The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “I was thinking,” he said, “that Lord Rannarsh is a rich man and a greedy one, who slavers at the thought of jewels. And I was wondering if he ever read those faint lines of red lettering and made a copy of them, and if my theft of the original sharpened his interest.”

  The Northerner shook his head.

  “I doubt it. You are oversubtle. But if he did, and if he seeks to rival us in this treasure quest, he’d best watch each step twice—and choose servitors who can fight on horseback.”

  They were moving so slowly that the hooves of the mare and the gelding hardly stirred up the dust. They had no fear of danger from the rear. A well-laid ambuscade might surprise them, but not a man or horse in motion. The narrow road wound along in a purposeless fashion. Leaves brushed their faces, and occasionally they had to swing their bodies out of the way of encroaching branches. The ripe scent of the late summer forest was intensified now that they were below the rim of the valley. Mingled with it were whiffs of wild berries and aromatic shrubs. Shadows imperceptibly lengthened.

  “Nine chances out of ten,” murmured the Mouser dreamily, “the treasure house of Urgaan of Angarngi was looted some hundred years ago, by men whose bodies are already dust.”

  “It may be so,” agreed Fafhrd. “Unlike men, rubies and emeralds do not rest quietly in their graves.”

  This possibility, which they had discussed several times before, did not disturb them now, or make them impatient. Rather did it impart to their quest the pleasant melancholy of a lost hope. They drank in the rich air and let their horses munch random mouthfuls of leaves. A jay called shrilly from overhead and off in the forest a catbird was chattering, their sharp voices breaking in on the low buzzing and droning of the insects. Night was drawing near. The almost-horizontal rays of the sun gilded the treetops. Then Fafhrd’s sharp ears caught the hollow lowing of a cow.

  A few more turns brought them into the clearing they had spied. In line with their surmise, it proved to contain a peasant’s cottage—a neat little low-eaved house of weathered wood, situated in the midst of an acre of grain. To one side was a bean patch; to the other, a woodpile which almost dwarfed the house. In front of the cottage stood a wiry old man, his skin as brown as his homespun tunic. He had evidently just heard the horses and turned around to look.

  “Ho, father,” called the Mouser, “it’s a good day to be abroad in, and a good home you have here.”

  The peasant considered these statements and then nodded his head in agreement.

  “We are two weary travelers,” continued the Mouser.

  Again the peasant nodded gravely.

  “In return for two silver coins will you give us lodging for the night?”

  The peasant rubbed his chin and then held up three fingers.

  “Very well, you shall have three silver coins,” said the Mouser, slipping from his horse. Fafhrd followed suit.

  Only after giving the old man a coin to seal the bargain did the Mouser question casually, “Is there not an old, deserted place near your dwelling called the House of Angarngi?” The peasant nodded.

  “What’s it like?”

  The peasant shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t you know?”

  The peasant shook his head.

  “But haven’t you ever seen the place?” The Mouser’s voice carried a note of amazement he did not bother to conceal.

  He was answered by another head-shake.

  “But, father, it’s only a few minutes’ walk from your dwelling, isn’t it?”

  The peasant nodded tranquilly, as if the whole business were no matter for surprise.

  A muscular young man, who had come from behind the cottage to take their horses, offered a suggestion.

  “You can see tower from other side the house. I can point her out.”

  At this the old man proved he was not completely speechless by saying in a dry, expressionless voice: “Go ahead. Look at her all you want.”

  And he stepped into the cottage. Fafhrd and the Mouser caught a glimpse of a child peering around the door, an old woman stirring a pot, and someone hunched in a big chair before a tiny fire.

  The upper part of the tower proved to be barely visible through a break in the trees. The last rays of the sun touched it with deep red. It looked about four or five bowshots distant. And then, even as they watched, the sun dipped under and it became a featureless square of black stone.

  “She’s an old place,” explained the young man vaguely. “I been all around her. Father, he’s just never bothered to look.”

  “You’ve been inside?” questioned the Mouser.

  The young man scratched his head.

  “No. She’s just an old place. No good for anything.”

  “There’ll be a fairly long twilight,” said Fafhrd, his wide green eyes drawn to the tower as if by a lodestone. “Long enough for us to have a closer look.”

  “I’d show the way,” said the young man, “save I got water to fetch.”

  “No matter,” replied Fafhrd. “When’s supper?”

  “When the first stars show.”

  They left him holding their horses and walked straight into the woods. Immediately it became much darker, as if twilight were almost over, rather than just begun. The vegetation proved to be somewhat thicker than they had anticipated. There were vines and thorns to be avoided. Irregular, pale patches of sky appeared and disappeared overhead.

  The Mouser let Fafhrd lead the way. His mind was occupied with a queer sort of reverie about the peasants. It tickled his fancy to think how they had stolidly lived their toilsome lives, generation after generation, only a few steps from what might be one of the greatest treasure-troves in the world. It seemed incredible. How could people sleep so near jewels and not dream of them? But probably they never dreamed.

  So the Gray Mouser was sharply aware of few things during the journey through the woods, save that Fafhrd seemed to be taking a long time—which was strange, since the barbarian was an accomplished woodsman.

  Finally a deeper and more solid shadow loomed up through the trees, and in a moment they were standing in the margin of a small, boulder-studded clearing, most of which was occupied by the bulky structure they sought. Abruptly, even before his eyes took in the details of the place, the Mouser’s mind was filled with a hundred petty perturbations. Weren’t they making a mistake in leaving their horses with those strange peasants? And mightn’t those rogues have followed them to the cottage? And wasn’t this the Day of the Toad, an unlucky day for entering deserted houses? And shouldn’t they have a short spear along, in case they met a leopard? And wasn’t that a whippoorwill he heard crying on his left hand, an augury of ill omen?

  The treasure house of Urgaan of Angarngi was a peculiar structure. The main feature was a large, shallow dome, resting on walls that formed an octagon. In front, and merging into it, were two lesser domes. Between these gaped a great square doorway. The tower rose asymmetrically from the rear part of the chief dome. The eyes of the Mouser sought hurriedly through the dimming twilight for the cause of the salient peculiarity of the structure, and decided it lay in the utter simplicity. There were no pillars, no outjutting cornices, no friezes, no architectural ornaments of any sort, skull-embellished or otherwise. Save for the doorway and a few tiny windows set in unexpected places, the House of Angarngi was a compact mass of uniformly dark gray stones most closely joined.

  But now Fafhrd was striding up the short flight of terraced steps that led toward the open door, and the Mouser followed him, although he would have liked to spy around a little longer. With every step he took forward he sensed an odd reluctance growing within him. His earlier mood of pleasant expectancy vanished as suddenly as if he’d stepped into quicksand. It seemed to him that the black doorway yawned like a toothless mouth. And then a little shudder went through him, for he saw the mouth had a tooth—a bit of gh
ostly white that jutted up from the floor. Fafhrd was reaching down toward the object.

  “I wonder whose skull this may be?” said the Northerner calmly.

  The Mouser regarded the thing, and the scattering of bones and fragments of bone beside it. His feeling of uneasiness was fast growing toward a climax, and he had the unpleasant conviction that, once it did reach a climax, something would happen. What was the answer to Fafhrd’s question? What form of death had struck down that earlier intruder? It was very dark inside the treasure house. Didn’t the manuscript mention something about a guardian? It was hard to think of a flesh-and-blood guardian persisting for three hundred years, but there were things that were immortal or nearly immortal. He could tell that Fafhrd was not in the least affected by any premonitory disquietude, and was quite capable of instituting an immediate search for the treasure. That must be prevented at all costs. He remembered that the Northerner loathed snakes.

  “This cold, damp stone,” he observed casually. “Just the place for scaly, cold-blooded snakes.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” replied Fafhrd angrily. “I’m willing to wager there’s not a single serpent inside. Urgaan’s note said, ‘No deadly creature in rocky lair,’ and to cap that, ‘no serpent lethal-fanged yet fair.’ ”

  “I am not thinking of guardian snakes Urgaan may have left here,” the Mouser explained, “but only of serpents that may have wandered in for the night. Just as that skull you hold is not one set there by Urgaan ‘with mortal eye a-glare,’ but merely the brain-case of some unfortunate wayfarer who chanced to perish here.”

  “I don’t know,” Fafhrd said, calmly eyeing the skull.

  “Its orbits might glow phosphorescently in absolute dark.”

  A moment later he was agreeing it would be well to postpone the search until daylight returned, now that the treasure house was located. He carefully replaced the skull.

  As they reentered the woods, the Mouser heard a little inner voice whispering to him, Just in time. Just in time. Then the sense of uneasiness departed as suddenly as it had come, and he began to feel somewhat ridiculous. This caused him to sing a bawdy ballad of his own invention, wherein demons and other supernatural agents were ridiculed obscenely. Fafhrd chimed in good-naturedly on the choruses.

  It was not as dark as they expected when they reached the cottage. They saw to their horses, found they had been well cared for, and then fell to the savory mess of beans, porridge, and pot herbs that the peasant’s wife ladled into oak bowls. Fresh milk to wash it down was provided in quaintly carved oak goblets. The meal was a satisfying one and the interior of the house was neat and clean, despite its stamped earthen floor and low beams, which Fafhrd had to duck.

  There turned out to be six in the family, all told. The father, his equally thin and leathery wife, the older son, a young boy, a daughter, and a mumbling grandfather, whom extreme age confined to a chair before the fire. The last two were the most interesting of the lot.

  The girl was in the gawkish age of mid-adolescence, but there was a wild, coltish grace in the way she moved her lanky legs and slim arms with their prominent elbows. She was very shy, and gave the impression that at any moment she might dart out the door and into the woods.

  In order to amuse her and win her confidence, the Mouser began to perform small feats of legerdemain, plucking copper coins out of the ears of the astonished peasant, and bone needles from the nose of his giggling wife. He turned beans into buttons and back again into beans, swallowed a large fork, made a tiny wooden manikin jig on the palm of his hand, and utterly bewildered the cat by pulling what seemed to be a mouse out of its mouth.

  The old folks gaped and grinned. The little boy became frantic with excitement. His sister watched everything with concentrated interest, and even smiled warmly when the Mouser presented her with a square of fine, green linen he had conjured from the air, although she was still too shy to speak.

  Then Fafhrd roared sea-chanteys that rocked the roof and sang lusty songs that set the old grandfather gurgling with delight. Meanwhile the Mouser fetched a small wineskin from his saddlebags, concealed it under his cloak, and filled the oak goblets as if by magic. These rapidly fuddled the peasants, who were unused to so potent a beverage, and by the time Fafhrd had finished telling a bloodcurdling tale of the frozen north, they were all nodding, save the girl and the grandfather.

  The latter looked up at the merry-making adventurers, his watery eyes filled with a kind of impish, senile glee, and mumbled, “You two be right clever men. Maybe you be beast-dodgers.” But before this remark could be elucidated, his eyes had gone vacant again, and in a few moments he was snoring.

  Soon all were asleep, Fafhrd and the Mouser keeping their weapons close at hand, but only variegated snores and occasional snaps from the dying embers disturbed the silence of the cottage.

  The Day of the Cat dawned clear and cool. The Mouser stretched himself luxuriously and, catlike, flexed his muscles and sucked in the sweet, dewy air. He felt exceptionally cheerful and eager to be up and doing. Was not this his day, the day of the Gray Mouser, a day in which luck could not fail him?

  His slight movements awakened Fafhrd and together they stole silently from the cottage so as not to disturb the peasants, who were oversleeping with the wine they had taken. They refreshed their faces and hands in the wet grass and visited their horses. Then they munched some bread, washed it down with drafts of cool well water flavored with wine, and made ready to depart.

  This time their preparations were well thought out. The Mouser carried a mallet and a stout iron pry-bar, in case they had to attack masonry, and made certain that candles, flint, wedges, chisels, and several other small tools were in his pouch. Fafhrd borrowed a pick from the peasant’s implements and tucked a coil of thin, strong rope in his belt. He also took his bow and quiver of arrows.

  The forest was delightful at this early hour. Bird cries and chatterings came from overhead, and once they glimpsed a black, squirrel-like animal scampering along a bough. A couple of chipmunks scurried under a bush dotted with red berries. What had been shadow the evening before was now a variety of green-leafed beauty. The two adventurers trod softly.

  They had hardly gone more than a bowshot into the woods when they heard a faint rustling behind them. The rustling came rapidly nearer, and suddenly the peasant girl burst into view. She stood breathless and poised, one hand touching a treetrunk, the other pressing some leaves, ready to fly away at the first sudden move. Fafhrd and the Mouser stood as stock-still as if she were a doe or a dryad. Finally she managed to conquer her shyness and speak.

  “You go there?” she questioned, indicating the direction of the treasure house with a quick, ducking nod. Her dark eyes were serious.

  “Yes, we go there,” answered Fafhrd, smiling.

  “Don’t.” This word was accompanied by a rapid head-shake.

  “But why shouldn’t we, girl?” Fafhrd’s voice was gentle and sonorous, like an integral part of the forest. It seemed to touch some spring within the girl that enabled her to feel more at ease. She gulped a big breath and began.

  “Because I watch it from edge of the forest, but never go close. Never, never, never. I say to myself there be a magic circle I must not cross. And I say to myself there be a giant inside. Queer and fearsome giant.” Her words were coming rapidly now, like an undammed stream. “All gray he be, like the stone of his house. All gray—eyes and hair and fingernails, too. And he has a stone club as big as a tree. And he be big, bigger than you, twice as big.” Here she nodded at Fafhrd. “And with his club he kills, kills, kills. But only if you go close. Every day, almost, I play a game with him. I pretend to be going to cross the magic circle. And he watches from inside the door, where I can’t see him, and he thinks I’m going to cross. And I dance through the forest all around the house, and he follows me, peering from the little windows. And I get closer and closer to the circle, closer
and closer. But I never cross. And he be very angry and gnash his teeth, like rocks rubbing rocks, so that the house shakes. And I run, run, run away. But you mustn’t go inside. Oh, you mustn’t.”

  She paused, as if startled by her own daring. Her eyes were fixed anxiously on Fafhrd. She seemed drawn toward him. The Northerner’s reply carried no overtone of patronizing laughter.

  “But you’ve never actually seen the gray giant, have you?”

  “Oh, no. He be too cunning. But I say to myself he must be there inside. I know he be inside. And that’s the same thing, isn’t it? Grandfather knows about him. We used to talk about him, when I was little. Grandfather calls him the beast. But the others laugh at me, so I don’t tell.”

  Here was another astounding peasant-paradox, thought the Mouser with an inward grin. Imagination was such a rare commodity with them that this girl unhesitatingly took it for reality.

  “Don’t worry about us, girl. We’ll be on the watch for your gray giant,” he started to say, but he had less success than Fafhrd in keeping his voice completely natural or else the cadence of his words didn’t chime so well with the forest setting.

  The girl uttered one more warning. “Don’t go inside, oh, please,” and turned and darted away. The two adventurers looked at each other and smiled. Somehow the unexpected fairy tale, with its conventional ogre and its charmingly naive narrator added to the delight of the dewy morning. Without a comment they resumed their soft-stepping progress. And it was well that they went quietly, for when they had gotten within a stone’s throw of the clearing, they heard low voices that seemed to be in grumbling argument. Immediately they cached the pick and pry-bar and mallet under a clump of bushes, and stole forward, taking advantage of the natural cover and watching where they planted their feet.

  On the edge of the clearing stood half a dozen stocky men in black chain-mail shirts, bows on their backs, shortswords at their sides. They were immediately recognizable as the rogues who had laid the ambuscade. Two of them started for the treasure house, only to be recalled by a comrade. Whereupon the argument apparently started afresh.