The Second Book of Lankhmar

time for metaphysics or for moralizing, he told himself. He scrambled to his feet and advanced on his shrunken-seeming tormentors, menacing with Scalpel.
    “Drop your weapons!” he commanded.
    Neither Glipkerio, Elakeria, or Frix held any. Hisvet let go of her long dagger at once, probably recalling that the Mouser knew she had some skill in hurling it. But Hisvin, foaming now with rage and frustration, held onto his. The Mouser advanced Scalpel flickering toward his scrawny throat.
    “Call off your rats, Lord Null,” he ordered, “or you die!”
    “Shan't!” Hisvin spat at him, stabbing futilely at Scalpel. Then, reason returning to him a little, he added, “And even if I wished to, I couldn't!”
    The Mouser, knowing from his session at the Council of Thirteen that this was the truth, hesitated.
    Elakeria, seeing her nakedness, snatched a light coverlet from the golden couch and huddled it around her, then immediately drew it aside again to admire her slender new body.
    Frix continued to smile excitedly but somehow composedly, as if all this were a play and she its audience.
    Glipkerio, although seeking to firm himself by tightly embracing a spirally fluted pillar between candlelit chamber and moonlit porch, clearly had the grand, rather than merely the petty twitches again. His narrow face, between its periodic convulsions, was a study in consternation and nervous exhaustion.
    Hisvet called out, “Gray lover, kill the old fool my father! Slay Glip and the rest too, unless you desire Frix as a concubine. Then rule all Lankhmar Above and Below with my willingest aid. You've won the game, dear one. I confess myself beaten. I'll be your humblest slave-girl, my only hope that some day I'll be your most favorite too.”
    And so ringingly sincere was her voice and so dulcet-sweet in making its promises, that despite his experiences of her treacheries and cruelties and despite the cold murderousness of some of her words, the Mouser was truly tempted. He looked toward her—her expression was that of a gambler playing for the highest stakes—and in that instant Hisvin lunged.
    The Mouser beat the dagger aside and retreated a double-step, cursing only himself for the wavering of his attention. Hisvin continued to lunge desperately, only desisting when Scalpel pricked his throat swollen with curses.
    “Keep your promise and show your courage,” Hisvet cried to the Mouser. “Kill him!”
    Hisvin began to gabble his curses at her too.
    The Mouser was never afterwards quite certain as to what he would have done next, for the nearest blue curtains were jerked away to either side and there stood Skwee and Hreest, both man-size, both unmasked and with rapiers drawn, both of lordly, cool, assured, and dire mien—the white and the black of rat aristocracy.
    Without a word Skwee advanced a pace and pointed his sword at the Mouser. Hreest copied him so swiftly it was impossible to be sure it was a copy. The two green-uniformed sword-rats moved out from behind them and went on guard to either side. From behind them , the three pike-rats, man-size like the rest, moved out still farther on the flank, two toward the far end of the room, one toward the golden couch, beside which Hisvet now stood near Frix.
    His hand clutching his scrawny throat, Hisvin mastered his astonishment and pointing at his daughter, croaked commandingly, “Kill her too!”
    The lone pike-rat obediently leveled his weapon and ran with it. As the great wavy blade passed close by her, Frix cast herself at the weapon, hugging its pole. The blade missed Hisvet by a finger's breadth and Frix fell. The pike-rat jerked back his weapon and raised it to skewer Frix to the floor, but, “Stop!” Skwee cried. “Kill none—as yet—except the one in gray. All now, advance.”
    The pike-rat obediently swiveled round, releveling his weapon at the Mouser.
    Frix picked herself up and casually murmuring in Hisvet's ear, “That's three times, dear mistress,” turned to watch the rest of the drama.
    The Mouser thought of diving off the porch, but instead broke for the far end of the room. It was perhaps a mistake. The two pike-rats were at the far door ahead of him, while the sword-rats at his heels gave him no time to feint around the pike-blades, kill the pike-rats and get around them. He dodged behind a heavy table and turning abruptly, managed to wound lightly in the thigh a green-uniformed rat who had run a bit ahead of the rest. But that rat dodged back and