He worried what would happen if someone came close enough and were sufficiently observant to note that his mask and cloak too of course were made of tiny ratskins closely stitched together. He hoped that rats were plagued by proportionately tinier rats, though he hadn’t noted any tiny rat-holes so far; after all, there was that proverb about little bugs having littler bugs, and so on; at any rate he could claim in a pinch that he came from a distant rat-city where such was the case. To keep the curious and watchful at a distance he hovered his gauntleted hands a-twitch above the pommels of Scalpel and Cat’s Claw, and chittered angrily or muttered such odd oaths as “All rat-catchers fry!” or “By candle-fat and bacon-rind!” in Lankhmarese, for now that he had ears small and quick enough to hear, he knew that the language was spoken underground, and especially well by the aristos of these lower levels. And what more natural than that rats, who were parasites on man’s farms and ships and cities, should copy his language along with newly other items of his habits and culture? He had already noted other solitary armed rats—bravos or berserkers, presumably—who behaved in the irritable and dangerous manner he now put on.
His escape from the cellar-rats had been achieved by his own cool-headedness and his pursuers’ blundering eagerness, which had made them fight to be first, so that the tunnel had been briefly blocked behind him. His candle had been most helpful in his descent of the first sharply down-angling, rough-hewn, then rough-digged passages, where he had made his way by sliding and leaping, checking himself on a rocky outcropping or by digging heel into dirt only when his speed became so great as to threaten a disastrous fall. The first rough-pillared concourse had also been pitch-dark, almost. There he had quickly thrown his cloak over his face to the eyes, for his candle had shown him numerous rats, most of them going naked on all fours, but a few of them hunchedly erect and wearing rough dark clothing, if only a pair of trews or a jacket or slouch hat or smock, or a belt for a short-bladed hanger. Some of these had carried pickax or shovel or pry-bar over shoulder. And there had been one rat fully clothed in black, armed with sword and dagger and wearing a silver-edged full-face vizard—at least the Mouser had assumed it was a rat.
He had taken the first passage leading down—there had been regular steps now, hewn in rock or cut in gravel—and had paused at a turn in the stairs by a curious though stenchful alcove. It contained the first he had seen of the fire-beetle lamps and also a half-dozen small compartments, each closed by a door that left space below and above. After a moment’s hesitation he had darted into one which showed no black hind paws or boots below and securely hooking the door behind him, had instantly and rapidly begun to fabricate his ratskin mask. His instinctive assumption about the function of the compartments was confirmed by a large two-handled basket half full of rat droppings and a bucket of stinking urine. After his long-chinned vizard had been made and donned, he had shaken out his candle, pouched it, and then relieved himself, at last permitting himself to wonder in amazement that all his clothes and belongings had been reduced in size proportionately with his body. Ah, he told himself, that would account for the wide gray border of the pink puddle which had appeared around his boots in the cellar above. When he’d been sorcerously shrunken, the excess motes or atomies of his flesh, blood, and bones had been shed downward to make the pink pool, while those of his gray clothing and tempered iron weapons had sifted away to make up the pool’s gray border, which had been powdery rather than slimy, of course, because metal or fabric contains little or no liquid compared to flesh. It had occurred to him that there must be twenty times as much of the Mouser by weight in that poor abused pink pool overhead as there was in his present rat-small form, and for a moment he had felt a sentimental sadness.
Finishing his business, he had prepared to continue his downward course when there had come the descending clatter of paw- and boot-steps, quickly followed by a banging on the door of his compartment.
Without hesitation he had unhooked the door and opened it with a jerk. Facing him close there had been the black-clad, black-and-silver-masked rat he had seen on the level above, and behind him three bare-faced rats with drawn daggers that looked and probably were sharper than gross human fingers could ever hone.
After the first glance, the Mouser had looked lower than his pursuers’ faces, for fear the color and shape and especially the placing of his eyes might give him away.
The vizarded one had said swiftly and clearly in excellent Lankhmarese, “Have you seen or heard anyone come down the stairs?—in particular an armed human magically reduced to decent and normal size?”
Again without hesitation the Mouser had chittered most angrily, and roughly shouldering his questioner and the others aside, had spat out, “Idiots! Opium-chewers! Nibblers of hemp! Out of my way!”
On the stairs he had paused to look back briefly, snarl loudly and contemptuously, “No, of course not!” and then gone down the stairs with dignity, though taking them two at a time.
The next level had shown no rats in sight and been redolent of grain. He had noted bins of wheat, barley, millet, kombo, and wild rice from the River Tilth. A good place to hide—perhaps. But what could he gain by hiding?
The next level—the third down—had been full of military clatter and rank with rat-stink. He had noted rat pikemen drilling in bronze cuirasses and helmets and another squad being instructed in the crossbow, while still others crowded around a table where routes on a great map were being pointed out. He had lingered even a shorter time there.
Midway down each stairs had been a compartmented nook like the first he’d used. He had docketed away in his mind his information.
Refreshingly clean, moist air had poured out of the fourth level,it had been more brightly lit, and most of the rats strolling in it had been richly dressed and masked. He had turned into it at once, walking against the moist breeze, since that might well come from the outer world and mark a route of escape, and he had continued with angry chitters and curses to play his impulsively assumed role of crotchety, half-mad rat-bravo or rogue-rat.
In fact, he found himself trying so hard to be a convincing rat that without volition his eyes now followed with leering interest a small mincing she-rat in pink silk and pearls—mask as well as dress—who led on a leash what he took at first to be a baby rat and then realized was a dwarfish, well-groomed, fear-eyed mouse, and also an imperiously tall ratess in dark green silk sewn over with ruby chips and holding in one hand a whip and in the other the short leashes of two fierce-eyed, quick-breathing shrews that looked as big as mastiffs and were doubtless even more bloodthirsty.
Still looking lustfully at this striking proud creature as she passed him with green, be-rubied mask tilted high, he ran into a slow-gaited, portly rat robed and masked in ermine, which looked extremely coarse-haired now, and wearing about his neck a long gold chain and about his alder-manic waist a gold-studded belt, from which hung a heavy bag that chinked dulcetly at the Mouser’s jolting impact.
Snapping a “Your pardon, merchant!” at the wheezingly chittering fellow, the Mouser strode on without backward glance. He grinned conceitedly under his mask. These rats were easy to befool!—and perhaps reduction in size had sharpened finer his own sharp wits.
He was tempted for an instant to turn back and lure off and rob the fat fellow, but realized at once that in the human world the chinking goldpieces would be smaller than sequins.
This thought set his mind on a problem which had been obscurely terrifying him ever since he had plunged into the rat-world. Sheelba had said the effects of the potion would last for nine hours. Then presumably the Mouser would resume his normal size as swiftly as he had lost it. To have that happen in a burrow or even in the foot-and-a-half-high, pillar-studded concourse would be disastrous—it made him wince to think of it.
Now, the Mouser had no intention of staying anything like nine hours in the rat-world. On the other hand, he didn’t exactly want to escape at once. Dodging around in Lankhmar like a nimbly animate gray doll for half a night didn’t appeal to him—it would be shame-making even if, or perhaps especially if while doll-size he had to report his important intelligences about the rat-world to Glipkerio and Olegnya Mingolsbane—with Hisvet watching perhaps. Besides, his mind was already afire with schemes to assassinate the rats’ king, if they had one, or foil their obvious project of conquest in some even more spectacular fashion on their home ground. He felt a peculiarly great self-confidence and had not realized yet that it was because he was fully as tall as the taller rats around, as tall as Fafhrd, relatively, and no longer the smallish man he had been all his life.