The Mouser raced forward and transfixed Slivikin and the huge rat with one thrust of Scalpel before the beasts knew what was happening. They too died swiftly with thin screams, while all the other rats turned tail and fled back down their holes swift almost as black lightning.
Then the last trace of night-smog or sorcery-smoke vanished and Fafhrd and the Mouser found themselves standing alone with three dead bodies and a profound silence that seemed to fill not only this room but all Thieves’ House. Even the cucurbit-lava had ceased to move, was hardening, and the wood of the table no longer smoked.
Their madness was gone and all their rage too—vented to the last red atomy and glutted to more than satiety. They had no more urge to kill Krovas or any other of the thieves than to swat flies. With horrified inner eye Fafhrd saw the pitiful face of the child-thief he’d skewered in his lunatic anger.
Only their grief remained with them, diminished not one whit, but rather growing greater—that and an ever more swiftly growing revulsion from all that was around them: the dead, the disordered magic room, all Thieves’ House, all of the city of Lankhmar to its last stinking alleyway and smog-wreathed spire.
With a hiss of disgust the Mouser jerked Scalpel from the rodent cadavers, wiped it on the nearest cloth, and returned it to its scabbard. Fafhrd likewise sketchily cleansed and sheathed Graywand. Then the two men picked up their knife and dirk from where they’d dropped to the floor when the web had dematerialized, though neither so much as glanced at Vlana’s dagger where it was buried. But on the sorcerer’s table they did notice Vlana’s black velvet, silver-worked pouch and belt, the latter half overrun by the hardened black lava, and Ivrian’s blue-enameled box inlaid with silver. From these they took the gems of Jengao.
With no more word than they had exchanged back at the Mouser’s burned nest behind the Eel, but with a continuing sense of their unity of purpose, their identity of intent, and of their comradeship, they made their way with shoulders bowed and with slow, weary steps which only very gradually quickened out of the magic room and down the thick-carpeted corridor, past the map room’s wide door still barred with oak and iron, and past all the other shut, silent doors—clearly the entire Guild was terrified of Hristomilo, his spells, and his rats; down the echoing stairs, their footsteps speeding a little; down the bare-floored lower corridor past its closed, quiet doors, their footsteps resounding loudly no matter how softly they sought to tread; under the deserted, black-scorched guard-niche, and so out into Cheap Street, turning left and north because that was the nearest way to the Street of the Gods, and there turning right and east—not a waking soul in the wide street except for one skinny, bent-backed apprentice lad unhappily swabbing the flagstones in front of a wine shop in the dim pink light beginning to seep from the east, although there were many forms asleep, a-snore and a-dream in the gutters and under the dark porticos—yes, turning right and east down the Street of the Gods, for that way was the Marsh Gate, leading to Causey Road across the Great Salt Marsh, and the Marsh Gate was the nearest way out of the great and glamorous city that was now loathsome to them, indeed, not to be endured for one more stabbing, leaden heartbeat than was necessary—a city of beloved, unfaceable ghosts.
Ship of Shadows
“Issiot! Fffool! Lushshsh!” hissed the cat and bit Spar somewhere.
The fourfold sting of the eye teeth balanced the gut-wretchedness of his looming hangover, so that Spar’s mind floated as free as his body in the blackness of Windrush, in which shone only a couple of running lights dim as churning dream—glow and infinitely distant as the Bridge or the Stern.
The vision came of a ship with all sails set creaming through blue, wind-ruffled sea against a blue sky. The last two nouns were not obscene now. He could hear the whistle of the salty wind through shrouds and stays, its drumming against the taut sails, and the creak of the three masts and all the rest of the ship’s wood.
What was wood? From somewhere came the answer: plastic alive-o.
And what force flattened the water and kept it from breaking up into great globules and the ship from spinning away, keel over masts, in the wind?
Instead of being blurred and rounded like reality, the vision was sharp-edged and bright—the sort Spar never told, for fear of being accused of second sight and so of witchcraft.
Windrush was a ship too, was often called the Ship. But it was a strange sort of ship, in which the sailors lived forever in the shrouds inside cabins of all shapes made of translucent sails welded together. And it was a ship that was not sailing anywhere, because it had everywhere in it—it was all there was.
The only other things the two ships shared were the wind and the unending creaking. As the vision faded, Spar began to hear the winds of Windrush softly moaning through the long passageways, while he felt the creaking in the vibrant shroud to which he was clipped wrist and ankle to keep him from floating around in the Bat Rack.
Sleepday’s dreams had begun good, with Spar having Crown’s three girls at once. But Sleepday night he had been half—waked by the distant grinding of Hold Three’s big chewer. Then werewolves and vampires had attacked him, solid shadows diving in from all six corners, while witches and their familiars tittered in the black shadowy background. Somehow he had been protected by the cat, familiar of a slim witch whose bared teeth had been an ivory blur in the larger silver blur of her wild hair. Spar pressed his rubbery gums together. The cat had been the last of the supernatural creatures to fade. Then had come the beautiful vision of the ship.
His hangover hit him suddenly and mercilessly. Sweat shook off him until he must be surrounded by a cloud of it. Without warning his gut reversed. His free hand found a floating waste tube in time to press its small trumpet to his face. He could hear his acrid vomit gurgling away, urged by a light suction.
His gut reversed again, quick as the flap of a safety hatch when a gale blows up in the corridors. He thrust the waste tube inside the leg of his short, loose slopsuit and caught the dark stuff, almost as watery and quite as explosive as his vomit. Then he had the burning urge to make water.
Afterwards, feeling blessedly weak, Spar curled up in the equally blessed dark and prepared to snooze until Keeper woke him.
“Sssot!” hissed the cat. “Sssleep no more! Sssee! Sssee shshsharply!”
In his left shoulder, through the worn fabric of his slopsuit, Spar could feel four sets of prickles, like the touch of small thorn clusters in the Gardens of Apollo or Diana. He froze.
“Sspar,” the cat hissed more softly, quitting to prickle. “I wishsh you all besst. Mosst ashshuredly.”
Spar warily reached his right hand across his chest, touched short fur softer than Suzy’s, and stroked gingerly.
The cat hissed very softly, almost purring, “Ssturdy Sspar! Ssee ffar! Ssee fforever! Fforessee! Afftssee!”
Spar felt a surge of irritation at this constant talk of seeing—bad manners in the cat!—followed by an irrational surge of hope about his eyes. He decided that this was no witch cat left over from his dream, but a stray which had wormed its way through a wind tube into the Bat Rack, setting off his dream. There were quite a few animal strays in these days of the witch panic and the depopulation of the Ship, or at least of Hold Three.
Dawn struck the Bow then, for the violet fore-corner of the Bat Rack began to glow. The running lights were drowned in a growing white blaze. Within twenty heartbeats Windrush was bright as it ever would be on Workday or any other morning.
Out along Spar’s arm moved the cat, a black blur to his squinting eyes. In teeth Spar could not see, it held a smaller gray blur. Spar touched the latter. It was even shorter furred, but cold.
As if irked, the cat took off from his bare forearm with a strong push of hind legs. It landed expertly on the next shroud, a wavery line of gray that vanished in either direction before reaching a wall.
Spar unclipped himself, curled his toes round his own pe
ncil-thin shroud, and squinted at the cat.
The cat stared back with eyes that were green blurs which almost coalesced in the black blur of its outsize head.
Spar asked, “Your child? Dead?”
The cat loosed its gray burden, which floated beside its head.
“Chchchchild!” All the former scorn and more were back in the sibilant voice. “It izzzz a rat I sssslew her, issssiot!”
Spar’s lips puckered in a smile. “I like you, cat. I will call you Kim.”
“Kim—shlim!” the cat spat. “I’ll call you Lushshsh! Or Sssot!”
The creaking increased, as it always did after dayspring and noon. Shrouds twanged. Walls crackled.
Spar swiftly swiveled his head. Though reality was by its nature a blur, he could unerringly spot movement.
Keeper was slowly floating straight at him. On the round of his russet body was mounted the great, pale round of his face, its bright pink target—center drawing attention from the tiny, wide—set, brown blurs of his eyes. One of his fat arms ended in the bright gleam of pliofilm, the other in the dark gleam of steel. Far beyond him was the dark red aft corner of the Bat Rack, with the great gleaming torus, or doughnut, of the bar midway between.
“Lazy, pampered he-slut,” Keeper greeted. “All Sleepday you snored while I stood guard, and now I bring your morning pouch of moonmist to your sleeping shroud.
“A bad night, Spar,” he went on, his voice growing sententious. “Werewolves, vampires, and witches loose in the corridors. But I stood them off, not to mention rats and mice. I heard through the tubes that the vamps got Girlie and Sweetheart, the silly sluts! Vigilance, Spar! Now suck your moonmist and start sweeping. The place stinks.”
He stretched out the pliofilm-gleaming hand.
His mind hissing with Kim’s contemptuous words, Spar said, “I don’t think I’ll drink this morning, Keeper. Corn gruel and moonbrew only. No, water.”
“What, Spar?” Keeper demanded. “I don’t believe I can allow that. We don’t want you having convulsions in front of the customers. Earth strangle me!—what’s that?”
Spar instantly launched himself at Keeper’s steel-gleaming hand. Behind him his shroud twanged. With one hand he twisted a cold, thick barrel. With the other he pried a plump finger from a trigger.
“He’s not a witch cat, only a stray,” he said as they tumbled over and kept slowly rotating.
“Unhand me, underling!” Keeper blustered. “I’ll have you in irons. I’ll tell Crown.”
“Shooting weapons are as much against the law as knives or needles,” Spar countered boldly, though he already was feeling dizzy and sick. “It’s you should fear the brig.” He recognized beneath the bullying voice the awe Keeper always had of his ability to move swiftly and surely, though half-blind.
They bounced to rest against a swarm of shrouds. “Loose me, I say,” Keeper demanded, struggling weakly. “Crown gave me this pistol. And I have a permit for it from the Bridge.” The last at least, Spar guessed, was a lie. Keeper continued, “Besides, it’s only a line-shooting gun reworked for heavy, elastic ball. Not enough to rupture a wall, yet sufficient to knock out drunks—or knock in the head of a witch cat!”
“Not a witch cat, Keeper,” Spar repeated, although he was having to swallow hard to keep from spewing. “Only a well-behaved stray, who has already proved his use to us by killing one of the rats that have been stealing our food. His name is Kim. He’ll be a good worker.”
The distant blur of Kim lengthened and showed thin blurs of legs and tail, as if he were standing out rampant from his line. “Assset izz I,” he boasted. “Ssanitary. Uzze wasste tubes. Sslay ratss, micece! Sspy out witchchess, vampss ffor you!”
“He speaks!” Keeper gasped. “Witchcraft!”
“Crown has a dog who talks,” Spar answered with finality. “A talking animal’s no proof of anything.”
All this while he had kept firm hold of barrel and finger. Now he felt through their grappled bodies a change in Keeper, as though inside his blubber the master of the Bat Rack were transforming from stocky muscle and bone into a very thick, sweet syrup that could conform to and flow around anything.
“Sorry, Spar,” he whispered unctuously. “It was a bad night and Kim startled me. He’s black like a witch cat. An easy mistake on my part. We’ll try him out at catcher. He must earn his keep! Now take your drink.”
The pliant double pouch filling Spar’s palm felt like the philosopher’s stone. He lifted it toward his lips, but at the same time his toes unwittingly found a shroud, and he dove swiftly toward the shining torus, which had a hole big enough to accommodate four barmen at a pinch.
Spar collapsed against the opposite inside of the hole. With a straining of its shrouds, the torus absorbed his impact. He had the pouch to his lips, its cap unscrewed, but had not squeezed. He shut his eyes and with a tiny sob blindly thrust the pouch back into the moonmist cage.
Working chiefly by touch, he took a pouch of corn gruel from the hot closet, snitching at the same time a pouch of coffee and thrusting it into an inside pocket. Then he took a pouch of water, opened it, shoved in five salt tablets, closed it, and shook and squeezed it vigorously.
Keeper, having drifted behind him, said into his ear, “So you drink anyhow. Moonmist not good enough, you make yourself a cocktail. I should dock it from your scrip. But all drunks are liars, or become so.”
Unable to ignore the taunt, Spar explained, “No, only salt water to harden my gums.”
“Poor Spar, what’ll you ever need hard gums for? Planning to share rats with your new friend? Don’t let me catch you roasting them in my grill! I should dock you for the salt. To sweeping, Spar!” Then turning his head toward the violet fore—corner and speaking loudly, “And you! Catch mice!”
Kim had already found the small chewer tube and thrust the dead rat into it, gripping tube with foreclaws and pushing rat with aft. At the touch of the rat’s cadaver against the solid wrist of the tube, a grinding began there which would continue until the rat was macerated and slowly swallowed away toward the great cloaca which fed the Gardens of Diana.
Three times Spar manfully swished salt water against his gums and spat into a waste tube, vomiting a little after the first gargle. Then facing away from Keeper as he gently squeezed the pouches, he forced into his throat the coffee—dearer than moonmist, the drink distilled from moonbrew—and some of the corn gruel.
He apologetically offered the rest to Kim, who shook his head. “Jusst had a mousse.”
Hastily Spar made his way to the green starboard corner. Outside the hatch he heard some drunks calling with weary and mournful anger, “Unzip!”
Grasping the heads of two long waste tubes, Spar began to sweep the air, working out from the green corner in a spiral, quite like an orb spider building her web.
From the torus, where he was idly polishing its thin titanium, Keeper upped the suction on the two tubes, so that reaction sped Spar in his spiral. He need use his body only to steer course and to avoid shrouds in such a way that his tubes didn’t tangle.
Soon Keeper glanced at his wrist and called, “Spar, can’t you keep track of the time? Open up!” He threw a ring of keys which Spar caught, though he could see only the last half of their flight. As soon as he was well headed toward the green door, Keeper called again and pointed aft and aloft. Spar obediently unlocked and unzipped the dark and also the blue hatch, though there was no one at either, before opening the green. In each case he avoided the hatch’s gummy margin and the sticky emergency hatch hinged close beside.
In tumbled three brewos, old customers, snatching at shrouds and pushing off from each other’s bodies in their haste to reach the torus, and meanwhile cursing Spar.
“Sky strangle you!”
“Earth bury you!”
“Seas sear you!”
“Language, boys!” Keeper reproved.
“Though I’ll agree my helper’s stupidity and sloth tempt a man to talk foul.”
Spar threw the keys back. The brewos lined up elbow to elbow around the torus, three grayish blobs with heads pointing toward the blue corner.
Keeper faced them. “Below, below!” he ordered indignantly. “You think you’re gents?”
“But you’re serving no one aloft yet.”
“There’s only us three.”
“No matter,” Keeper replied. “Propriety, suckers! Unless you mean to buy by the pouch, invert.”
With low grumbles the brewos reversed their bodies so that their heads pointed toward the black corner.
Himself not bothering to invert, Keeper tossed them a slim and twisty faint red blur with three branches. Each grabbed a branch and stuck it in his face.
The pudge of his fat hand on glint of valve, Keeper said, “Let’s see your scrip first.”
With angry mumbles each unwadded something too small for Spar to see clearly, and handed it over. Keeper studied each item before feeding it to the cashbox. Then he decreed, “Six seconds of moonbrew. Suck fast,” and looked at his wrist and moved the other hand.
One of the brewos seemed to be strangling, but he blew out through his nose and kept sucking bravely.
Keeper closed the valve.
Instantly one brewo splutteringly accused, “You cut us off too soon. That wasn’t six.”
The treacle back in his voice, Keeper explained, “I’m squirting it to you four and two. Don’t want you to drown. Ready again?”
The brewos greedily took their second squirt and then, at times wistfully sucking their tubes for remnant drops, began to shoot the breeze. In his distant circling, Spar’s keen ears heard most of it.
“A dirty Sleepday, Keeper.”
“No, a good one, brewo—for a drunken sucker to get his blood sucked by a lust-tickling vamp.”
“I was dossed safe at Pete’s, you fat ghoul.”
“Pete’s safe? That’s news!”
“Dirty Atoms to you! But vamps did get Girlie and Sweetheart. Right in the starboard main drag, if you can believe it. By Cobalt Ninety, Windrush is getting lonely! Third Hold, anyhow. You can swim a whole passageway by day without meeting a soul.”
Ill Met in Lankhmar and Ship of Shadows Page 8