"Is it enough?" he asked. His voice revealed both a desperation and a bitter edge that reflected the war still raging in his mind.
She sneered, yet her voice was a cat's purr. "For the finer perfections of love?" Coming closer, she stirred the glittering pile with one painted big toe. Her eyes fastened on her guest. "Barely." She turned toward the bed. "Undress."
Swiftly, the Mouser stripped off his garments. Standing at the foot of the bed, Liara watched him, a look of seeming impatience on her face. Her robe gaped open wider as she planted one hand on her hip. In the dim light, her eyes flashed.
The Mouser moved to her side. He drew his fingertips down the ivory flesh of her arms, eliciting no reaction until he tried to embrace her. She put a hand on his chest. "You are not on the Street of Red Lanterns," she said harshly.
A chill passed through him, then a wave of heat as she held back the veils that surrounded the bed. The Mouser gazed up at the tall framework over the bed, eyeing the manacles suspended from above.
Her calculating look dared him. He stared back at her. In that icily beautiful face he saw his one true love, sweet Ivrian, and this other woman, Liara the whore. In his mind, their identities merged and blurred.
His senses reeled. Like a drunken man, he climbed up onto the bed. Struggling to keep his balance on the pile of expensive down mattresses and slick silken sheets, he placed his own wrists in the manacles and waited, his mind awhirl with confusing memories and thoughts, his body on fire with unfettered dark lusts.
Ivrian or Liara climbed up on the bed behind him. He could feel the cool fabric of her robe on his buttocks and calves, but he felt the stab of her bare nipples against his back as she reached up and snapped the manacles' locks.
"Welcome to the House of Night Cries," she breathed into his ear.
She laughed a cruel, taunting laugh as she backed away from him.
"Ivrian," the Mouser whispered. The sound he heard was not laughter, but the voice of the woman he had failed to protect. It came to him like a condemning wind across the years. His knuckles cracked as he gripped his chains. "Forgive me, Ivrian."
He cast a glance back over his shoulder. And he knew with a drunken man's clarity that the woman behind him was Ivrian, or some part of her.
Closing his eyes, he arched his back and prepared himself.
Liara laughed again, then hissed like a cat.
A velvet whip lashed across the Mouser's flesh. For nine strokes, he bore it silently. Still her arm rose and fell with amazing strength. Five more strokes. In his mind, he tried to hold an image of Ivrian, but it kept changing into Liara, and with every stroke it mocked him. He bit his lip. A thin string of drool oozed from the corner of his mouth and over his chin.
The whip came down again, shattering the image and his silence. At last, he knew why they called it the House of Night Cries.
SIXTEEN
CITY OF THE DAMNED
As dawn broke over Lankhmar, a dispirited Gray Mouser pushed open the door to the Silver Eel. Pausing on the threshold, he stared at the overturned tables and broken stools, the spilled mugs and empty bottles that littered the place. A couple of drunks, slumped shoulder to shoulder on the floor, snored noisily in one corner.
A shirtless Cherig One-hand lay sprawled upon the bar, snoring as loudly as his two unconscious patrons. Someone had folded the tavern-owners arms upon his chest in funereal manner and stuck a wilted flower between his fingers. A copper tik-coin rested upon each of his closed eyes. His boots had been removed, and his toenails as well as his fingernails had been painted bright scarlet as a woman would do. Likewise, his cheeks had been rouged and his lips berry-brightened.
The Mouser's mood lightened immediately, and he felt a little less the fool than when he entered. Thus decorated, Cherig made quite the comical sight. Obviously, the madness that had passed through the Festival District had come this way, too.
The Mouser tiptoed past the sleeping tavern owner, careful not to wake him, and climbed the stairs to the sleeping rooms above. Reaching the door to his own room, he put a hand to the knob, then paused.
A cough sounded from within.
The Mouser pushed the door inward. "Fafhrd?" he called, glancing eagerly toward the bed.
The Northerner sat upon the mattresses with his back against the wall. He looked thoroughly miserable, not to mention drunk. His clothes were rumpled, and his face wore a long expression. Between his knees, he held a half-empty bottle of wine. Another empty bottle rested on the table nearby.
Sitting forward, Fafhrd pushed at the sheets with his bootheels, grinning stupidly as he waved the bottle at the Mouser. "Hey, welcome home!" he cried with feigned excitement. Then his face turned grave. "Guess what? Vlana's haunting me, did you know that?" He waved the bottle in the air again, then took a deep swig. "Chased her half the night, I did, through every damned street and alley in the district."
The Mouser froze. Then softly he closed the door and turned away so Fafhrd couldn't see his face. Vlana's name reminded him of Ivrian and of what he'd surrendered himself to at the House of Night Cries. He felt the lashes and welts underneath his soft silk shirt, and his face burned with shame. Had Liara wielded a leather whip instead of a velvet one, his back would be a bloody mess.
But worse than the shame, he felt again a powerful confusion. Liara and Ivrian—somehow, in some impossible manner, he felt sure they were one and the same. Yet, in personality they were utterly different.
Now Fafhrd spoke of ghosts.
"Vlana?" the Mouser said without looking at his friend. He unfastened his weapons belt and hung it over the back of the only chair.
The bed creaked as Fafhrd shifted his weight and leaned back against the wall again. "She was waiting for me in an alley when I left Laurian."
The Mouser whirled. "Sadasters wife? Is that where you've been these past two days?"
Fafhrd snapped his fingers, or rather tried to snap them. For a moment, he stared at his thumb. A second time he tried and achieved a faint pop. "Snatched me right out of the air, she did. She's got Sadaster’s power, you know. At least she did." Fafhrd took another drink before adding morosely, "She's dead."
Abruptly, Fafhrd lurched off the bed and across the room to the table. Knocking the empty wine bottle aside, he poured water from a pitcher into a basin and splashed his face. "Malygris killed her," he said bitterly, "and I couldn't stop him." Gritting his teeth, he pounded one fist on the table. The basin jumped, spilling water over its side, and the pitcher teetered dangerously before righting itself.
The Mouser moved softly away from the table and into a corner near the bed, giving his friend a respectful space. A wise man didn't crowd Fafhrd when such dark moods were upon him. Without comment, he noted the huge new sword sheathed and leaning nearby. No doubt that, too, had a part in Fafhrd's story, and he would unfold the tale in time.
Then he would tell all he knew and suspected of the Dark Butterfly and the House of Night Cries, yes, even of how her doorman had pitched him insensate into the street when Liara had finished her vile humiliations and subtle tortures. He would tell even that and risk Fafhrd's scorn or laughter.
Rubbing his stubbled chin, he eyed Fafhrd warily and watched him tremble with silent, barely controlled anger. While he waited for Fafhrd to resume the story, his mind worked. Vlana's ghost. Ivrian and Liara. More mysteries to trouble him. Mysteries upon mysteries.
All Sheelba had sent them to do was find one wizard.
The Mouser's mouth slowly gaped. "Oh, gods," he murmured, suddenly filled with a dreadful realization. He uttered another low, horror-filled curse. "Mog's black soul! Fafhrd, look at me!" He waited until the Northerner turned. "Did Malygris cast some great magic last night? Something to affect the entire city?"