The breeze swirled the mist once more, briefly revealing her face.
Fafhrd's heart seemed to stop in his chest. "Vlana?" Trembling lips seemed scarcely able to form her name. Extending one hand, he took a lurching step and stopped, unwilling to believe his eyes. Still, he cried, "Truest love!"
The wind ceased, and the mist enshrouded once more the figure before him, the only woman who had ever claimed his heart. With a wild outcry, Fafhrd thrust the point of his sword in the earth and ran forward, flinging his arms around the space where she should have been, encountering nothing. Nearly maddened, he flailed at the fog, spinning around and around like a drunken dancer, calling for his Vlana, until at last, he fell exhausted to his knees.
She was gone, if she had ever been there at all.
Once again, like a teasing serpent, the breeze slithered down the narrow way, and the heavy, gray fog parted before it. Lifting his head, Fafhrd stared across the road at the charred ruin of a once-familiar apartment dwelling and realized with a horrible, heart-wrenching certainty where he was.
In the uppermost floor of that building, his true love and the Mouser's had been set upon and devoured by hordes of rats under the control of a wizard in service to the Thieves' Guild. The women had fought and died while their men were off buying wine from the Silver Eel for a party.
The horror of the sight that greeted his eyes upon returning to those bloody rooms still haunted Fafhrd. It was the substance of all his nightmares, that Vlana called out, cursing his name and begging for aid as the vermin ripped out her throat and drank her eyes from their sweet sockets.
Such was the dream he had dreamed even this night and from which he had struggled to awake.
For the first time in this stranger than strange evening, he felt truly lost.
Alone and unseen, veiled by the darkness and the fog, even a barbarian could weep without shame. On his knees in the street, the big Northerner's head sagged forward onto his chest, and his arms fell limply to his sides as sobs of grief and aching loss filled the night.
The fog hid the building from sight once again, and misty tendrils, offering cool comfort, enwrapped Fafhrd in his pain.
FIVE
CITY OF A THOUSAND TEMPLES
The front door of the Silver Eel opened quietly, and the pale gray light of an early misty morning seeped across the threshold. The heavy fog of night had retreated, but the sun had not yet warmed the streets, nor chased the chill from the air. Hugging his cloak about his shoulders, Fafhrd eased the door closed.
The tavern was silent and empty but for a single figure. Slumped over a table in the farthest corner, the Mouser raised his head sleepily and peeled open one eye. Fafhrd said nothing to his companion as he passed by, but he set a soft leather purse near the Mouser's hand before he proceeded up the stairs and sought the room they shared.
The lamp in the hallway had long since burned out, and within their rented room, darkness still held sway. The morning light, weak as it was, had not yet penetrated into the narrow alley beyond the open window. Putting aside his sword, Fafhrd pulled the shutters closed and latched them. Turning, he gazed around the room and wondered what he should do next. At last, he sank down to the floor, leaned his back against the wall beneath the window sill, hugged his cloak closer still, and put his head wearily upon his knees.
With the mildest of creaks, the door opened and shut. It was Fafhrd's turn to look up. An orange glow surrounded the Mouser as he held high one of the taverns lanterns. In his other hand, he bore a pitcher. Placing the lantern beside the wash basin on the room's only table, he handed the pitcher to Fafhrd, then crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Rough night?" the Mouser asked. "Looks like you spent it in a pig sty."
Fafhrd took a long pull from the pitcher. The beer tasted warm and bitter, but it drove the chill from his body, and lifted his spirits a little. "Nice of you to wait up," he said.
With the strings looped around his first finger, the Mouser twirled the purse around and around until the speed of its motion made a small humming sound and the purse, itself, blurred. "I gather you encountered the Ilthmart of questionable character?"
Fafhrd only nodded as he rose and went to the table. Setting aside the pitcher of beer, he cast off his cloak and began to wash himself with an old cloth using the water that already half-filled the crude earthenware basin. The sound of gentle splashing filled the room.
The Mouser put aside the purse. "Did you kill him?" he inquired carefully. "Is that why your mood seems bleaker than this crippled daylight?"
Fafhrd cleaned mud from his feet and shins. "He preferred to be reasonable," he answered. "As for my mood—" he paused in his ablutions and glanced toward the shutters before rinsing the cloth with a violent effort. Water splashed from the basin, spilling onto the table and floor. Fafhrd ignored it. "Blame it on this fog-haunted city. I wish we were away from here."
A strangely grim expression shadowed the Mouser's face. Fafhrd looked away from his friend as he gnawed his lower lip. He wondered if he should speak of Vlana's ghost. Yet, could he be sure he had, indeed, seen the spirit of his one true love? Perhaps it was only his imagination or the fog playing tricks with his head. Perhaps it was only his grief catching up with him.
The Mouser patted the mattress. "Let us take a few hours' sleep," he suggested, "then, we'll rise and begin this evil quest. The sooner begun, the sooner done."
Fafhrd scowled as he threw the cloth back into the basin, splashing more water. "Sleep," he said, turning down the lantern's wick. Crossing to his side of the bed in the near-darkness, he crawled under a corner of the only blanket. "Then rise and head to work like good common little hirelings."
The Mouser's boots clunked onto the floor as he cast them off. His tunic followed, and he claimed his own piece of the blanket. "You should never go to bed angry," he said in a lighter tone.
"You are not my wife," Fafhrd grumbled as he turned onto his side, a movement that dragged the entire blanket to his half of the bed. "Shut up."
The Mouser snatched it back again, beginning a silent war that would continue until well past noon.
A drizzling rain fell from slate-gray skies, turning the backstreets and alleyways to ribbons of mud, slicking the cobblestones and paving tiles of the better thoroughfares. Along the Street of the Gods, the gutters roiled with dirty, refuse-strewn water. Huddled under hooded cloaks or brightly dyed parasols, pedestrians hurried in and out of the many elaborate temples that gave the way its name.
Impatiently watching the traffic, Fafhrd waited outside the columned gates of the Temple of Mog, the spider god. The droning intonations of Mog's priests reached his ears, muffled only slightly by the rain's steady pitter-patter. The temple was actually a huge amphitheater with a cone-shaped administration building at its center. Come rain or shine, from dawn until sundown, priests and acolytes and worshippers ranged about the grounds singing the praises of their deity.
Huddled under a single blue and yellow parasol, a pair of old women passed by Fafhrd and through the columned entrance. Immediately, they began to sing, weaving their voices in a squeaky, tuneless harmony. Drawing the folds of his hood closer about his face, the Northerner turned his back to the gate and shook his head. How, he wondered, could any god abide such prayer?