The First Book of Lankhmar

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