The Second Book of Lankhmar

by Fritz Leiber

  Threesie said uncertainly, ‘But when you go down like that you have to bend your knees, you squat. You told me not to bend—’

  ‘That’s quite a different matter,’ Hisvet interrupted, impatience gathering in her voice. ‘I told you to lean down your head.’

  ‘But, Demoiselle—’ Threesie faltered.

  Hisvet reached up and caught an earlobe between forefinger and thumb, dug in the nails, twisted sharply and gave a downward tug. Threesie squealed. Hisvet let go and, patting her cheek, told her, ‘That’s all right. I just wanted to rivet your attention and make you stop your silly babble. Now, listen carefully. While you did the body search on Foursie passably well, it became frightfully obvious that you, as well as Foursie, needless to say, were in sore need of instruction in the amatory arts, which it falls on me to give you, since you’re my own dear maid and no one else’s.’ And reaching her hand higher, she hooked her fingers around the back of Threesie’s neck and pulled her head down briskly but thoughtfully, leaning her own head to the left at the last moment, so that her lips met at an angle those of Threesie, who managed to keep her balance by further and somewhat desperate rearward outthrustings.

  The Mouser thought, I knew that this was coming. But one certainly cannot fault the little darlings for their occasional itch for each other, since their taste is so exactly like my own. Strange, come to think of it, that Fafhrd and I have never seemed to experience this like-sex urge. Is it a deficiency in us? I must discuss the question with him some time. And with Cif too, for that matter, ask her if she and Afreyt ever played games…no, maybe not ask, I could understand Afreyt lusting for Cif, but not dear Ciffy for that beanpole Venus.

  Hisvet shifted her fingers behind Threesie’s head to the short hairs there, lifted her head to its original position as briskly as she’d lowered it, and said, ‘That was passable also. Next time, if such should be, employ your tongue somewhat more freely. Be adventurous, girl.’

  Wide-eyed Threesie gasped, ‘Excuse me, Demoiselle, but was that kiss, for which I thank you most humbly, the something you said you wished to show me privately?’

  ‘No, it was not,’ Hisvet informed her, thrusting a hand deep into a side pocket of her wrap. ‘That is a different matter, rather sadder for you.’ Pulling Threesie’s head down again, this time by the neck of her black tunic, she brought a fist out of the pocket, opened it under Threesie’s eyes, displaying on her cupped palm a globular black opal travelled with silver lines and pocked here and there with small, pale, glittering dots. ‘What do you suppose this is?’ she asked.

  ‘It appears to be the Opener of the Way, dear Demoiselle.’ Threesie faltered. ‘But how—’

  ‘Quite right, girl. I took it earlier from the chest myself and just now remembered. So Foursie could hardly have swallowed it, could she? Or even taken it from the chest, for that matter.’

  ‘No, Demoiselle,’ the dark maid agreed reluctantly. ‘But Foursie’s only a servant of the lowest rank, little better than a slave. It was natural to suspect her. Moreover, you yourself must have known—’

  ‘I told you I only now remembered!’ Hisvet reminded her in dangerous tones. She raised her voice. ‘Foursie!’

  ‘Yes, Demoiselle?’ came the swift reply.

  ‘Threesie is to be punished for bearing false witness against a fellow servant. Since you’re the party who would have been injured, I think it’s most appropriate that you administer the chastisement. Moreover, you are conveniently at hand and have my whip. Do you know how to use it?’

  ‘I think I do, Demoiselle,’ Foursie answered evenly. ‘When I was a child down on the farm I used to ride a mule.’

  ‘That’s nice to know,’ Hisvet called. ‘Wait for directions.’

  As Threesie quite involuntarily started to move away, Hisvet rotated the fist grasping her tunic so that it tightened around Threesie’s neck and Hisvet’s knuckles dug into the maid’s throat.

  ‘Listen,’ she hissed, ‘if you so much as move a step or flex your knees during what’s coming, I’ll have my father put a geas on you. And not a relatively nice and easy one like Frix. She merely had to serve me faithfully and cheerfully as slave until she’d thrice saved my life at risk of her own. Straighten those knees now!’

  Threesie complied. She had seen old Hisvin send a berserk cook into mortal convulsions, so he died in his tracks with mouth exuding greenish foam, merely by staring at him fixedly.

  Hisvet eased her grip on the top of Threesie’s tunic. She scowled in thought. Then her face broke into a smile. She called, ‘Foursie, here’s how. Time your blows to the splashes of the waterclock, one for one, nothing in between—don’t let yourself get carried away. Start with the third plash after the next. I’ll call the first of those so you get it right.’

  Hisvet’s hand on the neck of the black tunic became busy, undoing the three top big white buttons rapidly.

  The waterclock plashed, sounding unnaturally loud. Hisvet called, ‘Ready!’ Tension took hold.

  Though pendant, the dark maid’s breasts were quite as small and firm as the fair one’s, with thicker nipples the rosy hue of fresh scrubbed copper. Hisvet fondled them.

  ‘How many blows, Demoiselle?’ Threesie asked in a small, fearfully anxious voice. ‘In all?’

  ‘Hush! I haven’t decided yet. You’re supposed to be enjoying this. And you really are, I can tell, for your nipples are hardening despite your terrors. And your aureoles are all goose bumps. You should indicate pleasure at my squeezings and finger-dancing across your tits by sighing and moaning.’

  The waterclock plashed. ‘One!’ Hisvet called, then ominously for Threesie’s benefit, ‘You’ve started to bend your legs again,’ and taking the hand away from the maid’s bosom, reached out and gave each of her knees a firm shove.

  In his retreat the Mouser spared a glance for the ripples spreading and reflecting in the clock’s pool. A shiver of genuine fear surprised him at the thought that he seemed to be just too well placed for watching for it all to be a matter of chance. Had Hisvet arranged it so? Did she somehow know that he, or at least some spirit, was watching invisibly? Was it all to get him off guard?

  No, he told himself, I’m starting to think too tricky. This was just one of those glorious guilty visions that, it was to be hoped, lightened the last moments of buried men less fortunate or resourceful than he. His eyes feasted on Foursie as the girl positioned herself to the far side of Threesie’s quivering rear, measuring distances with her eyes and the white whip, her pink-nippled breasts jouncing a bit as she danced with excitement. She was flushed all over, and not with embarrassment, he was sure.

  Plash went the waterclock. ‘Two!’ Hisvet called. She shifted her hand to the back of Threesie’s neck, pulled down until the maid’s blanched tight face was a hand’s breadth above her own, said rapidly, ‘We’re doing another kiss. It’ll help you bear the pain and I want to feel you getting it, taste your reaction. Keep your knees straight,’ and she pulled the maid’s face down all the way and kissed her fiercely. Her free hand played with Threesie’s maiden breasts.

  The third plash was tailed with a narrow thwack and muffled squeal. Threesie bucked. And all for me, the little darlings, Mouser thought. Foursie’s blue eyes flashed like a fury’s in ecstasy. She was breathing hard. She drew back the white whip to begin another blow, remembered in time to wait.

  Hisvet let up Threesie’s head to breathe. ‘Lovely,’ she told her. ‘Your scream came down my throat. It tasted like divine spice.’ Then, ‘Excellent, Foursie,’ she called. ‘Stay on your toes, girl.’

  Threesie cried, ‘Hesset help me,’ invoking the Lankhmar moon goddess. ‘Make her stop, Demoiselle, I’ll do anything.’

  Hisvet said, ‘Hush, girl. Hesset give you courage,’ and pulled down her head again, stifling her cries against her waiting lips. Her other hand pressed back on the maid’s knees.

  The three sounds were much the same. Threesie’s buck was more of a caper. The Mouser was surprised by his arousal, felt a
flicker of shame, recalled in time to breathe shallowly, et cetera.

  The moment Hisvet let up Threesie’s head to take a breath, the maid pleaded, ‘Make her stop, she’ll kill me,’ then couldn’t contain indignation. ‘Demoiselle, you knew she hadn’t stolen the jewel. You led me on.’

  Hisvet’s hand, busy with her breasts, seized up flesh and skin midway between them as though her thumb and forefinger knuckle were pinchers, squeezed, twisted, rubbed together, and jerked down all at once. Threesie squealed. ‘Silence, you stupid slut,’ her mistress hissed. ‘You enjoyed making her suffer, now you’re paying. You little fool! Don’t you realize a maid who falsely betrays her fellow maid would just as readily betray her mistress? I expect real loyalty from my maids. Foursie, lay on hard.’ And she pulled the maid’s face against hers just as the drop plashed and the third blow fell. This time when Hisvet released her head, there were no instant words, tears spurted down instead. Hisvet shook them off, dipped her free hand again in her wide pocket.

  And this time the Mouser was surprised by his impulse to shut his eyes. But nasty fascination and the urgent messages from his stiffening member were too strong.

  Hisvet lectured, ‘One other thing I expect of my maid: love, when the whim is on me. That’s the chief reason she must always keep herself clean and attractive.’ She mopped Threesie’s face with a large kerchief, then held it to her nose. ‘Blow,’ she commanded. ‘And then swallow hard. I don’t want you blubbering snot on me.’

  Threesie obeyed, but then the injustice of it all overwhelmed her. ‘But it isn’t fair,’ she bleated woefully. ‘It’s not fair at all.’

  Those words and tones had a strange and unexpected effect upon the earth-embraced Mouser. They recalled to him the name that had eluded him of the eighth little darling. A score and two or three years slipped away and he was lolling dishabille on the wide couch in the private dining chamber of the Silver Eel tavern in Lankhmar, and Ivlis’s maid Freg was pacing back and forth before him in her delicious young slim nakedness, and then she had stopped by him and turned toward him, tears spurting from her eyes, and bleated woefully those identical same trite words.

  He knew the circumstances all right, knew them by heart. Barely a fortnight had passed since the fairly satisfactory ending of the affair of Omphal’s jewel-crusted skull and other vengeful brown bones from the forgotten burial crypt in the great house of the Thieves Guild. The gems salvaged had been adequate, especially when there was added thereto the person of Ivlis, a lean, shifty, fox-faced glorious redhead. He’d had her the second night after, though that hadn’t been easy, and it was more or less understood between Fafhrd and him that Freg was the Northerner’s booty. But then the big oaf had delayed making his move, dawdled over nailing down his conquest, seemed hardly grateful at all to the Mouser for having taken on the more difficult seduction, leaving his comrade the juicier, tenderer prey, to be had for no more exertion than pushing back onto the bed (nine times out of ten the big man was incomprehensibly slower than he about such matters), so that after two or three more nights and nothing more forward, and feeling impatient and feckless and at war with all Nehwon—and with Fafhrd too, for the nonce—and opportunity presenting, he’d yielded to temptation and bedded the silly chit, which hadn’t been all that easy either. And then on their third or fourth assignation she turned stormy and accused him of getting her drunk and forcing her the first time and claimed to have been deeply in love with Fafhrd and he with her, she knew, only they’d been moving slowly so as to savour fully their romance before declaring and enjoying it, and the Mouser had cut in with his nasty lust and wily ways and managed to root a child in her, she was certain of that, and so spoiled everything. And although he was still deeply infatuated with Freg, that had angered him and he’d told the little fool that he always tried out the virtue of girls who set their cap for Fafhrd and tried to romance him, to see if they were worthy of him and would stay faithful, and none of them had passed the test so far, but she’d done worst. And she had spouted tears and whimpered those nine words Threesie’d just voiced. And the next day Freg had been gone from Lankhmar, no one knew where, and Fafhrd had fallen into a melancholy fit, and Ivlis’d turned nasty, and he’d not breathed a word then or ever about the part he’d played.

  All of which went to show, he told himself, how a suddenly triggered lost memory, like a ghost from the grave, could be so real as to blot out completely a poignantly interesting, nastily fascinating present, almost create another present, as it were, for several heartbeats till it had run its course inside his eyes.

  They were between blows in Hisvet’s boudoir. The violet wrap was undone just far enough to bare her own top pair of small, palely violet-nippled breasts, and she was holding down to them the tousled head of the dark maid, who was tonguing them industriously under instructions. She broke these off to carol, ‘To force the unwilling to accept joy is so rewarding! To cause the recalcitrant to discover pleasure in pain is even more so!’ The fair maid was doing a rapid little dance in place to contain her pent excitement and rotating the poised white whip in a little circle in time with her flashing toes. Hisvet called gaily to incite her on, ‘Remember, Foursie, the slut had her fingers up you prying around, not gently, I’ll warrant,’ and the clock plashed and the whip whistled and thwacked and Threesie joined in the dance.

  When Hisvet let up her head, the dark maid said rapidly, ‘If you’ll have her stop just for a while, Demoiselle, I’ll lick your ass most lovingly, I promise,’ and Hisvet replied, ‘All in good time, girl,’ and reaching back in an excess of arousal, caught hold with thumb and forefinger knuckle of her by the midst of her maiden mound and gave it the same sort of pincher’s tweak as she had the maid’s flesh midway between her breasts, where a blue bruise now showed; and the dark maid squealed muffledly.

  But then, just as Foursie stayed her dance to strike and the Mouser’s erection grew almost unbearably hard, Hisvet cried sharply, ‘Break off the whipping, Foursie! Don’t strike again!’ and the maid obeyed with a spasmodic effort, and Hisvet ducked her head and shoulders out from under Threesie’s arched front and stared searchingly at the wall by the waterclock just where the whip had hung, her nostrils flaring and with blue-and-pink-mottled tongue showing in her open mouth. She announced raptly and anxious, ‘I sense the near presence of Death or a close relative, some murderous demon lord or deadly demoness. It must have scented your ecstasy of torment, Threesie, and come hunting.’

  The Mouser felt they were all staring straight at him, then noted that their gazes went in slightly different directions: Hisvet’s intense but cool; Foursie’s shocked and terrified as she backed away, dropping the pristine white whip; Threesie’s somewhat not yet grasping her good fortune, as she stood in bent position in her sagging and worked-up black tunic stretched back toward her rear, crisscrossed with red welts, and with her knees still straight.

  Hisvet continued, ‘Run, Foursie, and warn my father of this menace. Bid him haste here, bringing his wand and sigils. Nay, do not stay to dress or hunt a towel, as if you were a simpering virgin. Go as you are. And speed! There’s danger here, you witlet!’

  Then, turning her furious attention to Threesie, ‘Quit standing there so docilely bent over with legs invitingly spread, lamebrain, all ready for the slavering hounds of death to mount you. Spring to and defend my rear, mind cripple!’

  Just then the Mouser felt what seemed a large centipede crawl across his left thigh, somehow insinuating itself between his flesh and the grainy earth encasing him, and then march down his rigid, like-embedded cock, and settle itself in a ring round his tumescent glans. And there swung in round his head from the other side, moving through the earth effortlessly, a face like a beautiful skull tightly covered by blue-pied, chalky white skin with eyes that were intent red embers, and pressed itself against his own face closely from forehead to chin, so he felt through her blue lips mashing his her individual two ranks of teeth. He realized that the centipede was the bone tips of her skeletal ha
nd (the other pressed the back of his neck at the base of his own skull) and whose bony fingertips now moved slightly upon his stiff member, inducing it to spend one drop, but one drop only, of its load, giving him a sickening, joyless jolt of heavy black pain that left him weak and gasping. But no sooner had that pain begun to fade down when the slim bone fingers moved and the second jolt came equal to the first, and after agonizing pauses the third and fourth.

  The stangury! The worst pain that a man can suffer, he’d once heard, when urine must be voided drop by drop—this was the same, except it was his seed.

  And it kept on.

  His wavering mind confused it with the plashes of the water-clock. But Threesie had suffered only eight or nine stripes at most. How many drops would it take to discharge his heavy load? And render his member flaccid? Two score hundred?

  The violet-hung boudoir and Hisvet and her crew were gone. All that remained for vision was the vermilion volume lit by pain’s hot ember eyes and his phosphorescent mask, hell in a very small place.

  In a voice that was rough, rasping, infinitely dry, sardonic-tender, Death’s sister whispered throatily, ‘My very own dear love. My dearest one.’

  As his torment continued, his wavering consciousness and gasping and trembling general weakness warned him the end was near. Despite the continuing jolts of agony, he concentrated on regulating his breathing, making it shallow, pushing back with his tongue the grains his gasps had drawn. With the roaring in his ears, it became a surf of boulders he had to keep at bay.

  20

  Cif was cheered to find things orderly busy at the diggings, the dogcart unloading, some men wolfing midday bread and soup by the fire, while at the shaft head the stubby wide cone of dug dirt had grown visibly higher and the bright growl of a saw spoke of shorings and roofing for the tunnel being readied. Fafhrd’s man Fren, on duty at the windlass, told her that Skor, the girl Klute, and Mikkidu were down, the first two working at the face, that last walking dirt between there and the shaft. She commented on a faint stench, coming irregularly.