Swords Against Wizardry

by Fritz Leiber

  But just then his red-grommeted gaze lit on his four-and-twenty bearded and hooded sorcerers standing apprehensive by their chairs.

  “Back to your charms at once, you ignoramuses!” he roared at them. “I did not tell you to stop because I bathed! Back to your charms and send your plagues at Gwaay—red, black and green, nose drip and bloody rot—or I will burn your beards off to the eyelashes as prelude to more dire torturings! Haste, Essem! Come, Fafhrd!”

  The Gray Mouser at that same moment was returning from his closet with Ivivis when Gwaay, velvet-shod and followed by barefoot slaves, came around a turn in the dim corridor so swiftly there was no evading him.

  The young Lord of the Lower Levels seemed preternaturally calm and controlled, yet with the impression that under the calm was naught but quivering excitement and darting thought—so much so that it would hardly have surprised the Mouser if there had shone forth from Gwaay an aura of Blue Essence of Thunderbolt. Indeed, the Mouser felt his skin begin to prickle and sting as if just such an influence were invisibly streaming from his employer.

  Gwaay scanned the Mouser and the pretty slavegirl in a flicker and spoke, his voice dancing rapid and gaysome.

  “Well, Mouser, I can see you’ve sampled your reward ahead of time. Ah, youth and dim retreats and pillowed dreams and amorous hostessings—what else gilds life or makes it worth the guttering sooty candle? Was the girl skillful? Good! Ivivis, dear, I must reward your zeal. I gave Divis a necklace—would you one? Or I’ve a brooch shaped like a scorpion, ruby-eyed—”

  The Mouser felt the girl’s hand quiver and chill in his and he cut in quickly with, “My demon speaks to me, Lord Gwaay, and tells me it’s a night when the Fates walk.”

  Gwaay laughed. “Your demon has been listening behind the arras. He’s heard tales of my father’s swift departure.” As he spoke a drop formed at the end of his nose, between his nostrils. Fascinated, the Mouser watched it grow. Gwaay started to lift the back of his hand to it, then shook it off instead. For an instant he frowned, then laughed again.

  “Aye, the Fates trod on Quarmall Keep tonight,” Gwaay said, only now his gay rapid voice was a shade hoarse.

  “My demon whispers me further that there are dangerous powers abroad this night,” the Mouser continued.

  “Aye, brother love and such,” Gwaay quipped in reply, but now his voice was a croak. A look of great startlement widened his eyes. He shivered as with a chill, and drops pattered from his nose. Three hairs came loose from his scalp and fell across his eyes. His slaves shrank back from him.

  “My demon warns me we’d best use my Great Spell quickly against those powers,” the Mouser went on, his mind returning as always to Sheelba’s untested rune. “It destroys only sorcerers of the Second Rank and lower. Yours, being of the First Rank, will be untouched. But Hasjarl’s will perish.”

  Gwaay opened his mouth to reply, but no words came forth, only a moaning nightmarish groan like that of a mute. Hectic spots shone forth high on his cheeks, and now it seemed to the Mouser that a reddish blotch was crawling up the right side of his chin, while on the left black spots were forming. A hideous stench became apparent. Gwaay staggered and his eyes brimmed with a greenish ichor. He lifted his hand to them, and its back was yellowish crusted and red-cracked. His slaves ran.

  “Hasjarl’s sendings!” the Mouser hissed. “Gwaay’s sorcerers still sleep! I’ll rouse ’em! Support him, Ivivis!” And turning he sped like the wind down corridor and up ramp until he reached Gwaay’s Hall of Sorcery. He entered it, clapping and whistling harshly between his teeth, for true enough the twelve scrawny loinclothed magi were still curled snoring on their wide high-backed chairs. The Mouser darted to each in turn, righting and shaking him with no gentle hands and shouting in his ear, “To your work! Anti-venom! Guard Gwaay!”

  Eleven of the sorcerers roused quickly enough and were soon staring wide-eyed at nothingness, though with their bodies rocking and their heads bobbing for a while from the Mouser’s shaking—like eleven small ships just overpassed by a squall.

  He was having a little more trouble with the twelfth, though this one was coming awake, soon would be doing his share, when Gwaay appeared of a sudden in the archway with Ivivis at his side, though not supporting him. The young Lord’s face gleamed as silvery clear in the dimness as the massy silver mask of him that hung in the niche above the arch.

  “Stand aside, Gray Mouser, I’ll jog the sluggard,” he cried in a rippingly bright voice and snatching up a small obsidian jar tossed it toward the drowsy sorcerer.

  It should have fallen no more than halfway between them. Did he mean to wake the ancient by its shattering? the Mouser wondered. But then Gwaay stared at it in the air and it quickened its speed fearfully. It was as if he had tossed up a ball, then batted it. Shooting forward like a bolt fired point-blank from a sinewy catapult it shattered the ancient’s skull and spattered the chair and the Mouser with his brains.

  Gwaay laughed, a shade high-pitched, and cried lightly, “I must curb my excitement! I must! I must! Sudden recovery from two dozen deaths—or twenty-three and the Nose Drip—is no reason for a philosopher to lose control. Oh, I’m a giddy fellow!”

  Ivivis cried suddenly, “The room swims! I see silver fish!”

  The Mouser felt dizzy himself then and saw a phosphorescent green hand reach through the archway toward Gwaay—reach out on a thin arm that lengthened to yards. He blinked hard and the hand was gone—but now there were swimmings of purple vapor.

  He looked at Gwaay and that one, frowny-eyed now, was sniffling hard and then sniffling again, though no new drop could be seen to have formed on his nose-end.

  Fafhrd stood three paces behind Hasjarl, who looked in his bunched and high-collared robe of earth-brown toweling rather like an ape.

  Beyond Hasjarl on the right there trotted on a thick wide roller-riding leather belt three slaves of monstrous aspect: great splayed feet, legs like an elephant’s, huge furnace-bellows chests, dwarfy arms, pinheads with wide toothy mouths and with nostrils bigger than their eyes or ears—creatures bred to run ponderously and nothing else. The moving belt disappeared with a half twist into a vertical cylinder of masonry five yards across and reemerged just below itself, but moving in the opposite direction, to pass under the rollers and complete its loop. From within the cylinder came the groaning of the great wooden fan which the belt whirled and which drove life-sustaining air downward to the Lower Levels.

  Beyond Hasjarl on the left was a small door as high as Fafhrd’s head in the cylinder. To it there mounted one by one, up four narrow masonry steps, a line of dusky, great-headed dwarves. Each bore on his shoulder a dark bag which when he reached the window he untied and emptied into the clamorous shaft, shaking it out most thoroughly while he held it inside, then folding it and leaping down to give place to the next bag-bearer.

  Hasjarl leered over his shoulder at Fafhrd. “A nosegay for Gwaay!” he cried. “’Tis a king’s ransom I strew on the downward gale: powder of poppy, dust of lotus and mandragora, crumble of hemp. A million lewdly pleasant dreams, and all for Gwaay! Three ways this conquers him: he’ll sleep a day and miss my father’s funeral, then Quarmall’s mine by right of sole appearance yet with no bloodshed, which would mar the rites; his sorcerers will sleep and my infectious spells burst through and strike him down in stinking jellied death; his realm will sleep, each slave and cursed page, so we conquer all merely by marching down after the business of the funeral. Ho, swifter there!” And seizing a long whip from an overseer, he began to crack it over the squat cones of the tread-slaves’ heads and sting their broad backs with it. Their trot changed to a ponderous gallop, the moan of the fan rose in pitch, and Fafhrd waited to hear it shatter crackingly, or see the belt snap, or the rollers break on their axles.

  The dwarf at the shaft-window took advantage of Hasjarl’s attention being elsewhere to snatch a pinch of powder from his bag and bring it to his nostrils and sniff it down, leering ecstatically. But Hasjarl saw and whipped
him about the legs most cruelly. The dwarf dutifully emptied his bag and shook it out while making little hops of agony. However he did not seem much chastened or troubled by his whipping, for as he left the chamber Fafhrd saw him pull his empty bag over his head and waddle off breathing deeply through it.

  Hasjarl went on whip-cracking and calling, “Swifter, I say! For Gwaay a drugged hurricane!”

  The officer Yissim raced into the room and darted to his master.

  “The girl Friska’s escaped!” he cried. “Your torturers say your champion came with your seal, telling them you had ordered her release—and snatched her off! All this occurred a quarter day ago.”

  “Guards!” Hasjarl squealed. “Seize the Northerner! Disarm and bind the traitor!”

  But Fafhrd was gone.

  The Mouser, in company with Ivivis, Gwaay and a colorful rabble of drug-induced hallucinations, reeled into a chamber similar to the one from which Fafhrd had just disappeared. Here the great cylindrical shaft ended in a half turn. The fan that sucked down the air and blew it out to refresh the Lower Levels was set vertically in the mouth of the shaft and was visible as it whirled.

  By the shaft-mouth hung a large cage of white birds, all lying on its floor with their feet in the air. Besides these tell-tales, there was stretched on the floor of the chamber its overseer, also overcome by the drugs whirlwinding from Hasjarl.

  By contrast, the three pillar-legged slaves ponderously trotting their belt seemed not affected at all. Presumably their tiny brains and monstrous bodies were beyond the reach of any drug, short of its lethal dose.

  Gwaay staggered up to them, slapped each in turn, and commanded, “Stop!” Then he himself dropped to the floor.

  The groaning of the fan died away, its seven wooden vanes became clearly visible as it stopped (though for the Mouser they were interwoven with scaly hallucinations), and the only real sound was the slow gasping of the tread-slaves.

  Gwaay smiled weirdly at them from where he sprawled, and he raised an arm drunkenly and cried, “Reverse! About face!” Slowly the tread-slaves turned, taking a dozen tiny steps to do it, until they all three faced the opposite direction on the belt.

  “Trot!” Gwaay commanded them quickly. Slowly they obeyed and slowly the fan took up again its groaning, but now it was blowing air up the shaft against Hasjarl’s downward fanning.

  Gwaay and Ivivis rested on the floor for a space, until their brains began to clear and the last hallucinations were chased from view. To the Mouser they seemed to be sucked up the shaft through the fan blades: a filmy horde of blue-and-purple wraiths armed with transparent saw-toothed spears and cutlasses.

  Then Gwaay, smiling in highest excitement with his eyes, said softly and still a bit breathlessly, “My sorcerers…were not overcome…I think. Else I’d be dying…Hasjarl’s two dozen deaths. Another moment…and I’ll send across the level…to reverse the exhaust fan. We’ll get fresh air through it. And put more slaves on this belt here—perchance I’ll blow my brother’s nightmares back to him. Then lave and robe me for my father’s fiery funeral and mount to give Hasjarl a nasty shock. Ivivis, as soon as you can walk, rouse my bath girls. Bid them make all ready.”

  He reached across the floor and grasped the Mouser strongly at the elbow. “You, Gray One,” he whispered, “prepare to work this mighty tune of yours which will smite down Hasjarl’s warlocks. Gather your simples, pray your demonic prayers—consulting first with my twelve arch-magi…if you can rouse the twelfth from his dark hell. As soon as Quarmal’s lich is in the flames, I’ll send you word to speak your deadly spell.” He paused, and his eyes gleamed with a witchy glare in the dimness.

  “The time has come for sorcery and swords!”

  There was a tiny scrabbling as one of the white birds staggered to its feet on the cage-bottom. It gave a chirrup that was rather like a hiccup, yet still had a note of challenge in it.

  All that night through, all Quarmall was awake. Into the Ordering Room of the Keep, a magician came crying, “Lord Flindach! The mind-casters have incontrovertible advertisements that the two brothers war against each other. Hasjarl sends sleepy resins down the shafts, while Gwaay blows them back.”

  The warty and purple-blotched face of the Master of Magicians looked up from where he sat busy at a table surrounded by a small host awaiting orders.

  “Have they shed blood?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “It is well. Keep enchanted eyes on them.”

  Then, gazing sternly in turn from under his hood at those whom he addressed, the Master of Magicians gave his other orders:

  To two magicians robed as his deputies: “Go on the instant to Hasjarl and Gwaay. Remind them of the obsequies and stay with them until they and their companies reach the funeral courtyard.”

  To a eunuch: “Hasten to your master Brilla. Learn if he requires further materials or assistance building the funeral pyre. Help will be furnished him at once and without stint.”

  To a captain of slingers: “Double the guard on the walls. Yourself make the rounds. Quarmall must be entirely secure from outward assaults and escapes from within on this coming morn.”

  To a richly-clad woman of middle years: “To Quarmal’s harem. See that his concubines are perfectly groomed and clad, as if their Lord himself meant to visit them at dawn. Quiet their apprehensions. Send to me the Ilthmarix Kewissa.”

  In Hasjarl’s Hall of Sorcery, that Lord let his slaves robe him for the obsequies, while not neglecting to direct the search for his traitorous champion Fafhrd, to instruct the shaft-watchers in the precautions they must take against Gwaay’s attempts to return the poppy dust, perchance with interest, and to tutor his sorcerers in the exact spells they must use against Gwaay once Quarmal’s body was devoured by the flame.

  In the Ghost Hall, Fafhrd munched and drank with Friska a small feast he’d brought. He told her how he’d fallen into disfavor with Hasjarl, and he mulled plans for his escape with her from the realm of Quarmall.

  In Gwaay’s Hall of Sorcery, the Gray Mouser conferred in turn with the eleven skinny wizards in their white loincloths, telling them nothing of Sheelba’s spell, but securing from each the firm assurance that he was a magus of the First Rank.

  In the steam room of Gwaay’s bath, that Lord recuperated his flesh and faculties shaken by disease spells and drugs. His girls, supervised by Ivivis, brought him fragrant oils and elixirs, and scrubbed and laved him as he directed languidly yet precisely. The slender forms, blurred and silvered by the clouds of steam, moved and posed as in a languorous ballet.

  The huge pyre was finally completed, and Brilla heaved a sigh of relief and contentment with the knowledge of work well done. He relaxed his fat, massive frame onto a bench against the wall and spoke to one of his companions in a high-pitched feminine voice:

  “Such short notice, and at such a time, but the gods are not to be denied, and no man can cheat his stars. It is shameful though, to think that Quarmal will go so poorly attended: only a half dozen Lankhmarts, an Ilthmarix, and three Mingols—and one of those blemished. I always told him he should keep a better harem. However the male slaves are in fine fettle and will perhaps make up for the rest. Ah! but it’s a fine flame the Lord will have to light his way!” Brilla wagged his head dolefully and, snuffling, blinked a tear from his piggy eye; he was one of the few who really regretted the passing of Quarmal.

  As High Eunuch to the Lord, Brilla’s position was a sinecure and, besides, he had always been fond of Quarmal since he could remember. Once when a small chubby boy Brilla had been rescued from the torments of a group of larger, more virile slaves who had freed him at the mere passing-by of Quarmal. It was this small incident, unwotted or long forgotten by Quarmal, which had provoked a lifelong devotion in Brilla.

  Now only the gods knew what the future held. Today the body of Quarmal would be burned, and what would happen after that was better left unpondered, even in the innermost thoughts of a man. Brilla looked once more at his handiwork, the
funeral pyre. Achieving it in six short hours, even with hosts of slaves at his command, had taxed his powers. It towered in the center of the courtyard, even higher than the arch of the great gate thrice the stature of a tall man. It was built in the form of a square pyramid, truncated midway; and the inflammable woods that composed it were completely hidden by somber-hued drapes.

  A runway was built from the ground across the vast courtyard to the topmost tier on each of the four sides; and at the top was a sizable square platform. It was here that the litter containing the body of Quarmal would be placed, and here the sacrificial victims be immolated. Only those slaves of proper age and talents were permitted to accompany their Lord on his long journey beyond the stars.

  Brilla approved of what he saw and, rubbing his hands, looked about curiously. It was only on such occasions as this that one realized the immensity of Quarmall, and these occasions were rare; perhaps once in his life a man would see such an event. As far as Brilla could see small bands of slaves were lined, rank on rank, against the walls of the courtyard, even as was his own band of eunuchs and carpenters. There were the craftsmen from the Upper Levels, skilled workmen all in metal and in wood; there were the workers from the fields and vineyards all brown and gnarled from their labors; there were the slaves from the Lower Levels, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight, pallid and curiously deformed; and all the rest who served in the bowels of Quarmall, a representative group from each level.

  The size of the turnout seemed to contradict the dawn’s frightening rumors of secret war last night between the Levels, and Brilla felt reassured.

  Most important and best placed were the two bands of henchmen of Hasjarl and Gwaay, one group on each side of the pyre. Only the sorcerers of the twain were absent, Brilla noted with a pang of unease, though refusing to speculate why.

  High above all this mass of mixed humanity, atop the towering walls, were the ever-silent, ever-alert guards; standing quietly at their posts, slings dangling ready to hand. Never yet had the walls of Quarmall been stormed, and never had a slave once within those close-watched walls passed into the outer world alive.