The Second Book of Lankhmar

fingers and was frantically wiping her eyes and squealing from soap-smart and rage.
    The watery yellow eye was joined by its partner as Glipkerio strode in, daffodil wreath awry, black toga a-flap, and to either side of him a guardsman presenting toward the Mouser the gleaming brown-steel blade of a pike, while close behind came more guardsmen. Still others, pikes ready, filled the other three doorways and even appeared in the gallery.
    Waving long white fingers at the Mouser, Glipkerio hissed, “Oh most false Gray Mouser! Hisvin has hinted you work against me and now I catch you at it!”
    The Mouser squatted suddenly on his hams and heaved muscle-crackingly with both hands on a big recessed iron ring-bolt. A thick square trapdoor made of heavy wood topped with tile came up on its hinges. “Down!” he commanded Reetha, who obeyed with commendably cool-headed alacrity. The Mouser followed hunched at her heels, and let drop the trapdoor. It slammed down just in time to catch the blades of two pikes thrust at him, and presumably lever them with a jerk from their wielders’ hands. Admirable wedges those tapering browned-iron blades would make to keep the trapdoor shut, the Mouser told himself.
    Now he was in absolute darkness, but an earlier glance had shown him the shape and length of the stone stairs and an empty flagstoned area below abutting a niter-stained wall. Once again grasping Reetha's upper arm, he guided her down the stairs and across the gritty floor to within a couple of yards of the unseen wall. Then he let go the girl and felt in his pouch for flint, steel, his tinderbox, and a short thick-wicked candle.
    From above came a muffled crack. Doubtless a pike-pole breaking as someone sought to rock out the trapped blade. Then someone commanded a muffled, “Heave!” The Mouser grinned in the dark, thinking how that would wedge the browned-iron wedges tighter.
    Tiny sparks showered, a ghostly flame rose from a corner of the tinderbox, a tiny round flame like a golden pillbug with a sapphire center appeared at the tip of the candle's wick and began to swell. The Mouser snapped shut the tinderbox and held up the candle beside his head. Its flame suddenly flared big and bright. The next instant Reetha's arms were clamped around his neck and she was gasping in dry-mouthed terror against his ear.
    Surrounding them on three sides and backing them against the ancient stone wall with its pale crystalline splotches, were a dozen ranks of silent rats formed in a semicircle about a spear-length away—hundreds, nay thousands of blackest long-tails, and more pouring out to join them from a score of rat-holes in the base of the walls in the long cellar, which was piled here and there with barrels, casks, and grain-sacks.
    The Mouser suddenly grinned, thrust tinderbox, steel, and flint back in his pouch and felt there for something else.
    Meanwhile he noted a tall, narrow rat-hole just by them, newly gnawed—or perhaps chiseled and pickaxed, to judge from the fragments of mortar and tiny shards of stone scattered in front of it. No rats came from it, but he kept a wary eye on it.
    The Mouser found Sheelba's squat black bottle, pried the bandage off it, and withdrew its crystal stopper.
    The dull-brained louts in the kitchen overhead were pounding on the trapdoor now—another useless assault!
    The rats still poured from the holes and in such numbers that they threatened to become a humpy black carpet covering the whole floor of the cellar except for the tiny area where Reetha clung to the Mouser.
    His grin widened. He set the bottle to his lips, took an experimental sip, thoughtfully rolled it on his tongue, then upended the vial and let its faintly bitter contents gurgle into his mouth and down his throat.
    Reetha, unlinking her arms, said a little reproachfully, “I could use some wine too.”
    The Mouser raised his eyebrows happily at her and explained, “Not wine. Magic!” Had not her own eyebrows been shaven, they would have risen in puzzlement. He gave her a wink, tossed the bottle aside, and confidently awaited the emergence of his anti-rat powers, whatever they might be.
    From above came the groan of metal and the slow cracking of tough wood. Now they were going about it the right way, with pry-bars. Likely the trap would open just in time for Glipkerio to witness the Mouser vanquishing the rat army. Everything was timing itself perfectly.
    The black sea of hitherto silent rats began to toss and wave and