Swords Against the Shadowland

The Mouser needed no urging from his guards to stand silently and wait to be noticed. The Mouser used the time to test his bonds. Straining subtly against the ropes, he tried to flex some feeling into his fingers.

One of the three, a well-built and muscular man with the look of a wrestler, suddenly turned around. The brazier's light shimmered on a thinly delicate coronet of gold that adorned a stern brow. Dark eyes focused on the Mouser, and the observer pursed his lips in study. Abruptly, he waved off his two companions. Executing curt bows, the nobles obediently departed through a shadowed doorway. The wearer of the coronet strode slowly toward the throne.

Scarface raised his sword in salute, and his voice boomed. "Hail, Rokkarsh, Overlord of Lankhmar, Lord of. . ."

A gesture of irritation from Rokkarsh cut him off, and Scarface fell silent. His lowering blade, however, came to rest on the Mouser's right shoulder.

Scowling and grumbling inside, the Mouser bent his knees. With his hands tied behind his back, he dropped awkwardly to the floor, nearly cracking his chin on the expensive marble tiles.

"In Aarth’s name," the Overlord said, grimacing as he fanned the air with one hand and with the other selected a plump peach from a bowl on a small table beside the throne. "I told you to bathe him. His stink fouls the palace."

The Mouser raised his head, eyes narrowing to slits as he regarded the man before him. Slowly, he drew his knees under himself. Let Scarface put a sword in his back; he would grovel and crawl no more, particularly not before an oiled, pomaded effete with the audacity and bad taste to tattoo a rose around an exposed left nipple.

"If the palace stinks," the Mouser said through clenched teeth, his temper barely in check, "the cause must be that whore's perfume in which you've drenched yourself."

Scarface bellowed. "Let me strike off his head, my lord!"

The Overlord held up his peach as if to display the proud bite his royal teeth had taken from it. "No, not his head," he said with calm bemusement. "However, you may take from him the finger of your choice."

The Mouser's dusky face took on a serpentine quality, and he fixed Rokkarsh with his gaze. "If one of your dogs dares to touch me again," he boldly threatened, "I'll lay a curse to rot off a more important appendage than your finger."

The Overlord waved Scarface back and took a bite from his peach as he studied the Mouser. With a curious grin he asked, "Do you have such power, little man?"

The Mouser scowled at the reference to his height. "Lankhmar's walls will echo with the lamentations from your harem," he promised.

Rokkarsh licked a droplet of juice from his lips. "Well, we couldn't very well have that, could we?" he said. "I take it that you're some kind of wizard?"

"The great Overlord of Lankhmar may take whatever he likes," the Mouser sneered. "You can take my life if that pleases you, and you can take your fiddle and go up to the roof of the Rainbow Palace and play for the gulls while the city burns around you."

Rokkarsh set aside his peach and leaned forward as he licked his fingers. "The only thing burning in Lankhmar, little wizard, is the tower you set afire." The Overlord leaned forward, and his voice took on a new tone of menace. "Why did you enter a forbidden temple, and where is the partner witnesses saw with you:

The Mouser feigned a look of surprise. "Partner?" he said, glancing over his shoulders and down between his legs before he shrugged. "Your witnesses must be drunkards."

The Overlord assumed an expression of boredom as he reached again for his peach. "I think I shall risk your curse and let the corporal strike off your finger after all. Then perhaps you'll answer honestly the next time I ask."

Scarface stepped close and, grasping one of the Mouser's bound hands, began to pry at a finger. The Mouser's heart thundered in his chest as he resisted by making fists, but he had little control over his rope-numbed hands. Desperately, he fixed his gaze on the Overlord.

"I'm looking for Malygris!" he shouted.

Rokkarsh held up a hand and Scarface became still, though he maintained a grip on one of the Mouser's fingers.

"The wizard?" Rokkarsh asked with interest. "Why?"

The Mouser glared back at the Overlord. "To end the thrice-damned plague he's conjured on Lankhmar and surrounds."

Rokkarsh turned pale. Trembling, he rose from his throne and, drawing back his arm, an enraged scream bubbling on his lips, he let fly the half-eaten peach.

TWELVE TUNNELS OF HOPE AND HEARTBREAK

The half-eaten peach flew past the Mouser's head and struck Corporal Scarface with such force that it knocked his helmet askew.

"Great shot," the Mouser complimented.

"Get out!" Rokkarsh, purple-faced, screamed at his guards. "Leave us!"

Scarface sputtered as he struggled with his chinstrap and tried to set his helmet aright. "But, my lord!" he exclaimed as juice dribbled down his cheek and chin, "the prisoner!"