Фриц Лейбер - Swords Of Lankhmar[Мечи Ланкмара]

He snatched from his pouch one of the scrolls in it, and saying, "I'll summarize," read: "…hostilities to cease at once… by Glipkerio's command transmitted by his agents bearing his wands of authority… Fires to be extinguished and damage to Lankhmar repaired by Lankhmarts under direction of… et cetera. Damage to ratly tunnels, arcades, pleasances, privies, and other rooms to be repaired by humans. 'Suitably reduced in size' should go in there. All soldiers disarmed, bound, confined… and so forth. All cats, dogs, ferrets, and other vermin… well, naturally. All ships and all Lankhmarts abroad… that's clear enough. Ah, here's the spot! Listen now. Thereafter each Lankhmart to go about his customary business, free in all his actions and possessions — _free_, you hear that? — subject only to the commands of his personal rat or rats, who shall crouch upon his shoulder or otherwise dispose themselves on or within his clothing, as they shall see fit, and share his bed. But _your_ rats," he went on swiftly, pointing to Glipkerio, who had gone very pale and whose body and limbs had begun again their twitchings and his features their tics, "_your_ rats shall, out of deference to your high position, not be rats at all! — but rather my daughter Hisvet and, temporarily, her maid Frix, who shall attend you day and night, watch and watch, granting your every wish on the trifling condition that you obey their every command. What could be fairer, my dear master?"

But Glipkerio had already gone once more into his, "World, adieu! Nehwon, farewell! I seek a — " meanwhile straining toward the porch and convulsing up and down in his efforts to be free of Samanda's and Elakeria's restraining arms. Of a sudden, however, he stopped still, cried, "Of course I'll sign!" and grabbed for the parchment. Hisvin eagerly led him to his audience couch and the table, meanwhile readying his writing equipment.

But here a difficulty developed. Glipkerio was shaking so that he could hardly hold pen, let alone write. His first effort with the quill sent a comet's tail of inkdrops across the clothing of those around him and Hisvin's leathery face. All efforts to guide his hand, first by gentleness, then by main force, failed.

Hisvin snapped his fingers in desperate impatience, then pointed a sudden finger at his daughter. She produced a flute from her black silken robe and began to pipe a sweet yet drowsy melody. Samanda and Elakeria held Glipkerio face down on his couch, the one at his shoulders, the other at his ankles, while Frix, kneeling with one knee on the small of his back began with her fingertips to stroke his spine from skull to tail in time to Hisvet's music, favoring her left hand with its bandaged palm.

Glipkerio continued to convulse upward at regular intervals, but gradually the violence of these earthquakes of the body decreased and Frix was able to transfer some of her rhythmic strokings to his flailing arms.

Hisvin, hard a-pace and snapping his fingers again, his shadows marching like those of giant rats moving confusedly and size-changingly against each other across the blue tiles, demanded suddenly on noting the wands of authority, "Where are your pages you promised to have here?"

Glipkerio responded dully, "In their quarters. In revolt. You stole my guards who would have controlled them. Where are your Mingols?"

Hisvin stopped dead in his pacing and frowned. His gaze went questioningly toward the unmoving blue door-drapes through which he had entered.

Fafhrd, breathing a little heavily, drew himself up into one of the belfry's eight windows and sat on its sill and scanned the bells.

There were eight in all and all large: five of bronze, three of browned-iron, coated with the sea-pale verdigris and earth-dark rust of eons. Any ropes had rotted away, centuries ago for all he knew. Below them was dark emptiness spanned by four narrow flat-topped stone arches. He tried one of them with his foot. It held.

He set the smallest bell, a bronze one, swinging. There was no sound except for a dismal creaking.

He first peered, then felt up inside the bell. The clapper was gone, its supporting link rusted away.

All the other bells' clappers were likewise gone, presumably fallen to the bottom of the tower.

He prepared to use his ax to beat out the alarum, but then he saw one of the fallen clappers lying on a stone arch.

He lifted it with both hands, like a somewhat ponderous club, and moving about recklessly on the arches, struck each bell in turn. Rust showered him from the iron ones.

Their massed clangor sounded louder than mountainside thunder when lightning strikes from a cloud close by. The bells were the least musical Fafhrd had ever heard. Some made swelling beats together, which periodically tortured the ear. They must have been shaped and cast by a master of discord. The brazen bells shrieked, clanged, clashed, roared, twanged, jangled, and screamingly wrangled. The iron bells groaned rusty-throated, sobbed like leviathan, throbbed as the heart of universal death, and rolled like a black swell striking a smooth rock coast. They exactly suited the Gods _of_ Lankhmar, from what Fafhrd had heard of the latter.

The metallic uproar began to fade somewhat and he realized that he was becoming deafened. Nevertheless he kept on until he had struck each bell three times. Then he peered out the window by which he had entered.

His first impression was that half the human crowd was looking straight at _him_. Then he realized it must be the noise of the bells which had turned upward those moonlit faces.

There were many more kneelers before the temple now. Other Lankhmarts were pouring up the Street of the Gods from the east, as if being driven.

The erect, black-togaed rats still stood in the same tiny line below him, auraed by grim authority despite their size, and now they were flanked by two squads of armored rats, each bearing a small weapon which puzzled Fafhrd, straining his eyes, until he recalled the tiny crossbows which had been used aboard _Squid_.

The reverberations of the bells had died away, or sunk too low for his deafened ears to note, but then he began to hear, faintly at first, murmuring and cries of hopeless horror from below.

Gazing across the crowd again, he saw black rats climbing unresisting up some of the kneeling figures, while many, of the others already had something black squatting on their right shoulders.

There came from directly below a creaking and groaning and rending. The ancient doors of the temple of the Gods _of_ Lankhmar were thrust wide open.

The white faces that had been gazing upward now stared at the porch.

The black-togaed rats and their soldiery faced around.

There strode four abreast from the wide-open doorway a company of fearfully thin brown figures, black-togaed too. Each bore a black staff. The brown was of three sorts: aged linen mummy-banding, brittle parchment-like skin stretched tight over naught but skeleton, and naked old brown bones themselves.

The crossbow-rats loosed a volley. The skeletal brown striders came on without pause. The black-togaed rats stood their ground, squeaking imperiously. Another useless volley from the tiny crossbows. Then, like so many rapiers, black staffs thrust out. Each rat they touched shriveled where he stood, nor moved again. Other rats came scurrying in from the crowd and were similarly slain. The brown company advanced at an even pace, like doom on the march.

There were screams then and the human crowd before the temple began to melt, racing down side streets and even dashing back into the temples from which they had fled. Predictably, the folk of Lankhmar were more afraid of their own gods come to their rescue than of their foes.

Himself somewhat aghast at what his ringing had roused, Fafhrd climbed down the belfry, telling himself that he must dodge the eerie battle below and seek out the Mouser in Glipkerio's vast palace.