However, in the very center of the room, waited another, more mysterious wonder. Fafhrd moved a step closer, treading carefully upon the room's rich carpet with its lushly embroidered vines, flowers, and garden motifs to marvel at a silver sarcophagus, nine feet tall and fashioned in strange form.
Upon its polished front, the gleaming shape of a nude woman, eyes closed as if in slumber, emerged in carefully sculpted relief. Three pairs of graceful silver arms reached as if from behind the amazing box to modestly embrace her. The fingers of those hands clasped tightly over her breasts, her navel, her most private region.
No lid or seam showed to mar the perfect finish.
Fafhrd walked slowly around the device, admiring it. How it shimmered in the beam of sunlight that speared in through the only window!
Sameel knelt down before the carven figure. Her black hair spilled forward over one shoulder as she bent lower still to press her head upon the elaborately woven carpet. "Mistress?" she whispered.
A moment of silence passed as Fafhrd watched. Without warning, a metallic creak sounded. A single finger on the topmost pair of hands twitched. One by one the interlocked digits stirred to impossible life. The second pair of hands, then the lowest pair, also came alive, trembling and shifting eerily, as if unlimbering. Three sets of fingers wiggled, creaking and groaning in a cacophony of straining metal.
Suddenly the hands let go of each other. Once more silence dominated. Then with a soft hiss of escaping air, a seam appeared down the front of the sarcophagus, and a feathery vapor leaked out.
"Aarth's blood," Fafhrd muttered, retreating a step as that pale fog glided upon the carpet and crept around his ankles. The hackles rose on the back of his neck.
"Do not fear," Sameel said, rising from her knees and stepping aside. Her gaze fixed expectantly on the silver construct.
Fafhrd gulped the last of his gahvey. Another loud metallic groan filled the room, and a narrow beam of white light lanced forth from the widening seam. Startled, Fafhrd let the empty cup fall from his hand. It shattered on the carpet. Embarrassed, he shot a glance toward Sameel, but the gleaming box held her rapt attention. Surreptitiously, he bent and picked up one jagged shard.
With that poor weapon, he prepared to greet the unexpected.
The sarcophagus yawned open, splitting in half. White fog spilled out in a rush, revealing the still form of a dark haired woman swathed from neck to foot in folds of white linen. A strip of the same material covered her eyes, and a chilly rime paled her red lips.
A vision of strange loveliness, Fafhrd thought, noting how regally the woman sat upon her narrow, cushioned chair. He stared, an odd sadness filling him. Death sat gently upon that perfect face, diminishing none of its beauty.
Off to one side, Sameel bowed again.
From within the sarcophagus, the woman spoke. "Welcome, son of Mor and Nalgron." An amused smile turned up the corners of her lips. "Be careful not to cut yourself with that piece of crockery."
Fafhrd's heart lurched as the corpse spoke. Then he realized the woman was not dead, as he had thought. Casting a brief glance at the shard he held, he wondered how she could have seen it through her blindfold. With an embarrassed shrug, he dropped it, brushed his hands with an exaggerated motion, and clutched them before him. "You have the advantage of me, Lady."
"I have not saved your life twice to take advantage of you, Northerner," she answered calmly. "I am Laurian ..."
Surprise compelled Fafhrd to interrupt. "Sadaster's wife?" He took a step closer, peering at her face. Even through the mask of her blindfold he recognized her from his dream. "You say you've saved me twice?"
A delicate ivory hand rose from one of the chair's armrests. A slender finger slowly extended upward. Every motion Laurian made seemed unnaturally slow through the thin veil of mist that lingered about her. "Once," she said, "when thugs attacked you and your companion in the Carter Street Plaza."
Fafhrd stiffened, remembering tendrils of mist that had risen out of the night-fog to crush and strangle the Ilthmarts, who sought to kill both him and the Mouser. He noted with sudden nervousness the pale vapor that wafted about his feet, like a cat rubbing him as it wandered between and around his legs.
Laurian lifted a second finger. "Twice when you fell from the window of Malygris's tower." Her hand sank slowly back to the armrest. "Unfortunately, I acted too slowly and snatched you from midair. You struck my floor awkwardly with all your accumulated momentum. I apologize."
Fafhrd touched the goose-egg on the back of his head. "Not to sound ungrateful," he said, wincing, "but why save me at all? Of what interest to you can I be?"
"We shall be allies," Laurian answered. "I saw you in a dream, Fafhrd, and your friend the Mouser, too. I have watched for you and watched out for you."
"Sheelba," Fafhrd muttered under his breath.
"Sheelba?" Laurian echoed. She looked thoughtful, as if searching her memory. Her gaze strayed past Fafhrd toward the bookshelves. "Yes, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face—one of the Transfigured, who are so steeped in magic that their bodies, their very souls have twisted into arcane shapes. Their ways are as unfathomable as the gods. Why do you speak of him?"
"Sheelba, sender of dreams," he answered with cryptic bitterness. "Sheelba the manipulator." He glared suddenly at the woman who claimed to be Sadaster s wife. Had she really saved his life? How could he trust her?
Her eyes. He must see her eyes. Then he would know the truth. "Take off your blindfold," he said. "Let me see through those windows into your soul."
A blue-veined hand lifted from the armrest. Fingers curled and clutched at silk, and the blindfold came away. Gripping the strip of cloth, the hand settled into a black silk lap. Laurian turned her face toward him.
Fafhrd froze inside as he stared at those sightless orbs. Only a hint of color remained in the irises, but pools of thin red blood floated in the large whites. "You really are blind," he said in a voice suddenly regretful.
"Malygris's spell," she said stonily. "It killed my husband. It is killing me."
"You were not a sorceress in my dream," Fafhrd said.
Laurian laughed bitterly. "Indeed. I was but a pampered wife deeply in love with a man who gave me everything I wanted. And all I wanted were flowers and fruit trees, chimes to sing in the wind, fountains and pebbled walkways—a perfect garden in which to sit in the sunshine with Sadaster's head in my lap while I read poetry to him and stroked his brow."
Laurian's hands clutched the armrests of her chair. Slowly, with great effort showing on her face, she pushed herself up and stood. The veils of mist inside the sarcophagus swirled lightly about her as she pressed her hands together, the blindfold trailing from her fingers.
"Malygris made a grave mistake when he killed Sadaster," she said. With one frail hand, she gestured around. "He left me alive with my husband's magnificent library and a heart full of hatred."
Fafhrd felt a chill pass over his heart. "You studied magic, knowing the consequences," he said.
She laughed again. "I immersed myself in it," she answered with defiant anger. "Sadaster meant everything to me. I watched him rot day after day while he struggled uselessly to find a counter-measure to Malygris's evil curse ..." She pressed a palm to her head and stopped suddenly, trembling, as if unable to continue.
"I would walk through hell," she said at last in a quieter, more controlled voice, "challenge Death, himself, in the Shadowland to strike Malygris down for his crime." With a weary sigh, she sank into her chair, positioned her arms on the rests, and leaned her head back. "I am too weak. Knowledge I have, and power, but too little. And only my shroudcloth keeps me warm now."