The Second Book of Lankhmar

this wanton raid by a foreign god on our dwindling congregation?"
           "I'd want to think twice before going that far," Issek responded dubiously. "Appeals to him have been known to backfire on their makers."
           "I don't like dealing with him myself, and that's a fact," Kos seconded. "He gives me the cold shivers. Truth to tell, I don't think you can trust the Powers any further than you can trust foreign gods!"
           "He didn't seem too happy about Loki's arrogance toward him," Issek put in hopefully. "Perhaps things will work out well without our meddling." He smiled a somewhat sickish smile.
           Mog frowned but spoke no more.
           Back in one of the long corridors of his mist-robed mazy low castle under the sunless moist gray skies of the Shadowland, Death thought coolly with half his mind (the other half was busy as always with his eternal work everywhere in Nehwon) of what a stridently impudent god this young stranger Loki was and what a pleasure it would be to break the rules, spit in the face of the other Powers, and carry him off before his last worshipper died.
           But as always good taste and sportsmanship prevailed.
           A Power must obey the most whimsical and unreasonable command of the least god, insofar as it could be reconciled with conflicting orders from other gods and provided the proprieties were satisfied — that was one of the things that kept Necessity working.
           And so although the Gray Mouser was a good tool he would have liked to decide when to discard, Death began with half his mind to plan the doom and demise of that one. Let's see, a day and a half would be a reasonable period for preparation, consultations, and warnings. And while he was at it, why not strengthen the Gray One for his coming ordeal? There were no rules against that. It would help him if he were heavier, massier in body and mind. Where get the heaviness? Why, from his comrade Fafhrd, of course, nearest at hand. It would leave Fafhrd light-headed and -bodied for a while, but that couldn't be helped. And then there were the proper and required warnings to think about...
           While half Death's mind was busy with these matters, he saw his Sister Pain slinking toward him from the corridor's end on bare silent feet, her avid red eyes fixed on his pale slate cool-gray ones. She was slender as he and like-complected, except that here and there her opalescence was streaked with blue — and to his great distaste she padded about, as was her wont, in steamy nakedness, rather than decently robed and slippered like himself.
           He prepared to stride past her with never a word.
           She smiled at him knowingly and said with languorous hisses in her voice, "You've a choice morsel for me, haven't you?"
         4
           While these ominous Nehwonal and supernal events were transpiring that so concerned them, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were relaxedly and unsuspectingly sipping dark brandy by the cool white light, which Rime Islers call history, of a leviathan-oil lamp in the root-and-wine cellar of Cif's snug Salthaven abode while that lady and Afreyt were briefly gone to the lunar temple at the arctic port-town's inland outskirts on some business involving the girl acolytes of the Moon Goddess, whose priestesses Cif and Afreyt were, and the girl acolytes their nieces.
           Since their slaying of their would-be killers and the lifting of the old-age curse, the two captains had been enjoying to the full their considerable relief, leaving the overseeing of their men to their lieutenants, visiting their barracks but once a day (and taking turns even at that — or even having their lieutenants make report to them, a practice to which they'd sunk once or twice lately), spending most of their time at their ladies' cozier and more comfortable abodes and pleasuring themselves with the sportive activities (including picnicking) which such companionship made possible and to which their recent stints as grumpy and unjoyous old men also inclined them, abetted by the balmy weather of Thunder and Satyrs Moon.
           Indeed, today the last had got a bit too much for them. Hence their retreat to the deep, cool, flagstoned cellar, where they were assuaging the melancholy that unbridled self-indulgence is strangely apt to induce in heroes by rehearsing to each other anecdotes of ghosts and horrors.
           "Hast