Read The Second Book of Lankhmar for Free Online Page A

Three of my crew heard it too. ‘Twas most eerie. Gentlemen, I know the gong-notes of Lankhmar war galleys and merchantmen better than I know my children's voices. This that we heard was so like Shark 's I never dreamed it might be that of another ship—I deemed it some ominous ghost-echo or trick of our minds and I thought no more about it as a matter for action. If I had only had the faintest suspicion....”
    Lukeen scowled bitterly, shaking his head, and continued, “Now I know the black cutter must carry a gong shaped to duplicate Shark 's note precisely. They used it, likely with someone mimicking my voice, to draw Clam out of line in the fog and get her far enough off so that the rat-horde, officered by the white one, could work its will on her without the crew's screams being heard. They must have gnawed twenty holes in her bottom for Clam to take on water so fast and the grain to swell so. Oh, they're far shrewder and more persevering than men, the little spade-toothed fiends!”
    “Midsea madness!” Fafhrd snorted in interruption. “Rats make men scream? And do away with them? Rats seize a ship and sink it? Rats officered and accepting discipline? Why this is the strangest superstition!”
    “You're a fine one to talk of superstition and the impossible, Fafhrd,” Slinoor shot at him, “when only this morning you talked with a masked and gibbering demon who rode a two-headed dragon.”
    Lukeen lifted his eyebrows at Slinoor. This was the first he'd heard of the Hagenbeck episode.
    Fafhrd said, “That was travel between worlds. Another matter altogether. No superstition in it.”
    Slinoor responded skeptically, “I suppose there was no superstition in it either when you told me what you'd heard from the Wise Woman about the Thirteen?”
    Fafhrd laughed. “Why, I never believed one word the Wise Woman ever told me. She was a witchy old fool. I recounted her nonsense merely as a curiosity.”
    Slinoor eyed Fafhrd with slit-eyed incredulity, then said to Lukeen, “Continue.”
    “There's little more to tell,” the latter said. “I saw the rat-battalions swimming from Clam to the black cutter. I saw, as you did, their white officer.” This with a glare at Fafhrd. “Thereafter I fruitlessly hunted the black cutter two hours in the fog until cramp took my rowers. If I'd found her, I'd've not boarded her but thrown fire into her! Aye, and stood off the rats with burning oil on the waters if they tried again to change ships! Aye, and laughed as the furred murderers fried!”
    “Just so,” Slinoor said with finality. “And what, in your judgment, Commander Lukeen, should we do now?”
    “Sink the white archfiends in their cages,” Lukeen answered instantly, “before they order the rape of more ships, or our sailors go mad with fear.”
    This brought an instant icy retort from Hisvet. “You'll have to sink me first, silver-weighted, oh Commander!"
    Lukeen's gaze moved past her to a scatter of big-eared silver unguent jars and several looped heavy silver chains on a shelf by the bed. “That too is not impossible, Demoiselle,” he said, smiling hardly.
    “There's not one shred of proof against her!” Fafhrd exploded. “Little Mistress, the man is mad.”
    “No proof?” Lukeen roared. “There were twelve white rats yesterday. Now there are eleven.” He waved a hand at the stacked cages and their blue-eyed haughty occupants. “You've all counted them. Who else but this devilish Demoiselle sent the white officer to direct the sharp-toothed gnawers and killers that destroyed Clam ? What more proof do you want?”
    “Yes, indeed!” the Mouser interjected in a high vibrant voice that commanded attention. “There is proof aplenty... if there were twelve rats in the four cages yesterday.” Then he added casually but very clearly, “It is my recollection that there were eleven.”
    Slinoor stared at the Mouser as though he couldn't believe his ears. “You lie!” he said. “What's more, you lie