“Follow me when I’ve reached the top,” he called back.
“I think it’ll take your weight, Fafhrd, but beat one of you at a time.”
Fafhrd gently pushed Vlana ‘ahead. She mounted to the Mouser where he now stood in an open doorway, from which streamed yellow light that died swiftly in the night-smog. He was lightly resting a hand on a big, empty, wrought-iron lamp-hook firmly set in a stone section of the outside wall. He bowed aside, and she went in.
Fafhrd followed, placing his feet as close as he could to the wall, his hands ready to grab for ‘support. The whole stairs creaked ominously and each step gave a little as he shifted his weight onto it. Near the top, one step gave way with the muted crack of half-rotted wood.
Gently as he could, he sprawled himself hand and knee on as many steps as he could get, to distribute his weight, and cursed sulphurously.
“Don’t fret, the jugs are safe,” the Mouser called down gayly.
Fafhrd crawled the rest of the way and did not get to his feet until he was inside the doorway. When he had done so, he almost gasped with surprise.
It was like rubbing the verdigris from a cheap brass ring and revealing a rainbow-fired diamond of the first water. Rich drapes, some twinkling with embroidery of silver and gold, covered the walls except where the shuttered windows were and the shutters of those were gilded. Similar but darker fabrics hid the low ceiling, making a gorgeous canopy in which the flecks of gold and silver were like stars. Scattered about were plump cushions and low tables, on which burned a multitude of candles. On shelves against the walls were neatly stacked like small logs a vast reserve of candles, numerous scrolls, jugs, bottles, and enameled boxes. In a large fireplace was set a small metal stove, neatly blacked, with an ornate firepot. Also set beside the stove was a tidy pyramid of thin, resinous torches with frayed ends fire-kindlers and other pyramids of small, short logs and gleamingly black coal.
On a low dais by the fireplace was a couch covered with cloth of gold. On it sat a thin, pale-faced, delicately handsome girl clad in a dress of thick violet silk worked with silver and belted with a silver chain. Silver pins headed with amethysts held in place her high-piled black hair. Round her shoulders was drawn a wrap of snow-white serpent fur. She was leaning forward with uneasy-seeming graciousness and extending a narrow white hand which shook a little to Vlana, who knelt before her and now” gently took the proffered hand ‘and bowed her head over it, her own glossy, ‘straight, dark-brown hair making a canopy, and pressed its back to her lips.
Fafhrd was happy to see his woman playing up properly to this definitely odd, though delightful situation.
Then looking at Vlana’s long, red-stockinged leg stretched far behind her as she knelt on the other, he noted that the floor was everywhere strewn to the point of double, treble, and quadruple overlaps—with thick-piled, close-woven, many-hued rugs of the finest quality imported from the Eastern Lands. Before ‘he knew it, his thumb had shot toward the Gray Mouser.
“You’re the Rug Robber!” he proclaimed. “You’re the Carpet Crimp! and the Candle Corsair too!” he continued, referring to two series of unsolved thefts which had been on the lips of all Lankhmar when he and Vlana ‘had arrived a moon ago.
The Mouser shrugged impassive-faced at Fafhrd, then suddenly grinned, his slitted eyes a-twinkle, and broke into an impromptu dance which carried him whirling and jigging around the room and left him behind Fafhrd, where he deftly reached down the hooded and long-sleeved huge robe from the latter’s stooping shoulders, shook it out, carefully folded it, and set it on a pillow.
The girl in violet nervously patted with her free hand the cloth of gold beside her, and Vlana seated herself there, carefully not too close, and the two women spoke together in low voices, Vlana taking the lead.
The Mouser took off his own gray, hooded cloak and laid it beside Fafhrd’s. Then they unbelted their swords, and the Mouser set them atop folded robes and cloak.
Without those weapons and bulking garments, the ‘two men looked suddenly like youths, both with clear, close-shaven faces, both slender despite ‘the swelling muscles of Fafhrd’s arms and calves, he with long red-gold hair fall-ing down his back and about his shoulders, the Mouser with dark hair cut in bangs, ‘the one in brown leather tunic worked with copper wire, the other in jerkin of coarsely woven gray silk.
They smiled at each other. The feeling each had of having turned boy all at once made their smiles embar-rassed. The Mouser cleared his ‘throat and, bowing a little, but looking still at Fafhrd, extended a loosely spread-fingered arm toward the golden couch and said with a preliminary stammer, though otherwise smoothly enough, “Fafhrd, my good friend, permit me to introduce you to my princess, Ivrian, my dear, receive Fafhrd graciously if you please, for tonight he ‘and I fought back to back against three and we conquered.”
Fafhrd advanced, stooping a little, the crown of his red-gold hair brushing the he-starred canopy, and knelt before lvrian exactly as Vlana had. The slender hand extended to him looked steady now, but was still quiveringly a-tremble, he discovered as soon as he touched it. He handled it as if it were silk woven of the white spider’s gossamer, barely brushing it with his lips, and still felt nervous as he mumbled some compliments.
He did not sense that the Mouser was quite as nervous as he, if not more so, praying hard that lvrian would not overdo her princess part and snub their guests, or collapse in trembling or tears, for Fafhrd and Vlana were literally the first beings that he had brought into ‘the luxurious nest he had created for his aristocratic beloved save the two love birds that twittered in a silver cage hanging to the other side of the fireplace from the dais.
Despite his ‘shrewdness and cynicism, it never occurred to the Mouser that it was chiefly his charming but pre-posterous coddling of lvrian that was making her doll-like.
But now as lvrian smiled at last, the Mouser relaxed with relief, fetched two silver cups and two silver mugs, carefully selected a bottle of violet wine, then with a grin at Fafhrd uncorked instead one of the jugs the Northerner had brought, and near-brimmed the four gleaming vessels and served them all four.
With no trace of stammer this time, he toasted, “To my greatest theft to date in Lankhmar, which willy-nilly I must share fifty-fifty with” He couldn’t resist the sudden impulse” with this great, long-haired, barbarian lout ‘
here!” And he downed a quarter of his mug of pleasantly burning wine fortified with brandy.
Fafhrd quaffed off .half of his, then toasted back, “To the most boastful and finical little civilized chap I’ve ever deigned to share loot with,” quaffed off the rest, and with a great smile that showed white teeth, held out his empty mug.
The Mouser gave him a refill, topped off his own, then set that down to go to lvrian and pour into her lap from their small pouch the gems he’d filched from Fissif. They gleamed in their new, enviable location like a small puddle of rainbow-hued quicksilver.
lvrian jerked back a-tremble, ‘almost spilling them, but Vlana gently caught her arm, steadying it. At lvrian’s direction, Vlana fetched a blue-enameled box inlaid with silver, and the two of them transferred the jewels from lvrian’s lap into its blue velvet interior. Then they chatted on.
As he worked through his second mug in smaller gulps, Fafhrd relaxed and began to get a deeper feeling of ‘his surroundings. The dazzling wonder of the first glimpse of this throne room in a slum faded, and he began to note the ricketiness and rot under the grand overlay.
Black, rotten wood .showed here ‘and there between the drapes and loosed its sick, ancient stinks. The whole floor sagged under the rugs, as much as a span at the center of the room. Threads of night-smog were coming through the shutters, making evanescent black arabesques against the gilt. The stones of the large fireplace had been scrubbed and varnished, yet most of the mortar was gone from between them; some sagged, others were missing altogether.
The Mouser had been building a fire there in the stove.
Now he pushed in all the way the yellow-flaring kindler he’d lit from the firepot, hooked the little black door shut over the mounting flames, and turned back into the room.
As if he’d read Fafhrd’s mind, he took up several cones of incense, set their peaks ‘a-smolder at the firepot, and placed them about the room in gloaming, shallow brass bowls. Then he stuffed silken rags in the widest shutter-cracks, took up his silver mug again, and for ‘a moment gave Fafhrd a very hard look.