Swords Against the Shadowland

Fafhrd interrupted. "Just stick a knife in him."

Laurian froze, her mouth half-open, facing Fafhrd as if she actually saw him. "Have I been such a fool?" she whispered disbelievingly. "Could it be so easy?"

"It's never easy to knife a man," Fafhrd answered gravely, "no matter how much you hate him. That's why I'll be hiding behind a curtain with a sword." He clapped a hand to his side where Graywand should have been, abruptly remembering— he'd lost it in the Tower of Koh-Vombi. He looked up sheepishly. "I seem to have misplaced my weapon."

"... right into my very bedchamber," Laurian ruminated, murmuring to herself. She paused again, then she gestured toward her handmaiden. "Sameel, fetch Sadaster's sword."

Obediently, the girl hurried from the room.

"You will have my husband's sword, Northerner," she said, her voice firm with determination. "But do not doubt. If Malygris proves fool enough to walk into my home, it will be my dagger that drinks his heart blood."

Fafhrd paced to the open window and stared outward. In the distance, Rhan's spire rose above all the rooftops of Lankhmar. Behind it, the sun sank slowly toward the horizon. Soon darkness would fall.

Where, he wondered, was the Mouser?

"Dagger or sword," Fafhrd said quietly, vaguely troubled by the impending night. "It matters not, so long as I have a drop of that blood."

"A gruesome request," Laurian said. Then she spoke a name as if it were a question. "Sheelba?"

Fafhrd nodded, his back to her. His gaze still upon the horizon, he covered his mouth with a fist and allowed the small cough he had been resisting. A chill and a shiver of dread rattled through him. Squeezing his eyes shut briefly, he mastered himself. Now was not a time for fear.

Realizing Laurian had not seen his nod, he explained. "With that last ingredient Sheelba can cast the counter-spell to end this nightmare Malygris has dreamed for us."

Laurian's voice softened again as she leaned back within her silver sarcophagus. "A counter-spell?" She sighed as she tied the white linen blindfold once more over her ravaged eyes. "Then more than vengeance will guide my blade. Lankhmar is my city, and I know the suffering of its people."

With a second sigh, she folded her fragile hands upon the shroudcloth that draped her lap, and her head sagged forward upon her bosom.

Fafhrd moved around the room again to face her. Once more, she seemed to sleep. No matter how he tried to deny it, a troublesome fear grew within him. He whispered a question. "Why didn't you bring the Mouser, too?"

Laurian did not stir. Even the thin mist that surrounded her seemed to hold perfectly still.

Fafhrd repeated, strangely unable to raise his voice. Did he want her to hear? Did he want an answer?

"She dared not snatch your friend," Sameel said, standing nervously behind him. In her hands, she carried a magnificent great-sword in an elegantly crafted leather scabbard. "She had only strength enough for one of you. And your friend has not yet been touched by Malygris's curse."

Fafhrd's mouth went dry. He stared at Sameel's moistening eyes, reading the fear and uncertainty he suddenly saw in those limpid green pools. Groping beyond his own uncertainty, his heart went out to her. "You, too?"

Wordless, she nodded.

A cold anger filled Fafhrd, and his hand went to the sword. He curled his fingers around its hilt. It fit his grip as if it had been made for him. Grimly, he drew the blade. Streaming through the window, the last sunlight touched the keen edge with a glittering fire.

Red fire, Fafhrd thought, turning the sword in the light— deep and rich as the color of blood.

FOURTEEN PIECES OF DREAMS, NIGHTMARE SHARDS

Fafhrd slipped naked between the sheets of Sameel's bed and eased his head carefully down upon the pillow. The vertigo troubled him less than before, and the constant hammering inside his skull had eased somewhat. Still, he saw the wisdom of resting a while. Later, he would rise, go out and search for the Mouser.

Turning on his side, his gaze fell upon his new sword, which leaned against a chair where his clothes were hung. Sameel's room had no windows, and the lambent flame from an oil lamp lent the polished black pommel stone a starlight glow.

Sameel entered the room quietly, bearing another tray of fresh herbs and steaming bowls. Noting the direction of his gaze, she said, "My master called the sword, Payday.''

"I’lll name it Graywand," Fafhrd said, "as I name all my swords."

"Why is that?" Sameel asked. Setting down the tray, she crumbled herbs and scattered them in varying portions over the bowls. Immediately a sweet aroma perfumed the air.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and the face of his father floated in his mind—dark eyes, sweeping hair as red as Fafhrd's own, a handsome visage clouded by a melancholy and regret that Fafhrd had never understood.