Swords Against the Shadowland

Ahead, drifting over the southwestern rooftops, a column of black smoke climbed into the blue sky. Fafhrd eyed it with a strange expression, then began walking faster and faster. Finally he ran with the Mouser pursuing.

Still a block from this second fire, Fafhrd stopped. "Sadaster's estate," he said, nodding toward the crackling flames. "Another library destroyed."

The Mouser let go a long sigh. The streets were no longer deserted. People thronged the way, watching the great house burn. A water line had formed, not to douse the flames engulfing Sadaster's house, but to protect the buildings around it. Fortunately, the estates in this part of town were well-spaced. There was little chance this fire would spread.

"I wish you could have seen it," Fafhrd whispered. "Such a collection of books."

"Nothing like a fire to draw a crowd," the Mouser muttered. He turned away from the inferno to witness the column of smoke rising over Temple Street.

Let Fafhrd mourn the books. He would mourn Jesane.

SEVENTEEN WIZARD'S RAGE

Squads of soldiers came racing down Nun Street, drawn by the crackling flames that engulfed Sadaster's estate. Mindful of the Mouser's status as a wanted man, Fafhrd caught his partner's elbow and quickly pushed him into the thick of the spectators.

The Mouser understood and drew his hood closer about his face. Without drawing attention to themselves, they slipped through the crowd into a narrow, serpentine alley and quick-footed away from the scene, emerging some blocks eastward in Crypt Court.

Tall ramshackle apartment buildings, mostly abandoned, rose on all sides of the square. The structures were among the oldest in Lankhmar, and they showed it, leaning at crazy angles on their ancient, eroded foundations. Sunlight streamed through holes in the roofs, through cracked and weathered walls.

Only the poorest and most desperate Lankhmarans, those at the very nadir of their luck, came here to live. The individual apartments were no more than tiny, cheerless cells—hence the name, Crypt Court. The floorings were treacherously rotten and the windows shutterless. A good wind could raise a creaking and a groaning from the wooden beams and set the structures to swaying.

Such was the nature of Lankhmar that its worst tenements stood side by side with its wealthiest neighborhoods, connected sometimes by no more than a narrow road or a few alleyways. At the center of the court, a small cracked fountain gurgled softly. Water from a ceramic pipe trickled into a round pool whose bottom was covered with a mossy, dark green growth. Pushing his cloak back over his shoulders, Fafhrd dipped a hand into the water, and wiped his face and neck. Though he declined to say so to the Mouser, a dull ache banged at the back of his head from the wine he had drunk.

Even here, a smell of smoke hung in the air, evoking memories of Sadaster’s fantastic library, of Laurian, of sweet Sameel and the joy she had given him. He grieved for those books and grieved anew for the ladies. The thought of their bodies burning in that holocaust angered and sickened him.

"I can't get over the way Jesane looked," the Mouser said wearily as he stretched his legs out before him and sat on the fountain's low stone wall. Pursing his lips thoughtfully, he cradled his chin in one palm. His face took on a troubled, faraway look.

"Laurian had the same look when she died," Fafhrd said quietly. "At the end, she seemed to age rapidly, and her beauty faded like a rose in a . . ."—he hesitated before finishing his remark— ... in a fire.

The Mouser drew his legs up and leaned on his knees. "Nuulpha said that Jesane was older than she looked. Demptha, too.

Unconsciously, Fafhrd mirrored the Mouser's posture, leaning his elbows on his knees, cradling his chin as he stared at the cobbled court. "In our dream," he said at last, "Sadaster used enchantment to keep Laurian young."

The Mouser looked up sharply. "You never cease to amaze me, Fafhrd," he said. "You've done what I could not—fit together two pieces of the puzzle."

Fafhrd brightened at the compliment, then frowned. "What puzzle?"

The Mouser barked a short laugh and then gave an exaggerated shrug. "I don't know!" he said. "But can it be coincidence that two women we know are dead under arcane circumstances, and that both were magically preserving their beauty against all nature?"

Fafhrd scratched the new copper-colored beard on his cheeks. He hadn't shaved for days now, and the short growth itched. "What has any of that to do with the reason we are here, namely Malygris?"

"I don't know!" the Mouser said again, waving his hands irritably as he rose to his feet. Abruptly he froze in mid-gesture. "Or maybe I do know. To strike at Laurian's husband, Malygris created his thrice-cursed curse. Jesane and her father worked to bring some comfort to innocent victims of that curse."

"That's pretty thin," Fafhrd scoffed.