Despite his reservations, the Mouser started forward to help in whatever manner he could, but Sheelba held up a hand, refusing any offer of support.
"You must roust Malygris from whatever hole he has crawled into," Sheelba said, his voice noticeably weaker, when he could speak again. "My life is not the only one at stake. Many others will die if you deny me. Anyone who uses magic or is touched by it—even the simplest charms—is at risk." He pointed to the gleaming image of Malygris with a shaky finger. "No one is immune, not man, woman, or child. I have the spell that can stop this madness, and I have all the ingredients for it save one."
"Return to Lankhmar City," Fafhrd murmured. His mouth set itself in a firm, tight line as he clenched his jaw. Clearly, he found the idea as distasteful as the Mouser. "But if we do this thing for you, creature, we are hirelings, not errand boys. What rate of pay do you offer?"
"Ever the businessman," the Mouser muttered. "Ever an eye to profit."
Sheelba ignored Fafhrd, turning to the Mouser. "You understand, don't you, Gray One?" he whispered, leveling one frail finger near the Mouser's nose. "You see the choices."
With lightning quickness, the Mouser reached out and caught that finger, expecting to snap it like the twig it resembled. Instead, it bent bonelessly backward toward the wizard's wrist, and if it caused Sheelba any pain at all, he gave no sign of it. "Bah!" he cried, releasing the useless grip and stepping back.
The image of Malygris quietly watched everything with its silver eyes.
"What is it, Mouser?" Fafhrd said, moving closer to his friend, his gaze sweeping back and forth distrustfully from the silver statue to the brown-cloaked wizard. "You have better instincts for sorcery than I, and the look upon your face . . . !"
"He speaks of choices," the Mouser shouted angrily, "but this Sheelba has left us no choice at all!"
"Of course you have choices," Sheelba answered with icy calm. "You can walk away right now. In a couple of months you might even make it back to the Mountains of the Elders where I called you from. You might even find your treasure where you left it."
The statue of Malygris glanced toward Fafhrd, grinned, then did its best to wipe the grin away.
Sheelba’s voice took on a nastier edge. "You might even live a long and happy life."
"Might, might, might," the Mouser shot back, "More likely, we'll cough our guts up like you're doing now and rot to death!" He slammed Scalpel back into its mouseskin sheath. "Put your sword away, Fafhrd," he said. "We don't dare gut him, much as I'd love to!"
"Couldn't we nick him a little, here and there?" the Northerner suggested, his sword still in his hand. Plainly, though, he didn't understand the situation.
The Mouser explained it to him. "Transporting us from the Elder Mountains all the way to Lankhmar took a mighty spell," he said. "Our very bodies passed through the magical ether from that point to this. There is every chance that Malygris's damnable spell has touched us."
Fafhrd stared at the Mouser, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he weighed the implications of his comrade’s speech. "So," he said at last, swallowing as he turned to Sheelba of the Eyeless Face. "What is this last ingredient we're all so desperate for?"
The wizard's twisted finger resumed its natural shape, and he folded his hands together as if giving thanks for reasonable minds. As he did so, the Mouser's slender blade floated up from its sheath without any help from its owner, then through the air to prick the heart of the silver statue.
As it withdrew, a tiny bit of flame flickered on the end of the sword, then died, leaving not so much as a scorch mark on the metal.
"The final and most necessary ingredient," Sheelba whispered. "Bring me a single drop of Malygris's heart-blood."
"Why can't it ever be just a cup of sugar or a pound of salt?" Fafhrd grumbled, frowning again.
"So we are not errand boys at all, Fafhrd," the Mouser spat as he snatched his sword out of the air and returned it to its sheath. He kept his hand on it this time so it could not fly free again. "We are assassins."
The Northerner turned his gaze in the direction of Lankhmar City, and the Mouser's followed. It was still too far away and much too dark to see its soaring walls, but memories of that hated place were enough to draw them both like beacons. "I must admit, Mouser," Fafhrd said slowly, "if what this Sheelba says is true, no one ever more deserved killing."
"Then let us do it quickly, my friend," the Mouser agreed. "Find Malygris and steal his heart's blood, then put this vile city behind us once more."
"Steal?" Fafhrd began. "Steal?"
The Mouser was in no mood for his companion's bluster. He turned back to Sheelba, but the faceless creature was no longer there, nor was the silver statue of Malygris. Far out on the marshy expanse, barely visible against the starlight, Sheelba’s elevated hut walked away on its stilted legs toward the deeper swamps.
TWO
SUNLIGHT AND SHADOWS
Muttering curses under his breath, the Mouser watched Sheelba's hut walk away. Those strange, stilted legs made wide, graceful strides, yet it moved soundlessly until it disappeared in the darkness.
"Giddiyup, house," Fafhrd said in quiet wonder as he sheathed his great sword. "I guess this means we go on to Lankhmar after all."
The Mouser growled, curling his lips and causing the sound to rattle deep in his throat. Wordlessly, he bent and scooped handfuls of damp earth over the coals of the campfire. Then he snatched up his blanket only to throw it down in disgust, finding it sodden with the ground’s moisture.
Fafhrd only looked at his bedroll, scratched his short red beard, and shrugged.
As if by unspoken agreement, they turned and walked in the opposite direction from the way Sheelba had gone, the moon and the brighter stars lighting their way. There were few trees and few bushes. The Great Salt Marsh was little more than a sea of grass. In some places, the grass grew tall as their shoulders while in others it barely broke through the spongy earth, alternately creating sharp-bladed forests and vast open stretches.
Emerging from one such forest, Fafhrd stopped and threw an arm across the Mouser's chest. The Mouser, who had been looking downward at his feet, grunted as if he'd walked into a tree. On the verge of an acid comment, he held his tongue and stared across the expanse that confronted them.
Farther out across that wet plain, thousands of tiny golden-yellow lights swam in the air, blinking rhythmically as they bobbed and darted and danced, always orbiting, never venturing far from a squat, dome-shaped hive constructed from marsh mud.
"Glow wasps," Fafhrd whispered uneasily.
The Mouser nodded as he listened to the low, droning hum the creatures' wings made. The tall grass had muffled the sound before, and it was only upon reaching the clearing's edge that the terrible music had caught his attention.
Left alone, the insects were no threat, but the venom of a single wasp was potentially lethal. Few men ever had to worry about a single buggie, however. Once enraged, glow wasps attacked in swarms—and being temperamental by nature, it didn't take much to enrage them.
The two friends slipped silently back into the tall grass, deciding to take a wide course around the open plain and its glow wasp population, and keeping a sharp eye peeled for single hive-scouts.
The ground became damper. Water began to trickle up around their footsteps. Soon, little pools and thin streams, half hidden by the darkness and thick grass, revealed themselves. The Mouser cursed as, unexpectedly, he sank past his ankle in a muddy patch.
"Were this not midsummer," Fafhrd said, trying to hide a snicker as his comrade shook mud from his foot, "we'd be wading in muck up to our necks."