The Second Book of Lankhmar

like moody statues, the faces of the barkeep and his bully and servers paralyzed in expressions of petulant discontent, as if Time herself had stopped.
           Outside, the city of Lankhmar was silent as a necropolis, while beyond that the world of Nehwon had been at peace — unwar, rather — for a full year. Even the Mingols of the vasty Steppes weren't raiding south on their small, tough horses.
           Yet the effect of all this was not calm, but an unfocused uneasiness, a restlessness that had not yet resulted in the least movement, as if it were the prelude to an excruciating flash of cold lightning transfixing every tiniest detail of life.
           This atmosphere affected the feelings and thoughts of the tall, brown-tunicked barbarian and his short, gray-cloaked friend.
           "Dull indeed," Fafhrd said. "I long for some grand emprise!"
           "Those are the dreams of untutored youth. Is that why you've shaved your beard? — to match your dreams? Both barefaced lies!" the Mouser asked, and answered.
           "Why have you let yours grow these three days?" Fafhrd conntered.
           "I am but resting the skin of my face for a full tweaking of its hairs. And you've lost weight. A wishfully youthful fever?"
           "Not that, or any ill or care. Of late you're lighter, too. We are changing the luxuriant musculature of young manhood for a suppler, hardier, more enduring structure suited to great mid-life trials and venturings."
           "We've had enough of those," the Mouser asserted. "Thrice around Nehwon, at the least."
           Fafhrd shook his head morosely. "We've never really lived. We've not owned land. We've not led men."
           "Fafhrd, you're gloomy-drunk!" the Mouser chortled. "Would you be a farmer? Have you forgot a captain is the prisoner of his command? Here, drink yourself sober, or at least glad."
           The Northerner let his cup be refilled from two jars, but did not change his mood. Staring unhappily, he continued, "We've neither homes nor wives."
           "Fafhrd, you need a wench!"
           "Who spoke of wenches?" the other protested. "I mean women. I had brave Kreeshkra, but she's gone back to her beloved Ghouls. While your pert Reetha prefers the hairless land of Eevamarensee."
           The Mouser interjected sotto voce , "I also had imperious, insolent Hisvet, and you her brave, dramatic queen-slave Frix."
           Fafhrd went on, "Once, long ago, there were Friska and Ivivis, but they were Quarmall's slaves and then became free women at Tovilysis. Before them were Keyaira, Hirriwi, but they were princesses, invisibles, loves of one long, long night, daughters of dread Oomforafor and sib of murderous Faroomfar. Long before all of those, in Land of Youth, there were fair Ivrian and slender Vlana. But they were girls, those lovely in-betweens (or actresses, those mysteries), and now they dwell with Death in Shadowland. So I'm but half a man. I need a mate . And so do you, perchance."
           "Fafhrd, you're mad! You prate of world-spanning wild adventures and then babble of what would make them impossible: wife, home, henchmen, duties. One dull night without girl or fight, and your brains go soft. Repeat, you're mad."
           Fafhrd reinspected the tavern and its stodgy inmates. "It stays dull, doesn't it," he remarked, "as if not one nostril had twitched or ear wiggled since I last looked. And yet it is a calm I do not trust. I feel an icy chill. Mouser — "
           That one was looking past him. With little sound, or none at all, two slender persons had just entered the Silver Eel and paused appraisingly inside the lead-weighted iron-woven curtains that kept out fog and could turn sword thrusts. The one was tall and rangy as a man, blue-eyed, thin-cheeked, wide-mouthed, clad in jerkin and trousers of blue and long cloak of gray. The other was wiry and supple-seeming as a cat, green-eyed, compact of feature, short thick lips compressed, clothed similarly save the hues were rust red and brown. They were neither young nor yet near middle age. Their smooth unridged brows, tranquil eyes, evenly curving jaws, and long cheek-molding hair — here silvery yellow, there black shot with darkest brown (in turn gold-shotten, or were those golden wires braided in?) — proclaimed them feminine.
           That last attribute broke the congealed midnight trances of the assembled dullards,