The First Book of Lankhmar

Curse
           A tall swordsman and a small one strode out the Marsh Gate of Lankhmar and east along  Causey Road.  They were youths by their skin and suppleness, men by their expressions of deep-bitten grief and stony purpose.
           The sleepy guardsmen in browned-iron cuirasses did not question them. Only madmen and fools willingly leave the grandest city in the world of Nehwon, especially at dawn and afoot. Besides, these two looked extremely dangerous.
           Ahead the sky was bright pink, like the bubbling rim of a great crystal goblet brimmed with effervescent red wine for delight of the gods, while the paler pink glow rising therefrom drove the last stars west. But before the sun could glare one scarlet sliver above the horizon, a black storm came racing out of the north over the Inner Sea — a sea-squall making landfall. It grew almost as dark again as night, except when the lightning stabbed and the thunder shook his great iron shield. The stormwind carried the salty tang of the sea commingled with the foul reek of the marsh. It bent the green swords of the sea grass flat and lashed into writhing the arms of the thorn and seahawk trees. It pushed black swampwater a yard up the northern side of the narrow, serpentine, flat-topped ridge that was  Causey Road . Then came pelting rain.
           The two swordsmen made no comment to each other and did not alter their movements, except to lift their shoulders and faces a little and slant the latter north, as if they welcomed the storm's cleansing and sting and what tiny distraction it brought to some deep agony of mind and heart.
           "Ho, Fafhrd!" a deep voice grated above the thunder's growl and the wind's roar and the rattle of the rain.
           The tall swordsman turned his head sharply south.
           "Hist, Gray Mouser!"
           The small swordsman did likewise.
           Close by the southern side of the road a rather large, rounded hut stood on five narrow posts. The posts had to be tall, for  Causey Road  ran high here yet the floor of the hut's low, rounded doorway looked straight at the tall swordsman's head.
           This was nothing very strange, except that all men know that none dwell in the venomous Great Salt Marsh, save for giant worms, poison eels, water cobras, pale spindle-legged swamp rats, and the like.
           Blue lightning glared, revealing with great clarity a hooded figure crouched inside the low doorway. Each fold and twist of the figure's draperies stood out as precisely as in an iron engraving closely viewed.
           But the lightning showed nothing whatsoever inside the hood, only inky blackness.
           Thunder crashed.
           Then from the hood the grating voice recited the following lines, harshly and humorlessly hammering out the words, so that what was light verse became a dismal and doomful incantation: Ho, Fafhrd tall!Hist, Mouser small!Why leave you the cityOf marvelous parts?It were a great pityTo wear out your heartsAnd wear out the soles of your feet,Treading all earth,Foregoing all mirth,Before you once more Lankhmar greet.Now return, now return, now!
           This doleful ditty was three-quarters done before the two swordsmen realized that they were striding along steadily all this while and the hut still abreast them. So it must be walking along with them on its posts, or legs rather. And now that they were aware of this, they could see those five thin wooden members swinging and knee-bending.
           When the grating voice ceased to speak on that last great "now," Fafhrd halted.
           So did the Mouser.
           So did the hut.
           The two swordsmen turned toward the low doorway, facing it squarely.
           Simultaneously with deafening thunderclap, a great bolt of lightning struck close behind them. It jolted their bodies, shocked their flesh thrillingly and painfully, and it illumined the hut and its dweller brighter than day, yet still revealed nothing inside the dweller's hood.
           If the hood had been empty, the draperies at its back would have been shown clearly. But no, there was only that oval of ebon darkness, which even the levinbolt could not illumine.
           As unmoved by this prodigy as by the thunder-stroke, Fafhrd bellowed above the storm toward the doorway, his voice sounding tiny to himself in his thunder-smitten ears, "Hear me, witch, wizard, nightgaunt,