The Second Book of Lankhmar

events and horrified to see how close they'd come to losing their chief remaining worshippers, lifted their curses from them as rapidly as they were able. Other concerned parties were slower to get the news and to believe it. The Assassins' Order posted the two Deaths as "delayed" rather than "missing," but prepared to make what compensation might be unavoidable to Arth-Pulgh and Hamomel. While Sheelba and Ningauble, considerably irked, set about devising new stratagems to procure the return of their favorite errand boys and living touchstones.
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           The instant the gods lifted their curses, the Mouser's and Fafhrd's strange obsessions vanished. It happened while they were together with Afreyt and Cif, the four of them lunching al fresco at Cif's. The only outward sign was that the Twain's eyes widened incredulously as they stared and then smiled at nothing.
           "What deliciously outrageous idea has occurred to you two?" Afreyt demanded, while Cif echoed, "You're right! And it has to be something like that. We know you two of yore!"
           "Is it that obvious?" the Mouser inquired, while Fafhrd fumbled out, "No, it's nothing like that. It's ... no, you've all got to hear this. You know that thing about stars I've been having? Well, it's gone!" He lifted his eyes. "By Issek, I can look at the blue sky now without having it covered with the black flyspecks of the stars that would be there now if it were dark!"
           "By Mog!" the Mouser exploded. "I had no idea, Fafhrd, that your little madness was so like mine in the tightness of its grip. For I no longer feel the compulsion to try to peer closely at every tiny object within fifty yards of me. It's like being a slave who's set free."
           "No more ragpicking, eh?" Cif said. "No more bent-over inspection tours?"
           "No, by Mog," the Mouser asserted, then qualified that with a "Though of course little things can be quite as interesting as big things; in fact, there's a whole tiny world of — "
           "Uh-uh, you better watch out," Cif interrupted, holding up a finger.
           "And the stars too are of considerable interest, my unnatural infatuation with 'em aside," Fafhrd said stubbornly.
           Afreyt asked, "What do you think it was, though? Do you think some wizard cast a spell on you? Perchance that Ningauble you told me of, Fafhrd?"
           Cif said, "Yes, or that Sheelba you talk of in your sleep, Mouser, and tell me isn't an old lover?"
           The two men had to admit that those explanations were distant possibilities.
           "Or other mysterious or even otherworldly beings may have had a hand in it," Afreyt proposed. "We know Queen Skeldir's involved, bless her, from the warning laughter you heard. And, for all you make light of him, Gusorio. Cif and I did hear those growlings."
           Cif said, the look in her eyes half wicked, half serious, "And has it occurred to any of you that, since Skeldir's warnings went to you two men, that you may be transmigrations of her? and we — Skeldir help us! — of Great Gusorio? Or does that shock you?"
           "By no means," Fafhrd answered. "Since transmigration would be such a wonder, able to send the spirit of woman or man into animal, or vice versa, a mere change of sex should not surprise us at all."
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           The backgammon box of the two Deaths was kept at the Sea Wrack as a curiosity of sorts, but it was noted that few used it to play with, or got good games when they did.

         IV: The Mouser Goes Below
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           It is an old saw in the world of Nehwon that the fate of heroes who seek to retire, or of adventurers who decide to settle down, so cheating their audience of honest admirers — that the fate of such can be far more excruciatingly doleful than that of a Lankhmar princess royal shanghaied as cabin-girl aboard an Ilthmar trader embarked on the carkingly long voyage to tropic Klesh or frosty No-Ombrulsk. And let such heroes merely whisper a hint about a "last adventure" and their noisiest partisans and most ardent adherents alike will be demanding that it end at the very least in spectacular death and doom, endured while battling insurmountable odds and enjoying the enmity of the evilest arch-gods.
           So when those two humorous dark-side heroes the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd not only left Lankhmar City (where it's said more