"I beat you!" Fafhrd shouted, bitter with frustration and renewed grief. "Let her go! I fought for her, and I won!"
The much-hated sound of the creature's laughter rolled back across the mist, followed by a rasping voice. "You lost, son of Nalgron." The sea itself seemed to carry the words to him. "Before this little amusement began, you had already lost."
The boat sailed onward, growing smaller and smaller, until only its lamp could be seen, and even that passed out of sight.
"Vlana!" The desperate shout ripped from Fafhrd's throat as the lamp's light vanished.
Alone in a gray limbo, he tried to think what he should do. Slowly he turned, attempting to spy some landmark in this desolate, featureless place by which he could navigate. Nothing caught his eye, no sound touched his ears, no odor wafted through the air. Even the pale, thin grayness that pervaded this world—wherever it might be—was fading, leaving him in darkness, deep and impenetrable.
Blind, guided by nothing except hope and determination, he started in the direction he thought the boat and Vlana had gone. How far he walked, he could not guess, nor for how long before the chill fog began to freeze his legs, and the cold crept into his lungs and all through his extremities.
With Vlana's name on his rime-caked lips, his weary limbs gave out, and he stumbled. Falling, sinking, the shallow sea seemed suddenly to have no bottom at all.
The mist enfolded him in a feathery soft embrace as unseen currents caught and carried him—somewhere. Yet again I fail you, Vlana, he thought bitterly as consciousness left him. Yet again, I fail.
NINE
SHADOW ON THE SUN
The first sunlight of dawn burned across the fog, coloring the sky with watery pastels. Swaths of pink and palest blue washed over a canvas of grays and silvers, creating a chiaroscuro edged with the black of retreating night.
Wearily, the Gray Mouser pushed open the Silver Eel's door and made his way up the stairs. On tiptoes, with no desire to wake either Cherig One-hand or the inn's other tenants, he crept down the hall to the room he shared with Fafhrd, turned the knob, and entered.
Fafhrd's big, booted feet stuck out from under the only blanket and hung over the end of the bed. Still in his clothes, the Northerner lay face down on the pillow, his red hair splayed about on the case, snoring with somnolent abandon. His left arm hung off the side of the bed, and the knuckles of that hand brushed the floor.
The Mouser frowned. There was no room on the bed for him to lie down. Unfastening his weapons belt, he set sword and dagger aside, placing them beside the only chair. Stripping off his gray tunic, he moved quietly across the room to a table and poured cool water from a pitcher into a ceramic basin. Enough light slipped through the unshuttered window to make the small oil lamp unnecessary, and he gently blew out the tiny flame. Unbinding his hair, he let the black mass spill forward as he bent over the basin and laved his face. He felt dirty, in need of a bath.
The bed frame creaked. Wiping his face with his tunic, the Mouser glanced sideways as Fafhrd sat slowly up and looked around the room with the curious, wide-eyed expression of one not quite awake. His gaze finally fastened on the Mouser.
"How did you get that plum over your eye?" the Mouser asked, returning to his ablutions.
As if in a daze, Fafhrd reached up and gingerly explored the red bruise that showed just below his hairline. Then, throwing back the blanket, he ran a hand over his trousers. "It wasn't a dream," he murmured distantly. His face screwed up with an expression of confusion as he patted the bed. "Or was it?" Staring toward the window, he became pensive and silent.
Wadding up his tunic, the Mouser dipped it in the basin and used it to wash under his arms, over his chest and neck and back. He scrubbed until his dusky skin turned red, and still he scrubbed. Liara's soft face seemed to stare up at him from the water in the basin, and her words echoed in his mind.
...I will show you the finest perfection of love, she said.
He scrubbed some more, forgetting about Fafhrd, gritting his teeth until he threw the wet tunic forcefully into the basin, shattering the image he imagined there, splashing water across the table and floor. Struck by a wet sleeve, the lamp pitched over the table's edge. Lunging, the Mouser caught it and set it safely upright again.
A little oil had leaked over his fingers. For a brief moment, he noted how the faint morning light played in the oil on his skin, how it shone like the cold light in Liara's eyes.
He pushed his hands into the basin and washed them thoroughly.
"Fog or no fog," he said suddenly, his jaw firmly set, "we search that tower tonight and find Malygris. This corrupt city will taint our souls if we linger here. We're made for open skies, you and I, and for carefree adventure."
Fafhrd spoke with uncharacteristic softness and regret. "I can't leave, my friend," he said from the bed. He wore a haunted look, and his gaze seemed fixed on something beyond the open window, something the Mouser couldn't see. "I have a new mystery, and I'm compelled to solve it." Pausing, he swallowed hard. "Twice, I've seen Vlana—or her ghost. Truly, I know not which. But she, or her spirit, walks in the fog."
"In the fog?" the Mouser said doubtfully.
"I believe it was she that saved us from the Ilthmarts."
The Mouser scoffed. Turning back to the basin, he took up his shirt and wrung it, his arms bulging, knuckles turning white with the effort he exerted. "Ghosts don't wield witchly powers," he said. Unwinding the garment, he shook it violently, snapping out the wrinkles, flicking droplets everywhere.
"I know what I have seen," Fafhrd answered stubbornly.
"You know what you've dreamed," came the Mouser's harsh reply. "Or what the bottom of some wine bottle has shown you." He spread the tunic over the back of the only chair and moved it next to the window so the sun would dry the cloth quickly.
Fafhrd shook his head. "I can't get her out of my mind, Mouser. I swear to you. Vlana, or her spirit, walks the streets of Lankhmar."
Agitated, the Mouser began to pace about the room. Abruptly, he stopped. Liara's face seemed to float in the air before him, though he knew he only imagined it. . . . The finest perfection of love, she seemed to say to him, her voice drowning Fafhrd's earnest insistences.
"All night I wandered in the Plaza of Dark Delights," he said suddenly, his voice a bare, choking whisper, "through that mist-filled maze of hedges and topiaries. Over white-pebbled walkways, down grassy paths slick as ice with dew. For hours I sat, then reclined, on a marble bench and stared into the gray limbo overhead where stars used to burn so brilliantly." He paused, and for a moment, he stood unmoving as a statue before he continued. "Not another soul ventured through the plaza all night. I was utterly alone. I felt so empty—"
"Maybe our souls are already tainted," Fafhrd said, "not by the city, but by our own memories."
The two men looked at each other for a painful moment. Then Fafhrd grinned and smacked his palm on the bed so hard the blanket leaped up around him. "Come and lie down on something softer than a marble bench," he invited. "When we wake up again, these black moods will have melted with the fog."
The Mouser drew a deep breath and shrugged. Bending down, he pulled off a boot and cast it aside. "Later, I'll sneak into the kitchen and forage for breakfast."
"You distract Cherig," Fafhrd said, holding back a corner of the blanket for the Mouser to slip under. "I've got a bigger appetite and deeper pockets in which to stuff his delicious victuals."
The Mouser chuckled. "Just don't hog the bed," he warned as he stretched out.