Swords Against the Shadowland

"Is it enough?" he asked. His voice revealed both a desperation and a bitter edge that reflected the war still raging in his mind.

She sneered, yet her voice was a cat's purr. "For the finer perfections of love?" Coming closer, she stirred the glittering pile with one painted big toe. Her eyes fastened on her guest. "Barely." She turned toward the bed. "Undress."

Swiftly, the Mouser stripped off his garments. Standing at the foot of the bed, Liara watched him, a look of seeming impatience on her face. Her robe gaped open wider as she planted one hand on her hip. In the dim light, her eyes flashed.

The Mouser moved to her side. He drew his fingertips down the ivory flesh of her arms, eliciting no reaction until he tried to embrace her. She put a hand on his chest. "You are not on the Street of Red Lanterns," she said harshly.

A chill passed through him, then a wave of heat as she held back the veils that surrounded the bed. The Mouser gazed up at the tall framework over the bed, eyeing the manacles suspended from above.

Her calculating look dared him. He stared back at her. In that icily beautiful face he saw his one true love, sweet Ivrian, and this other woman, Liara the whore. In his mind, their identities merged and blurred.

His senses reeled. Like a drunken man, he climbed up onto the bed. Struggling to keep his balance on the pile of expensive down mattresses and slick silken sheets, he placed his own wrists in the manacles and waited, his mind awhirl with confusing memories and thoughts, his body on fire with unfettered dark lusts.

Ivrian or Liara climbed up on the bed behind him. He could feel the cool fabric of her robe on his buttocks and calves, but he felt the stab of her bare nipples against his back as she reached up and snapped the manacles' locks.

"Welcome to the House of Night Cries," she breathed into his ear.

She laughed a cruel, taunting laugh as she backed away from him.

"Ivrian," the Mouser whispered. The sound he heard was not laughter, but the voice of the woman he had failed to protect. It came to him like a condemning wind across the years. His knuckles cracked as he gripped his chains. "Forgive me, Ivrian."

He cast a glance back over his shoulder. And he knew with a drunken man's clarity that the woman behind him was Ivrian, or some part of her.

Closing his eyes, he arched his back and prepared himself.

Liara laughed again, then hissed like a cat.

A velvet whip lashed across the Mouser's flesh. For nine strokes, he bore it silently. Still her arm rose and fell with amazing strength. Five more strokes. In his mind, he tried to hold an image of Ivrian, but it kept changing into Liara, and with every stroke it mocked him. He bit his lip. A thin string of drool oozed from the corner of his mouth and over his chin.

The whip came down again, shattering the image and his silence. At last, he knew why they called it the House of Night Cries.

SIXTEEN CITY OF THE DAMNED

As dawn broke over Lankhmar, a dispirited Gray Mouser pushed open the door to the Silver Eel. Pausing on the threshold, he stared at the overturned tables and broken stools, the spilled mugs and empty bottles that littered the place. A couple of drunks, slumped shoulder to shoulder on the floor, snored noisily in one corner.

A shirtless Cherig One-hand lay sprawled upon the bar, snoring as loudly as his two unconscious patrons. Someone had folded the tavern-owners arms upon his chest in funereal manner and stuck a wilted flower between his fingers. A copper tik-coin rested upon each of his closed eyes. His boots had been removed, and his toenails as well as his fingernails had been painted bright scarlet as a woman would do. Likewise, his cheeks had been rouged and his lips berry-brightened.

The Mouser's mood lightened immediately, and he felt a little less the fool than when he entered. Thus decorated, Cherig made quite the comical sight. Obviously, the madness that had passed through the Festival District had come this way, too.

The Mouser tiptoed past the sleeping tavern owner, careful not to wake him, and climbed the stairs to the sleeping rooms above. Reaching the door to his own room, he put a hand to the knob, then paused.

A cough sounded from within.

The Mouser pushed the door inward. "Fafhrd?" he called, glancing eagerly toward the bed.

The Northerner sat upon the mattresses with his back against the wall. He looked thoroughly miserable, not to mention drunk. His clothes were rumpled, and his face wore a long expression. Between his knees, he held a half-empty bottle of wine. Another empty bottle rested on the table nearby.