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More thwacks, followed by yelps of pain, distant now, since the
Mouser and Fafhrd were halfway up the end-stairs, Fafhrd vaulting
somewhat laboriously as he grasped curving banister and swaddled
sword.
The second floor duplicated the first, but was as luxurious as the
other had been bare. Down the long corridor lamps and filigreed
incense pots pendant from the ceiling alternated, diffusing a mild light
and spicy smell. The walls were richly draped, the floor thick-carpeted.
Yet this corridor was empty too and, moreover, _completely_ silent.
After a glance at each other, they started off boldly. The first door, wide
open, showed an untenanted room full of racks of garments, rich and
plain, spotless and filthy, also wig stands, shelves of beards and such,
and several wall mirrors faced by small tables crowded with cosmetics
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and with stools before them. A disguising room, clearly.
After a look and listen either way, the Mouser darted in and out to
snatch up a large green flask from the nearest table. He unstoppered
and sniffed it. A rotten-sweet gardenia-reek contended with the nose-
sting of spirits of wine. The Mouser sloshed his and Fafhrd's fronts with
this dubious perfume.
"Antidote to ordure," he explained with the pomp of a physician,
stoppering the flask. "Don't want to be parboiled by Krovas. No, no,
no."
Two figures appeared at the far end of the corridor and came
toward them. The Mouser hid the flask under his cloak, holding it
between elbow and side, and he and Fafhrd continued onward -- to
turn back would look suspicious, both drunkenly judged.
The next three doorways they passed were shut by heavy doors.
As they neared the fifth, the two approaching figures, coming on arm-
in-arm, yet taking long strides, moving more swiftly than the hobble-
shuffle, became distinct. Their clothing was that of noblemen, but their
faces those of thieves. They were frowning with indignation and
suspicion too at the Mouser and Fafhrd.
Just then -- from somewhere between the two man-pairs, it
sounded -- a voice began to speak words in a strange tongue, using
the rapid monotone priests employ in a routine service, or some
sorcerers in their incantations.
The two richly clad thieves slowed at the seventh doorway and
looked in. Their progress ceased altogether. Their necks strained, their
eyes widened. They visibly paled. Then of a sudden they hastened
onward, almost running, and bypassed Fafhrd and the Mouser as if
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they were furniture. The incantory voice drummed on without missing a
beat.
The fifth doorway was shut, but the sixth was open. The Mouser
peeked in with one eye, his nose brushing the jamb. Then he stepped
forward and gazed inside with entranced expression, pushing the black
rag up onto his forehead for better vision. Fafhrd joined him.
It was a large room, empty so far as could be told of human and
animal life, but filled with most interesting things. From knee-height up,
the entire far wall was a map of the city of Lankhmar and its immediate
surrounds. Every building and street seemed depicted, down to the
meanest hovel and narrowest court. There were signs of recent
erasure and redrawing at many spots, and here and there little colored
hieroglyphs of mysterious import.
The floor was marble, the ceiling blue as lapis lazuli. The side
walls were thickly hung, by ring and padlock. One was covered with all
manner of thieves' tools, from a huge thick pry-bar that looked as if it
could unseat the universe, or at least the door of the Overlord's
treasure-vault, to a rod so slim it might be an elf-queen's wand and
seemingly designed to telescope out and fish from distance for
precious gauds on milady's spindle-legged, ivory-topped vanity table;
the other wall had on it all sorts of quaint, gold-gleaming and jewel-
flashing objects, evidently mementos chosen for their oddity from the
spoils of memorable burglaries, from a female mask of thin gold,
breathlessly beautiful in its features and contours, but thickly set with
rubies simulating the spots of the pox in its fever-stage, to a knife
whose blade was wedge-shaped diamonds set side by side and this
diamond cutting-edge looking razor-sharp.
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All about were tables set chiefly with models of dwelling houses
and other buildings, accurate to the last minutia, it looked, of ventilation
hole under roof gutter and ground-level drain hole, of creviced wall and
smooth. Many were cut away in partial or entire section to show the
layout of rooms, closets, strongrooms, doorways, corridors, secret
passages, smoke-ways, and air-ways in equal detail.
In the center of the room was a bare round-table of ebony and
ivory squares. About it were set seven straight-backed but well-padded
chairs, the one facing the map and away from the Mouser and Fafhrd
being higher backed and wider armed than the others -- a chief's chair,
likely that of Krovas.
The Mouser tiptoed forward, irresistibly drawn, but Fafhrd's left
hand clamped down on his shoulder like the iron mitten of a Mingol
cataphract and drew him irresistibly back.
Scowling his disapproval, the Northerner brushed down the black
rag over the Mouser's eyes again, and with his crutch-hand thumbed
ahead; then set off in that direction in most carefully calculated, silent
hops. With a shrug of disappointment the Mouser followed.
As soon as they had turned away from the doorway, but before
they were out of sight, a neatly black-bearded, crop-haired head came
like a serpent's around the side of the highest-backed chair and gazed
after them from deep-sunken yet glinting eyes. Next a snake-supple,
long hand followed the head out, crossed thin lips with ophidian
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