The First Book of Lankhmar

treatise, 'The Demonology of Isaiah ben Elshaz.' It seems that whatever change takes place in the form of the woman you love, you should continue to make love to her, trusting to the power of your passion to transform her back to her original shape."
           Fafhrd left off honing his great sword and asked, "Then why don't you try kissing snails?"
           "It would be disagreeable and, for one free of barbarian prejudices, there is always Chloe."
           "Pah! You're just going with her to keep your self-respect. I know you. For seven days now you'd had thoughts for no one but that Ahura wench."
           "A pretty chit, but not to my liking," said the Mouser icily. "It must be your eye she's the apple of. However, you really should try my remedy; I'm sure you'd prove so good at it that the shes of all the swine in the world would come squealing after you."
           Whereupon Fafhrd did go so far as to hold firmly at arm's length the next sow his pent passion created, and feed it slops in the hope of accomplishing something by kindness. But in the end he had once again to admit defeat and assuage with owl-stamped Athenian silver didrachmas an hysterically angry Scythian girl who was sick at the stomach. It was then that an ill-advised curious young Greek philosopher suggested to the Northman that the soul or inward form of the thing loved is alone of importance, the outward form having no ultimate significance.
           "You belong to the Socratic school?" Fafhrd questioned gently.
           The Greek nodded.
           "Socrates was the philosopher who was able to drink unlimited quantities of wine without blinking?"
           Again the quick nod.
           "That was because his rational soul dominated his animal soul?"
           "You are learned," replied the Greek, with a more respectful but equally quick nod.
           "I am not through. Do you consider yourself in all ways a true follower of your master?"
           This time the Greek's quickness undid him. He nodded, and two days later he was carried out of the wine shop by friends, who found him cradled in a broken wine barrel, as if newborn in no common manner. For days he remained drunk, time enough for a small sect to spring up who believed him a reincarnation of Dionysus and as such worshipped him. The sect was dissolved when he became half sober and delivered his first oracular address, which had as its subject the evils of drunkenness.
           The morning after the deification of the rash philosopher, Fafhrd awoke when the first hot sunbeams struck the flat roof on which he and the Mouser had chosen to pass the night. Without sound or movement, suppressing the urge to groan out for someone to buy him a bag of snow from the white-capped Lebanons (over which the sun was even now peeping) to cool his aching head, he opened an eye on the sight that he in his wisdom had expected: the Mouser sitting on his heels and looking at the sea.
           "Son of a wizard and a witch," he said, "it seems that once again we must fall back upon our last resource."
           The Mouser did not turn his head, but he nodded it once, deliberately.
           "The first time we did not come away with our lives," Fafhrd went on.
           "The second time we lost our souls to the Other Creatures," the Mouser chimed in, as if they were singing a dawn chant to Isis.
           "And the last time we were snatched away from the bright dream of Lankhmar."
           "He may trick us into drinking the drink, and we not awake for another five hundred years."
           "He may send us to our deaths and we not to be reincarnated for another two thousand," Fafhrd continued.
           "He may show us Pan, or offer us to the Elder Gods, or whisk us beyond the stars, or send us into the underworld of Quarmall," the Mouser concluded.
           There was a pause of several moments.
           Then the Gray Mouser whispered, "Nevertheless, we must visit Ningauble of the Seven Eyes."
           And he spoke truly, for as Fafhrd had guessed, his soul was hovering over the sea dreaming of dark-haired Ahura.

          2: Ningauble
           So they crossed the snowy Lebanons and stole three camels, virtuously choosing to rob a rich landlord who made his tenants milk rocks and sow the shores of the Dead Sea, for it was unwise to approach the Gossiper of the Gods with an overly dirty conscience. After seven days of pitching and tossing