Swords Against the Shadowland

The Mouser watched him disappear in the human tide. Then his right hand emerged from under his cloak and lightly tossed a plump, blue velvet purse. The purse's contents jingled and clinked. "Pardon you," the Mouser muttered.

Extracting a smerduk from the purse, he bent and offered it to the child. "No more crying, little one," he said, putting on a smile for her benefit.

She stared at him with doubtful eyes, though her tears ceased and her fear abated somewhat.

The Mouser pressed the silver coin into her pudgy hand. "Find your friends and buy them all honey cones. It's too nice a day for weeping."

The Mouser helped her to her feet and brushed the dust from her threadbare dress. She opened her hand, as if disbelieving she really held the coin. Then, making a tight fist around the silver piece, she made a short curtsy. "Thank you, sir," she murmured in a barely audible voice before she took off running up the busy street.

With a sigh, the Mouser added the coins in the velvet purse to his own and tucked his new wealth under his belt. Resuming his course toward the Temple District, he whistled pleasantly to himself.

Fewer people congested the Street of the Gods. In deference to the passing of Attavaq, many of the shops were closed. The pedestrians who walked there kept their voices and their heads lowered. In contrast to the celebratory mood that filled the rest of the city, a muted and funereal atmosphere dominated.

Wandering slowly up the street, the Mouser entered the first shop he found open. Rings and necklaces and bejeweled ornaments glimmered upon counters covered with black velvet. The proprietor, a thin, elderly man in plain, but well-made garments, emerged through a curtain at the rear of the shop to greet his customer, and the Mouser made a show of taking out his heavy purse and bouncing it on his palm.

The proprietor smiled with subtle greed as he noted the purse. "The sweetest music ever played by man," he said as the Mouser shook the purse again and set the coins to jingling. "And you, sir, are obviously a maestro."

The Mouser bent over one of the counters, frowning as he pretended to study the workmanship of a diamond pendant. "What is obvious," he said to the proprietor in a petulant tone, "is that this stone is glass, and the setting is of poor quality." He jingled his purse. "Have you nothing better?"

The proprietor scrutinized him, then eyed the purse again. "I can see you know quality, sir," he said. He waved a hand around the shop. "I display these trinkets for the casual shopper. You are a connoisseur." He crooked a finger, beckoning. "Come into my back room."

The Mouser followed him through the curtain into a room lit with several oil lamps. Jewelers' tools, bits and flakes of stone, pieces of chain, shards of metal lay scattered chaotically about a long worktable. The proprietor turned the wicks of the lamps higher, and the room brightened with golden firelight. Going to a chest in one corner, he took a key from a ring on his belt, bent over a massive trunk, and put it into the lock. A soft click. Standing aside, gesturing grandly, he raised the lid.

The Mouser's eyes snapped wide. Wildly colored fire flashed as the lamplight touched the contents. The proprietor lifted a flat tray upon which was displayed half a dozen elaborately jeweled necklaces. Beneath that tray lay another covered with bracelets and rings, all held in appropriate place by loops of thin wire.

With gaping jaw, the Mouser bent over the first tray as the proprietor placed it on the worktable and moved a lamp closer. The gems dazzled under the shifting light. He caught his breath and leaned nearer.

"I salute you, sir," he said at last to the proprietor. "Never have I beheld such remarkable fakes. How do you make them?"

The proprietor's face colored, and the muscles in his neck corded. For an instant, he swelled up like a man who'd taken a severe insult. Then he relaxed. "No sir," he said. "It is I who salute you. I see you are, indeed, a connoisseur who knows his stones, and I cannot fool you." He shrugged as he tugged a ring loose from its velvet backing and held it up. When he spoke again, it was with the voice of a man who took pride in his work. "I cut every piece, myself," he said, "and inject the smallest amount of dye into the glass. Rare is the man who can tell them from real stones. But tell me, how did you gain such a keen eye?"

The Mouser rubbed his chin as he continued to examine the trays. "I am a sometime-procurer of gems for a great northern prince," he said. Inwardly, he smiled, thinking of how Fafhrd would laugh at that. "I'm afraid I'm looking for something a bit more, shall we say, unusual. Perhaps even talismanic."