“And of my lost Ivrian! But must we let them win because of that?'
The big man shrugged his shoulders and started forward.
“On second thought,” whispered the Mouser, “there may be something to what you say.” And he slipped a dirk from his belt.
Fafhrd showed white teeth in grin and slowly pulled a big-pommeled longsword from its well-oiled scabbard.
“A rotten weapon for infighting,” murmured the Mouser in a comradely sardonical way.
Warily now they approached the door, each taking a side and sticking close to the wall. Holding the grip of his sword low, the point high, ready to strike in any direction, Fafhrd entered. The Mouser was a little ahead of him. Out of the corner of his eye Fafhrd saw something snakelike dropping down at the Mouser's head from above, and struck at it quickly with his sword. This flipped it toward him and he caught it with his free hand. It was a strangler's noose. He gave it a sudden sidewise heave and the man gripping the other end toppled out from a ledge above. For an instant he seemed to hang suspended in the air, a dark-skinned rogue with long black hair and a greasy tunic of red leather worked with gold thread. As Fafhrd deliberately raised his sword, he saw that the Mouser was lunging across the corridor at him, dirk in hand. For a moment he thought the Mouser had gone mad. But the Mouser's dirk missed him by a hairbreadth and another blade whipped past his back.
The Mouser had seen a trapdoor open in the floor beside Fafhrd and a bald-headed thief shoot up, sword in hand. After deflecting the blow aimed at his companion, the Mouser slammed the trapdoor back and had the satisfaction of catching with it the blade of the sword and two left-hand fingers of the ducking thief. All three were broken and the muted yowl from below was impressive. Fafhrd's man, spitted on the longsword, was quite dead.
From the street came several whistles and the sound of men moving in.
“They've cut us off!” snapped the Mouser. “Our best chance lies ahead. We'll make for Krovas’ room. Fissif may be there. Follow me!'
And he darted down the corridor and up a winding stair, Fafhrd behind him. At the second level they left the stair and raced for a doorway from which yellow light shone.
It puzzled the Mouser that they had met with no interference. His sharp ears no longer caught sounds of pursuit. On the threshold he pulled up quickly, so that Fafhrd collided with him.
It was a large room with several alcoves. Like the rest of the building, the floor and walls were of smooth dark stone, unembellished. It was lit by four earthenware lamps set at random on a heavy cyprus table. Behind the table sat a richly robed, black-bearded man, seemingly staring down in extreme astonishment at a copper box and a litter of smaller objects, his hands gripping the table edge. But they had no time to consider his odd motionlessness and still odder complexion, for their attention was immediately riveted on the red-haired wench who stood beside him.
As she sprang back like a startled cat, Fafhrd pointed at what she held under one arm and cried, “Look, Mouser, the skull! The skull and the hands!'
Clasped in her slim arm was indeed a brownish, ancient-looking skull, curiously banded with gold from whose eye sockets great rubies sparkled and whose teeth were diamonds and blackened pearls. And in her white hand were gripped two neat packets of brown bones, tipped with a golden gleam and reddish sparkle. Even as Fafhrd spoke she turned and ran toward the largest alcove, her lithe legs outlined against silken garments. Fafhrd and the Mouser rushed after her. They saw she was heading for a small low doorway. Entering the alcove her free hand shot out and gripped a cord hanging from the ceiling. Not pausing, swinging at the hips, she gave it a tug. Folds of thick, weighted velvet fell down behind her. The Mouser and Fafhrd plunged into them and floundered. It was the Mouser who got through first, wriggling under. He saw an oblong of faint light narrowing ahead of him, sprang for it, grabbed at the block of stone sinking into the low doorway, then jerked his hand back with a curse and sucked at bruised fingers. The stone panel closed with a slight grating noise.
Fafhrd lifted the thick folds of velvet on his broad shoulders as if they were a great cloak. Light from the main rooms flooded into the alcove and revealed a closely mortised stone wall of uniform appearance. The Mouser started to dig the point of his dirk into a crack, then desisted.
“Fafhrd I know these doors! They're either worked from the other side or else by distant levers. She's gotten clear away and the skull with her.'
He continued to suck the fingers that had come so near to being crushed, wondering superstitiously if his breaking of the trapdoor thief's fingers had been a kind of omen.
“We forget Krovas,” said Fafhrd suddenly, lifting the drapes with his hand and looking back over his shoulder.
But the black-bearded man had not taken any notice of the commotion. As they approached him slowly they saw that his face was bluish-purple under the swarthy skin, and that his eyes bulged not from astonishment, but from strangulation. Fafhrd lifted the oily, well-combed beard and saw cruel indentations on the throat, seeming more like those of claws than fingers. The Mouser examined the things on the table. There were a number of jeweler's instruments, their ivory handles stained deep yellow from long use. He scooped up some small objects.
“Krovas had already pried three of the finger-jewels loose and several of the teeth,” he remarked, showing Fafhrd three rubies and a number of pearls and diamonds, which glittered on his palm.
Fafhrd nodded and again lifted Krovas’ beard, frowning at the indentations, which were beginning to deepen in color.
“I wonder who the woman is?” said the Mouser. “No thief is permitted to bring a woman here on pain of death. But the Master Thief has special powers and perhaps can take chances.'
“He has taken one too many,” muttered Fafhrd.
Then the Mouser awoke to their situation. He had half-formulated a plan of effecting an escape from Thieves’ House by capturing and threatening Krovas. But a dead man cannot be effectively intimidated. As he started to speak to Fafhrd they caught the murmur of several voices and the sound of approaching footsteps. Without deliberation they retired into the alcove, the Mouser cutting a small slit in the drapes at eye level and Fafhrd doing the same.
They heard someone say, “Yes, the two of them got clean away, damn their luck! We found the alley door open.'
The first thief to enter was paunchy, white-faced, and obviously frightened. The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd immediately recognized him as Fissif. Pushing him along roughly was a tall, expressionless fellow with heavy arms and big hands. The Mouser knew him, too — Slevyas the Tight-Lipped, recently promoted to be Krovas’ chief lieutenant. About a dozen others filed into the room and took up positions near the walls. Veteran thieves all, with a considerable sprinkling of scars, pockmarks, and other mutilations, including two black-patched eye sockets. They were somewhat wary and ill at ease, held daggers and shortswords ready, and all stared intently at the strangled man.
“So Krovas is truly dead,” said Slevyas, shoving Fissif forward. “At least that much of your story is true.'
“Dead as a fish,” echoed a thief who had moved closer to the table. “Now we've got us a better master. We'll have no more of black-beard and his red-haired wench.'
“Hide your teeth, rat, before I break them!” Slevyas whipped out the words coldly.
“But you are our master now,” replied the thief in a surprised voice.
“Yes, I'm the master of all of you, unquestioned master, and my first piece of advice is this: to criticize a dead thief may not be irreverent — but it is certainly a waste of time. Now, Fissif, where's the jeweled skull? We all know it's more valuable than a year's pickpocketing, and that the Thieves’ Guild needs gold. So, no nonsense!'
The Mouser peering cautiously from his slit, grinned at the look of fear on Fissif's fat-jowled face.
“The skull, Master?” said Fissif in a quavering sepulchral tone. “Why, it's flown back to the grave from which we three filched it. Surely if those bony hands could strangle Krovas, as I saw with my own eyes, the skull could fly.'
Slevyas slapped Fissif across the face.
“You lie, you quaking bag of mush! I will tell you what happened. You plotted with those two rogues, the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd. You thought no one would suspect you because you double-crossed them according to instructions. But you planned a double-double-cross. You helped them escape the trap we had set, let them kill Krovas, and then assured their escape by starting a panic with your tale of dead fingers killing Krovas. You thought
