Swords Of Lankhmar

The two urchins each dipped into a bag beside them and threw into the feet of the green flames a glittering golden swirl. Instantly the flames darkened, though leaping high as ever and sending off no soot. Watching them in the now almost night-dark cavern, Fafhrd thought he could make out the transitory, ever-distorting shadows of twisty towers, ugly trees, tall hunchbacked men, low-shouldered beasts, beautiful wax women melting, and the like, but nothing was clear or even hinted at a story.

Then from the obese warlock's hood came toward the darkened fire two greenish ovals, each with a vertical black streak like the jewel cat's eye. A half yard out of the hood they paused and held steady. They were speedily joined by two more which both diverged and went farther. Then came a single one arching up over the fire until one would have thought it was in great danger of sizzling. Lastly, two which floated in opposite directions almost impossibly far around the fire and then hooked in to observe it from points near Fafhrd.

The voice fluted sagely: "It is always best to look at a problem from all sides."

Fafhrd drew his shoulders together and repressed a shudder. It never failed to be disconcerting to watch Ningauble send forth his Seven Eyes on their apparently indefinitely extensible eyestalks. Especially on occasions when he'd been coy as a virgin in a bathrobe about keeping them hidden.

So much time passed that Fafhrd began to snap his fingers with impatience, softly at first, then more crackingly. He'd given up looking at the flames. They never held anything but the tantalizing, churning shadows.

At last the green eyes floated back into the hood, like a mystic fleet returning to port. The flames turned bright green again, and Ningauble said, "Gentle Son, I now understand your problem and its answer. In part. I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray Mouser, now. He's exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace of Glipkerio Kistomerces. But he's not buried there, or even dead — though about twenty-four parts in twenty-five of him _are_ dead, in the cellar I mentioned. But he _is_ alive."

"But _how_?" Fafhrd almost gawked, spreading his spread-fingered hands.

"I haven't the faintest idea. He's surrounded by enemies but near him are two friends — of a sort. Now about Lankhmar, that's clearer. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting going on in the streets, by a fierce host which outnumbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by… my goodness… fifty to one — and equipped with all modern weapons.

"Yet you can save the city, you can turn the tide of battle — this part came through very clearly — if you only hasten to the temple of the Gods _of_ Lankhmar and climb its bell-tower and ring the chimes there, which have been silent for uncounted centuries. Presumably to rouse those gods. But that's only my guess."

"I don't like the idea of having anything to do with that dusty crew," Fafhrd complained. "From what I've heard of them, they're more like walking mummies than true gods — and even more dry-spirited and unloving, being sifted through like sand with poisonous senile whims."

Ningauble shrugged his cloaked, bulbous shoulders. "I thought you were a brave man, addicted to deeds of derring-do."

Fafhrd cursed sardonically, then demanded, "But even if I should go clang those rusty bells, how can Lankhmar hold out until then with her walls breached and the odds fifty to one against her?"

"I'd like to know that myself," Ningauble assured him.

"And how do I get to the temple when the streets are crammed with warfare?"

Ningauble shrugged once again. "You're a hero. You should know."

"Well then, the tin whistle?" Fafhrd grated.

"You know, I didn't get a thing on the tin whistle. Sorry about that. Do you have it with you? Might I look at it?"

Grumbling, Fafhrd extracted it from his flat pouch, and brought it around the fire.

"Have you ever blown it?" Ningauble asked.

"No," Fafhrd said with surprise, lifting it to his lips.

"Don't!" Ningauble squeaked. "Not on any account! Never blow a strange whistle. It might summon things far worse even than savage mastiffs or the police. Here, give it to me."

He pinched it away from Fafhrd with a double fold of animated sleeve and held it close to his hood, revolving it clockwise and counterclockwise, finally serpentinely gliding out four of his eyes and subjecting it to their massed scrutiny at thumbnail distance.

At last he withdrew his eyes, sighed, and said, "Well… I'm not sure. But there are thirteen characters in the inscription — I couldn't decipher 'em, mind you, but there _are_ thirteen. Now if you take that fact in conjunction with the slim couchant feline figure on the other side… Well, I think you blow this whistle to summon the War Cats. Mind you, that's only a deduction, and one of several steps, each uncertain."

"Who are the War Cats?" Fafhrd asked.