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fife-like, fawning tones, "Harkening in obedience, Hristomilo."
Hristomilo ordered m whiplash pipings, "To your ap-
pointed work! See to lit you summon an ample sufficiency of feasters!-I want
the bodies stripped to skeletons, so the bruises of the enchanted smog and all
evidence of death by suffocation will be vanished utterly. But forget not the
loot! On your mission, now--depart!"
Slivikin, who at every command had bobbed his head in manner reminiscent of
his bouncing, now squealed, "I'll see it done!" and gray lightning-like,
leaped a long leap to the floor and down an inky rathole.
Hristomilo, rubbing together his disgusting clubhands much as Slivikin had
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his, cried chucklingly, "What Slev-
yas lost, my magic has re-won!"
Fafhrd and the Mouser drew back out of the doorway, partly for fear of being
seen, partly in revulsion from what they had seen and heard, and in poignant
if useless pity for Slevyas, whoever he might be, and for the other unknown
victims of the rat-like and conceivably rat-re-
lated sorcerer's deathspells, poor strangers already dead and due to have
their flesh eaten from their bones.
Fafhrd wrested the green bottle from the Mouser and, though almost-gagging on
the rotten-flowery reek, gulped a large, stinging mouthful. The Mouser
couldn't quite
bring himself to do the same, but was comforted by the spirits of wine he
inhaled.
Then he saw, beyond Fafhrd, standing before the door-
way to the map room, a richly clad man with gold-hilted knife jewel-scabbarded
at his side. His sunken-eyed face was prematurely wrinkled by responsibility,
overwork, and authority, and framed by neatly cropped black bail and beard.
Smiling, he silently beckoned them with a serpen-
tine gesture.
The Mouser and Fafhrd obeyed, the latter returning the green bottle to the
former, who recapped it and thrust it under his left elbow with well-concealed
irritation.
Each guessed their summoner was Krovas, the Guild's
Grandmaster. Once again Fafhrd marveled, as he hob-
bledehoyed along, reeling and belching, how Kos or the
Fates were guiding him to his target tonight. The Mouser, more alert and more
apprehensive too, was reminding himself that they had been directed by the
niche-guards to report to Krovas, so that the situation, if not develop-
ing quite in accord with his own misty plans, was still not deviating
disastrously.
Yet not even his alertness, nor Fafhrd's primeval in-
stincts, gave them forewarning as they followed Krovas into the map room.
Two steps inside, each of them was shoulder-grabbed and bludgeon-menaced by a
pair of ruffians further armed with knives tucked in their belts.
"All secure. Grandmaster," one of the ruffians rapped out.
Krovas swung the highest-backed chair around and sat down, eyeing them coolly.
"What brings two stinking, drunken beggar-guildsmen into the top-restricted
precincts of the masters?" he asked quietly.
The Mouser felt the sweat of relief bead his forehead.
The disguises he bad brilliantly conceived were still work-
ing, taking in even the head man, though he had spotted
Fafhrd's tipsiness. Resuming his blind-man manner, he quavered, "We were
directed by the guard above the
Cheap Street door to report to you in person, great
Krovas, the Night Beggarmaster being on furlough for reasons of sexual
hygiene. Tonight we've made good haul!"
And fumbling in .his purse, ignoring as far as possible the tightened grip on
his shoulders, he brought out a golden coin and displayed it tremble-handed.
"Spare me your inexpert acting," Krovas said sharply.
"I'm not one of your marks. And take that rag off your eyes."
The Mouser obeyed and stood to attention again inso-
far as his pinioning would permit, and smiling the more seeming carefree
because of his reawakening uncertain-
ties. Conceivably he wasn't doing quite as brilliantly as he'd 'thought.
Krovas leaned forward and said placidly yet piercingly, "Granted you were so
ordered, why were you spying into a room beyond this one when I spotted you?"
"We saw brave thieves flee from that room," the Mouser
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answered pat. "Fearing that some danger threatened the
Guild, my comrade and I investigated, ready to scotch it."
"But what we saw and heard only perplexed us, great sir," Fafhrd appended
quite smoothly.
"I didn't ask you, sot. Speak when you're spoken to,"
Krovas snapped at him. Then, to the Mouser, "You're an overweening rogue, most
presumptuous for your rank.
Beggars claim to protect thieves indeed! I'm of a mind to have you both
flogged for your spying, and again for your drunkenness, aye, and once more
for your lies."
In a flash the Mouser decided that further insolence and lying, too--rather
than fawning, was what the situa-
tion required. "I am a most presumptuous rogue indeed, sir," he said smugly.
Then he set his face solemn. "But now I see the time has come when I must
speak darkest troth entire. The Day Beggarmaster suspects a plot against your
own life, sir, by one of your highest and closest lieutenants--one you trust
so well you'd not believe it, sir. He told us that! So he set me and my
comrade secretly to guard you and sniff out the verminous villain."
"More and clumsier lies!" Krovas snarled, but the
Mouser saw his face grow pale. The Grandmaster half rose from his seat. "Which
lieutenant?"
The Mouser grinned and relaxed. His two captors gazed sideways at him
curiously, losing their grip a little.
Fafhrd's pair seemed likewise intrigued.
The Mouser then asked coolly, "Are you questioning me as a trusty spy or a
pinioned liar? If the latter, I'll not insult you with one more word." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]