Swords Against the Shadowland

A spark leaped from those bands, then another, each touching Sheelba and Fafhrd, and the arcanely heatless flames spiraled around and around them. Within those bands, Fafhrd straightened; he drew back his shoulders, and lifted his head, and when he looked across the room at the Mouser, all pain was gone from his bright green eyes.

Within his own body, the Gray Mouser felt a sharp-toothed worm die. For the life of him, though, and for the lives he had won, he could not rejoice. Even as vitality and renewed life flowed back into his frame, his thoughts turned to Ivrian. Ivrian, who was dead. He felt her absence and the distance between them like a horrible, heart-breaking gulf.

He opened his eyes again. Fafhrd stood at the hut’s doorway staring outward. "Come and see this," he said quietly to the Mouser.

"Go on," Sheelba urged. In one hand, he held the jug Fafhrd had fetched. With the other, he lifted the lid of the trunk where he kept his wine. "I have a much better vintage than this, and we have much to celebrate."

"We have nothing to celebrate," the Mouser said bitterly. "But bring your wine. I need a drink."

The Mouser went to the doorway and pushed aside the covering. Fafhrd was already climbing down the ladder, but he kept his gaze toward Lankhmar's distant walls as he descended.

The Mouser leaned in the doorway, beholding a sight like none he had ever seen. Nor would he ever, he knew, see another like it.

Arching across the walls, the spires, and minarets of Nehwon's most ancient and mysterious city, a shimmering aurora blazed against the star-speckled heaven, neatly dividing the black of night in the west from the creeping light of dawn. Brighter, far more spectacular than the northern lights of Fafhrd's cold homeland, more awesome than any common rainbow, it floated in the air like a burning promise that Malygris's curse was forever ended.

A tear rolled down the Gray Mouser's cheek. One tear for all the dead. For Jesane and Demptha Negatarth. For Sadaster and Laurian. For a little blond girl with a straw poppet. For his beloved Ivrian.

He brushed the tear away before Sheelba could see it as he felt the wizard come up behind him. "You used me," he said coldly. "Death used me."

"Nor is that the end of it," Sheelba answered, not without some sympathy in his voice. "Death is only Death after all, and is used in turn by greater powers. That's what truly frightens you. You think you have glimpsed those greater powers."

"Is nothing we do of our own choosing?" the Mouser demanded. "Are we just pawns advanced or sacrificed at Fate's whim?"

"Climb down," Sheelba suggested patiently. He sloshed the bottle of wine he held. "We can all use a drink."

The Mouser obeyed. Weary in body and spirit, he went to Fafhrd's side. It was where he belonged, where he was meant to be. Fafhrd, for whom he would do anything, risk anything.

But did he belong at Fafhrd's side because he chose to be there? Did he have any say at all in where he went, what he did, who he called comrade?

He looked at Fafhrd with blackly resentful eyes.

"I'm thinking of Vlana," Fafhrd whispered, not noticing the hate-filled look of his partner. "The night she first came to Cold Corner with a troupe of actors and dancers, an aurora hung like a curtain in the sky. We joked once that it was the curtain going up on the stage-play that our lives together would make." He paused, though his gaze continued fixed on the blazing vision over Lankhmar. "In my homeland, auroras are considered omens. I've sometimes wondered if the aurora that burned that night over my lovemaking with Vlana was for good or ill."

The hate and anger faded from the Mouser's face. "I know you're not a superstitious man ..." he said.

"I'm not!" Fafhrd interrupted defensively.

"Then forget omens," the Mouser said. "Just cling to Vlana's memory. Hold tight to it, Fafhrd. Keep it like a treasure, or the gods will steal it away from you." He cast his gaze upward.

No sky had ever been more beautiful, or seemed to him more alien. Through that shimmering curtain that hung high above the world like the drapery of some cosmic proscenium he glimpsed subtle shadows and a hint of puppeteers' strings.

"Drink," Sheelba said, wiping the back of his hand over the lower part of his unseen face as he passed the bottle of wine to Fafhrd. "The gods never give thanks to mortals. Such is not the nature of the world. But if it means anything, I thank you."

Fafhrd took a long pull from the bottle and swallowed noisily. "Only three words mean more," he said, passing the bottle to the Mouser.

Sheelba folded his hands inside his sleeves. "And they are?"

"I love you," the Mouser answered somberly. Closing his eyes, he conjured the face of his one true love and drank a deep, final toast to her. "At least I had the chance to apologize and ask Ivrian's forgiveness for not being at her side when she died."

Fafhrd nodded gravely. "And I had the same chance with Vlana. Perhaps I can at last let go of that guilt and pain."