Swords Against the Shadowland

"A peach of a fellow," the Mouser answered, turning away. He bent to the floor of the corn crib, found a metal ring embedded in the old boards, and curled his gloved fingers around it. Lifting a hidden trap door, he peered down into blackness.

Demptha Negatarth had purchased this abandoned warehouse because of its precise location above one branch of Lankhmar's secret tunnels and had excavated this private access. Down this hole, down these narrow wooden steps, he and his followers came and went, bringing the helpless victims of Malygris's evil magic to hide them from Rokkarsh's night-prowling soldiers.

He felt no small honor at being entrusted with such knowledge. Taking the bag from Nuulpha again, he motioned the corporal to go down. The light shone dimly up from the hole as the Mouser closed the crib door and lowered its heavy lid into place. Descending the first few steps, he lowered the trap door above his head.

The ponderous weight of the earth seemed to close about him, and the smell of dirt and dampness filled his nostrils. A sense of unease settled upon him; he was no mole, and rooting around in the ground held no appeal. Fixing his eyes on the lantern’s glow, he descended as quickly as the heavy bag and the narrow steps allowed.

Nuulpha waited at the bottom, his upturned face betraying a nervousness he hadn't shown before. His shoulders slumped, and he crouched subtly, though his head cleared the tunnel roof by inches.

The Mouser knew how the corporal felt. The darkness possessed an intimidating solidity that the lantern barely penetrated. The closeness of the walls and the low narrow ceiling suffocated, and the earth still bore a fresh-dug odor. He could practically feel, he imagined, the hungry maggots and worms burrowing nearer.

Perhaps because he felt so intensely the absence of his friend, he recalled the words of one of Fafhrd’s songs. Softly he whispered, seeking to buoy his spirits by mocking his own fear as he crept forward into the gloom.

"Lay me down in the cold, dark ground;
Make of the earth a soft round mound;
Worms and maggots gather around
To bear me off to Shadowland."

The stale air seemed to shiver, and the lantern's flame reacted with a barely perceptible waver as if some undetectable wind had danced around it. The Mouser's skin crawled, and the hair stood on the nape of his neck.

"There is a road we all must brave—
King and peasant, saint and knave—
No man is born who is not a slave
To the Lord of Shadowland."

With a shaking hand, Nuulpha turned up the lantern's wick another notch. The flame brightened a little, but failed to push back the darkness. "Have you no other song?" he grumbled.

"A tisket, a tasket, two bodies in a casket," the Mouser persisted, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

But suddenly he stopped. Catching Nuulpha's arm, he jerked his companion around. "You're trembling," he said. "So am I." He squeezed past Nuulpha, daring to venture a few paces beyond the boundary of the light, then stepped back into its amber circle. "Grown men shivering in the dark," he whispered. He licked his lips thoughtfully, admitting his fear, feeling it growing inside him like a pressure.

"Why am I afraid?" he said, as much to himself as to Nuulpha. "I've been under the earth before. Why does this seem different?"

"My heart is hammering," Nuulpha confessed in a hushed voice. "And there's weakness in my knees. It shames me . . ."

"Then there's shame for both of us," the Mouser said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. He set down the bag of stolen victuals and put a hand over his own heart. "I am almost overwhelmed," he said. "As if I were wading deeper and deeper into some black sea..."

"... About to be dragged down by some unseen tentacled monster ..." Nuulpha added, wiping sweat from his brow.

Rubbing his chin, the Mouser paced to the very edge of the light and stopped with only his toes challenging the horrible border. He squinted into the blackness, half-expecting some red-eyed demon to stare back.

"Eclipses," Nuulpha muttered, picking up the bag and going to the Mouser's side, "a Patriarch's death, all this damnable fog of late—bad omens, all, I tell you."

Forcing down his fear, the Mouser ventured slowly forward. Yet he felt in his bones some pervasive, unseeable change in the tunnels, an unearthly strangeness that tainted the air. Even the very darkness, the shade and texture of the gloom, struck him suddenly as alien.

They emerged finally from the narrow, man-made tunnel into a larger natural cavern. Here, too, the oppressive strangeness dominated. The Mouser stood still and listened. Was it Nuulpha's breathing he heard, or his own? Or was it. . . something else.