"You fell asleep," the Mouser said, keeping his voice low. "Later, I'll poke merciless fun of you for it. For now, though, I spy no immediate threat." Fastening the sword belt around his waist, he turned back to his partner. "It is no small matter, however, this dream you've had. Were there two wizards and a woman?"
Fafhrd's eyes widened yet again, and he rose cautiously to stand beside the fire. The dim light glowed on his powerfully muscled form. Nearly seven feet tall, the Northerner towered over his much smaller companion. "Aye," he answered, "and one of them died a horrible, wasting death."
The Mouser shrugged. "I woke up before that part," he said, "But if your wizard died in Lankhmar on Midsummer’s Moon, then I've had this same dream."
"In Lankhmar, yes, curse that wretched city's name," Fafhrd said with a scowl. "And there was a festival, but Sadaster didn't die until nearly the Eve of the Frost Moon." His brow wrinkled with sudden concern. "What thievery is this?" he said with an air of offense. "Must we now split and share our dreams as we share our booty?"
Bending toward his pallet once again, the Mouser retrieved the cloak that, wadded, had served his head for a pillow. It was made of the same coarse gray silk as his tunic, and he tossed it around his shoulders and fastened it at his throat. "You are still half-asleep, Fafhrd," he said. "Use those innocent-seeming green eyes of yours for something besides bait to attract pretty girls and the wives of aristocrats."
Fafhrd seemed momentarily confused. Then he stared around their small camp. "The booty!" he cried in dismay, forgetting to lower his voice. "It's gone. Lord Hristos jewels—all our hard work!"
The Mouser raised one eyebrow and smirked. "Hard work, yes," he muttered. "You spent a whole night boffing the lord's wife until she finally lost consciousness ..."
Fafhrd shrugged sheepishly under his partner's scolding.
". . . while I pilfered every bauble in the house."
Again, Fafhrd shrugged. "Someone had to distract her," he replied.
"You might have distracted a few of her servants or her guardsmen, too, while you were in the business of distracting."
The Northerner snorted. "I distracted her husband well enough when he returned unexpectedly to find you clutching every star in that firmament he called a strongroom."
A brief smile flickered over the Mouser’s lips as he remembered the glimmering wealth in Lord Hristo’s treasure chests and the comforting weight of the saddlebags on his shoulders once he had quietly transferred that wealth.
"And a merry chase into the Mountains we led him, too," Fafhrd continued, "with his soldiers hot on our heels. Damn clever of you, little man, to spill one of the bags in our wake. Hristo's soldiers fairly flew out of their saddles to snatch the sparklies from the dust." He came around the fire and dealt the Mouser a congratulatory slap on the back. "But where—tell me now and tease me no more—is the remaining treasure?"
"With our horses, I suppose," the Mouser answered simply. "Still in the Mountains of the Elder Ones."
Fafhrd glared at his companion before turning his gaze to follow the Mouser’s. Abruptly, he rubbed his eyes again to make sure all sleep was gone from them. Then he dived for his boots and began pulling them on. "The Mountains!" he exclaimed. "They're gone, too!"
Shaking his head, the Mouser stared once more upward at the night sky, noting familiar constellations and the positions of the stars. "I suspect the mountains are right where they've always been," he said with a nervous calm. "It is we who are gone from the mountains, shifted somehow across the world in our sleep—a sleep no doubt forced upon you as you kept watch."
"The dream ..." Fafhrd started, rising again and pacing about.
"Aye, the dream," the Mouser agreed in an uneasy grumble as the images came tumbling once again into his head. "We have been snatched up by some god or wizard, Fafhrd, and transported here." He stirred the outer ashes of their dwindling campfire with the toe of one mouseskin boot. "Nice of them to bring our warmth along," he said caustically.
"Pity they couldn't have brought along my jewels," Fafhrd pouted. He quickly changed the subject. "I think I know where we are, Mouser," he announced, making a show of sniffing as he paced. "There's a familiarity about the air."
"You mean about the reek?" the Mouser corrected, wrinkling his nose as he, too, sniffed. The odor of weed-rot hung in the night. Like his partner, he too had made a guess about their present location, but whereas Fafhrd no doubt based his supposition on his barbarian-bred senses, he based his own on a knowledge of the positions of the stars and constellations, a distinction about which he felt quite smug.
Fafhrd, clutching Graywand in his hands, exposed a portion of the blade then slammed it back into the sheath, a gesture that was both an insult and a curse to his northern people. "This is the Great Salt Marsh," he said, his lips curled back in puzzlement and anger as he turned to face the west. "We're back in Lankhmar where we swore we would never come again."
The Mouser pursed his lips thoughtfully. The night wind brushed through the dark locks of his hair as softly as a woman's fingers, and he remembered a girl named Ivrian, a delicate, pretty little wisp with flowing blond hair and laughing eyes, who had been his first true love. He remembered also returning home one evening to find rats gnawing her murdered corpse and that of another woman, Vlana, who was Fafhrd's first love.
The quest to avenge Ivrian and Vlana had cemented the Mouser's friendship with the big Northerner, and grief had driven them from that despised city when their vengeance was complete. Like Fafhrd, he had no desire to return.
He touched his companion's arm. "Turn away, Fafhrd," he said. "A road still runs two ways, and nothing prevents us from giving our backs to Lankhmar twice."
But when the Mouser turned, something did block their way. Limned by the dim glow of the campfire, an old thatched hut stood on tall, stilted legs. The brittle straw that made its roof jutted up like hair on a wild man's head, and the black, blanket-covered door seemed to yawn like a toothless mouth.
The Mouser rubbed his eyes. Had he been so busy with his stargazing, or had the night been so dark that he had missed this sight before? The hairs prickling on the back of his neck, he slipped his sword, Scalpel, from its mouseskin sheath. The slender blade gleamed redly in the light of the coals.
"Either I have lost both booty and senses in the same evening," the Mouser said softly, "or that hut was not there a moment ago."
From within the hut came a muffled coughing and hacking. A barely perceived hand, more blackened bone than flesh, or so it seemed in the gloom, drew back the curtain draping the entrance. Like a slow-moving shadow, a cowled and black-robed figure emerged. It climbed down a rickety ladder, pausing after each labored step, to the ground. Reaching the bottom, it surrendered to a brief coughing fit. Then, the stooped figure shambled toward them.
From across the campfire's coals, it looked up. There was nothing to see inside that cowl, but a rasping, almost serpentine voice issued forth as the creature introduced itself.
"I am Sheelba."
The Mouser lifted the point of his sword. "This is Scalpel," he said, adding as his other hand touched the hilt of his dagger, "and this is Catsclaw. Come closer if you would make their more intimate acquaintance."
Fafhrd held his own huge blade level with the Mouser's. "I can smell a woman or a wizard a mile away," he said, scowling, "and your perfume is no dainty orchid juice."