Swords Against the Shadowland

TWELVE TUNNELS OF HOPE AND HEARTBREAK

The half-eaten peach flew past the Mouser's head and struck Corporal Scarface with such force that it knocked his helmet askew.

"Great shot," the Mouser complimented.

"Get out!" Rokkarsh, purple-faced, screamed at his guards. "Leave us!"

Scarface sputtered as he struggled with his chinstrap and tried to set his helmet aright. "But, my lord!" he exclaimed as juice dribbled down his cheek and chin, "the prisoner!"

Rokkarsh reached as if for another peach, but his hand slipped down between the throne and the table that held the bowl and came up again with a short, gleaming sword. Brandishing it, he gestured with the point toward the great doors.

"Insignificant fart," he said, his voice low with menace as he glared at the corporal, "your new rank goes to your head. Should the Overlord of Lankhmar fear a lone, bound man? Get out! And if one of you repeats a word of what he heard here, I'll hang the lot of you from the city walls."

Scarface shot a look of purest hatred at the Mouser, and the Mouser responded with a crooked grin and a mocking lift of his eyebrows. Retreating from their Overlord's fury, the other soldiers hurried to the doors. Slamming his sword back into its sheath, Scarface stalked after them.

"Now, little man." As the great doors closed behind the last of the soldiers, Rokkarsh descended halfway down the steps of the dais and stopped. His eyes narrowing to slits, he waved the point of his blade hypnotically before the Mouser's face. The red light of the braziers seemed to turn the silver metal to flame, and the Overlord himself appeared to grow subtly in power and stature as he struck a pose.

"You are not native to Lankhmar," Rokkarsh observed, studying the Mouser closely. "Your dusky skin suggests Tovilyis. I think you've come, an agent of some foreign power, to sow seeds of discontent, fear, and false rumor among my people."

"I know nothing of my parentage or my specific origins," the Mouser acknowledged, lifting his head high in stubborn pride, "but my guardian, Glavas Rho, raised me in the southlands of Lankhmar, steeped me in her traditions and customs, weaned me on her tales and legends. Lankhmar's gods are my gods, her ways my ways, and her people are my people as much as yours."

Rokkarsh sneered. "A pretty speech, but your arrogance puts the lie in your mouth. A true son of Lankhmar wouldn't dare to speak so to his Overlord. You're a spy and a rumor-monger."

With numbed fingers, the Mouser surreptitiously explored the knots of his bonds, working clumsily to loosen them, gaining nothing. He fought to conceal his disappointment, considering his options. Perhaps he could reason with Rokkarsh, reach him with words.

"Forgive my urgency, which you mistake for arrogance, most noble lord," the Mouser said. "Don't you see that our people are dying in their homes from an evil plague, and that damned wizard, Malygris, is to blame?"

Rage flashed across Rokkarsh's face, and he raised his sword as if to strike off the Mouser's head. "Hold your tongue, rogue, lest I cut it from your mouth! There's no plague in Lankhmar, and the loyal citizen, Malygris, has done me the dearest of favors with his magic."

The Mouser felt the blood in his veins turn cold, and for a moment, he ceased to work against his bonds. "Favor?" he said suspiciously. "What favor?"

A faint smile danced over the too-handsome face of Lankhmar's Overlord. Abruptly, he lowered the sword he held, turned, and climbed the few steps to his throne. Languidly, he sank upon it, throwing one arm over its high, velvet-cushioned back.

"Malygris undertook to rid me of important rivals and enemies," he said with a bemused grin. "The Patriarch of Aarth, for one, that meddling old fool." He gazed down upon the Mouser to measure the effect of his words as he touched the golden circlet he wore with a fingertip. "This rests a little easier on my brow with certain priests and powerful wizards out of my way. And if a few insignificant fortune-tellers and herb-witches have been incidentally brushed aside by Malygris's spell . . ."—he hesitated, looked thoughtful, then waved a hand—"well, their sacrifices are for the betterment of the state."

As he glared at the monster on the throne above him, the Mouser trembled with poorly hidden anger. "You fool!" he hissed. His life was forfeit; he knew that now beyond all hoping. Rokkarsh would not have confessed so much, otherwise. "Your ass disgraces the honored throne upon which it sits!"

Rokkarsh selected a new peach from the bowl close at hand and took a deep bite. Juice squirted upon his chin and dribbled downward. Contemptuously, he spat the pit at his prisoners feet.

The Mouser cursed his inept, swollen fingers because they couldn't manage the knots. How he wished he could squeeze Rokkarsh's neck and choke the breath from his body. "You stationed soldiers around the tower to protect Malygris," the Mouser accused. "Your villainy is even blacker than his!"

Rokkarsh inclined his head indifferently. "As the only wizard who can safely practice his art, he has some value to me." Setting aside the sword that dangled from one hand, he clapped his palms together sharply. "You, however, have no value at all. While you pose no real threat to a mage of Malygris s caliber, I can hardly let you run around the streets screaming 'plague!' and upsetting the citizenry."

On either side of the Mouser the nearest of the tall, fluted columns suddenly popped open. Unseen in the smooth stone, narrow doors flung back. From each, a giant emerged, men as tall as Fafhrd, clad only in loincloths and gleaming with sweat. Each carried an axe of impressive size.

The Mouser shot a worried look over his shoulder, wondering how many more of the scores of columns supporting the massive roof also housed a defender. Shouldering their axes, the pair of giants seized him roughly by his arms, lifting him up to the very tips of his toes. "Take a bath, pigs," the Mouser said, clenching his teeth against the pain that shot up into his joints. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You've been in your larders too long."

Rokkarsh chuckled softly. "They can't answer you," he said. "They surrendered their tongues to better serve their Overlord."

"Good at keeping secrets, huh?" the Mouser said, wincing as the pair lifted his bound hands high, forcing him to bend forward.

"Very," Lankhmar's Overlord agreed. "I trust them to repeat nothing said within these walls." Throwing back his head, he laughed.

The Mouser's head slumped forward, and droplets of sweat rolled from his brow onto the floor as despair and anger filled his heart. Then slowly, even as his arms were twisted higher still, he lifted his head and glowered at Rokkarsh. "One way or another," he promised, "I'll see you in hell."

The Overlord ceased his laughter and rose slowly from his throne, and when he stood erect, in the brazier's flickering red glow, he seemed to keep on rising, growing until he filled all the Mouser's tortured vision. "Indeed you will," he whispered in low, dangerous tones that echoed through all the hall. "Indeed."

He gestured to the pair of giants. "Take him to the dungeons below," he instructed. "Strike off his head and cast his corpse into the worm pits." Sinking down on his throne again, he seemed to resume his normal size once more. He reached for a fresh peach, took a bite, and threw one leg over the carved arm of his royal seat, half-reclining. "Ah," he sighed, paying the Mouser no more attention. "I am in need of a nap."

The axemen jerked the Mouser off his feet and dragged him away, his heels scrabbling and kicking futilely on the marble tiles. Out of the great hall and through a darkened archway they went and into a shadowy passage illumined only by regularly placed, low-burning cressets. The axemen paused long enough to put the Mouser on his feet, then still gripping his arms, they escorted him at a brisk pace through windowless corridors, down flights of stone steps, deep into the bowels of the Rainbow Palace.

A damp, foul-smelling seepage coated the rough floor of the lowest sub-basement. From lightless, locked cells soft murmurings and groans issued as the Mouser's muttered cursing and the footsteps of his guards disturbed prisoners who had not seen the sunlight in countless days.

The sound chilled the Mouser's soul. He grew quiet as he eyed those cold, iron-barred doors, imagining the half-starved and tormented humans shut behind them. Suddenly he felt the pain in his bruised ribs again, the cuts and lacerations on his face, all the places where Rokkarsh's soldiers had punched and kicked and beaten him.

His guards dragged him into another chamber. More locked cells, barely perceived shuffling behind the bolted doors— someone pacing mindlessly. Rats, licking at the slime on the floor, scuttled out of the way, squeaking in protest. Here stood instruments of torture. Chains, racks, strappados, thumbscrews and ankle-vices, other devices unidentifiable even to the Mouser.

The next chamber contained only one device, a wooden platform with manacles for arms and legs. The Mouser's eyes widened in fear. He lunged against one of his guards, knocking him sideways, and turned to make a desperate escape. A huge hand caught his long hair, halting him painfully, and a meaty fist slammed against the side of his face. The Mouser hit the floor hard, his vision full of a red haze and bright pinpoints of light like a bloody sky burning with stars.

He felt himself lifted, placed on the platform. Manacles snapped around his ankles, then a knife swiftly cut his ropes. Forced down upon his back, cold iron bracelets clamped around his wrists. One of the giants laughed now, a harsh and ugly sound. From above the other guard fitted a leather strap under the Mouser's chin and jerked it tight, forcing the Mouser's head back until it nearly cut off his breath, and the muscles of his throat stood out with the tension.

The Mouser stared upward, terror gripping his heart. What a devilish device, to force the victim to witness the descent of the blade that meant his own execution. The largest of the giants stepped close, chuckling low as he regarded his helpless captive, an ugly sound from a tongueless mouth. He raised the axe in his two hands, chest swelling, muscles tensing, and swung it down.

Despite himself, the Mouser screamed.

A scant inch from the Mouser's throat, the axeman checked his swing. Looking to his partner, he chuckled again. The second guard ripped a piece of string from the hem of his loincloth and measured the distance from the Mouser's Adam's apple to the edge of the axe. Marking the string with his thumb, he handed it to the first guard and, taking up his own axe, moved into killing position.

Though he bit his lip, swearing not to give them the pleasure of a second scream, the Mouser nevertheless cried out as gleaming death hurtled down upon his offered throat.

Again, the axeman checked his swing, and his partner measured an even shorter distance with the piece of string. Swallowing, the Mouser could just feel the sharp metal edge brushing his skin. Grumbling, the first guard took up his axe again.

A movement near the chamber entrance caught the Mouser's attention. A black-cloaked figure swept into the room, its features concealed beneath a hood. A long-bladed sword arced high and whistled down upon the first guard's unprotected neck. A spray of hot blood fountained into the air.

"Fafhrd!" the Mouser croaked, straining at his manacles, twisting his head as far as the strap beneath his chin allowed.

The figure made no answer. Knocking the corpse of the first guard aside before it could fall, his rescuer leaped upon the platform, nearly putting a boot in the Mouser's stomach as he swung his sword again. The second guard ducked and tried to swing his axe. Before he could lift it, a bolt sprouted from his left eye.

Surprised, the Mouser strained to twist his head again. Another cloaked figure stood in the doorway, a crossbow still braced against one shoulder. "You're not Fafhrd!" he said, rolling his eyes toward his nearer savior.

A gloved hand pushed back a concealing hood. Nuulpha grinned, his face flush with excitement. "Want me to leave?" he said.

The Mouser did his best to shrug. "As long as you're here ..."

Nuulpha's partner found a ring of keys on a peg near the entrance and tossed them. "Hurry!" the second figure insisted, shooting a nervous glance back over one shoulder.

Nuulpha fumbled with the keys, trying one after another in the manacles until he found one that fit the locks. Freed, the Mouser sat up, and with Nuulpha's help, stood.

"Aarth!" Nuulpha muttered. "Your face . . .!"

The Mouser touched his right cheek and winced. His right eye was nearly swollen shut, too. His whole face felt like overripe fruit. "You're not so pretty, yourself," he said, forcing a grin. Then he shook his head. "No, forget that. Right now, you're the prettiest thing I've ever seen."

"Kiss him later," hissed the figure guarding the doorway as it loaded a new bolt on the string. "Let's get out of here."

"Can you walk?" Nuulpha asked.

The Mouser nodded, relaxing his steadying grip on Nuulpha's arm. "If you don't particularly mind, I'd rather run. This damp environment is bad for my complexion."

"Walk or run. Just be prepared to fight," said the second figure, in a harsh whisper. Sweeping back one side of a cloak, a slender arm tossed a bundle toward the Mouser.

"Scalpel!" the Mouser exclaimed, as he unrolled his gray cloak and found his weapons. "Catsclaw!"

Nuulpha took the Mouser's arm again and steered him into the next chamber with an urgency. "When I heard someone had tried to break into the forbidden tower on Nun Street," Nuulpha whispered as they hurried through the dungeon, "I knew it was you. At the North Barracks I found your weapons and learned that Rokkarsh, himself, had demanded to see you."

A body sprawled in the corridor, blood oozing slowly from one ear to pool on the slimy floor. From the leather apron and the keyring at its side, the Mouser guessed Nuulpha had jumped the jailor.

Glancing at that keyring the Mouser asked, "Is there time to open some of these cells?"

"No!" said Nuulpha's partner, who prowled the corridor ahead as an advance scout. "Now shut up—before we're all caught!" Reaching the bottom of the staircase, the partner ignored the steps and instead ducked into the shadows below the stone cascade.

The sound of well-oiled gears turning shivered faintly through the air, followed by a barely audible scraping. A gleam of light drew a line near the floor, illuminating the partner's boots, then calves, knees, and thighs as it widened. A door, hidden beneath the stairs, rose. Just beyond its threshold, a lantern, suspended on a peg, limned Nuulpha's partner with a golden radiance.

With concealment no longer an advantage, the partner pushed back the concealing hood and shook free a curly mass of black hair before seizing the lantern and beckoning them onward.

The Mouser gaped, taking a full instant to realize through the surrounding light, that the face before him belonged to a young woman. Before he could say anything, she turned away and hurried down a narrow, stone-lined tunnel whose ceiling hung so low it nearly brushed her head.

Stepping into the tunnel, Nuulpha leaned on an iron lever embedded in the dusty floor. A narrow panel, seemingly made of thinly sliced granite, dropped into place with a clinking of chains. But for the lantern's light, which was moving ever farther up the tunnel, darkness ruled.

Crouching to avoid banging his head in the low passage, Nuulpha touched the Mouser's arm and urged him after the light. The Mouser, quickly as his aching muscles and injuries allowed, chased after that singular glow with his friend and rescuer close on his heels. As he went, he strapped on his weapons and tossed his light cloak over his shoulders, feeling a little better in familiar accoutrements.

"What is the lady's name?" the Mouser whispered over his shoulder as they strove to overtake Nuulpha's swiftly moving partner.

"Jesane is a lot of things," Nuulpha answered, "but she's no lady."

"Even better," the Mouser said with a grin. "Women with crossbows excite me. I've got a quarrel I'd like to fit to her string."

"You'll have more than a quarrel if she overhears you," Nuulpha warned, nudging him along. "Limp faster."

A narrow, stone-lined archway marked another passage that abruptly forked off to the right. Slowing his step, the Mouser stared into impenetrable darkness and repressed a shiver. Though he could not say how, he felt sure that something unseen not so far down that tunnel stared back at him, a malevolence so cold and ancient that he perceived it on a level deeper and more primitive than any of his five senses.

Humor deserted him. He hurried on until he stood at last in the umbra of Jesane's lantern, and when he spoke again, he kept his voice to the barest of whispers for fear of disturbing things best left undisturbed. "No rats," he muttered, eyeing the tunnel floor. In a place like this there should be hundreds of rats, thousands of rats. A queer urgency crept into his words. "Where are the rats?"

Neither Nuulpha, nor Jesane, answered, but in the lantern's yellow glow the Mouser caught the look on the soldier's face. He noted the grip Nuulpha kept on his sword and the manner in which Jesane held her cocked crossbow ready.

Swallowing nervously, he put a hand on his own slender sword and loosened it in its sheath. The walls seemed closer than ever, and he felt the weight of earth and rock above him as surely as if it rested on his shoulders.

Another archway and another darkness-filled passage branched off to the left. Only a few paces beyond that, yet another passage offered itself. Jesane led them under its low arch, and they soft-footed in a new direction. The lantern seemed a tiny shield against the overpowering blackness, and the Mouser found himself praying someone had remembered to fill its reservoir. The thought of getting lost down here. . . .

They turned into yet another tunnel, and the floor turned slick with slime, then muddy.

Without warning, the darkness burst with a glittering and glimmering. Neat pinpoints and jagged shimmering streaks of brilliance flared to sudden life. Jesane lifted the lantern higher as the Mouser caught his breath.

They walked no longer in a man-made tunnel, but in a natural cavern whose roof dripped spectacularly with stalactites. Bits of quartz and mica embedded in the formations, in the walls and roof, caught and scattered the lantern's glow, creating an eerie and awesome display.

"The underworld of Lankhmar," Nuulpha whispered. "A honeycomb of man-made tunnels, natural caves, and deep caverns. A secret closely guarded by the Overlord and the Great Noble Families with the cooperation of the high priests of certain powerful religions."

Instinctively the Mouser softened his step, and his gaze searched the shadows and gloom-filled crannies, the upper reaches, and the unyielding darkness beyond the reach of Jesane's small light. Such horrible, mysterious grandeur! Putting out a hand, he dragged his fingertips over the rough limestone surface and the jagged point of a stalagmite that rose as high as his waist. An overwhelming sense of age shivered through him.

Letting go of the stalagmite, he gazed upward again and imagined himself in a stygian mouth, between powerful jaws, monstrous teeth about to crush out his life.

Jesane moved ahead quickly, and Nuulpha, glancing back the way they had come, again put a hand on the Mouser's shoulder and urged him onward. Once more the Mouser caught the narrow, worried look in his friend's eyes; he perceived the way Nuulpha listened as if to the very darkness and the tension revealed by the grip that never eased on the hilt of his soldier's sword.

Quickening his pace, the Mouser turned his eyes from the beauty the cavern offered. Beauty sometimes made tender bait for deadly traps, and every attitude of Jesane and Nuulpha suggested danger lurked near. He resolved, not just to follow Jesane's light, but to stay within its wavering, yellow circle.

Their journey through the cavern ended abruptly when the lantern's light fell upon another man-made archway cut into the limestone wall. Upon one rough-hewn stone block a queer symbol stood out in a faded, ancient black paint—a crude, leering face with a crescent moon above its brow, a dagger beside its right cheek, a bone beside its left, and a pentagram below.

Without knowing its meaning, the Mouser recognized it for a darkly evil sign. "Where do all these tunnels lead?" he asked, following Jesane into the new passage. The thin smoke from her lantern rose and spread upon the low ceiling.

"To nearly every important edifice, public or private, in the city," she answered quietly without slackening her pace. "The Overlords built them originally as storeplaces during times of war and invasion, and as a means of moving unseen between the Rainbow Palace, the Citadel, the garrisons and the Royal Docks."

"Over the centuries the Great Families expanded the network, taking advantage of the natural caverns, until they had secret access to every public building, temple, even to the private estates of their enemies."

"The temples?" the Mouser said thoughtfully. "Even the Forbidden Towers?"

"No doubt," Nuulpha said.

"Of course," Jesane affirmed.

Nuulpha nodded. "She knows the network better than anyone."

The Mouser pursed his lips and thought of Fafhrd, a black anger filling his heart, mingling with fear and grief. "That explains how Rokkarsh's soldiers caught us off-guard. There was no other visible entrance save the window we used."

Jesane paused and turned suddenly, holding up a hand for silence as she peered into the darkness behind them. For a tense moment, all three listened, hands on their weapons. She lifted the lantern a bit higher, throwing its light back down the passage. Finally, her finger eased off the crossbow's trigger.

Letting out a slow breath, the Mouser uncurled his fingers from around Scalpel's hilt. The look of fear on Jesane's face still lingered in his mind. Even as they resumed walking, he cast a sheepish glance back over his shoulder, noting with some relief that Nuulpha did the same.

What dangers lurked in these tunnels, he wondered, to cause his comrades to start at the smallest sounds? No rats, he remembered nervously, casting his gaze upon the floor. Some ravenous creature, then, prowling the black maze? Or creatures? Though the question gnawed at him, it suddenly seemed wisest to preserve the silence.

Jesane led them through yet another archway and into another tunnel. The way twisted through a natural cave, then entered another man-made passage. Abruptly, a staircase carved crudely out of the rock presented itself. At the top stood a door painted with the same ominous sign the Mouser had seen in another tunnel.

"What is that?" the Mouser dared to whisper as Jesane stepped aside. Drawing his sword, Nuulpha moved to the fore and slammed the pommel against the stout wood.

Jesane stared at the symbol. In the wavering lantern-light, the leering face seemed to regard them with subtle hatred. "No one remembers," she answered simply, tearing her gaze away.

Nuulpha moved down a step as a heavy bolt slid back on the other side, and the door opened into the tunnel. A dim light oozed outward, mingling with Jesane's lantern to brighten the gloom. An emaciated, thinly bearded face, large eyes bulging from shrunken sockets, cheekbones stretching the sallow skin, peered around the door at them.

The Mouser caught his breath at sight of the corpse-like being, and his hand shot downward once again to grasp his sword.

Those large eyes fixed on the Mouser. A lipless gash of a mouth moved. "You got him."

Nuulpha nodded as he caught the edge of the door and opened it wider. "Yes, Mish, now let us in."

The man named Mish—for the Mouser saw that, indeed, it was only a man and not some litch or revenant—moved back beyond the door and took down a torch from a sconce on the wall. A small stool beneath the sconce suggested Mish had been waiting for them.

When they were all across the threshold, Nuulpha tugged the door closed and threw the iron bolt that sealed it shut. Jesane, visibly relaxing, set her lantern upon the stool and brushed a hand through her hair. The slightest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth as she removed the quarrel from her crossbow, returned it to a small quiver on her hip, and uncocked the bowstring.

The Mouser watched her with new interest. That faint smile offered the first hint of her true beauty. Her hair shone like liquid gold as she bent to retrieve the lantern again.

Mish, with his torch, led the way up the corridor. Stone tiles formed the floor, and the walls, though ancient, glimmered smoothly under the flow of the light. Making a sharp right turn, then a left, they approached a solid wall—a seeming dead end. Undaunted, Mish put one foot against the lower left corner of the barrier and depressed a barely visible stone. A narrow section of the wall slid back.

Soft light, cook smells, and the sounds of voices spilled out. With widening eyes the Mouser stepped beyond the barrier into a vast chamber filled with slender white columns, each lit with a torch or lantern, and scores of people.

Unlacing her cloak with one hand, Jesane smiled as she greeted a gnarly old man whose only garment was a dirty loincloth. Bowing, obviously pleased to see her, he took her crossbow and held out his other hand for the black garment.

A small throng quickly gathered around them, but farther into the chamber more hung back, watching uncertainly. Men and women of varying ages, small children—most bore the marks and trappings of poverty and deprivation. Their faces were gaunt, and rags made their clothing. Some reclining on pallets strained weakly to rise up and see who had come from the tunnels. Others continued disinterestedly at small tasks.

Standing near the Mouser, Mish covered his mouth with a hand and suddenly coughed. Somewhere in the chamber, someone echoed him. A low moan followed that. In the farthest corner, a child wept softly while a woman's weary voice cooed a quiet lullaby.

The Mouser caught Nuulpha's arm and gripped it, struck by the horror he saw before him. "Are they all sick?"

With stiffened jaw and clenched teeth, Nuulpha nodded. "This is Malygris's legacy."

The throng parted to reveal the new speaker, an old man with dark, glittering eyes under white, bushy brows, with a snowy, unkempt beard that covered his chin. Torchlight gleamed on his pale, shirtless torso, on blue-veined skin thin as parchment. He extended a hand; the fingers, gnarled and brittle as dead twigs, trembled.

Before him, the Mouser realized, stood the leader of this troubled band. Gently, he shook the offered hand as he stared into those dark eyes to see the power and wisdom they contained. "I think I have you to thank for my rescue," he said with a short bow.

The old man laughed. "Oh no!" he said. "You owe the corporal for that."

"Over drinks," Nuulpha reminded, grinning. "You promised me a great ballad if I ever hauled your fat out of Rokkarsh's dungeon. So when word spread through the garrison that a little man dressed all in gray had broken into and burned one of the Forbidden Towers, I saw my chance to be immortalized in song."

The Mouser grew suddenly glum. Fafhrd, not he, was the singer and composer of songs. Fafhrd would write a ballad worthy of Nuulpha. Of course, he'd make Jesane the centerpiece of it—that was Fafhrd. But it would be a song to make an audience laugh and applaud. The Mouser, himself, had no bardic skill, certainly none to match that of his northern companion.

"Where is your companion?" the old man asked suddenly, his gaze fixed steadfastly on the Mouser's face.

The Mouser glared sharply at the old man. Those dark, glittering eyes locked with his; a vague sense of vertigo washed over him, and for a moment, he felt as if he might fall. They were wells, those eyes, deep yawning wells. The Mouser blinked and backed half a step.

"Who are you?" he murmured suspiciously.

The old man did not bow, but lowered his eyes politely. "I am called Demptha Negatarth," he answered.

"The jeweler on Temple Street?" the Mouser rubbed his chin. "I have heard of you and that you also dabble in sorcery."

Demptha Negatarth forced a tight smile as he held up his brittle, nearly fleshless fingers. "And so, like most others here, I have fallen victim to Malygris's legacy." Lowering one hand, he beckoned with the other for the Mouser to follow. "But you regard me suspiciously, wondering how I know of your friend. I could confess that Nuulpha told me, but in truth I think we have been expecting both of you for some time."

Jesane took his arm, and with feeble steps he led the way to the far side of the chamber, weaving carefully among the pallets, greeting the sick with small, reassuring nods. The Mouser stared at them, feeling a growing weakness in his stomach. Some were covered with sores and strange black patches. Many appeared wasted, starved. A man too weak to hold up his own head coughed bits of sputum and mucus while a tearful woman tried to soothe him.

Blackened samovars perched over pots of hot coals poured pungent, herb-flavored steam into the air.

"Parents," Demptha Negatarth whispered to the Mouser as he nodded toward an elderly couple who knelt laving water over a sweating younger man. He nodded to a man who smeared salve over a young woman’s sores. "Relatives," he said. He paused to lay a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of a woman who merely sat holding another woman's hand. "Lovers," he whispered.

But the Mouser barely heard. A numbing cold shivered through him. Wrapped in a tiny blanket, a beautiful little girl-child slept fitfully, her skin pale in the lamplight, her brow beaded with droplets. A strand of blond hair clung wetly to one cheek. Tucked neatly in the crook of one arm, she held a familiar straw dolly.

"She has no one," Demptha Negatarth said, coming to his side. "We found her an hour ago unconscious in an alley. Perhaps we'll locate relatives in time."

"Or perhaps not?" the Mouser said grimly.

Again, Demptha turned that potent gaze upon the Mouser. "You know her?"

The Mouser shook his head, fighting the emotion that tried to choke him. "No," he answered. "She came into the Silver Eel a few nights ago selling dollies."

Nuulpha bent down beside the child for a closer look. "I remember," he said as he brushed the strand from her cheek and wiped her face with a corner of the blanket. "You bought them all—her poppets, she called them."

The Mouser's hands clenched into tight fists. "How can Rokkarsh turn his back on this? How can he turn a blind eye?"

Jesane spoke with surprising bitterness. "Since when did an Overlord, or any of the Great Families, give a damn for the common people and the poor?" She turned to the rest of the room, waving her arms as she shouted. "Be quiet, everyone! Be quiet! Listen!"

Except for a muffled cough, the entire chamber grew silent.

As if from far away a softly merry music came. The play of pipes and the beat of a dumbek swelled, but distantly, then faded only to be replaced by lutes and tambourines and bells. Those, too, faded against the swell of laughter and voices and more music.

A hacking cough in the chamber set off a chorus of coughing. Someone began to cry, and someone else cooed gentle words of consolation.

Jesane turned back to the Mouser, her eyes burning with fury. "That is the Midsummer Festival above our heads. From hundreds of miles around, people are pouring into Lankhmar, bringing goods to trade, spending money, pouring untold wealth into city tills and coffers. But should word spread that a plague held sway in Lankhmar—festival or no festival, do you think they would come then?"

Nuulpha rose, his face appearing suddenly weary, his demeanor haggard. "Rokkarsh has turned no blind eye, my friend," he said. "People have been quietly disappearing in Lankhmar for some time. A few, we have brought down here to care for in hidden safety. More lie in the Overlord's secret lime pits far outside the city, and any who dare to hint or speak of a plague are swiftly seized. They, too, disappear."

Trembling with anger, Jesane raised a hand to her mouth, turned her head away, and coughed.

With a worried look, Demptha Negatarth took her hand in his and patted it. "Come, daughter. Rest awhile and have some broth. You've done enough this day."

"There's more to do," she said stubbornly, freeing her hand and brushing back her hair. Still, she allowed a tight smile. "But I'll take the broth."

The Mouser watched as she left them. A few paces away, she paused beside a column to speak to someone.

A shadow of a memory flitted through his mind—something in the juxtaposition of her silhouette beside that column. He tried to grasp it again, but ghost-like, it slipped away.

"Your daughter?" the Mouser said, turning back to Demptha Negatarth.

A deep grief settled over the old man's features. "Tainted by my magicks," he said in a voice thick with regret. "This illness has changed her, made her harder and stronger than most men. Yet, I am more proud of her than I have ever been."

The Mouser nodded, turning for one more glimpse of her. "Grief is nothing if not a sword," he said.

Demptha Negatarth tugged at the Mouser's sleeve. "Grief we have in plenty," he said, leading the Mouser again toward a long table at the farthest end of the chamber. "It is you, I think, who will provide the sword."

On the table lay a deck of Lankhmaran tarot cards. Two cards, separated from the rest, lay exposed faces up. As Demptha Negatarth gestured, the Mouser bent for a closer look.

"I believe they represent you and your comrade," Demptha Negatarth pronounced.

But the Mouser wasn't looking at the cards. He ran a hand along the table, and again memory flashed through his mind. He stared up at the low ceiling, listened with straining ears to the music from the street far above. Turning, the torches and lamps seemed to dim as he gazed around. He remembered the columns, remembered the music, the chamber. The table—he remembered alembics and decanters and phials, a red smoke.

Malygris.

"The Temple of Hates," he whispered.

Demptha Negatarth and Nuulpha regarded him queerly. "What?" the old man said.

"The Temple of Hates," the Mouser repeated, recalling all the details of his dream. "This is where it all began." He leaned on the table, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the dream washed over him again, and the others backed a step away, leaving him alone, as if afraid to interrupt something they didn't understand.

When it was over, when the dream passed, he opened his eyes again, but he saw nothing, nothing but the pair of cards in the center of that table where foul instruments once had set, where evil, midwifed by a madman, had sprung to writhing life.

Reaching out, he touched the cards. His own shadow threw a cloak of darkness over them, and he turned them toward the light until he could see them clearly.

Cards of vengeance—

Cards of retribution—

The Knight and Knave of Swords.