter, however, this dream you've had. Were there two wizards and a woman?"

Fafhrd's eyes widened yet again, and he rose cautiously to stand beside the fire. The dim light glowed on his powerfully muscled form. Nearly seven feet tall, the Northerner towered over his much smaller companion. "Aye," he answered, "and one of them died a horrible, wasting death."

The Mouser shrugged. "I woke up before that part," he said, "But if your wizard died in Lankhmar on Midsummer’s Moon, then I've had this same dream."

"In Lankhmar, yes, curse that wretched city's name," Fafhrd said with a scowl. "And there was a festival, but Sadaster didn't die until nearly the Eve of the Frost Moon." His brow wrinkled with sudden concern. "What thievery is this?" he said with an air of offense. "Must we now split and share our dreams as we share our booty?"

Bending toward his pallet once again, the Mouser retrieved the cloak that, wadded, had served his head for a pillow. It was made of the same coarse gray silk as his tunic, and he tossed it around his shoulders and fastened it at his throat. "You are still half-asleep, Fafhrd," he said. "Use those innocent-seeming green eyes of yours for something besides bait to attract pretty girls and the wives of aristocrats."

Fafhrd seemed momentarily confused. Then he stared around their small camp. "The booty!" he cried in dismay, forgetting to lower his voice. "It's gone. Lord Hristos jewels—all our hard work!"

The Mouser raised one eyebrow and smirked. "Hard work, yes," he muttered. "You spent a whole night boffing the lord's wife until she finally lost consciousness ..."

Fafhrd shrugged sheepishly under his partner's scolding.

". . . while I pilfered every bauble in the house."

Again, Fafhrd shrugged. "Someone had to distract her," he replied.

"You might have distracted a few of her servants or her guardsmen, too, while you were in the business of distracting."

The Northerner snorted. "I distracted her husband well enough when he returned unexpectedly to find you clutching every star in that firmament he called a strongroom."

A brief smile flickered over the Mouser’s lips as he remembered the glimmering wealth in Lord Hristo’s treasure chests and the comforting weight of the saddlebags on his shoulders once he had quietly transferred that wealth.

"And a merry chase into the Mountains we led him, too," Fafhrd continued, "with his soldiers hot on our heels. Damn clever of you, little man, to spill one of the bags in our wake. Hristo's soldiers fairly flew out of their saddles to snatch the sparklies from the dust." He came around the fire and dealt the Mouser a congratulatory slap on the back. "But where—tell me now and tease me no more—is the remaining treasure?"

"With our horses, I suppose," the Mouser answered simply. "Still in the Mountains of the Elder Ones."

Fafhrd glared at his companion before turning his gaze to follow the Mouser’s. Abruptly, he rubbed his eyes again to make sure all sleep was gone from them. Then he dived for his boots and began pulling them on. "The Mountains!" he exclaimed. "They're gone, too!"

Shaking his head, the Mouser stared once more upward at the night sky, noting familiar constellations and the positions of the stars. "I suspect the mountains are right where they've always been," he said with a nervous calm. "It is we who are gone from the mountains, shifted somehow across the world in our sleep—a sleep no doubt forced upon you as you kept watch."

"The dream ..." Fafhrd started, rising again and pacing about.

"Aye, the dream," the Mouser agreed in an uneasy grumble as the images came tumbling once again into his head. "We have been snatched up by some god or wizard, Fafhrd, and transported here." He stirred the outer ashes of their dwindling campfire with the toe of one mouseskin boot. "Nice of them to bring our warmth along," he said caustically.

"Pity they couldn't have brought along my jewels," Fafhrd pouted. He quickly changed the subject. "I think I know where we are, Mouser," he announced, making a show of sniffing as he paced. "There's a familiarity about the air."

"You mean about the reek?" the Mouser corrected, wrinkling his nose as he, too, sniffed. The odor of weed-rot hung in the night. Like his partner, he too had made a guess about their present location, but whereas Fafhrd no doubt based his supposition on his barbarian-bred senses, he based his own on a knowledge of the positions of the stars and constellations, a distinction about which he felt quite smug.

Fafhrd, clutching Graywand in his hands, exposed a portion of the blade then slammed it back into the sheath, a gesture that was both an insult and a curse to his northern people. "This is the Great Salt Marsh," he said, his lips curled back in puzzlement and anger as he turned to face the west. "We're back in Lankhmar where we swore we would never come again."

The Mouser pursed his lips thoughtfully. The night wind brushed through the dark locks of his hair as softly as a woman's fingers, and he remembered a girl named Ivrian, a delicate, pretty little wisp with flowing blond hair and laughing eyes, who had been his first true love. He remembered also returning home one evening to find rats gnawing her murdered corpse and that of another woman, Vlana, who was Fafhrd's first love.

The quest to avenge Ivrian and Vlana had cemented the Mouser's friendship with the big Northerner, and grief had driven them from that despised city when their vengeance was complete. Like Fafhrd, he had no desire to return.

He touched his companion's arm. "Turn away, Fafhrd," he said. "A road still runs two ways, and nothing prevents us from giving our backs to Lankhmar twice."

But when the Mouser turned, something did block their way. Limned by the dim glow of the campfire, an old thatched hut stood on tall, stilted legs. The brittle straw that made its roof jutted up like hair on a wild man's head, and the black, blanket-covered door seemed to yawn like a toothless mouth.

The Mouser rubbed his eyes. Had he been so busy with his stargazing, or had the night been so dark that he had missed this sight before? The hairs prickling on the back of his neck, he slipped his sword, Scalpel, from its mouseskin sheath. The slender blade gleamed redly in the light of the coals.

"Either I have lost both booty and senses in the same evening," the Mouser said softly, "or that hut was not there a moment ago."

From within the hut came a muffled coughing and hacking. A barely perceived hand, more blackened bone than flesh, or so it seemed in the gloom, drew back the curtain draping the entrance. Like a slow-moving shadow, a cowled and black-robed figure emerged. It climbed down a rickety ladder, pausing after each labored step, to the ground. Reaching the bottom, it surrendered to a brief coughing fit. Then, the stooped figure shambled toward them.

From across the campfire's coals, it looked up. There was nothing to see inside that cowl, but a rasping, almost serpentine voice issued forth as the creature introduced itself.

"I am Sheelba."

The Mouser lifted the point of his sword. "This is Scalpel," he said, adding as his other hand touched the hilt of his dagger, "and this is Catsclaw. Come closer if you would make their more intimate acquaintance."

Fafhrd held his own huge blade level with the Mouser's. "I can smell a woman or a wizard a mile away," he said, scowling, "and your perfume is no dainty orchid juice."

From out of nowhere came a wind that blew through the coals of the campfire, snatching hot sparks and glowing ash into the air. A spinning vortex swiftly formed about the Mouser and Fafhrd. Like angry, swarming insects the burning bits and pieces flew around and around.

Then, just as suddenly, the wind ceased, and the coals settled harmlessly back to their original place, and the campfire was just a campfire once more.

A fit of coughing wracked the creature that called itself Sheelba. "Now that we have each displayed our manhoods," he said quietly, "let us speak of dreams and the reason you find yourselves once more in Lankhmar."

Sensing no further immediate threat, the Mouser lowered his weapon. The creature plainly desired to talk, rather than fight, and there was something almost pathetic in its uncontrollable coughing and its bent, weakened posture. "I gather," he said at last, "you are the source and cause of both."

Sheelba nodded. "I sent the dream to occupy and divert your minds while I transported your sleeping forms across the great vastness of space. The story it tells is a true one, but there is more, much more, for you to learn.

"Malygris killed Sadaster," Fafhrd said. The Northerner squatted down on his haunches and leaned on his sword as he stared across the coals at Sheelba. His eyes gleamed, and his face shone weirdly in the dim, ruddy light.

Sheelba’s robed form seemed to shake and tremble, but whether from anger, fear, or ill health, the Mouser could not tell.

"Ah, he fell to a subtle and masterful spell," Sheelba said with grudging admiration. "It should have been beyond Malygris's meager talents, but jealousy and hatred drove him to surpass himself. Sadaster was near death before he even realized the cause of his affliction."

"I saw Sadaster die," Fafhrd said, grimly remembering his part of the dream. "Some hideous illness seemed to rot him from the inside out. At the end, he was no more than a living skeleton, and finally not even a living one."

A bitter note sounded in Sheelba’s voice when he spoke. "That is the beauty and horror of Malygris's work," he said. "It begins as a little cough—just a little thing. Sadaster could not defend himself, because he didn't know he was under attack until the spell had already touched him." Sheelba’s voice caught, and the wizard hesitated before finding strength to continue. "Would that it had ended there," he said. "Revenge is, after all, a thing understandable."

The Mouser eyed the creature before him with suspicion. "Malygris's black art has touched you, too," he said warily.

Hearing, Fafhrd rose slowly to his full seven-foot height. "It's no sickness that saps your vitality, stranger?" he said. "But evil Lankhmaran magic?"

Sheelba raised a withered fist and shook it at the sky. "Malygris was brilliant," he hissed, "but utterly inept. He had no true conception of what he had created. The spell possesses a mindless life of its own. It hangs in the ether like an arcane predator, waiting as it waited for Sadaster."

"Waiting for what?" Fafhrd asked nervously.

A swallowing sound issued from within the creature's black, faceless hood. "This spell was created to slay a wizard," Sheelba continued at last. "But Malygris, blast his soul, wove no controls into his creation. Now it strikes with purpose at every wizard, every magician, attracted by the simplest acts of legerdemain. Grand sorcerers, herb witches, young girls with their love potions, wearers of charms and talismans—they are all at risk. Indeed, many who walk the streets of Lankhmar are cursed already and know it not."

A wind sprang up again, and the Mouser's gaze shot toward the coals of the dwindling campfire, but this was seemingly a natural wind, no whim of Sheelba's, and the coals and ash performed no tricks, but stayed in their bed.

"Is there no counter-spell?" the Gray One asked. "No way to undo what has been done?"

Sheelba bent down over the campfire. A long-fingered hand snatched up one of the coals and popped it inside the hood as if it were a snack, a delicacy to be savored. Sheelba gulped, then belched.

"After much work and diligent study," he said with grim satisfaction, "I have found the counter-charm. However ..." He paused, and the hood lifted ever so slightly until the Mouser felt the power of unseen eyes directly upon him, peering from the blackness contained in those folds of cloth. "There is one ingredient which I must have, and which you must steal for me."

Fafhrd bristled. "Steal?" he said. "Steal? You mistake us, sir!" He glanced at his gray-clad companion with a hurt expression. "We do not steal! We liberate. We pilfer. We purloin and even filch. But we do not steal!"

The Mouser ignored Fafhrd’s comments. He peered closely at the strange figure on the other side of the coals. "You wear desperation like a pair of new boots," he said. "Uncomfortably. I, too, feel a sudden pinching on my soles."

Sheelba’s voice was a serpentine hiss. "Even here in the Great Marsh, far beyond the city's walls, his wretched curse reaches." That black, empty cowl turned upward toward the skies, and a long sigh issued forth. "I will die from this evil unless you two bring me what I need."

Fafhrd puffed out his chest as his gaze narrowed contemptuously. "Us?" he said, his voice gruff. "Do you take us for errand boys?"

"I take you for the best thieves and adventurers ever to pass through Lankhmar’s gates," the wizard answered. He raised a withered finger to stem their surprise. "Oh yes. Though I live in the swamps and marshes, nothing transpires in the City of the Black Toga that I don't know about. I am called Sheelba of the Eyeless Face. Yet I have eyes, and they are everywhere, and my ears, too. I know your reputations, as I know your deeds and your skills."

Fafhrd's contemptuous expression yielded to a prideful grin. "Indeed?" he said more pleasantly.

The Gray Mouser frowned. His companion was such an easy target for flattery, but his own suspicions were running in dangerous directions. His right hand tightened imperceptibly around Scalpel's hilt, though he wondered what good his blade could do to a being with power enough to transport two grown men halfway around Nehwon. "What is this errand you would have us run?" he asked, "and tell us if we have a choice in the matter?"

Sheelba stretched out his hand above the coals, which began to crackle and spark with new flame. Then with a whooshing roar, the flame shot up into a writhing column nearly as tall as Fafhrd.

The Mouser jumped back, whipping out his sword with one hand, shielding his face from the heat with the other.

The fiery shaft quivered wildly, lighting up the landscape, coloring the sky with a blood-red hue. Two smaller prominences exploded from either side of the column, and each in turn sprouted fingers of flame. Those arms and hands began to move up and down, shaping fire as if it were potters clay. Wherever the hands touched, the flames turned silver and took seemingly solid substance.

From his dream, the Mouser recognized the form and features of the wizard called Malygris as they emerged from the fire. In only moments, a gleaming silver statue stood where the campfire had been. A penumbra of flame danced around its edges, then flickered out.

"It's alive!" Fafhrd cried in alarm, raising his sword defensively as the statue's head turned to take them in with a gaze.

"Because Malygris is alive from moment to moment in my thoughts," Sheelba explained. "Have no fear, Northerner. This is only a construct. The real Malygris is hiding somewhere in Lankhmar."

"Hiding?" the Mouser said.

Sheelbas empty cowl nodded, and his words dripped with disdain as he spoke. "Too late, the bumbling fool realizes what he has done, but he hasn't the knowledge or skill to unmake what he has made. Frankly, it's taken me a year to research a counter-measure, and I am many times his match in wizardry." He paused abruptly, seeming to choke on the last word before a bout of coughing seized him. His cloaked frame shook with the strain, and he wheezed for breath.

Despite his reservations, the Mouser started forward to help in whatever manner he could, but Sheelba held up a hand, refusing any offer of support.

"You must roust Malygris from whatever hole he has crawled into," Sheelba said, his voice noticeably weaker, when he could speak again. "My life is not the only one at stake. Many others will die if you deny me. Anyone who uses magic or is touched by it—even the simplest charms—is at risk." He pointed to the gleaming image of Malygris with a shaky finger. "No one is immune, not man, woman, or child. I have the spell that can stop this madness, and I have all the ingredients for it save one."

"Return to Lankhmar City," Fafhrd murmured. His mouth set itself in a firm, tight line as he clenched his jaw. Clearly, he found the idea as distasteful as the Mouser. "But if we do this thing for you, creature, we are hirelings, not errand boys. What rate of pay do you offer?"

"Ever the businessman," the Mouser muttered. "Ever an eye to profit."

Sheelba ignored Fafhrd, turning to the Mouser. "You understand, don't you, Gray One?" he whispered, leveling one frail finger near the Mouser's nose. "You see the choices."

With lightning quickness, the Mouser reached out and caught that finger, expecting to snap it like the twig it resembled. Instead, it bent bonelessly backward toward the wizard's wrist, and if it caused Sheelba any pain at all, he gave no sign of it. "Bah!" he cried, releasing the useless grip and stepping back.

The image of Malygris quietly watched everything with its silver eyes.

"What is it, Mouser?" Fafhrd said, moving closer to his friend, his gaze sweeping back and forth distrustfully from the silver statue to the brown-cloaked wizard. "You have better instincts for sorcery than I, and the look upon your face . . . !"

"He speaks of choices," the Mouser shouted angrily, "but this Sheelba has left us no choice at all!"

"Of course you have choices," Sheelba answered with icy calm. "You can walk away right now. In a couple of months you might even make it back to the Mountains of the Elders where I called you from. You might even find your treasure where you left it."

The statue of Malygris glanced toward Fafhrd, grinned, then did its best to wipe the grin away.

Sheelba’s voice took on a nastier edge. "You might even live a long and happy life."

"Might, might, might," the Mouser shot back, "More likely, we'll cough our guts up like you're doing now and rot to death!" He slammed Scalpel back into its mouseskin sheath. "Put your sword away, Fafhrd," he said. "We don't dare gut him, much as I'd love to!"

"Couldn't we nick him a little, here and there?" the Northerner suggested, his sword still in his hand. Plainly, though, he didn't understand the situation.

The Mouser explained it to him. "Transporting us from the Elder Mountains all the way to Lankhmar took a mighty spell," he said. "Our very bodies passed through the magical ether from that point to this. There is every chance that Malygris's damnable spell has touched us."

Fafhrd stared at the Mouser, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he weighed the implications of his comrade’s speech. "So," he said at last, swallowing as he turned to Sheelba of the Eyeless Face. "What is this last ingredient we're all so desperate for?"

The wizard's twisted finger resumed its natural shape, and he folded his hands together as if giving thanks for reasonable minds. As he did so, the Mouser's slender blade floated up from its sheath without any help from its owner, then through the air to prick the heart of the silver statue.

As it withdrew, a tiny bit of flame flickered on the end of the sword, then died, leaving not so much as a scorch mark on the metal.

"The final and most necessary ingredient," Sheelba whispered. "Bring me a single drop of Malygris's heart-blood."

"Why can't it ever be just a cup of sugar or a pound of salt?" Fafhrd grumbled, frowning again.

"So we are not errand boys at all, Fafhrd," the Mouser spat as he snatched his sword out of the air and returned it to its sheath. He kept his hand on it this time so it could not fly free again. "We are assassins."

The Northerner turned his gaze in the direction of Lankhmar City, and the Mouser's followed. It was still too far away and much too dark to see its soaring walls, but memories of that hated place were enough to draw them both like beacons. "I must admit, Mouser," Fafhrd said slowly, "if what this Sheelba says is true, no one ever more deserved killing."

"Then let us do it quickly, my friend," the Mouser agreed. "Find Malygris and steal his heart's blood, then put this vile city behind us once more."

"Steal?" Fafhrd began. "Steal?"

The Mouser was in no mood for his companion's bluster. He turned back to Sheelba, but the faceless creature was no longer there, nor was the silver statue of Malygris. Far out on the marshy expanse, barely visible against the starlight, Sheelba’s elevated hut walked away on its stilted legs toward the deeper swamps.