Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber (51 page)

Now the Mouser was pointing out, but in a somewhat perfunctory way, the features of what appeared to be a rather well-appointed kitchen: fireplaces, ovens, and so forth. He rapped a couple of large iron kettles, but without any great enthusiasm, sounding their dull, sepulchral tones.

His manner quickened a little, however, and the ghost at least of a gleeful smile returned to his lips, as he opened the back door and went out into the mist, signing for his Death to follow him. That one did so, outwardly seeming relaxed, inwardly alert as a drawn knife, poised for any action.

Almost immediately the Mouser stooped, grasped a ring, and heaved up a small circular trapdoor, meanwhile holding his lamp aloft, its beams reflecting whitely from the fog but not helping vision much. The Mouser’s Death bent forward to look in.

Thereafter things happened very rapidly indeed. There was a scuffling sound and a thud from the kitchen. (That was Mikkidu tripping himself by stepping on the toe of his own stocking.) The Mouser’s Death, his nerves tortured beyond endurance, whipped out his dirk, and next fell dead across the cesspool mouth with Cif ’s dagger in his ear, thrown from where she stood against the wall hardly a dozen feet away.

And somewhere, along with these actions, there were a brief growl and a short dry laugh. But those were things Cif and the Mouser claimed afterwards to have heard. At the present moment there was only the Mouser still holding his lamp and peering down at the corpse and saying as Cif and Pshawri and Mikkidu rushed up to him, “Well, he’ll never get his revenge for tonight’s gaming, that’s for certain. Or do ghosts ever play backgammon, I wonder? I’ve heard of them contesting parties in chess with living mortals, by Mog.”

Next day at the council hall Groniger presided over a brief but well-attended inquest into the demise of the two passengers in the
Good News
. Badges and other insignia about their persons suggested they were members not only of the Lankhmar Slayers’ Brotherhood, but also of the even more cosmopolitan Assassins Order. Under close questioning, the captain of the
Good News
admitted knowing of this circumstance and was fined for not reporting it to the Rime Isle harbormaster immediately on making port. A bit later Groniger found that they were murderous rogues, doubtless hired by foreign parties unknown, and that they had been rightly slain on their first attempts to practice their nefarious trade on Rime Isle.

But afterwards he told Cif, “It’s as well that you slew him, and with his dagger in his hand. That way, none can say it was a feuding of newcomers to the Isle with foreigners their presence attracted here. And that you, Afreyt, were close witness to the other’s death.”

“I’ll say I was!” that lady averred. “He came down not a yard from us, eh Skor? almost braining us. And with his hand death-gripping his broken dagger. Fafhrd, in future you should be more careful of how you dispose of your corpses.”

When questioned about the cryptic warning he’d brought the Mouser and Fafhrd, old Ourph vouched, “The moment I heard the name
Good News
I knew it was an ill-omened ship, bearing watching. And when the two strangers came off and went into the Sea Wrack, I perceived them as dressed up, slightly luminous skeletons only, with bony hands and eyeless sockets.”

“Did you see their corpses at the inquest so?” Groniger asked him. “No, then they were but dead meat, such as all living become.”

In Godsland the three concerned deities, somewhat shocked by the final turn of events and horrified to see how close they’d come to losing their chief remaining worshippers, lifted their curses from them as rapidly as they were able. Other concerned parties were slower to get the news and to believe it. The Assassins Order posted the two Deaths as“delayed”rather that “missing,” but prepared to make what compensation might be unavoidable to Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel. While Sheelba and Ningauble, considerably irked, set about devising new stratagems to procure the return of their favorite errand boys and living touchstones.

The instant the gods lifted their curses, the Mouser’s and Fafhrd’s strange obsessions vanished. It happened while they were together with Afreyt and Cif, the four of them lunching al freso at Cif ’s. The only outward sign was that the Twain’s eyes widened incredulously as they stared and then smiled at nothing.

“What deliciously outrageous idea has occurred to you two?” Afreyt demanded, while Cif echoed, “You’re right! And it has to be something like that. We know you two of yore!”

“Is it that obvious?” the Mouser inquired, while Fafhrd fumbled out,“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s… No, you’ve all got to hear this. You know that thing about stars I’ve been having? Well, it’s gone!” He lifted his eyes. “By Issek, I can look at the blue sky now without having it covered with the black flyspecks of the stars that would be there now if it were dark!”

“By Mog!” the Mouser exploded. “I had no idea, Fafhrd that your little madness was so like mine in the tightness of its grip. For I no longer feel the compulsion to try to peer closely at every tiny object within fifty yards of me. It’s like being a slave who’s set free.”

“No more ragpicking, eh?” Cif said. “No more bent-over inspection tours?”
“No, by Mog,” the Mouser asserted, then qualified that with a “Though of course little things can be quite as interesting as big things; in fact, there’s a whole tiny world of—”
“Uh-uh, you better watch out,” Cif interrupted, holding up a finger.
“And the stars too are of considerable interest, my unnatural infatuation with ’em aside,” Fafhrd said stubbornly.
Afreyt asked, “What do you think it was, though? Do you think some wizard cast a spell on you? Perchance that Ningauble you told me of, Fafhrd?”
Cif said, “Yes, or that Sheelba you talk of in your sleep, Mouser, and tell me isn’t an old lover?”
The two men had to admit that those explanations were distant possibilities.
“Or other mysterious or even otherworldly beings may have had a hand in it,” Afreyt proposed.“We know Queen Skeldir’s involved, bless her, from the warning laughter you heard. And, for all you make light of him, Gusorio. Cif and I did hear those growlings.”
Cif said, the look in her eyes half-wicked, half-serious, “And has it occurred to any of you that, since Skeldir’s warnings went to you two men, that you may be transmigrations of her? and we—Skeldir help us!—of Great Gusorio? Or does that shock you?”
“By no means,” Fafhrd answered.“Since transmigration would be such a wonder, able to send the spirit of woman or man into animal, or vice versa, a mere change of sex should not surprise us at all.”

The backgammon box of the two Deaths was kept at the Sea Wrack as a curiosity of sorts, but it was noted that few used it to play with, or got good games when they did.

Fritz Leiber with wife Jonquil, Beverly Hills, 1937