Swords Against the Shadowland

The Mouser hung suspended in a misty limbo, an impossible neverland without time or sensation, dimension or vista. A death-like chill rimed his senses. He saw nothing but gray vapor, heard no sound, smelled only the anaesthetic dampness, felt nothing but the cold.

Only one other thing touched his awareness—Malygris's curse. Like a sharp-toothed worm, it ate at his vitals with a voracious, desperate hunger. He felt it working faster, devouring him, as if it knew with some vague, obscene intelligence that its time was running out.

A soft wind blew through the void, tearing and scattering the fog. Pieces of mist ripped away and formed little whirling dervishes; thin vaporous wisps darted about briefly, like forlorn ghosts reluctant to quit a haunting. The rest of the fog rippled and fluttered like an unnatural veil as it slowly dissolved.

The world of Nehwon resolved itself under the Mouser's feet. Like a man waking from a long dream, he looked around. A veritable sea of tall grass waved before him. The stars—all his precious, familiar constellations—peppered the night sky. A deeply velvet, cobalt shimmer on the eastern horizon heralded the approach of dawn.

To his right, in the distance, he spied the yellow winking and twinkling of glow-wasps. Equally distant to his left stood the long black silhouette of Lankhmar’s walls.

Fafhrd spoke from behind him. "Dare we believe that we stand in the Great Salt Marsh?"

The Mouser didn't answer. He raised one incarnadined hand before his eyes. In the starlight, dripping Catsclaw glistened wetly in his fist. His once-gray glove, his sleeve, were black and sticky. Blood spotted his tunic, his trousers, and his cloak. A streak of moistness slowly dried on his left cheek.

A scream boiled up from deep inside. He fought to suppress it, but it rose, forced itself up to his lips. Still he resisted, muttering, "No! No!" The scream would not be denied.

Throat raw, he sank to his knees in the spongy marsh soil, vaguely aware of Fafhrd's comforting hands on his shoulders. In his mind, he saw Malygris's horror-stricken face at the moment of death, and he saw his own hand drenched in the wizard's blood. Revulsion filled him, that he had killed a helpless man, even one such as Malygris, who couldn't act to defend himself.

Yet, as he wept, he knew his tears were not for Malygris. "Ivrian," he whispered. "Ivrian!" Death had torn her from his side yet again. To see her, to hold her, and to lose her all over! How could a heart bear that?

Fafhrd pulled away, wracked by a fit of coughing. As if cold water had been thrown on the Mouser, he jumped to his feet. The Northerner stood a few paces off, bent double, hands braced weakly on knees. A thin black phlegm trailed from his lips to the grass.

With a handful of his gray cloak, the Mouser wiped Fafhrd's mouth. "You know I'm not a superstitious man," Fafhrd muttered.

"Of course not," the Mouser answered as he wiped the rest of his partner's sweating face. His own concerns thrust aside, he repressed a shiver of fear as he cared for the big Northerner. Fafhrd burned with fever; his garments were soaked with perspiration, and a constant, unceasing quiver shook that massive frame. "You're a paragon of enlightened civilization," he added.

Fafhrd swallowed, unable to rise from his bent posture. "If you're going to insult me," he said, his voice little more than a croak, "then we'll part company right here."

"Don't even think of that, Fafhrd Red-Hair," the Mouser answered bluntly, and again the thought that had raced through his mind so often of late struck him again: what would I do without half my soul?

"You know I'm not a superstitious man," Fafhrd repeated as he pushed one hand into the purse on his belt. "But if I had a tik-penny, I'd buy a favor from the gods." He drew out a handful of glimmering rings and necklaces. "I don't think there's any luck in a dead woman's treasure."

"Then buy your favor with that," the Mouser said grimly.

Fafhrd's fist tightened about the jewels, and he closed his eyes in prayer. Stiffly, painfully, he straightened. Opening his eyes, he drew back his left arm, turned toward the cobalt glow of the approaching sun, and let fly. The weird pre-dawn light caught the gems and bits of gold and silver as they arced high above the marsh. For an instant, the air flashed and sparkled.

If the gems fell to earth, or if some divine hand snatched them in mid-flight, the Mouser could not swear, for something else distracted him. Against that strange velvet blueness, he spied a distant silhouette, a vague half-glimpsed shape, there for a moment, then gone. Yet his heart leaped with hope.

Still clutching bloody Catsclaw, he put his clean arm around Fafhrd. "Come on," he urged, supporting his friend. "Come on, walk with me."

"Where?" Fafhrd asked, drawing himself erect, doing his best to hide the pain on his pale face.

"Toward the sun," the Mouser said, starting off with one eye on his partner.