"No, my little Mouse," she said with soft affection, using his boyhood name. "I am stripped again of the flesh I wore, and shortly my merciful master will strip me of the memories of the things he made me do to you."
"I love you," he whispered, extending his fingertips toward her, though he knew she wouldn't return his touch. "Forever."
"In Shadowland," she answered, "forever is a long, long time. Farewell. I loved you, too."
The Death of Nehwon interrupted any further lovemaking. "Now let them go," he said to Fafhrd and the Mouser. "They too have earned honored places in my halls."
Putting a hand to his mouth, Fafhrd gave an uneasy cough. "Save a place for me, Vlana," he said.
The mist shifted suddenly, and their true loves vanished, leaving an emptiness in the Mouser's heart that made him cry out with pain. Pushing the fingers of his right hand down inside his left glove, he drew out the large pearl he had saved from Ivrian's broken necklace. In nearly the same motion, he ripped free the leather thong that bound back his thick black hair.
As if reading his intention, Fafhrd moved to stop him. "Not your sling!" the Northerner hissed.
But not even Fafhrd was fast enough to stop him. Setting the pearl in the tiny pouch, the Mouser launched it with all his pent-up fury. "Monster!" he screamed.
The pearl streaked upward and smashed into powder against the black mask of Nehwon's Death. The looming figure said nothing, nor did he react at all.
Trembling with rage, the Mouser clenched his fists and glared at Shadowland's lord. The white stain on that mask did nothing to assuage his hurt. Jerking Catsclaw from its sheath once again, he turned toward the insensate Malygris. When Fafhrd caught his arm, he pulled free.
Not as Sheelba’s hireling, but as an aggrieved and half-maddened victim, he stood before the wizard and raised the fateful blade. It bothered him not at all that Malygris stood helpless, only that he stood entranced and unfeeling. "I wish you could feel this!" he whispered to the wizard as he prepared to strike.
The Mouser drew back to drive the blade deep. Then to his shock and startlement, Malygris's eyes snapped wide. An angry fire flared in those black pupils. With one hand, he caught the Mouser's wrist, stopping the thrust, while his other hand closed on the Mouser's windpipe and exerted a fierce strength. His yellow-toothed mouth opened. "Did you think I would meekly take your steel? Even Death's power cannot restrain me!"
"Take it any way you like," the Mouser grunted, recovering his wits. "Just take it!"
He twisted away from Malygris, breaking the grip on his throat, but before he could free his trapped wrist, the wizard leaped upon him, bearing him off-balance. A rain of fists fell on his head and face, teeth bit his neck and scalp, thumbs dug into his eyes. "If one more must die tonight," Malygris roared, "the name will not be mine!"
Through the ringing and the rush of blood in his ears, the Mouser heard Fafhrd's voice. "Hold on, Gray Mouser! I'll strike . . . !" Then a paroxysm of coughing stilled the Northerner's speech.
The bitter sound steeled the Mouser's resolve. With a cold determination, he flung Malygris away. The wizard tumbled head over heels and smashed to the ground, disappearing under the mist. The Mouser followed, finding Catsclaw still in his hand. He knew unerringly where his foe lay, and this time, he allowed for no chance. He didn't need, nor even want, to see beneath the blanketing mist.
All was silence now, silence and cold dampness, save for the heat of his anger, the steam of his perspiration, the rasp of his breath. No witticism, no challenge, no triumphant cry formed in his mouth. Indeed, there was nothing more to say, only an ending to make of it all.
Straddling Malygris's chest, he used his knees to pin the wizard's arms. He squeezed his eyes shut. The point of his blade seemed to find its own way, to press against Malygris's body, to angle itself properly downward toward a frantically beating heart, desperately, furiously beating,
Malygris drew a breath. "Please . . .!"
The Mouser shut his ears. With a grunt, he leaned on Catsclaw, driving it deep. The breath sighed from Malygris's lips, a short, soft song of release, and perhaps—did the Mouser, out of some unwarranted sense of guilt, imagine it?—relief. The wizard's chest sank, and his whole form seemed to grow smaller between the Mouser's knees.
At last, the Mouser found his voice. "Damn you," he said, no witticism, no challenge, no triumphant cry, just a fervent wish. "Damn you to hell."
Death of Nehwon laughed.
The chill mist of Shadowland swirled, filling the Mouser's eyes, obscuring the great barge and its master. The souls of the dead seemed to blow apart like smoke in a wind. Fafhrd cried the Mouser's name.
The Mouser barely heard, nor could he answer, and soon Fafhrd stopped calling. All was silence and mist.
And cold—the mist was so cold.
TWENTY
HEROES' REPOSE
The Mouser hung suspended in a misty limbo, an impossible neverland without time or sensation, dimension or vista. A death-like chill rimed his senses. He saw nothing but gray vapor, heard no sound, smelled only the anaesthetic dampness, felt nothing but the cold.
Only one other thing touched his awareness—Malygris's curse. Like a sharp-toothed worm, it ate at his vitals with a voracious, desperate hunger. He felt it working faster, devouring him, as if it knew with some vague, obscene intelligence that its time was running out.
A soft wind blew through the void, tearing and scattering the fog. Pieces of mist ripped away and formed little whirling dervishes; thin vaporous wisps darted about briefly, like forlorn ghosts reluctant to quit a haunting. The rest of the fog rippled and fluttered like an unnatural veil as it slowly dissolved.
The world of Nehwon resolved itself under the Mouser's feet. Like a man waking from a long dream, he looked around. A veritable sea of tall grass waved before him. The stars—all his precious, familiar constellations—peppered the night sky. A deeply velvet, cobalt shimmer on the eastern horizon heralded the approach of dawn.
To his right, in the distance, he spied the yellow winking and twinkling of glow-wasps. Equally distant to his left stood the long black silhouette of Lankhmar’s walls.
Fafhrd spoke from behind him. "Dare we believe that we stand in the Great Salt Marsh?"
The Mouser didn't answer. He raised one incarnadined hand before his eyes. In the starlight, dripping Catsclaw glistened wetly in his fist. His once-gray glove, his sleeve, were black and sticky. Blood spotted his tunic, his trousers, and his cloak. A streak of moistness slowly dried on his left cheek.
A scream boiled up from deep inside. He fought to suppress it, but it rose, forced itself up to his lips. Still he resisted, muttering, "No! No!" The scream would not be denied.
Throat raw, he sank to his knees in the spongy marsh soil, vaguely aware of Fafhrd's comforting hands on his shoulders. In his mind, he saw Malygris's horror-stricken face at the moment of death, and he saw his own hand drenched in the wizard's blood. Revulsion filled him, that he had killed a helpless man, even one such as Malygris, who couldn't act to defend himself.
Yet, as he wept, he knew his tears were not for Malygris. "Ivrian," he whispered. "Ivrian!" Death had torn her from his side yet again. To see her, to hold her, and to lose her all over! How could a heart bear that?
Fafhrd pulled away, wracked by a fit of coughing. As if cold water had been thrown on the Mouser, he jumped to his feet. The Northerner stood a few paces off, bent double, hands braced weakly on knees. A thin black phlegm trailed from his lips to the grass.
With a handful of his gray cloak, the Mouser wiped Fafhrd's mouth. "You know I'm not a superstitious man," Fafhrd muttered.