“All to the good!” the Mouser assured her with a mad smile. “Drink may slow a man’s sword-arm and soften his blows a bit, but it sets ‘his wits ablaze and fires his imagination, and those are the qualities we’ll need tonight.”
Vlana eyed him dubiously.
Under cover of ‘this confab Fafhrd made quietly yet swiftly to fill once more his and the Mouser’s mugs, but Vlana noted it and gave him such a glare that he set down mugs and uncorked jug so swiftly ‘his robe swirled.
The Mouser shouldered his sack and drew open the door. With a casual wave at the girls, but no word spoken, Fafhrd stepped out on the tiny porch. The night-smog had grown so thick he was almost lost to view.
The Mouser waved four fingers at lvrian, then followed Fafhrd.
“Good fortune go with you,” Vlana called heartily.
“Oh, be careful, Mouser,” lvrian gasped.
The Mouser, his figure slight against the loom of Fafhrd’s, silently drew shut the door.
Their arms automatically gone around each other, the girls waited for the inevitable creaking and groaning of the stairs. It delayed and delayed. The night-smog that bad entered the room dissipated and still the silence was unbroken.
“What can they be doing out .there?” lvrian whispered.
“Plotting their course?”
Vlana impatiently shook her head, then disentangled herself, tiptoed to the door, opened it, descended softly a few steps, which creaked most dolefully, then returned, shutting the door behind her.
“They’re gone,” she said in wander.
“I’m frightened!” lvrian breathed and sped across the room to embrace the taller girl.
Vlana bugged her tight, then disengaged an aim to shoot the door’s three heavy bolts.
In Bones Alley the Mouser ‘returned to his pouch the knotted line by which they’d descended from the lamp hook. He suggested, “How about stopping at the Silver Eel?”
“You mean and just tell the girls we’ve been to Thieves’
House?” Fafhrd asked.
“Oh, no,” the Mouser protested. “But you missed your stirrup cup upstairs and so did 1.”
With a crafty smile Fafhrd drew from his robe two full jugs.
“Palmed ‘em, as ‘twere, when I set down the mugs.
Vlana sees a lot, but not all.”
“You’re a prudent, far-sighted fellow,” the Mouser said admiringly. “I’m proud to call you comrade.”
Each lmoorked and drank a hearty slug. Then ‘the Mouser led them west, they veering and stumbling only a little, and then north into an even narrower and more noisome alley.
“Plague Court,” the Mouser said.
After several preliminary peepings ‘and peerings, ‘they staggered swiftly across wide, empty Crafts Street and into Plague Court again. For a wonder it was growing a little lighter. Looking upward, they saw stars. Yet there was no wind blowing from the north. The air was deathly still.
In their drunken preoccupation with the project ‘at hand and mere locomotion, they did not look behind them. There the night-smog was thicker than ever. A high-circling nighthawk would have seen the stuff converging from all sections of Lankhmar in swift-moving black rivers and rivulets, heaping, eddying, swirling, dark and reeking essence ‘of Lankhmar from its branding irons, braziers, bonfires, kitchen fires and warmth fires, kilns, forges, breweries, distilleries, junk and garbage fires innumerable, sweating alchemist’s and sorcerers’ dens, cre-matoriums, charcoal burners’ turfed mounds, all those and many more … converging purposefully on Dim Lane and particularly on the Silver Eel and the rickety house behind it. The closer to that center it got, the more substantial the smog became, eddy-strands and swirl-tatters tearing off and clinging like black cobwebs to rough stone corners and scraggly surfaced brick.
But the Mouser and Fafhrd merely exclaimed in mild, muted amazement at the stars and cautiously zigzagging across the Street of the Thinkers, called Atheist Avenue by moralists, continued up Plague Court until it forked.
The Mouser chose the left branch, which trended north-west.
“Death Alley.”
After a curve and recurve. Cheap Street ‘swung into sight about thirty paces ahead. The Mouser stopped at once and lightly threw his arm against Fafhrd’s chest.
Clearly in view across Cheap Street was the wide, low, open doorway of Thieves’ House, framed by grimy stone blocks. There led up to it two steps hollowed by the treading of centuries. Orange-yellow light spilled out from bracketed torches inside. There was no porter or guard in sight, not even a watchdog on a chain. The effect was ominous.
“Now how do we get into the damn place?” Fafhrd demanded in a hoarse whisper. “That doorway stinks of traps.”
The Mouser answered, scornful at last, “Why, we’ll walk straight through ‘that doorway you fear.” He frowned.
“Tap and hobble, rather. Come on, while I prepare us.”
As he drew the skeptically grimacing Fafhrd back down Death Alley untill all Cheap Street was again cut off from view, he explained, “We’ll pretend to be beggars, members of their guild, which is but a branch of the Thieves’
Guild and reports in to the Beggannasters at Thieves’
House. We’ll be new members, who’ve gone out by day, so it’ll not be expected that the Night Beggarmaster will know ‘our looks.”
“But we don’t look like beggars,” Fafhrd protested.
“Beggars have awful sores and limbs all a-twist or lacking altogether.”
“That’s just what I’m going to take care ‘of now,” ‘the Mouser chuckled, drawing Scalpel. Ignoring Fafhrd’s backward step and wary glance, the Mauser gazed puz-zledly at the long tapering strip of steel he’d bared, ‘then with a happy nod unclipped from his belt Scalpel’s scabbard furbished with ratskin, sheathed the sword and swiftly wrapped it up, hilt and all, spirally, with ‘the wide ribbon of a bandage roll dug from ibis sack.
“There!” he said, knotting .the bandage ends. “Now I’ve a tapping cane.”
“What’s that? Fafhrd demanded. “And why?”
The Mouser laid a flimsy black rag across his own eyes and tied it fast behind his head.
“Because I’ll .be blind, that’s why.” He took a few shuffling steps, ‘tapping the cobbles ahead with wrapped sword—gripping it by the quillons, or cross guard, so that the grip and pommel were up his sleeve—and groping ahead with his other hand. “That look all right to you?”
he asked Fafhrd as he ‘turned back. “Feels perfect to me.
Bat-blind!—eh? Oh, don’t fret, Fafhrd the rag’s but gauze. I can see through it fairly well. Besides, I don’t have to convince anyone inside Thieves’ House I’m actu-ally blind. Most Guild-beggars fake it, as you must know.
Now what to do with you? Can’t have you blind also too obvious, might wake suspicion.” He uncorked his jug and sucked inspiration. Fafhrd copied this action, on principle.
The Mouser smacked his lips and said, “I’ve got it!
Fafhrd, stand on your right leg and double up your left behind you at the knee. Hold! don’t fall on me! Avaunt!
But steady, yourself by my shoulder. That’s right. Now get .that left foot higher. We’ll disguise your sword like mine, for a crutch cane—it’s thicker and’ll look just right.
You can also steady yourself with your other ‘hand on my shoulder as you hop—the halt leading the blind. But higher with that left foot! No, it just doesn’t come off I’ll have to rope it. But first unclip your scabbard.”
Soon the Mouser had Graywand and its scabbard in ‘the same state as Scalpel and was tying Fafhrd’s left ankle to his thigh, drawing the rope cruelly tight, though Fafhrd’s wine-numbed nerves hardly registered it. Balancing himself with his steel-cored crutch cane as ‘the Mouser worked, he swigged from his jug and pandered deeply.
Brilliant as .the Mouser’s plan undoubtedly was, there did seem to be drawbacks to it.
“Mouser,” he said, “I don’t know as I like having our swords tied up, so we can’t draw ‘cm in emergency.”
“We can still use ‘em as clubs,” the Mouser countered, his breath hissing between his teeth as he drew the last knot hard. “Besides, we’ll have our knives. Say, pull your belt around until your knife is behind your back, so your robe will hide it sure. 111 do the same with Cat’s Claw.
Beggars don’t carry weapons, at least in view. Stop drinking now, you’ve had enough. I myself need only a couple swallows more to reach my finest pitch.”
“And I don’t know as I like going hobbled into that den of cutthroats. I can hop amazingly fast, it’s true, but not as fast as I can run. Is it really wise, think you?”
“You can slash yourself loose in an instant,” the Mouser hissed with a touch of impatience and anger. “Aren’t you willing to make the least sacrifice for art’s sake?”
“Oh, very well,” Fafhrd said, draining his jug and toss-mg it aside. “Yes, of course I am.”
“Your complexion’s too hale,” the Mouser said, inspect-ing him critically. He touched up Fafhrd’s features and hands with pale gray grease paint, ‘then added wrinkles with dark. “And your garb’s too tidy.” He scooped dirt from between the cobbles and smeared it on Fafhrd’s robe, then tried to put a rip in it, but the material resisted. He shrugged and tucked his lightened sack under his belt.