Swords Against the Shadowland

But when the Mouser turned, something did block their way. Limned by the dim glow of the campfire, an old thatched hut stood on tall, stilted legs. The brittle straw that made its roof jutted up like hair on a wild man's head, and the black, blanket-covered door seemed to yawn like a toothless mouth.

The Mouser rubbed his eyes. Had he been so busy with his stargazing, or had the night been so dark that he had missed this sight before? The hairs prickling on the back of his neck, he slipped his sword, Scalpel, from its mouseskin sheath. The slender blade gleamed redly in the light of the coals.

"Either I have lost both booty and senses in the same evening," the Mouser said softly, "or that hut was not there a moment ago."

From within the hut came a muffled coughing and hacking. A barely perceived hand, more blackened bone than flesh, or so it seemed in the gloom, drew back the curtain draping the entrance. Like a slow-moving shadow, a cowled and black-robed figure emerged. It climbed down a rickety ladder, pausing after each labored step, to the ground. Reaching the bottom, it surrendered to a brief coughing fit. Then, the stooped figure shambled toward them.

From across the campfire's coals, it looked up. There was nothing to see inside that cowl, but a rasping, almost serpentine voice issued forth as the creature introduced itself.

"I am Sheelba."

The Mouser lifted the point of his sword. "This is Scalpel," he said, adding as his other hand touched the hilt of his dagger, "and this is Catsclaw. Come closer if you would make their more intimate acquaintance."

Fafhrd held his own huge blade level with the Mouser's. "I can smell a woman or a wizard a mile away," he said, scowling, "and your perfume is no dainty orchid juice."

From out of nowhere came a wind that blew through the coals of the campfire, snatching hot sparks and glowing ash into the air. A spinning vortex swiftly formed about the Mouser and Fafhrd. Like angry, swarming insects the burning bits and pieces flew around and around.

Then, just as suddenly, the wind ceased, and the coals settled harmlessly back to their original place, and the campfire was just a campfire once more.

A fit of coughing wracked the creature that called itself Sheelba. "Now that we have each displayed our manhoods," he said quietly, "let us speak of dreams and the reason you find yourselves once more in Lankhmar."

Sensing no further immediate threat, the Mouser lowered his weapon. The creature plainly desired to talk, rather than fight, and there was something almost pathetic in its uncontrollable coughing and its bent, weakened posture. "I gather," he said at last, "you are the source and cause of both."

Sheelba nodded. "I sent the dream to occupy and divert your minds while I transported your sleeping forms across the great vastness of space. The story it tells is a true one, but there is more, much more, for you to learn.

"Malygris killed Sadaster," Fafhrd said. The Northerner squatted down on his haunches and leaned on his sword as he stared across the coals at Sheelba. His eyes gleamed, and his face shone weirdly in the dim, ruddy light.

Sheelba’s robed form seemed to shake and tremble, but whether from anger, fear, or ill health, the Mouser could not tell.

"Ah, he fell to a subtle and masterful spell," Sheelba said with grudging admiration. "It should have been beyond Malygris's meager talents, but jealousy and hatred drove him to surpass himself. Sadaster was near death before he even realized the cause of his affliction."

"I saw Sadaster die," Fafhrd said, grimly remembering his part of the dream. "Some hideous illness seemed to rot him from the inside out. At the end, he was no more than a living skeleton, and finally not even a living one."

A bitter note sounded in Sheelba’s voice when he spoke. "That is the beauty and horror of Malygris's work," he said. "It begins as a little cough—just a little thing. Sadaster could not defend himself, because he didn't know he was under attack until the spell had already touched him." Sheelba’s voice caught, and the wizard hesitated before finding strength to continue. "Would that it had ended there," he said. "Revenge is, after all, a thing understandable."

The Mouser eyed the creature before him with suspicion. "Malygris's black art has touched you, too," he said warily.

Hearing, Fafhrd rose slowly to his full seven-foot height. "It's no sickness that saps your vitality, stranger?" he said. "But evil Lankhmaran magic?"

Sheelba raised a withered fist and shook it at the sky. "Malygris was brilliant," he hissed, "but utterly inept. He had no true conception of what he had created. The spell possesses a mindless life of its own. It hangs in the ether like an arcane predator, waiting as it waited for Sadaster."

"Waiting for what?" Fafhrd asked nervously.