Swords Of Lankhmar

"Most true, O sapient Majesty," Hisvin assured him, "though we must delay a little, until the stars have sailed to their most potent stations in the ocean of the sky. Only then will my magic slay rats at a distance. I'll speak my spell from the blue minaret and slay them all."

"I hope those stars will set all canvas and make best speed," Glipkerio said, worry momentarily clouding the childish delight in his long, low-browed face. "My people have begun to fret at me to do something to disperse the rats or fight 'em back into their holes. Which will interfere with luring them forth, don't you think?"

"Don't trouble your mighty brain with that worry," Hisvin reassured him. "The rats are not easily scared. Take measures against them insofar as you're urged to. Meanwhile, tell your council you have an all-powerful weapon in reserve."

The Mouser suggested, "Why not have a thousand pages memorize Hisvin's deadly incantation and shout it down the rat-holes? The rats, being underground, won't be able to tell that the stars are in the wrong place."

Glipkerio objected, "Ah, but it is necessary that the tiny beasts also see Hisvin's finger-weaving. You do not understand these refinements, Mouser. You have delivered Movarl's missive. Leave us.

"But mark this," he added, fluttering his black toga, his yellow-irised eyes like angry gold coins in his narrow head. "I have forgiven you once your delays, Small Gray Man, and your dragon-delusions and your doubts of Hisvin's magical might. But I shall not forgive a second time. Never mention such matters again."

The Mouser bowed and made his way out. As he passed the statuesque maid with crisscrossed back, he whispered, "Your name?"

"Reetha," she breathed.

Hisvet came rustling past to dip up a silver forkful of caviar, Reetha automatically dropping to her knees.

"Dark delights," Hisvin's daughter murmured and rolled the tiny black fish eggs between her bee-stung upper lip and pink and blue tongue.

When the Mouser was gone, Glipkerio bent down to Hisvin, until his figure somewhat resembled a black gibbet. "A word in your ear," he whispered. "The rats sometimes make even me… well, nervous."

"They are most fearsome beasties," Hisvin agreed somberly, "who might daunt even the gods."

Fafhrd spurred south along the stony sea-road that led from Klelg Nar to Sarheenmar and which was squeezed between steep, rocky mountains and the Inner Sea. The sea's dark swells peaked up blackly as they neared shore and burst with unending crashes a few yards below the road, which was dank and slippery with their spray. Overhead pressed low dark clouds which seemed less water vapor than the smoke of volcanoes or burning cities.

The Northerner was leaner — he had sweated and burned away weight — and his face was grim, his eyes red-shot and red-rimmed from dust, his hair dulled with it. He rode a tall, powerful, gaunt-ribbed gray mare with dangerous eyes, also red-shot — a beast looking as cursed as the landscape they traversed.