Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (18 page)

  
Fafhrd eyed the narrow, dark opening halfway up the tower's facing wall. "Not if we lose the light entirely," he answered grimly. His gaze swept around. Rising, he adjusted the weight of the grapnel and line concealed under his cloak. "I don't see any soldiers or guards."

"Called to the Temple District," the Mouser said. "I expected it." He nodded ahead. "Let's go."

They charged the iron fence that surrounded the tower. Reaching the ten-foot barrier first, Fafhrd bent low and braced his hands on the rusted metal bars. Running hard, the Mouser leaped, one foot barely brushing Faffird's shoulder. Fafhrd sprang erect, catapulting his smaller companion into the air. Waving his arms for balance, his gray cloak flapping, the Mouser landed lithely in the tall weeds that filled the space between the fence and the tower.

Briefly, Fafhrd studied the top of the fence, which was only three feet above his head. Backing a few paces, he took a quick running step. One foot pushed off an iron bar as his hands caught the top cross-bar, and he vaulted over.

"It should be a crime to be so tall," the Mouser muttered as his partner landed beside him.

"It's a crime to be on this side of the fence," Fafhrd reminded. Looking quickly around, he noted people on the rooftops along Nun Street. The eclipse held them in thrall, and he doubted anyone had witnessed the tower's invasion. Still, he bent low, using the weeds for concealment as he ran toward the mysterious edifice.

After twenty paces, the soft ground and weeds gave way to a broken paving of large flat stones and a terrace of steps that ringed the tower. No entrance or opening revealed itself at ground level.

"How in Mog's name does Malygris get in?" the Mouser wondered, frowning.

His gaze fastened on the window high above his head, Fafhrd freed the hidden line and grapnel. Stepping back, he let out a few feet of line and lofted the clawed weight upward. Metal scraped on stone. Grapnel and line plummeted downward.

Covering his head, the Mouser cursed and jumped backward as the grapnel crashed on the spot where he'd stood.

With a sheepish look and a shrug, Fafhrd rapidly coiled the line again and made a second toss. This time, the grapnel sailed expertly through the dark opening. Fafhrd tugged on the line until it snapped tight.

Without a word, the Mouser drew Catsclaw from its sheath and put the dagger between his teeth. Taking the line, he climbed rapidly, hand over hand, his soft-booted feet making no noise on the tower wall. Like a small, gray spider on a web, he rose.

Fafhrd glanced skyward. Icy stars flickered in the black heavens. Only the barest trace of the sun remained.

In the far northern land of his birth, he had seen eclipses and partial eclipses and stranger things. He recalled the cold, shimmering auroras of colored light that danced sometimes above the frigid mountains. Magic, some of his people claimed. Not so, said the sailors and seamen among them.

To him, they were awesome mysteries to be appreciated, not feared. Nevertheless, he understood the dread such phenomena instilled in many human hearts.

The line jerked in his hand—the Mouser's signal. Fafhrd returned his attention to the task at hand and began to climb. In moments, he squeezed through the narrow window.

"It's dark," he commented as the Mouser touched his arm to help him through.

"Inside and out," the Mouser commented drily. "We should have brought a lamp."

Quickly, Fafhrd drew up the line, coiled it, and hung the grapnel over his shoulder again, while the Mouser probed the darkness of the corridor in which they found themselves. Creeping noiselessly after, Fafhrd caught up with his partner and touched his shoulder. "Look," he whispered, pointing back toward the window.

Beyond the slender opening, the sky of Nehwon blazed with stars.

"It's just an eclipse," the Mouser muttered with casual disinterest, but in one tight fist he held his dagger, Catsclaw, and he set his jaw more firmly than usual, and his lips drew into a thinly nervous line.

Loosening sword and dagger in their sheaths, Fafhrd slipped past the Mouser, and led the way into the deeper blackness that filled the tower. With one hand on a cool stone wall, he felt his way along, and with each careful footstep he probed the old boards that made the floor before transferring his weight forward.

The air smelled of bird droppings and rat dung, damp and musty and stale. Each breath filled his nostrils with a repulsive perfume that left a dry and bitter taste in the back of his throat. He covered the lower part of his face with one hand as he groped in the darkness with the other.

Mortar crumbled suddenly under his fingertips, and he paused, listening to the soft patter of the fragments in the thick pounce that covered the floor. A softer skittering of tiny feet sounded ahead as rats retreated further into the darkness.

Gritting his teeth, Fafhrd shuddered. Memories of Vlana and Ivrian swam unwelcome in his head, and he recalled the rat-chewed corpse of his first true love.

The corridor curved subtly to the left. Behind, the window with its starry panorama could no longer be seen. Though virtually invisible, the Mouser's steady, low breathing reassured Fafhrd that his partner still followed. Licking dry lips, Fafhrd held up his hand and brought it slowly toward his face, unable to see palm or fingers.

Frantic wings beat suddenly in the dark. A bird, disturbed by their intrusion, sprang from an unseen nest cradled in the corridor's rafters. Feathers brushed sharply at Fafhrd's eyes. Cowering back against the wall, he covered his face with a protective arm, biting his lip to prevent an outcry. The bird surged past, seeking the window and the safety of the sky.

"Piss and defecation!" the Mouser hissed. "Watch your next step, Fafhrd—my heart's thumping somewhere on the floor."

Fafhrd squeezed his comrade’s shoulder and replied in the lowest of whispers. "Then if I slip, we'll know the cause."

Continuing forward, they reached the end of the corridor. A stone staircase curved downward into the tower's stygian depths. Reaching out, Fafhrd discovered no guarding rail or baluster on the inner sweep, so he pressed his back to the wall and descended one cautious step at a time.

Abruptly the stair widened, and Fafhrd's hand brushed a round metal knob. Blindly, he explored the outline of a smoothly polished wooden door. Placing his ear against it, he listened, detecting no sound from the other side. His fingers curled cautiously about the knob; it refused to turn.

The Mouser tapped his shoulder. Creeping to the precipitous edge of the staircase, they peered downward together.

A faint ruby glow burned near the far-off bottom of the stairs, no brighter than a slowly dying coal. The light wavered in a subtle manner, dimming and ebbing with heartbeat precision.

Fafhrd knew the ways and whims of fire. No flame caused the glow he gazed upon. With soundless tread, braving the unguarded edge, he eased down the stairs again, always with one eye upon that weird redness.

The staircase spiraled lower and lower. Here and there, steps flattened into wide landings. Black, stale-smelling corridors and locked doors temptingly presented themselves, but Fafhrd and the Mouser ignored them. By unspoken consent, the glow became their destination.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the staircase. Ten paces away, a pair of huge, arched doors stood partially open. No longer only a small glow, scarlet light poured from a chamber beyond the doors and lit up the Mouser's face as he paused on the last stair, clutching his dagger in a ready fist. His grim, wide-eyed expression betrayed excitement, fear, and wonder all at once as he gazed toward that light.

Fafhrd pulled up his hood, concealing hair and face. In his black cloak, he looked like any other shadow. Still, he hesitated before moving toward those inviting doors. The light that shone on his partner’s face also revealed black markings upon the wall at his back. As far as he could see up the soaring walls, those markings went. On the steps, too, and barely visible under the thick carpet of dust, on the floor.

Stooping down, he brushed his fingers over one of the markings. They were too regular for burns, forming a definite pattern that covered the walls and floors, the steps, perhaps even the ceiling high above. He glanced upward, noting the beams and rafters barely visible in the red glow. Paint, then? Some kind of artwork?

The Mouser slipped past him. On the balls of his booted feet, leaving prints that showed visibly in the thick dust, the small gray man stole toward the waiting doors. Catsclaw's polished blade gleamed like a scarlet flame in his gloved hand as he crouched low and peered through the opening. Cautiously, he straightened and, putting one hand on the nearest door, eased it wider.

Putting aside the mystery of the markings, Fafhrd overtook his comrade, but rather than showing himself in the opening, he concealed himself behind the nearest door. Putting one eye to the narrow gap between the door and the wall, he peered over the top of a hinge into the chamber beyond.

A ring of elaborately carved chairs greeted his vision. Some lay crumbled in pieces with legs and arms rotted away, while others still stood, as if immune to the centuries, with high, polished backs proudly gleaming in the red glow.

The smell of fresh oil touched Fafhrd's nostrils. Taking his eye from the slender space, he touched the hinge, and his fingertip came away with a faint, wet smear. With a start, he gazed back at the floor. The dust betrayed not only the Mouser's footprints and his own, but someone else's.

Before he could warn the Mouser, his comrade threw the doors wide, stepped over the chamber's threshold, and boldly strode inside. "Behold a wonder!" he murmured.

Frowning at his partner’s lack of caution, Fafhrd followed the Mouser inside, his gaze sweeping around, his fist closed tight around the hilt of his sword, Graywand. Even so, he caught his breath.

The small range of vision through the crack between door and wall had allowed no sense of the chamber's ancient grandeur. A domed ceiling soared overhead. Against the north wall, on a white marble dais, a huge Y-shaped altar of black obsidian stood, its once-sharp edges worn smooth. Brownish stains on the stone hinted of blood sacrifices.

Elaborately worked candelabras of purest gold stood on either side of the altar. Standing at least six feet high, the bases resembled the intertwined forms of serpents, and eight fanged serpentine mouths opened to hold the candles. Only melted stubs and wax drippings filled those gaping jaws now.

These discoveries paled, however, in comparison to the source of the slowly pulsing glow. Ten feet above the obsidian altar hung a jewel the size of Fafhrd's fist. Four rods, two of gold and two of silver, jutting from the walls at the four cardinal points, joined to form a circlet where the ruby—if such it was—perched.

"In all of Nehwon," the Mouser said, forgetting to whisper, "there can be no other stone so marvelous as this!"

Fafhrd nodded agreement. But as the Mouser walked toward the altar and climbed upon it, Fafhrd's gaze swept about the chamber again. The same black markings covered the floors and walls and ceiling of this inner chamber. Like twisted teardrops, he thought, wondering at their significance.

"Malygris doesn't seem to be home," the Mouser said, standing on the altar, staring up at the jewel. "But our effort won't be totally wasted." Replacing his dagger in its sheath, he drew his rapier and jabbed the point at the ruby to dislodge it. It lifted slightly in its resting place, then settled back again.

The wizard's name seemed to echo in the domed chamber. The sound sent a chill up Fafhrd's spine. He turned slowly, hand tightening upon his sword. "Leave it," he whispered, eyes narrowing as he drew his long blade. Some sixth sense jangled in the back of his head, and he turned. Did he detect a new glow in the outer hall? "I don't think we're alone."

The Gray Mouser seemed not to hear. "Why don't you give me a hand, you great giant?" he said without looking at Fafhrd. Jumping straight up, he thrust his rapier at the ruby again. The point scraped on the gleaming facets, and the jewel popped out of its golden circlet. For a moment, it teetered on the metal edge, threatening to fall back into its resting place. Instead, after a moment's hesitation, it tumbled into the Mouser's waiting hands.

The Mouser cried out triumphantly, his face eerily lit by the arcane gem he held.

In the same instant, the chamber's arched doors flew wide. Five armored soldiers, dressed in the livery of Lankhmar's Overlord, surged across the threshold with torches and drawn swords. A huge knight rushed Fafhrd, and gleaming steel flashed toward his head.

As Fafhrd parried the first blow, the Gray Mouser screamed, and the red light shifted wildly as his prize struck the edge of the altar and rolled across the floor. Slamming an elbow into his attacker's face and leaping back to give himself room to wield Graywand, Fafhrd risked a glance toward his comrade.

The four rods that had held the jewel whipped about like living tendrils. In an instant, they ensnared the Mouser's arms and legs, jerked him off his feet, and forced him down upon the obsidian altar.

A second soldier ran at Fafhrd, and two more tried to flank him. A fourth thrust a torch at his face; he knocked it aside, and put a boot in the man's stomach, knocking him back between the doors.

A sword rose, but before it fell the soldier that held it hesitated, his gaze going toward the ceiling. Fafhrd might have run the man through, but for a sudden vertigo that weakened his knees and sent him stumbling backward.