Swords Against the Shadowland

"The tunnels below Lankhmar are not always so cramped," Demptha explained as he gave Fafhrd's arm a sympathetic pat. "Some, however, are worse."

They stopped talking then. Their small light quivered, intimidated by the blackness ahead, but the Mouser pricked the dark with the point of his rapier and pushed it back with each nervously determined step. He felt the weight of Ivrian's pearl on the back of his right hand where he had thrust it under his glove and thought of her down here somewhere with Malygris— and with something still more dreadful.

The tunnel merged into another, then another. At last Fafhrd could stand straight as he walked. He gave a soft cough, stifling it as best he could with his hand. "Were I not already at Death's door," he whispered, "the quailing in my heart would send me clawing right up to the surface world again."

The Mouser said nothing. The same crushing fear that had filled these passages before still permeated them. He could barely breathe, for the choking hand of it held him by the throat. Only the thought of Ivrian drew him on.

The softest weeping rose from Demptha. "My poor Jesane," he murmured. "Even with her brave heart, she must have run from this terror, abandoning her charges."

"It caught up with her," the Mouser said, tight-lipped.

Against the strangling dark, they pressed on. Demptha's weeping ceased as they emerged into a cavern. "Is this the way to the Temple of Hates?" the Mouser asked doubtfully, for it lacked the look of the cavern that led to that place.

Demptha moved past the Mouser, turning his gaze toward the high ceiling, then all around as he walked to the very edge of the lantern's light and touched a stalagmite that stood twice his height. He shook his head. "This is wrong," he said, and a new fear shadowed his face as he turned back toward the light. "Yet it can't be. We came by the proper route."

"What is this mist rising from the ground?" Fafhrd said apprehensively.

The Mouser fairly jumped as he glanced downward at a creeping vapor that curled around his boots. Everywhere he looked, as far as the lantern let him see, a fine cold smaze seeped up through the cavern floor and filtered into the air, diffusing the quality of the lantern's light, leeching away the faint warmth it offered.

The very walls seemed to retreat into the deepening darkness. The ceiling, too, arched away from vision. Still the vapor rose, growing thicker, hiding the floor and the tops of their feet, climbing their ankles and shin bones.

The Mouser shivered as he lifted the lantern higher. "I think the way lies there," he said, pointing to the rightward side of the cavern with his sword. "I'm sure I saw the opening of another tunnel."

Every sense screamed to turn away, but the Mouser fixed his gaze ahead, and his comrades followed. Could this be one of Malygris's illusions? 'he briefly wondered. Then he dismissed that consideration. Their true foe, he felt sure, still remained unknown— and unnamed.

To his small relief, the passage on the far side of the cavern lay exactly where he thought it should. Yet, as he shone the lantern's light upon its threshold, he hesitated, alerted by a shadow.

An emaciated figure lurched from the tunnel into the cavern. Bulging, jaundiced eyes glared with a horrible light from a thinly bearded face.

"Mish!" Demptha Negatarth cried over the Mouser's shoulder as he recognized his missing friend, and the Mouser also gaped with surprise—a mistake.

With a sweep of his arm, Mish knocked the Mouser's sword away. A hand of astonishing strength seized the Mouser's tunic and flung him crashing to the rocky ground. His head struck against a towering stalagmite, filling his eyes with sparks of colored fire. The lantern rattled loudly and rolled to a stop against a jutting stone; the wick hissed; veiled beneath cold white vapor, the quivering flame threatened to go out.

"Turn away!" Mish howled at the Mouser. Then his unnatural gaze locked on Demptha Negatarth. His hands shot out. Catching the old wizard by the throat, he squeezed. "Ten more!" he cried.

Fafhrd leaped around Demptha, who stood in his way. Graywand whisked from its sheath as he moved, and the blade flashed.

Mish screamed. Stumbling back, he held up twin stumps of severed arms. Again he screamed, and the sound of his pain echoed desperately against the walls of earth and stone.

Demptha screamed, too, and fell to the ground, wrestling with the hands that still stubbornly tried to throttle him.

Fafhrd struck again. Swinging with all his fear-driven might, he sliced off Mish's head and sent it smashing against the same stalagmite where the Mouser struggled to sit up. It landed in his gray-clad lap between his very knees.

A sound of repulsion gurgled in the Mouser's throat. Hurling the head away, he scrambled to save the lantern.