The First Book of Lankhmar

stars were one time hurled
    And paths lead on to Heav'n and Hell.
    Come, heroes, past the Trollstep rocks.
    Come, best of men, across the Waste.
    For you, glory each door unlocks.
    Delay not, up, and come in haste.
    Who scales the Snow King's citadel
    Shall father his two daughters' sons;
    Though he must face foes fierce and fell,
    His seed shall live while time still runs.
           The resin burnt out. The Mouser said, "Well, we've met a worm and one unseen fellow who sought to bar our way — and two sightless witches who might be Snow King's daughters for all I know. Gnomes now — they would be a change, wouldn't they? You said something about ice gnomes, Fafhrd. What was it?"
           He waited with an unnatural anxiety for Fafhrd's answer. After a bit he began to hear it: soft regular snores.
           The Mouser snarled soundlessly, his demon of restlessness now become a fury despite all his aches. He shouldn't have thought of girls — or rather of one girl who was nothing but a taunting mask with pouting lips and eyes of black mystery seen across a fire.
           Suddenly he felt stifled. He quickly unhooked his cloak and despite Hrissa's questioning mew felt his way south along the ledge. Soon snow, sifting like ice needles on his flushed face, told him he was beyond the overhang. Then the snow stopped. Another overhang, he thought — but he had not moved. He strained his eyes upward, and there was the black expanse of Stardock's topmost quarter silhouetted against a band of sky pale with the hidden moon and specked by a few faint stars. Behind him to the west, the snowstorm still obscured the sky.
           He blinked his eyes and then he swore softly, for now the black cliff they must climb tomorrow was a-glow with soft scattered lights of violet and rose and palest green and amber. The nearest, which were still far above, looked tinily rectangular, like gleam-spilling windows seen from below.
           It was as if Stardock were a great hostelry.
           Then freezing flakes pinked his face again, and the band of sky narrowed to nothing. The snowfall had moved back against Stardock once more, hiding all stars and other lights.
           The Mouser's fury drained from him. Suddenly he felt very small and foolhardy and very, very cold. The mysterious vision of the lights remained in his mind, but muted, as if part of a dream. Most cautiously he crept back the way he had come, feeling the radiant warmth of Fafhrd and Hrissa and the burnt-out brazier just before he touched his cloak. He laced it around him and lay for a long time doubled up like a baby, his mind empty of everything except frigid blackness. At last he slumbered.

             * * * *

           Next day started gloomy. The two men chafed and wrestled each other as they lay, to get the stiffness a little out of them and enough warmth in them to rise. Hrissa withdrew from between them limping and sullen.
           At any rate, Fafhrd's arms were recovered from their swelling and numbing, while the Mouser was hardly aware of his own arm's little wounds.
           They breakfasted on herb tea and honey and began climbing the Roosts in a light snowfall. This last pest stayed with them all morning except when gusty breezes blew it back from Stardock. On these occasions they could see the great smooth cliff separating the Roosts from the ultimate ledges of the Face. By the glimpses they got, the cliff looked to be without any climbing routes whatever, or any marks at all — so that Fafhrd laughed at the Mouser for a dreamer with his tale of windows spilling colored light — but finally as they neared the cliff's base they began to distinguish what seemed to be a narrow crack — a hairline to vision — mounting its center.
           They met none of the invisible flat fliers, either a-wing or a-perch, though whenever gusts blew strange gaps into the snowfall, the two adventurers would firm themselves on their perches and grip for their weapons, and Hrissa would snarl.
           The wind slowed them little though chilling them much, for the rock of the Roosts was true.
           And they still had to watch out for stony peltings, though these were fewer than yesterday, perhaps because so much of Stardock now lay below them.
           They reached the base of the great cliff at the point where the crack began, which was a good thing since the snowfall had grown so heavy that a