Swords Against the Shadowland

ELEVEN THE RAINBOW'S BLACK HEART

Screaming his partner’s name, the Gray Mouser watched horrified as Fafhrd lost his grip on the line and, tangled in the folds of a fluttering black cloak, plummeted earthward. His horror doubled when a darkly violet hole opened in the star-flecked heavens beneath Fafhrd. The Northerner fell through it, vanishing in midair, and the hole blinked out of existence.

For an instant, the Mouser stared, open-mouthed. Then his own survival instinct asserted itself. Fafhrd was gone, beyond help for the moment, and the Mouser had to think of himself. Ripping away his garments, he scraped desperately at the black leeches that fed on his flesh.

To his amazement, they crumbled at his touch, flaking into pieces, then into a black, ashen powder. Trickles of blood and painful red blotches on his skin proved the creatures' menace. They had settled in his hair, wormed under his clothes, into his armpits, his crotch, even down inside his boots. But outside of the tower, beyond the range of whatever magic spawned them, they were dying a quick and strange death.

Naked, he gave a whoop of triumph and brushed the remains of the last leech from between his toes.

"Halt, criminal, in the name of the Overlord!"

At the sound of that authoritative command, the Mouser dived and rolled, reaching his weapons belt, drawing his rapier, Catsclaw, in one smooth motion as he came to his feet again. Swiftly, he saw his predicament and the futility of resistance.

A ring of soldiers stood knee-deep in the weeds inside the iron fence that surrounded the tower. A dozen grim-faced men-at-arms stood ready with pikes or drawn swords. Another dozen bowmen, bowstrings quivering with tension, sighted carefully down drawn shafts.

The Mouser glanced hopelessly to his left and right. Even if he could reach the fence, those archers would make a pin cushion of him before he could climb it. He looked back at the tower. Thick smoke poured from the window above his head, and tongues of red flame licked the sky.

"Damn you, Fafhrd," he muttered disgustedly. "Once again, you've left me in the lurch."

Scowling, he threw down his sword. Covering his groin with his hands, mindful of the arrows trained on him, he stood meekly until the Overlord's men seized him. A pair of guards roughly twisted his arms behind his back and applied ropes to his wrists. A soldier in a corporal's livery knotted another rope loosely about his neck and gave it a jerk. The Mouser's head snapped up. Forgetting himself, the Mouser cursed the corporal's unfaithful mother.

They beat him for that, slapping and punching him until he fell on the ground. They kicked him and jabbed him with the butts of pikes. Covering his vitals as best he could, he rolled on the harsh, broken paving stones and waited for it to end, biting his already bloody lip to keep from giving further offense.

Finally, the guards wearied of such easy sport. Using the rope around his neck, they hauled him cruelly to his feet, mocking him with great mirth. The guard whose mother he had insulted seized the leash and reeled the Mouser close until they stood nose to nose. He let fly a slimy wad straight into the Mouser's left eye, then turned away, laughing.

The Mouser burned with embarrassment and rage. His mouth quivered, and he bit his lower lip until his own teeth drew new streams of blood. Puss and piss! he thought bitterly, staring at the broad back of his abuser. My sentence is already death for violating a forbidden tower.

He snapped his right foot up sharply, smashing his heel into the guard's lower spine. A wet crack! The man's scream achieved a satisfyingly high note, and he fell, arms and legs thrashing convulsively.

"No one spits on me," he warned in a cold, deadly voice. Ready to fight, no matter his bonds, he met their startled gazes steadfastly. "No one."

For a moment, they stared back, as if impressed. Then, of course, they beat him again, and quite thoroughly. But this time, no one laughed, and no one dared to spit on him.

When they were through, they dragged him to his feet again. Though he could barely stand on his own, the Mouser did his best to remain erect. Naked, bruised, and bleeding, he managed yet to look defiant.

Nearby, the corporal lay whimpering on the ground, his legs absolutely still, his arms twitching, eyes filled with pain and fear. A small circle of his fellows clustered around him, shaking their heads. A few knelt beside him, murmuring words of comfort.

The Mouser felt a twinge of guilt as he gazed at the fallen man and watched another guard quietly, secretively slide a knife from a belt sheath. Still murmuring assurances, he laid one hand across the corporal's eyes, then cleanly slid the blade deep into his comrade's windpipe and sliced sideways.

A moment of convulsion, a gurgling gasp, and the corporal's suffering ended. The rest of the soldiers turned accusing glares upon the Mouser. He knew by those looks that his suffering had just begun.

The soldier with the knife wiped his blade and sheathed it. The others looked to him for orders now, though he wore no officer's insignia. Someone gathered the Mouser's belongings. Someone else picked up the end of the rope around his neck. At a word from the new leader, they marched the Mouser to the north side of the tower and toward the iron fence.

A pair of ladders straddled the iron structure. A pike at his back urged him up. Awkwardly he climbed the narrow rungs, unable to steady himself with his bound hands. At the top, he nearly fell. With the point of another pike to encourage him, he caught his balance and descended.

"We'd hang you on this fence if it was up to me," the new leader said grimly. "Hissif wasn't too bright, but he was a good man, and deserved a better death."

With a mouth full of coppery-tasting blood, the Mouser studied the thin scar that ran from the man's chin to his right ear. "It's my experience," he muttered, "that people usually die exactly as they deserve."

The guard's voice remained impassive, but his eyes betrayed anger. "Shortly, we'll broaden your experience."

Naked and leashed, the Mouser simmered inside as the soldiers marched him through the streets of Lankhmar, up the wharves past the sailing ships and fishing boats. The wind sang in the ships' rigging; the wharves creaked and groaned. Otherwise, an eerie quiet haunted the streets.

One by one, the stars faded away. Darkness retreated, giving way to a creepy shade of twilight. A burning red crescent marked the slow return of Nehwon's sun. On the rooftops, in windows, from the doorways of homes and shops, Lankhmar's citizens watched the brightening sky with nervous, pale-faced relief.

As they crossed the plaza where the Street of the Gods met the wharves, the Mouser tried to slow the pace. Turning his head to catch a glimpse down the broad avenue, he witnessed carnage. Bodies lay sprawled in the road. Cobblestones gleamed darkly with blood. Soldiers, many bleeding themselves, worked to pile the corpses and tend the wounded.

A sharp jerk on the leash rope caused the Mouser to look forward again, and a rough push from a guard propelled him onward.

Every muscle and bone aching, the Mouser's thoughts turned to Fafhrd. What was that violet light that had swallowed his partner? Was Fafhrd dead? Captured by Malygris? If the guards had noticed Fafhrd at all, they seemed strangely disinterested. Perhaps they thought the Mouser had violated the tower alone.

He glanced at his shoulders, still mottled from the kisses of the leeches, and in his mind he heard again Fafhrd's final falling shriek. What had compelled Fafhrd to lose his grip on the rope?

"Damn the misbegotten creature that brought us back to this city," he muttered to himself. "Damn Sheelba. Damn his stinking swamp, his unlikely hut, and his eyeless face." He lifted his head and swept his gaze around. Directly ahead, the wall of the North Barracks rose, and off to the right of it, on a graceful hill, stood the Overlord's Rainbow Palace.

"Damn all of you," the Mouser swore under his breath, yielding to increasing bitterness. "You've cost me the truest friend in all the world."

The North Barracks gates stood open. Straight into the sprawling compound, his guards marched him. In the yard, arranged in three neat rows, lay a score of corpses, soldiers killed in the melee before the temples. Now, his captors added one more to the nearest row as they placed their corporal's body on the grass.

Shortly after that, they flung the Mouser into a windowless cell and slammed the door. A heavy metal bolt slid home on the other side, and the little bit of torchlight that slipped under the jamb vanished as his guards left him. In utter blackness, he lay on his side on a bare stone floor. For a long while, he remained there, without hope, awash in his pain and grieving for Fafhrd.

Then slowly, he sat up, wincing at the effort. Licking caked blood from his lips, he wriggled his bound hands beneath his hips, under his legs, and over his feet. Bringing the rope to his teeth, he chewed and pulled until the knots loosened enough to let him slip free. He cast the coils disgustedly at the door.

Thoughts of Fafhrd stole into his mind again, and he grew morose. Dead, or in the clutches of Malygris—or worse, Fafhrd caught by whatever remnant god once resided in that evil tower whose defenses the Mouser, himself, had so foolishly triggered. Curse him for a fool for ever laying eyes on that huge, ruby jewel. Fafhrd had paid the price for the Mouser's greed.

Cross-legged, he sat on the floor, hands in his lap, head hung, blaming and shaming himself until a new possibility entered his mind. "Sheelba," he muttered to himself, grasping at a small hope. Could Sheelba have saved Fafhrd from his fall? That mysterious wizard had transported them across the world with his arcane art. Could he not have transported Fafhrd to safety?

Clearly, some magical hand had reached out to snatch the Northerner from midair.

The Mouser's shoulders slumped again. Surely, that was a false hope. Sheelba dwelled in the marshes beyond the city's walls and was sick near to death, in need of errand boys to go where his magicks could not. What would he think of his errand boys now, the Mouser wondered bitterly.

Reaching behind, he fingered the leather thong that bound his black hair away from his face. At least he still had one weapon. Crawling on hands and knees, he searched the floor until he found the coil of rope that had bound his wrists. Undoing the knots, he tested its strength, nodding grimly. It would make an adequate garrotte, and now his weapons were two.

Sitting again, listening alertly for any sound beyond the door, he conserved his energy and shut from his mind all awareness of pain from the beatings the guards had given him. He might yet, with luck and daring, break out of this prison. Then nothing would keep him from learning Fafhrd's fate.

Before much time had passed, he heard a sound in the corridor, and a key grated in the lock of his cell door. Moving swiftly, he rose and concealed himself in the gloom next to the door, gripping the two ends of the rope. The door swung outward, and lamplight spilled across the threshold, but no guard stepped inside.

"Prisoner, show yourself," a deep voice called from the corridor.

Some guard's natural caution had undone him. Silently cursing, the Mouser dropped the rope and, blinking, stepped into the light. Four soldiers stood in the narrow passage with short swords drawn. The tallest guard gestured to two of the others. "Take him," he said.

The guards seized him roughly by his arms. For an insane moment, the Mouser considered fighting them. In the close confines of the corridor, though, their swords would cut him down easily. At least, when he made no effort to resist, they relaxed their grips.

Down the corridor they led him, up a stone staircase, and into a room. Sunlight streamed through a pair of barred windows. On a table in the center of the room he spied his clothes. No sign of his weapons or his purse. Another soldier leaned over the table, frowning distastefully as he stirred the Mouser's belongings with a finger.

When the soldier looked up, the Mouser recognized him by the scar on the right side of his face. On the shoulder of his scarlet cloak, he wore a corporal's pin. Apparently, he had succeeded his superior.

"Get dressed," he instructed as he pushed the gray bundle across the table.

Reaching for his garments, the Mouser asked in a sarcastic tone, "Is it a formal occasion?"

Corporal Scarface regarded him coldly. "As formal as it gets."

The Mouser pulled on his clothes, taking his time, studying the room, the corporal, his guards, looking for any opening that might suggest an opportunity to escape. Nothing presented itself yet. He slipped on his boots and tied the lacings.

"Leash him," Corporal Scarface ordered when the Mouser was dressed.

One of the guards sheathed his sword and produced a short rope. With practiced speed, he bound the Mouser's hands securely together. When the knots were tied, the guard slipped another rope around the Mouser's neck. Grinning, he gave a tug on the line.

"I can tell you're a man who loves his work," the Mouser said drily, trying to hide a grimace. The ropes bit deeply into his flesh. Already, numbness crept into his fingers.

Behind, another guard rapped him sharply on the head. "Silence!" he ordered.

Scarface, no man for long speeches, headed for the door. "Bring him."

The guard holding the other end of the Mouser's leash gave it a jerk, spinning his prisoner about. Two guards fell in behind the Mouser and two before. Scarface led the way from the room into the corridor, through a large hall, and out into the grounds of the North Barracks.

A large tarpaulin had been cast over the stack of corpses. A number of soldiers wandered aimlessly about or sat in the shade of other buildings, sporting bandages and wounds. Most of the barracks, the Mouser reasoned, would be out in the streets attempting to restore order and reassure the citizenry.

Scarface set a brisk pace. Out through the barracks' main gate they went. To the Mouser's left, the ancient Citadel of the Overlord squatted on a low hill, bleak and gray as old steel behind high walls. The northernmost point in the city, it overlooked the vast Inner Sea and the Royal Docks. In past centuries, during an attack, the Overlord and his generals conducted battles from that stronghold, but it was seldom used now. No nation on Nehwon dared make war against Lankhmar.

The Mouser appreciated what a rare tour he was about to receive. Commoners were not allowed in the Noble District without permission or an escort. He might have wished for friendlier companions, he admitted, and better circumstances.

For a short time they walked toward the Citadel past several well-kept estates, past walls lined with roses and greenery, down a road paved with wide, flat stones and well-shaded with stately trees. Orchards and floral gardens filled the air with a sweet perfume. Expensively sculpted fountains offered cool water to pedestrians.

Then, one long and unbroken wall of gleaming white sandstone began to border the right side of the road. No trees grew near this wall, no roses, no greenery. Slender, mushroom-shaped watchtowers, artfully constructed, stood atop the wall at every fifty paces. Archers in ornamented, highly polished armor and bright scarlet cloaks, scrutinized every movement in the street below while pairs of foot soldiers walked patrol.

Another pair of soldiers stood duty before a small, arched gateway. With a gesture, Scarface signaled his men and his prisoner to halt while he approached the sentries. Reaching inside his jerkin, he brought out a folded parchment and displayed it for the guards, who studied it closely.

The Mouser couldn’t hear the exchange of words, but the gate guards looked up from the writ and eyed him with the kind of disgusted, disbelieving look usually reserved for the idiot who drinks too much and pukes on himself. Shaking heads, the two opened the gate and stepped aside to allow Scarface, his prisoner, and his men to pass through.

Beyond that gate lay a place of beauty, a dreamland— Lankhmar's Rainbow Palace. Four stories high, made of the same sandstone as the wall that surrounded it, the palace shimmered in the late afternoon sun. White colonnades supported gracefully curving porticos and terraces. Spires and minarets floated splendidly skyward above the fourth level.

Majestic obelisks and sculptures stood scattered about the perfectly manicured lawns. Beds of blossoming flowers, carefully tended, spread bright color about the grounds. Isolated fruit trees, placed strategically for artistic and olfactory effect, sang with wind chimes that hung from their branches.

A sharp jerk on his rope and a push from one of the guards at his back reminded the Mouser of his predicament.

Flat stones made a narrow walkway from the gate leading toward the Rainbow Palace. His guards fell into a cadenced military step now, and carried themselves with stiff bearing. The Mouser pushed out his chest and lifted his head higher. A prisoner he might be; and though he had been beaten, beaten he was not.

Even the least significant entrance to the palace was double-guarded. At a tiny yet ornately gold-embossed garden door, Corporal Scarface flashed his parchment for the soldiers on duty. Wordlessly, they stepped aside.

The bright beauty of the Rainbow Palace ended at the threshold. Beyond the door only a single smoky cresset relieved the cavern-like gloom that filled a low-ceilinged passage. In the next corridor, another lone cresset burned, and in the next. In the chamber beyond that, a trio of suspended lamps illuminated huge earthen jars taller than any of the guards. Covered and sealed with cloth and wax, they smelled of mysterious oils.

Past that chamber, they climbed a staircase. On the second level, lamps and cressets lit the hallways with noonday brightness. Servants drifted by, casting curious glances at the Mouser and his guards, saying nothing.

Reaching a set of grandly carven doors, Scarface once more showed his writ. The sentries posted there examined it carefully, then eased open one of the doors. The Mouser's guards drew their swords and closed in around him.

"Little man, you stand in a place of honor," Scarface warned. "Conduct yourself accordingly."

The Mouser glared at him. Then he sent his gaze past the corporal to take in the lavish richness of the vast hall, its wooden columns, its tapestries and carpets, the dais and the high-backed, ivory throne at the far side.

"Why am I here?" he whispered in a tone unbecoming his status as a prisoner.

Scarface matched his glare and raised his sword slowly until the point rested on the Mouser's nose. "Abase yourself at his feet when you approach," he instructed, ignoring the Mouser's question. "If you hesitate, I will sever the tendons behind your knees."

The Mouser raised one eyebrow and gave Scarface a sardonic, challenging look. Defiance would ill-serve him now, however. Instead, he turned smartly, moving so quickly that he pulled the leash from a lax guard's hand, and led the way toward the Overlord's throne, trailing the rope tied about his neck, leaving his guards to hurry after.

At the foot of the dais he paused. The royal seat was empty. The Mouser looked around. Off to the side, between a pair of gracefully fluted pillars, a trio of men stood in muted conversation. The light of a single brazier gleamed on their oiled beards and hair, and on the elaborate silver embroidery that adorned their black tunics and cloaks.

The Mouser needed no urging from his guards to stand silently and wait to be noticed. The Mouser used the time to test his bonds. Straining subtly against the ropes, he tried to flex some feeling into his fingers.

One of the three, a well-built and muscular man with the look of a wrestler, suddenly turned around. The brazier's light shimmered on a thinly delicate coronet of gold that adorned a stern brow. Dark eyes focused on the Mouser, and the observer pursed his lips in study. Abruptly, he waved off his two companions. Executing curt bows, the nobles obediently departed through a shadowed doorway. The wearer of the coronet strode slowly toward the throne.

Scarface raised his sword in salute, and his voice boomed. "Hail, Rokkarsh, Overlord of Lankhmar, Lord of. . ."

A gesture of irritation from Rokkarsh cut him off, and Scarface fell silent. His lowering blade, however, came to rest on the Mouser's right shoulder.

Scowling and grumbling inside, the Mouser bent his knees. With his hands tied behind his back, he dropped awkwardly to the floor, nearly cracking his chin on the expensive marble tiles.

"In Aarth’s name," the Overlord said, grimacing as he fanned the air with one hand and with the other selected a plump peach from a bowl on a small table beside the throne. "I told you to bathe him. His stink fouls the palace."

The Mouser raised his head, eyes narrowing to slits as he regarded the man before him. Slowly, he drew his knees under himself. Let Scarface put a sword in his back; he would grovel and crawl no more, particularly not before an oiled, pomaded effete with the audacity and bad taste to tattoo a rose around an exposed left nipple.

"If the palace stinks," the Mouser said through clenched teeth, his temper barely in check, "the cause must be that whore's perfume in which you've drenched yourself."

Scarface bellowed. "Let me strike off his head, my lord!"

The Overlord held up his peach as if to display the proud bite his royal teeth had taken from it. "No, not his head," he said with calm bemusement. "However, you may take from him the finger of your choice."

The Mouser's dusky face took on a serpentine quality, and he fixed Rokkarsh with his gaze. "If one of your dogs dares to touch me again," he boldly threatened, "I'll lay a curse to rot off a more important appendage than your finger."

The Overlord waved Scarface back and took a bite from his peach as he studied the Mouser. With a curious grin he asked, "Do you have such power, little man?"

The Mouser scowled at the reference to his height. "Lankhmar's walls will echo with the lamentations from your harem," he promised.

Rokkarsh licked a droplet of juice from his lips. "Well, we couldn't very well have that, could we?" he said. "I take it that you're some kind of wizard?"

"The great Overlord of Lankhmar may take whatever he likes," the Mouser sneered. "You can take my life if that pleases you, and you can take your fiddle and go up to the roof of the Rainbow Palace and play for the gulls while the city burns around you."

Rokkarsh set aside his peach and leaned forward as he licked his fingers. "The only thing burning in Lankhmar, little wizard, is the tower you set afire." The Overlord leaned forward, and his voice took on a new tone of menace. "Why did you enter a forbidden temple, and where is the partner witnesses saw with you:

The Mouser feigned a look of surprise. "Partner?" he said, glancing over his shoulders and down between his legs before he shrugged. "Your witnesses must be drunkards."

The Overlord assumed an expression of boredom as he reached again for his peach. "I think I shall risk your curse and let the corporal strike off your finger after all. Then perhaps you'll answer honestly the next time I ask."

Scarface stepped close and, grasping one of the Mouser's bound hands, began to pry at a finger. The Mouser's heart thundered in his chest as he resisted by making fists, but he had little control over his rope-numbed hands. Desperately, he fixed his gaze on the Overlord.

"I'm looking for Malygris!" he shouted.

Rokkarsh held up a hand and Scarface became still, though he maintained a grip on one of the Mouser's fingers.

"The wizard?" Rokkarsh asked with interest. "Why?"

The Mouser glared back at the Overlord. "To end the thrice-damned plague he's conjured on Lankhmar and surrounds."

Rokkarsh turned pale. Trembling, he rose from his throne and, drawing back his arm, an enraged scream bubbling on his lips, he let fly the half-eaten peach.