Swords in the Mist

by Fritz Leiber

  “You belong to the Socratic school?” Fafhrd questioned gently.

  The Greek nodded.

  “Socrates was the philosopher who was able to drink unlimited quantities of wine without blinking?”

  Again the quick nod.

  “That was because his rational soul dominated his animal soul?”

  “You are learned,” replied the Greek, with a more respectful but equally quick nod.

  “I am not through. Do you consider yourself in all ways a true follower of your master?”

  This time the Greek’s quickness undid him. He nodded, and two days later he was carried out of the wine shop by friends, who found him cradled in a broken wine barrel, as if newborn in no common manner. For days he remained drunk, time enough for a small sect to spring up who believed him a reincarnation of Dionysus and as such worshipped him. The sect was dissolved when he became half sober and delivered his first oracular address, which had as its subject the evils of drunkenness.

  The morning after the deification of the rash philosopher, Fafhrd awoke when the first hot sunbeams struck the flat roof on which he and the Mouser had chosen to pass the night. Without sound or movement, suppressing the urge to groan out for someone to buy him a bag of snow from the white-capped Lebanons (over which the sun was even now peeping) to cool his aching head, he opened an eye on the sight that he in his wisdom had expected: the Mouser sitting on his heels and looking at the sea.

  “Son of a wizard and a witch,” he said, “it seems that once again we must fall back upon our last resource.”

  The Mouser did not turn his head, but he nodded it once, deliberately.

  “The first time we did not come away with our lives,” Fafhrd went on.

  “The second time we lost our souls to the Other Creatures,” the Mouser chimed in, as if they were singing a dawn chant to Isis.

  “And the last time we were snatched away from the bright dream of Lankhmar.”

  “He may trick us into drinking the drink, and we not awake for another five hundred years.”

  “He may send us to our deaths and we not to be reincarnated for another two thousand,” Fafhrd continued.

  “He may show us Pan, or offer us to the Elder Gods, or whisk us beyond the stars, or send us into the underworld of Quarmall,” the Mouser concluded.

  There was a pause of several moments.

  Then the Gray Mouser whispered, “Nevertheless, we must visit Ningauble of the Seven Eyes.”

  And he spoke truly, for as Fafhrd had guessed, his soul was hovering over the sea dreaming of dark-haired Ahura.

  2: Ningauble

  So they crossed the snowy Lebanons and stole three camels, virtuously choosing to rob a rich landlord who made his tenants milk rocks and sow the shores of the Dead Sea, for it was unwise to approach the Gossiper of the Gods with an overly dirty conscience. After seven days of pitching and tossing across the desert, furnace days that made Fafhrd curse Muspelheim’s fire gods, in whom he did not believe, they reached the Sand Combers and the Great Sand Whirlpools, and warily slipping past them while they were only lazily twirling, climbed the Rocky Islet. The city-loving Mouser ranted at Ningauble’s preference for “a godforsaken hole in the desert,” although he suspected that the Newsmonger and his agents came and went by a more hospitable road than the one provided for visitors, and although he knew as well as Fafhrd that the Snarer of Rumors (especially the false, which are the more valuable) must live as close to India and the infinite garden lands of the Yellow Men as to barbaric Britain and marching Rome, as close to the heaven-steaming trans-Ethiopian jungle as to the mystery of lonely tablelands and star-scraping mountains beyond the Caspian Sea.

  With high expectations they tethered their camels, took torches, and fearlessly entered the Bottomless Caves, for it was not so much in the visiting of Ningauble that danger lay as in the tantalizing charm of his advice, which was so great that one had to follow wherever it led.

  Nevertheless Fafhrd said, “An earthquake swallowed Ningauble’s house and it stuck in his throat. May he not hiccup.”

  As they were passing over the Trembling Bridge spanning the Pit of Ultimate Truth, which could have devoured the light of ten thousand torches without becoming any less black, they met and edged wordlessly past a helmeted, impassive fellow whom they recognized as a far-journeying Mongol. They speculated as to whether he too were a visitor of the Gossiper, or a spy—Fafhrd had no faith in the clairvoyant powers of the seven eyes, averring that they were merely a sham to awe fools and that Ningauble’s information was gathered by a corps of peddlers, panders, slaves, urchins, eunuchs, and midwives, which outnumbered the grand armies of a dozen kings.

  They reached the other side with relief and passed a score of tunnel mouths, which the Mouser eyed most wistfully.

  “Mayhap we should choose one at random,” he muttered, “and seek yet another world. Ahura’s not Aphrodite, nor yet Astarte—quite.”

  “Without Ning’s guidance?” Fafhrd retorted. “And carrying our curses with us? Press on!”

  Presently they saw a faint light flickering on the stalactited roof, reflected from a level above them. Soon they were struggling toward it up the Staircase of Error, an agglomeration of great rough rocks. Fafhrd stretched his long legs; the Mouser leaped catlike. The little creatures that scurried about their feet, brushed their shoulders in slow flight, or merely showed their yellow, insatiably curious eyes from crevice and rocky perch multiplied in number, for they were nearing the Arch-eavesdropper.

  A little later, having wasted no time in reconnoitering, they stood before the Great Gate, whose iron-studded upper reaches disdained the illumination of the tiny fire. It was not the gate, however, that interested them, but its keeper, a monstrously paunched creature sitting on the floor beside a vast heap of potsherds, and whose only movement was a rubbing of what seemed to be his hands. He kept them under the shabby but voluminous cloak which also completely hooded his head. A third of the way down the cloak, two large bats clung. Fafhrd cleared his throat. The movement ceased under the cloak.

  Then out of the top of it sinuously writhed something that seemed to be a serpent, only in place of a head it bore an opalescent jewel with a dark central speck. Nevertheless, one might finally have judged it a serpent, were it not that it also resembled a thick-stalked exotic bloom. It restlessly turned this way and that until it pointed at the two strangers. Then it went rigid, and the bulbous extremity seemed to glow more brightly. There came a low purring, and five similar stalks twisted rapidly from under the hood and aligned themselves with their companion. Then the six black pupils dilated.

  “Fat-bellied rumor monger!” hailed the Mouser nervously. “Must you forever play at peep show?”

  For one could never quite get over the faint initial uneasiness that came with meeting Ningauble of the Seven Eyes.

  “That is an incivility, Mouser,” a voice from under the hood quavered thinly. “It is not well for men who come seeking sage counsel to cast fleers before them. Nevertheless, I am today in a merry humor and will give ear to your problem. Let me see, now, what world do you and Fafhrd come from?”

  “Earth, as you very well know, you king of shreds of lies and patches of hypocrisy,” the Mouser retorted thinly, stepping nearer. Three of the eyes closely followed his advance, while a fourth kept watch on Fafhrd.

  At the same time, “Further incivilities,” Ningauble murmured sadly, shaking his head so that his eyestalks jogged. “You think it easy to keep track of the times and spaces and of the worlds manifold? And speaking of time, is it not time indeed that you ceased to impose on me, because you once got me an unborn ghoul that I might question it of its parentage? The service to me was slight, accepted only to humor you; and I, by the name of the Spoorless God, have repaid it twenty times over.”

  “Nonsense, Midwife of Secrets,” retorted the Mouser, stepping forward familiarly, his gay impudence almost restored. “You know as well as I that deep in your great paunch you are trembling with de
light at having a chance to mouth your knowledge to two such appreciative listeners as we.”

  “That is as far from the truth as I am from the Secret of the Sphinx,” commented Ningauble, four of his eyes following the Mouser’s advance, one keeping watch on Fafhrd, while the sixth looped back around the hood to reappear on the other side and gaze suspiciously behind them.

  “But, Ancient Tale-bearer, I am sure you have been closer to the Sphinx than any of her stony lovers. Very likely she first received her paltry riddle from your great store.”

  Ningauble quivered like jelly at this tickling flattery.

  “Nevertheless,” he piped, “today I am in a merry humor and will give ear to your question. But remember that it will almost certainly be too difficult for me.”

  “We know your great ingenuity in the face of insurmountable obstacles,” rejoined the Mouser in the properly soothing tones.

  “Why doesn’t your friend come forward?” asked Ningauble, suddenly querulous again.

  Fafhrd had been waiting for that question. It always went against his grain to have to behave congenially toward one who called himself the Mightiest Magician as well as the Gossiper of the Gods. But that Ningauble should let hang from his shoulders two bats whom he called Hugin and Munin in open burlesque of Odin’s ravens, was too much for him. It was more a patriotic than religious matter with Fafhrd. He believed in Odin only during moments of sentimental weakness.

  “Slay the bats or send them slithering and I’ll come, but not before,” he dogmatized.

  “Now I’ll tell you nothing,” said Ningauble pettishly, “for, as all know, my health will not permit bickering.”

  “But, Schoolmaster of Falsehood,” purred the Mouser, darting a murderous glance at Fafhrd, “that is indeed to be regretted, especially since I was looking forward to regaling you with the intricate scandal that the Friday concubine of the satrap Philip withheld even from her body slave.”

  “Ah well,” conceded the Many-Eyed One, “it is time for Hugin and Munin to feed.”

  The bats reluctantly unfurled their wings and flew lazily into the darkness.

  Fafhrd stirred himself and moved forward, sustaining the scrutiny of the majority of the eyes, all six of which the Northman considered artfully manipulated puppet-orbs. The seventh no man had seen, or boasted of having seen, save the Mouser, who claimed it was Odin’s other eye, stolen from sagacious Mimer—this not because he believed it, but to irk his Northern comrade.

  “Greetings, Snake Eyes,” Fafhrd boomed.

  “Oh, is it you, Hulk?” said Ningauble carelessly. “Sit down, both, and share my humble fire.”

  “Are we not to be invited beyond the Great Gate and share your fabulous comforts too?”

  “Do not mock me, Gray One. As all know, I am poor, penurious Ningauble.”

  So with a sigh the Mouser settled himself on his heels, for he well knew that the Gossiper prized above all else a reputation for poverty, chastity, humility, and thrift, therefore playing his own doorkeeper, except on certain days when the Great Gate muted the tinkle of impious sistrum and the lascivious wail of flute and the giggles of those who postured in the shadow shows.

  But now Ningauble coughed piteously and seemed to shiver and warmed his cloaked members at the fire. And the shadows flickered weakly against iron and stone, and the little creatures crept rustling in, making their eyes wide to see and their ears cupped to hear; and upon their rhythmically swinging, weaving stalks pulsated the six eyes. At intervals, too, Ningauble would pick up, seemingly at random, a potsherd from the great pile and rapidly scan the memorandum scribbled on it, without breaking the rhythm of the eyestalks or, apparently, the thread of his attention. The Mouser and Fafhrd crouched on their hams.

  As Fafhrd started to speak, Ningauble questioned rapidly, “And now, my children, you had something to tell me concerning the Friday concubine—”

  “Ah, yes, Artist of Untruth,” the Mouser cut in hastily. “Concerning not so much the concubine as three eunuch priests of Cybele and a slave-girl from Samos—a tasty affair of wondrous complexity, which you must give me leave to let simmer in my mind so that I may serve it up to you skimmed of the slightest fat of exaggeration and with all the spice of true detail.”

  “And while we wait for the Mouser’s mind-pot to boil,” said Fafhrd casually, at last catching the spirit of the thing, “you may the more merrily pass the time by advising us as to a trifling difficulty.” And he gave a succinct account of their tantalizing bedevilment by sow- and snail-changed maidens.

  “And you say that Chloe alone proved immune to the spell?” queried Ningauble thoughtfully, tossing a potsherd to the far side of the pile. “Now that brings to my mind—”

  “The exceedingly peculiar remark at the end of Diotima’s fourth epistle to Socrates?” interrupted the Mouser brightly. “Am I not right, Father?”

  “You are not,” replied Ningauble coldly. “As I was about to observe, when this tick of the intellect sought to burrow the skin of my mind, there must be something that throws a protective influence around Chloe. Do you know of any god or demon in whose special favor she stands, or any incantation or rune she habitually mumbles, or any notable talisman, charm, or amulet she customarily wears or inscribes on her body?”

  “She did mention one thing,” the Mouser admitted diffidently after a moment. “An amulet given her years ago by some Persian, or Greco-Persian girl. Doubtless a trifle of no consequence.”

  “Doubtless. Now, when the first sow-change occurred, did Fafhrd laugh the laugh? He did? That was unwise, as I have many times warned you. Advertise often enough your connection with the Elder Gods and you may be sure that some greedy searcher will come crawling from the pit.”

  “But what is our connection with the Elder Gods?” asked the Mouser, eagerly, though not hopefully. Fafhrd grunted derisively.

  “Those are matters best not spoken of,” Ningauble ordained. “Was there anyone who showed a particular interest in Fafhrd’s laughter?”

  The Mouser hesitated. Fafhrd coughed. Thus prodded, the Mouser confessed, “Oh, there was a girl who was perhaps a trifle more attentive than the others to his bellowing. A Persian girl. In fact, as I recall, the same one who gave Chloe the amulet.”

  “Her name is Ahura,” said Fafhrd. “The Mouser’s in love with her.”

  “A fable!” the Mouser denied laughingly, double-daggering Fafhrd with a superstitious glare. “I can assure you, Father, that she is a very shy, stupid girl, who cannot possibly be concerned in any way with our troubles.”

  “Of course, since you say so,” Ningauble observed, his voice icily rebuking. “However, I can tell you this much: the one who has placed the ignominious spell upon you is, insofar as he partakes of humanity, a man…”

  (The Mouser was relieved. It was unpleasant to think of dark-haired, lithe Ahura being subjected to certain methods of questioning which Ningauble was reputed to employ. He was irked at his own clumsiness in trying to lead Ningauble’s attention away from Ahura. Where she was concerned, his wit failed him.)

  “…and an adept,” Ningauble concluded. “Yes, my sons, an adept—a master practitioner of blackest magic without faintest blink of light.”

  The Mouser started. Fafhrd groaned, “Again?”

  “Again,” Ningauble affirmed. “Though why, save for your connection with the Elder Gods, you should interest those most recondite of creatures, I cannot guess. They are not men who wittingly will stand in the glaringly illuminated foreground of history. They seek—”

  “But who is it?” Fafhrd interjected.

  “Be quiet, Mutilator of Rhetoric. They seek the shadows, and surely for good reason. They are the glorious amateurs of high magic, disdaining practical ends, caring only for the satisfaction of their insatiable curiosities, and therefore doubly dangerous. They are…”

  “But what’s his name?”

  “Silence, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases. They are in their fashion fearless, irreligiously considering themselve
s the coequals of destiny and having only contempt for the Demigoddess of Chance, the Imp of Luck, and the Demon of Improbability. In short, they are adversaries before whom you should certainly tremble and to whose will you should unquestionably bow.”

  “But his name, Father, his name!” Fafhrd burst out, and the Mouser, his impudence again in the ascendant, remarked, “It is he of the Sabihoon, is it not, Father?”

  “It is not. The Sabihoon are an ignorant fisher folk who inhabit the hither shore of the far lake and worship the beast god Wheen, denying all others,” a reply that tickled the Mouser, for to the best of his knowledge he had just invented the Sabihoon.

  “No, his name is…” Ningauble paused and began to chuckle. “I was forgetting that I must under no circumstances tell you his name.”

  Fafhrd jumped up angrily. “What?”

  “Yes, children,” said Ningauble, suddenly making his eye stalks staringly rigid, stern, and uncompromising. “And I must furthermore tell you that I can in no way help you in this matter…” (Fafhrd clenched his fists) “…and am very glad of it too…” (Fafhrd swore) “…for it seems to me that no more fitting punishment could have been devised for your abominable lecheries, which I have so often bemoaned…” (Fafhrd’s hand went to his sword hilt) “…in fact, if it had been up to me to chastise you for your manifold vices, I would have chosen the very same enchantment…” (But now he had gone too far; Fafhrd growled, “Oh, so it is you who are behind it!” ripped out his sword and began to advance slowly on the hooded figure) “…Yes, my children, you must accept your lot without rebellion or bitterness…” (Fafhrd continued to advance) “…Far better that you should retire from the world as I have and give yourselves to meditation and repentance…” (The sword, flickering with firelight, was only a yard away) “…Far better that you should live out the rest of this incarnation in solitude, each surrounded by his faithful band of sows or snails…” (The sword touched the ragged robe) “…devoting your remaining years to the promotion of a better understanding between mankind and the lower animals. However—” (Ningauble sighed and the sword hesitated) “…if it is still your firm and foolhardy intention to challenge this adept, I suppose I must aid you with what little advice I can give, though warning you that it will plunge you into maelstroms of trouble and lay upon you geases you will grow gray in fulfilling, and incidentally be the means of your deaths.”