by Fritz Leiber
So it came about, as it so often does, that the Mouser's efforts to avert the evil nightfall only made it darker and stormier when it finally came down.
* * *
When at last that penultimate evening did arrive, signalized by a final warning sent Pulg by Basharat, the Mouser, who had been hoping all along for some wonderful last-minute inspiration that never came, took what may seem to some a coward's way out. Making use of the beggar girl whom he had named Lilyblack, and certain other of his creatures, he circulated a rumor that the Treasurer of the Temple of Aarth was preparing to decamp in a rented black sloop across the Inner Sea, taking with him all funds and ample valuables, including a set of black-pearl-crusted altar furnishings, gift of the wife of the High Overlord, on which the split had not yet been made with Pulg. He timed the rumor so that it would return to him, by unimpeachable channels, just after he had set out for Issek's spot with four well-armed bullies.
It may be noted, in passing, that Aarth's Treasurer actually was in monetary hot waters and really had rented a black sloop. Which proved not only that the Mouser used good sound fabric for his fabrications, but also that Bwadres had by landlords’ and bankers’ standards made a very sound choice in selecting Issek's temple-to-be — whether by chance or by some strange shrewdness co-dwelling with his senile stubbornness.
The Mouser could not divert his whole expeditionary force, for Bwadres must be saved from Basharat. However, he was able to split it with the almost certain knowledge that Pulg would consider his action the best strategy available at the moment. Three of the bullies he sent on with firm instructions to bring Bwadres to account, while he himself raced off with minimum guard to intercept the supposedly fleeing and loot-encumbered treasurer.
Of course the Mouser could have made himself part of the Bwadres-party, but that would have meant he would have had personally to best Fafhrd or be bested by him, and while the Mouser wanted to do everything possible for his friend he wanted to do just a little bit more than that (he thought) for his own security.
Some, as we have suggested, may think that in taking this way out the Gray Mouser was throwing his friend to the wolves. However, it must always be remembered that the Mouser knew Fafhrd.
The three bullies, who did not know Fafhrd (the Mouser had selected them for that reason), were pleased with the turn of events. An independent commission always meant the chance of some brilliant achievement and so perhaps of promotion. They waited for the first break between services, when there was inevitably considerable passing about and jostling. Then one, who had a small ax in his belt, went straight for Bwadres and his cask, which the holy man also used as altar, draping it for the purpose with the sacred garlic bag. Another drew sword and menaced Fafhrd, keeping sound distance from and careful watch on the giant. The third, adopting the jesting, rough-and-ready manner of the master of the show in a bawdy house, spoke ringing warnings to the crowd and kept a reasonably watchful eye on them. The folk of Lankhmar are so bound by tradition that it was unthinkable that they would interfere with any activities as legitimate as those of an extortioner — the Number One Extortioner, too — even in defense of a most favored priest, but there are occasional foreigners and madmen to be dealt with (though in Lankhmar even the madmen generally respect the traditions).
No one in the congregation saw the crucial thing that happened next, for their eyes were all on the first bully, who was lightly choking Bwadres with one hand while pointing his ax at the cask with the other. There was a cry of surprise and a clatter. The second bully, lunged forward toward Fafhrd, had dropped his sword and was shaking his hand as if it pained him. Without haste Fafhrd picked him up by the slack of his garments between his shoulder blades, reached the first bully in two giant strides, slapped the ax from his hand, and picked him up likewise.
It was an impressive sight: the giant, gaunt-cheeked, bearded acolyte wearing his long robe of undyed camel's hair (recent gift of a votary) and standing with knees bent and feet wide-planted as he held aloft to either side a squirming bully.
But although indeed a most impressive tableau, it presented a made-to-order opening for the third bully, who instantly unsheathed his scimitar and, with an acrobat's smile and wave to the crowd, lunged toward the apex of the obtuse angle formed by the juncture of Fafhrd's legs.
The crowd shuddered and squealed with the thought of the poignancy of the blow.
There was a muffled thud. The third bully dropped his sword. Without changing his stance Fafhrd swept together the two bullies he was holding so that their heads met with a loud thunk. With an equally measured movement he swept them apart again and sent them sprawling to either side, unconscious, among the onlookers. Then stepping forward, still without seeming haste, he picked up the third bully by neck and crotch and pitched him a considerably greater distance into the crowd, where he bowled over two of Basharat's henchmen who had been watching the proceedings with great interest.
There was absolute silence for three heartbeats, then the crowd applauded rapturously. While the tradition-bound Lankhmarians thought it highly proper for extortioners to extort, they also considered it completely in character for a strange acolyte to work miracles, and they never omitted to clap a good performance.
Bwadres, fingering his throat and still gasping a little, smiled with simple pleasure and when Fafhrd finally acknowledged the applause by dropping down cross-legged to the cobbles and bowing his head, the old priest launched instantly into a sermon in which he further electrified the crowd by several times hinting that, in his celestial realms, Issek was preparing to visit Lankhmar in person. His acolyte's routing of the three evil men Bwadres attributed to the inspiration of Issek's might — to be interpreted as a sort of foretaste of the god's approaching reincarnation.
The most significant consequence of this victory of the doves over the hawks was a little midnight conference in the back room of the Inn of the Silver Eel, where Pulg first warmly praised and then coolly castigated the Gray Mouser.
He praised the Mouser for intercepting the Treasurer of Aarth, who it turned out had just been embarking on the black sloop, not to flee Lankhmar, though, but only to spend a water-guarded weekend with several riotous companions and one Ilala, High Priestess of the goddess of the same name. However, he had actually taken along several of the black-pearl-crusted altar furnishings, apparently as a gift for the High Priestess, and the Mouser very properly confiscated them before wishing the holy band the most exquisite of pleasures on their holiday. Pulg judged that the Mouser's loot amounted to just about twice the usual cut, which seemed a reasonable figure to cover the Treasurer's irregularity.
He rebuked the Mouser for failing to warn the three bullies about Fafhrd and omitting to instruct them in detail on how to deal with the giant.
“They're your boys, son, and I judge you by their performance,” Pulg told the Mouser in fatherly matter-of-fact tones. “To me, if they stumble, you flop. You know this Northerner well, son; you should have had them trained to meet his sleights. You solved your main problem well, but you slipped on an important detail. I expect good strategy from my lieutenants, but I demand flawless tactics."
The Mouser bowed his head.
“You and this Northerner were comrades once,” Pulg continued. He leaned forward across the dinted table and drew down his lower lip. “You're not still soft on him, are you, son?"
The Mouser arched his eyebrows, flared his nostrils and slowly swung his face from side to side.
Pulg thoughtfully scratched his nose. “So we come tomorrow night,” he said. “Must make an example of Bwadres — an example that will stick like Mingol glue. I'd suggest having Grilli hamstring the Northerner at the first onset. Can't kill him — he's the one that brings in the money. But with ankle tendons cut he could still stump around on his hands and knees and be in some ways an even better drawing card. How's that sound to you?"
The Mouser slitted his eyes in thought for three breaths. Then, “Bad,” he said boldly. “It gripe
s me to admit it, but this Northerner sometimes conjures up battle-sleights that even I can't be sure of countering — crazy berserk tricks born of sudden whim that no civilized man can anticipate. Chances are Grilli could nick him, but what if he didn't? Here's my reed — it lets you rightly think that I may still be soft on the man, but I give it because it's my best reed: let me get him drunk at nightfall. Dead drunk. Then he's out of the way for certain."
Pulg frowned. “Sure you can deliver on that, son? They say he's forsworn booze. And he sticks to Bwadres like a giant squid."
“I can detach him,” the Mouser said. “And this way we don't risk spoiling him for Bwadres’ show. Battle's always uncertain. You may plan to hock a man and then have to cut his throat."
Pulg shook his head. “We also leave him fit to tangle with our collectors the next time they come for the cash. Can't get him drunk every time we pick up the split. Too complicated. And looks very weak."
“No need to,” the Mouser said confidently. “Once Bwadres starts paying, the Northerner will go along."
Pulg continued to shake his head. “You're guessing, son,” he said. “Oh, to the best of your ability, but still guessing. I want this deal bagged up strongly. An example that will stick, I said. Remember, son, the man we're really putting on this show for tomorrow night is Basharat. He'll be there, you can bet on it, though standing in the last row, I imagine — did you hear how your Northerner dumped two of his boys? I liked that.” He grinned widely, then instantly grew serious again. “So we'll do it my way, eh? Grilli's very sure."
The Mouser shrugged once, deadpan. “If you say so. Of course, some Northerners suicide when crippled. I don't think he would, but he might. Still, even allowing for that, I'd say our plan has four chances in five of working out perfectly. Four in five."
Pulg frowned furiously, his rather piggy red-rimmed eyes fixed on the Mouser. Finally he said, “Sure you can get him drunk, son? Five in five?"
“I can do it,” the Mouser said. He had thought of a half dozen additional arguments in favor of his plan, but he did not utter them. He did not even add, “Six in six,” as he was tempted to. He was learning.
Pulg suddenly leaned back in his chair and laughed, signing that the business part of their conference was over. He tweaked the naked girl standing beside him. “Wine!” he ordered. “No, not that sugary slop I keep for customers — didn't Zizzi instruct you? — but the real stuff from behind the green idol. Come, son, pledge me a cup, and then tell me a little about this Issek. I'm interested in him. I'm interested in ‘em all.” He waved loosely at the darkly gleaming shelves of religious curios in the handsomely carved traveling case rising beyond the end of the table. He frowned a very different frown from his business one. “There are more things in this world than we understand,” he said sententiously. “Did you know that, son?” The Great Man shook his head, again very differently. He was swiftly sinking into his most deeply metaphysical mood. “Makes me wonder, sometimes. You and I, son, know that these" — He waved again at the case—"are toys. But the feelings that men have toward them… they're real, eh? — and they can be strange. Easy to understand part of those feelings — brats shivering at bogies, fools gawking at a show and hoping for blood or a bit of undressing — but there's another part that's strange. The priests bray nonsense, the people groan and pray, and then something comes into existence. I don't know what that something is — I wish I did, I think — but it's strange.” He shook his head. “Makes any man wonder. So drink your wine, son — watch his cup, girl, and don't let it empty — and talk to me about Issek. I'm interested in ‘em all, but right now I'd like to hear about him."
He did not in any way hint that for the past two months he had been watching the services of Issek for at least five nights a week from behind a veiled window in various lightless rooms along the Street of the Gods. And that was something that not even the Mouser knew about Pulg.
* * *
So as a pinkly opalescent, rose-ribboned dawn surged up the sky from the black and stinking Marsh, the Mouser sought out Fafhrd. Bwadres was still snoring in the gutter, embracing Issek's cask, but the big barbarian was awake and sitting on the curb, hand grasping his chin under his beard. Already a few children had gathered at a respectful distance, though no one else was abroad.
“That the one they can't stab or cut?” the Mouser heard one of the children whisper.
“That's him,” another answered.
“I'd like to sneak up behind him and stick him with this pin."
“I'll bet you would!"
“I guess he's got iron skin,” said a tiny girl with large eyes.
The Mouser smothered a guffaw, patted that last child on the head, and then advanced straight to Fafhrd and, with a grimace at the stained refuse between the cobbles, squatted fastidiously on his hams. He still could do it easily, though his new belly made a considerable pillow in his lap. He said without preamble, speaking too low for the children to hear, “Some say the strength of Issek lies in love, some say in honesty, some say in courage, some say in stinking hypocrisy. I believe I have guessed the one true answer. If I am right, you will drink wine with me. If I am wrong, I will strip to my loincloth, declare Issek my god and master, and serve as acolyte's acolyte. Is it a wager?"
Fafhrd studied him. “It is done,” he said.
The Mouser advanced his right hand and lightly rapped Fafhrd's body twice through the soiled camel's hair — once in the chest, once between the legs. Each time there was a faint thud with just the hint of aclank.
“The cuirass of Mingsward and the groin-piece of Gortch,” the Mouser pronounced. “Each heavily padded to keep them from ringing. Therein lie Issek's strength and invulnerability. They wouldn't have fit you six months ago."
Fafhrd sat as one bemused. Then his face broke into a large grin. “You win,” he said. “When do I pay?"
“This very afternoon,” the Mouser whispered, “when Bwadres eats and takes his forty winks.” He rose with a light grunt and made off, stepping daintily from cobble to cobble. Soon the Street of the Gods grew moderately busy and for awhile Fafhrd was surrounded by a scattering of the curious, but it was a very hot day for Lankhmar. By midafternoon the Street was deserted; even the children had sought shade.
Bwadres droned through the Acolyte's Litany twice with Fafhrd, then called for food by touching his hand to his mouth — it was his ascetic custom always to eat at this uncomfortable time rather than in the cool of the evening.
Fafhrd went off and shortly returned with a large bowl of fish stew. Bwadres blinked at the size of it, but tucked it away, belched, and curled around the cask after an admonition to Fafhrd. He was snoring almost immediately.
A hiss sounded from the low wide archway behind them. Fafhrd stood up and quietly moved into the shadows of the portico. The Mouser gripped his arm and guided him toward one of several curtained doorways.
“Your sweat's a flood, my friend,” he said softly. “Tell me, do you really wear the armor from prudence, or is it a kind of metal hair-shirt?"
Fafhrd did not answer. He blinked at the curtain the Mouser drew aside. “I don't like this,” he said. “It's a house of assignation. I may be seen and then what will dirty-minded people think?"
“Hung for the kid, hung for the goat,” the Mouser said lightly. “Besides, you haven't been seen — yet. In with you!"
Fafhrd complied. The heavy curtains swung to behind them, leaving the room in which they stood lit only by high louvers. As Fafhrd squinted into the semidarkness, the Mouser said, “I've paid the evening's rent on this place. It's private, it's near. None will know. What more could you ask?"
“I guess you're right,” Fafhrd said uneasily. “But you've spent too much rent money. Understand, my little man, I can have only one drink with you. You tricked me into that — after a fashion you did — but I pay. But only one cup of wine, little man. We're friends, but we have our separate paths to tread. So only one cup. Or at most two."
“Naturally,�
�� purred the Mouser.
The objects in the room grew in the swimming gray blank of Fafhrd's vision. There was an inner door (also curtained), a narrow bed, a basin, a low table and stool, and on the floor beside the stool several portly short-necked large-eared shapes. Fafhrd counted them and once again his face broke into a large grin.
“Hung for a kid, you said,” he rumbled softly in his old bass voice, continuing to eye the stone bottles of vintage. “I see four kids, Mouser.” The Mouser echoed himself.
“Naturally."
By the time the candle the Mouser had fetched was guttering in a little pool, Fafhrd was draining the third “kid.” He held it upended above his head and caught the last drop, then batted it lightly away like a large feather-stuffed ball. As its shards exploded from the floor, he bent over from where he was sitting on the bed, bent so low that his beard brushed the floor, and clasped the last “kid” with both hands and lifted it with exaggerated care onto the table. Then taking up a very short-bladed knife and keeping his eyes so close to his work that they were inevitably crossed, he picked every last bit of resin out of the neck, flake by tiny flake.
Fafhrd no longer looked at all like an acolyte, even a misbehaving one. After finishing the first “kid” he had stripped for action. His camel's hair robe was flung into one corner of the room, the pieces of padded armor into another. Wearing only a once-white loincloth, he looked like some lean doomful berserk, or a barbaric king in a bath-house. For some time no light had been coming through the louvers. Now there was a little — the red glow of torches. The noises of night had started and were on the increase — thin laughter, hawkers’ cries, various summonses to prayer… and Bwadres calling “Fafhrd!'’ again and again in his raspy long-carrying voice. But that last had stopped some time ago.