Next moment he was smiling ‘and lifting his mug to Fafhrd, who was doing the same. Need of refills brought them close together. Hardly moving his lips, the Mouser explained, “lvrian’s father was a duke. I slew him. A most cruel man, cruel to his daughter too, yet a duke, so that lvrian is wholly unused to fending for herself. I pride myself that I maintain her in grander state than her father did with all his servants.”
Fafhrd nodded and said amiably, “Surely you’ve thieved together a charming little place.”
From the couch Vlana called in her husky contralto, “Gray Mouser, your Princess would hear an account of tonight’s adventure. And might we have more wine?”
lvrian called, “Yes, please, Mauser.”
The Mauser looked to Fafhrd for the go-ahead, got the nod, and launched into his story. But first he served the girls wine. There wasn’t enough for their cups, so he opened another jug and after a moment of thought uncorked all three, setting one by the couch, one by Fafhrd Where he sprawled now on the pillowy carpet, and reserving one for himself, lvrian looked apprehensive at this signal of heavy drinking ahead, Vlana cynical.
The Mouser told the tale of counter-thievery well, acting it out in part, and with only the most artistic of embellishments the ferret-marmoset before escaping ran up his body and tried to scratch out his eyes and he was interrupted only twice.
When he said, “And so with a whish and a snick I bared Scalpel” Fafhrd remarked, “Oh, so you’ve nick-named your sword as well as yourself?”
The Mauser drew himself up. “Yes, and I call my dirk Cat’s Claw. Any objections? Seem childish to you?”
“Not at all. I call my own sword Graywand. Pray continue.”
And when he mentioned the beastie of uncertain nature that had gamboled along with the thieves (and attacked his eyes!), lvrian paled and .said with a shudder, “Mouser!
That sounds like a witch’s familiar!”
“Wizard’s,” Vlana corrected. “Those gutless Guild-villains have no truck with women, except as fee’d or forced vehicles for their, lust. But Krovas, their current king, is noted for taking all precautions, and might well have a warlock in his service.”
“That seems most likely; it harrows me with dread,”
the Mouser agreed with ominous gaze and sinister voice, eagerly accepting any and all atmospheric enhancements of his performance.
When he was dome, the girls, eyes flashing and fond, toasted him and Fafhrd for their cunning and bravery.
The Mouser bowed and eye-twinklingly smiled about, then sprawled him down with a weary sigh, wiping ‘his forehead with a silken cloth and downing a large drink.
After asking Vlana’s leave, Fafhrd told the adventurous tale of their escape from Cold Corner he from his clan, she from an acting troupe and of their progress to Lankhmar, where they lodged now in an actors’ tene-ment near the Plaza of Dark Delights, lvrian bugged herself to Vlana and shivered large-eyed at the witchy parts of his tale.
The only proper matter he omitted from his account was Vlana’s fixed intent to get a monstrous revenge on the Thieves’ Guild for torturing to death her accomplices and harrying her out of Lankhmar when she’d tried freelance thieving in the city before they met. Nor of course did he mention his own promise foolish, he thought now to help her in this bloody business.
After he’d done and got his applause, he found his throat dry despite his skald’s training, but when he sought to wet it, he discovered that his mug was empty and his jug too, though he didn’t feel in the least drunk—he had talked all the liquor out of ‘him, he told himself, a little of the stuff escaping in each glowing word he’d spoken.
The Mouser was in like plight and not drunk either though inclined to pause mysteriously and peer toward infinity before answering question or making remark. This time he suggested, after a particularly long infinity-gaze, that Fafhrd accompany him to the Eel while he purchased a fresh supply.
“But we’ve a lot of wine left in our jug,” lvrian protested. “Or at least a little,” she amended. It did sound empty when Vlana shook it. “Besides, you’ve wine of ‘all sorts here.”
“Not this sort, dearest, and first rule is never mix ‘em,”
the Mouser explained, wagging a finger. “That way lies unhealth, aye, and madness.”
“My dear,” Vlana said, sympathetically patting her wrist, “at some time in any good party all the men who are really men simply have to go out. It’s extremely stupid, but it’s their nature and can’t be dodged, believe me.”
“But, Mouser, I’m scared. Fafhrd’s tale frightened me.
So did yours-I’ll hear that familiar a-scratch at the shutters when you’re gone, I know I will!”
“Darlings,” the Mouser said with a small hiccup, “there is all the Inner Sea, all the Land of the Eight Cities, and to boot all the Trollstep Mountains in their sky-scraping grandeur between you and Fafhrd’s Cold Corner and its silly sorcerers. As for familiars, pish!
they’ve never in the world been anything but the loathy, all-too-natural pets of stinking old women and womanish old men.”
Vlana said merrily, “Let the sillies go, my dear. Twill give us chance for a private chat, during which we’ll take ‘em apart from wine-fumey head to restless foot.”
So lvrian let herself be persuaded, and the Mouser and Fafhrd slipped off, quickly shutting the door behind them to keep out the night-smog, and the girls heard their light steps down-the stairs.
Waiting for the four jugs to be brought up from the Eel’s cellar, the two newly met comrades ordered a mug each of the same fortified wine, or one near enough, and ensconced themselves at the least noisy end of the long serving counter in the tumultuous tavern. The Mouser deftly kicked a rat that thrust black head and shoulders from his hole.
After each had enthusiastically complimented the other on his girl, Fafhrd said diffidently, “Just between ourselves, do you -think there might be anything to your sweet lvrian’s notion that the small dark creature with Slivikin and the other Guild-thief was a wizard’s familiar, or at any rate the cunning pet of a sorcerer, trained to ‘act as go-between and report disasters to his master or to Krovas?”
The Mouser laughed lightly. “You’re building bug-bears—formless baby ones unlicked by logic—out of nothing, dear barbarian brother, if I may say so. How could that vermin make useful report? I don’t believe in animals that talk—except for parrots and such birds, which only … parrot.
“Ho, there, you back ‘of the counter! Where are my jugs? Rats eaten the boy who went for them days ago?
Or he simply starved to death while on his cellar quest?
Well, tell him to get a swifter move on and brim us again!
“No, Fafhrd, .even granting the beastie to be directly or indirectly a creature of Krovas, and that it raced back to Thieves’ House after our affray, what would that tell them there? Only that something had gone wrong with the burglary at Jengao’s.”
Fafhrd frowned and muttered stubbornly, “The furry slinker might, nevertheless, somehow convey our appearances to the Guild masters, and they might recognize us and come after us and attack us in our homes.”
“My dear friend,” the Mouser said condolingly, “once more begging your indulgence, I fear this potent wine is addling your wits. If the Guild knew our looks or where we lodged, they’d have been nastily on our necks days, weeks, nay, months ago. Or conceivably you don’t know that their penalty for freelance thieving within the walls of Lankhmar is nothing less than death, after torture, if happily that can be acheived.”
“I know all about that, and my plight is worse even than yours,” Fafhrd retorted, and after pledging the Mauser to secrecy, told him the tale of Vlana’s vendetta against the Guild and her deadly serious dreams of an all-encompassing revenge.
During his story the four jugs came up from the cellar, but the Mouser only ordered that ‘their earthenware mugs be refilled.
Fafhrd finished, “And so, in consequence of a promise given by an infatuated and unschooled boy in a southern angle of the Cold Waste, I find myself now as a sober well, at other times—man being constantly asked to make war on a power as great as that of Lankhmar’s overlord, for as you may know the Guild has locals in all other cities and major towns of this land. I love Vlana dearly and she is an experienced thief herself, but on this one topic she has a kink in her brains, a hard knot neither logic nor persuasion can even begin to loosen.”
“Certes t’would be insanity to assault the Guild direct, your wisdom’s perfect there,” the Mouser commented. “If you cannot break your most handsome girl of this mad notion, or coax her from it, then you must stoutly refuse e’en her least request in that direction.”