Swords Against the Shadowland (Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar) (23 page)

Letting out a slow breath, the Mouser uncurled his fingers from around Scalpel's hilt. The look of fear on Jesane's face still lingered in his mind. Even as they resumed walking, he cast a sheepish glance back over his shoulder, noting with some relief that Nuulpha did the same.

What dangers lurked in these tunnels, he wondered, to cause his comrades to start at the smallest sounds? No rats, he remembered nervously, casting his gaze upon the floor. Some ravenous creature, then, prowling the black maze? Or creatures? Though the question gnawed at him, it suddenly seemed wisest to preserve the silence.

Jesane led them through yet another archway and into another tunnel. The way twisted through a natural cave, then entered another man-made passage. Abruptly, a staircase carved crudely out of the rock presented itself. At the top stood a door painted with the same ominous sign the Mouser had seen in another tunnel.

"What is that?" the Mouser dared to whisper as Jesane stepped aside. Drawing his sword, Nuulpha moved to the fore and slammed the pommel against the stout wood.

Jesane stared at the symbol. In the wavering lantern-light, the leering face seemed to regard them with subtle hatred. "No one remembers," she answered simply, tearing her gaze away.

Nuulpha moved down a step as a heavy bolt slid back on the other side, and the door opened into the tunnel. A dim light oozed outward, mingling with Jesane's lantern to brighten the gloom. An emaciated, thinly bearded face, large eyes bulging from shrunken sockets, cheekbones stretching the sallow skin, peered around the door at them.

The Mouser caught his breath at sight of the corpse-like being, and his hand shot downward once again to grasp his sword.

Those large eyes fixed on the Mouser. A lipless gash of a mouth moved. "You got him."

Nuulpha nodded as he caught the edge of the door and opened it wider. "Yes, Mish, now let us in."

The man named Mish—for the Mouser saw that, indeed, it was only a man and not some litch or revenant—moved back beyond the door and took down a torch from a sconce on the wall. A small stool beneath the sconce suggested Mish had been waiting for them.

When they were all across the threshold, Nuulpha tugged the door closed and threw the iron bolt that sealed it shut. Jesane, visibly relaxing, set her lantern upon the stool and brushed a hand through her hair. The slightest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth as she removed the quarrel from her crossbow, returned it to a small quiver on her hip, and uncocked the bowstring.

The Mouser watched her with new interest. That faint smile offered the first hint of her true beauty. Her hair shone like liquid gold as she bent to retrieve the lantern again.

Mish, with his torch, led the way up the corridor. Stone tiles formed the floor, and the walls, though ancient, glimmered smoothly under the flow of the light. Making a sharp right turn, then a left, they approached a solid wall—a seeming dead end. Undaunted, Mish put one foot against the lower left corner of the barrier and depressed a barely visible stone. A narrow section of the wall slid back.

Soft light, cook smells, and the sounds of voices spilled out. With widening eyes the Mouser stepped beyond the barrier into a vast chamber filled with slender white columns, each lit with a torch or lantern, and scores of people.

Unlacing her cloak with one hand, Jesane smiled as she greeted a gnarly old man whose only garment was a dirty loincloth. Bowing, obviously pleased to see her, he took her crossbow and held out his other hand for the black garment.

A small throng quickly gathered around them, but farther into the chamber more hung back, watching uncertainly. Men and women of varying ages, small children—most bore the marks and trappings of poverty and deprivation. Their faces were gaunt, and rags made their clothing. Some reclining on pallets strained weakly to rise up and see who had come from the tunnels. Others continued disinterestedly at small tasks.

Standing near the Mouser, Mish covered his mouth with a hand and suddenly coughed. Somewhere in the chamber, someone echoed him. A low moan followed that. In the farthest corner, a child wept softly while a woman's weary voice cooed a quiet lullaby.

The Mouser caught Nuulpha's arm and gripped it, struck by the horror he saw before him. "Are they all sick?"

With stiffened jaw and clenched teeth, Nuulpha nodded. "This is Malygris's legacy."

The throng parted to reveal the new speaker, an old man with dark, glittering eyes under white, bushy brows, with a snowy, unkempt beard that covered his chin. Torchlight gleamed on his pale, shirtless torso, on blue-veined skin thin as parchment. He extended a hand; the fingers, gnarled and brittle as dead twigs, trembled.

Before him, the Mouser realized, stood the leader of this troubled band. Gently, he shook the offered hand as he stared into those dark eyes to see the power and wisdom they contained. "I think I have you to thank for my rescue," he said with a short bow.

The old man laughed. "Oh no!" he said. "You owe the corporal for that."

"Over drinks," Nuulpha reminded, grinning. "You promised me a great ballad if I ever hauled your fat out of Rokkarsh's dungeon. So when word spread through the garrison that a little man dressed all in gray had broken into and burned one of the Forbidden Towers, I saw my chance to be immortalized in song."

The Mouser grew suddenly glum. Fafhrd, not he, was the singer and composer of songs. Fafhrd would write a ballad worthy of Nuulpha. Of course, he'd make Jesane the centerpiece of it—that was Fafhrd. But it would be a song to make an audience laugh and applaud. The Mouser, himself, had no bardic skill, certainly none to match that of his northern companion.

"Where is your companion?" the old man asked suddenly, his gaze fixed steadfastly on the Mouser's face.

The Mouser glared sharply at the old man. Those dark, glittering eyes locked with his; a vague sense of vertigo washed over him, and for a moment, he felt as if he might fall. They were wells, those eyes, deep yawning wells. The Mouser blinked and backed half a step.

"Who are you?" he murmured suspiciously.

The old man did not bow, but lowered his eyes politely. "I am called Demptha Negatarth," he answered.

"The jeweler on Temple Street?" the Mouser rubbed his chin. "I have heard of you and that you also dabble in sorcery."

Demptha Negatarth forced a tight smile as he held up his brittle, nearly fleshless fingers. "And so, like most others here, I have fallen victim to Malygris's legacy." Lowering one hand, he beckoned with the other for the Mouser to follow. "But you regard me suspiciously, wondering how I know of your friend. I could confess that Nuulpha told me, but in truth I think we have been expecting both of you for some time."

Jesane took his arm, and with feeble steps he led the way to the far side of the chamber, weaving carefully among the pallets, greeting the sick with small, reassuring nods. The Mouser stared at them, feeling a growing weakness in his stomach. Some were covered with sores and strange black patches. Many appeared wasted, starved. A man too weak to hold up his own head coughed bits of sputum and mucus while a tearful woman tried to soothe him.

Blackened samovars perched over pots of hot coals poured pungent, herb-flavored steam into the air.

"Parents," Demptha Negatarth whispered to the Mouser as he nodded toward an elderly couple who knelt laving water over a sweating younger man. He nodded to a man who smeared salve over a young woman’s sores. "Relatives," he said. He paused to lay a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of a woman who merely sat holding another woman's hand. "Lovers," he whispered.

But the Mouser barely heard. A numbing cold shivered through him. Wrapped in a tiny blanket, a beautiful little girl-child slept fitfully, her skin pale in the lamplight, her brow beaded with droplets. A strand of blond hair clung wetly to one cheek. Tucked neatly in the crook of one arm, she held a familiar straw dolly.

"She has no one," Demptha Negatarth said, coming to his side. "We found her an hour ago unconscious in an alley. Perhaps we'll locate relatives in time."

"Or perhaps not?" the Mouser said grimly.

Again, Demptha turned that potent gaze upon the Mouser. "You know her?"

The Mouser shook his head, fighting the emotion that tried to choke him. "No," he answered. "She came into the Silver Eel a few nights ago selling dollies."

Nuulpha bent down beside the child for a closer look. "I remember," he said as he brushed the strand from her cheek and wiped her face with a corner of the blanket. "You bought them all—her poppets, she called them."

The Mouser's hands clenched into tight fists. "How can Rokkarsh turn his back on this? How can he turn a blind eye?"

Jesane spoke with surprising bitterness. "Since when did an Overlord, or any of the Great Families, give a damn for the common people and the poor?" She turned to the rest of the room, waving her arms as she shouted. "Be quiet, everyone! Be quiet! Listen!"

  
Except for a muffled cough, the entire chamber grew silent.

As if from far away a softly merry music came. The play of pipes and the beat of a dumbek swelled, but distantly, then faded only to be replaced by lutes and tambourines and bells. Those, too, faded against the swell of laughter and voices and more music.

A hacking cough in the chamber set off a chorus of coughing. Someone began to cry, and someone else cooed gentle words of consolation.

Jesane turned back to the Mouser, her eyes burning with fury. "That is the Midsummer Festival above our heads. From hundreds of miles around, people are pouring into Lankhmar, bringing goods to trade, spending money, pouring untold wealth into city tills and coffers. But should word spread that a plague held sway in Lankhmar—festival or no festival, do you think they would come then?"

Nuulpha rose, his face appearing suddenly weary, his demeanor haggard. "Rokkarsh has turned no blind eye, my friend," he said. "People have been quietly disappearing in Lankhmar for some time. A few, we have brought down here to care for in hidden safety. More lie in the Overlord's secret lime pits far outside the city, and any who dare to hint or speak of a plague are swiftly seized. They, too, disappear."

Trembling with anger, Jesane raised a hand to her mouth, turned her head away, and coughed.

With a worried look, Demptha Negatarth took her hand in his and patted it. "Come, daughter. Rest awhile and have some broth. You've done enough this day."

"There's more to do," she said stubbornly, freeing her hand and brushing back her hair. Still, she allowed a tight smile. "But I'll take the broth."

The Mouser watched as she left them. A few paces away, she paused beside a column to speak to someone.

A shadow of a memory flitted through his mind—something in the juxtaposition of her silhouette beside that column. He tried to grasp it again, but ghost-like, it slipped away.

"Your daughter?" the Mouser said, turning back to Demptha Negatarth.

A deep grief settled over the old man's features. "Tainted by my magicks," he said in a voice thick with regret. "This illness has changed her, made her harder and stronger than most men. Yet, I am more proud of her than I have ever been."

The Mouser nodded, turning for one more glimpse of her. "Grief is nothing if not a sword," he said.

Demptha Negatarth tugged at the Mouser's sleeve. "Grief we have in plenty," he said, leading the Mouser again toward a long table at the farthest end of the chamber. "It is you, I think, who will provide the sword."

On the table lay a deck of Lankhmaran tarot cards. Two cards, separated from the rest, lay exposed faces up. As Demptha Negatarth gestured, the Mouser bent for a closer look.

"I believe they represent you and your comrade," Demptha Negatarth pronounced.

But the Mouser wasn't looking at the cards. He ran a hand along the table, and again memory flashed through his mind. He stared up at the low ceiling, listened with straining ears to the music from the street far above. Turning, the torches and lamps seemed to dim as he gazed around. He remembered the columns, remembered the music, the chamber. The table—he remembered alembics and decanters and phials, a red smoke.
 

  
Malygris.

"The Temple of Hates," he whispered.

Demptha Negatarth and Nuulpha regarded him queerly. "What?" the old man said.

"The Temple of Hates," the Mouser repeated, recalling all the details of his dream. "This is where it all began." He leaned on the table, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the dream washed over him again, and the others backed a step away, leaving him alone, as if afraid to interrupt something they didn't understand.

When it was over, when the dream passed, he opened his eyes again, but he saw nothing, nothing but the pair of cards in the center of that table where foul instruments once had set, where evil, midwifed by a madman, had sprung to writhing life.

Reaching out, he touched the cards. His own shadow threw a cloak of darkness over them, and he turned them toward the light until he could see them clearly.

Cards of vengeance—

Cards of retribution—

The Knight and Knave of Swords.