The Second Book of Lankhmar

turned bright green again, and Ningauble said, “Gentle Son, I now understand your problem and its answer. In part. I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray Mouser, now. He's exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace of Glipkerio Kistomerces. But he's not buried there, or even dead—though about twenty-four parts in twenty-five of him are dead, in the cellar I mentioned. But he is alive.”
    “But how ?” Fafhrd almost gawked, spreading his spread-fingered hands.
    “I haven't the faintest idea. He's surrounded by enemies but near him are two friends—of a sort. Now about Lankhmar, that's clearer. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting going on in the streets, by a fierce host which outnumbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by ... my goodness ... fifty to one—and equipped with all modern weapons.
    “Yet you can save the city, you can turn the tide of battle—this part came through very clearly—if you only hasten to the temple of the Gods of Lankhmar and climb its bell-tower and ring the chimes there, which have been silent for uncounted centuries. Presumably to rouse those gods. But that's only my guess.”
    “I don't like the idea of having anything to do with that dusty crew,” Fafhrd complained. “From what I've heard of them, they're more like walking mummies than true gods—and even more dry-spirited and unloving, being sifted through like sand with poisonous senile whims.”
    Ningauble shrugged his cloaked, bulbous shoulders. “I thought you were a brave man, addicted to deeds of derring-do.”
    Fafhrd cursed sardonically, then demanded, “But even if I should go clang those rusty bells, how can Lankhmar hold out until then with her walls breached and the odds fifty to one against her?”
    “I'd like to know that myself,” Ningauble assured him.
    “And how do I get to the temple when the streets are crammed with warfare?”
    Ningauble shrugged once again. “You're a hero. You should know.”
    “Well then, the tin whistle?” Fafhrd grated.
    “You know, I didn't get a thing on the tin whistle. Sorry about that. Do you have it with you? Might I look at it?”
    Grumbling, Fafhrd extracted it from his flat pouch, and brought it around the fire.
    “Have you ever blown it?” Ningauble asked.
    “No,” Fafhrd said with surprise, lifting it to his lips.
    “Don't!” Ningauble squeaked. “Not on any account! Never blow a strange whistle. It might summon things far worse even than savage mastiffs or the police. Here, give it to me.”
    He pinched it away from Fafhrd with a double fold of animated sleeve and held it close to his hood, revolving it clockwise and counterclockwise, finally serpentinely gliding out four of his eyes and subjecting it to their massed scrutiny at thumbnail distance.
    At last he withdrew his eyes, sighed, and said, “Well ... I'm not sure. But there are thirteen characters in the inscription—I couldn't decipher ‘em, mind you, but there are thirteen. Now if you take that fact in conjunction with the slim couchant feline figure on the other side ... Well, I think you blow this whistle to summon the War Cats. Mind you, that's only a deduction, and one of several steps, each uncertain.”
    “Who are the War Cats?” Fafhrd asked.
    Ningauble writhed his fat shoulders and neck under their garments. “I've never been quite certain. But putting together various rumors and legends—oh yes, and some cave drawings north of the Cold Waste and south of Quarmall—I have arrived at the tentative conclusion that they are a military aristocracy of all the feline tribes, a bloodthirsty Inner Circle of thirteen members—in short, a dozen and one ailuric berserkers. I would assume—provisionally only, mind you—that they would appear when summoned, as perhaps by this whistle, and instantly assault whatever creature or creatures, beast or man, that seemed to threaten the feline tribes. So I would advise you not to blow it except in the presence of enemies of cats more worthy of attack than yourself, for I suppose you have slain a few tigers and leopards in your day. Here, take it.”
    Fafhrd snatched and pouched it, demanding, “But by God's ice-rimmed skull, when am I to blow it? How can the Mouser be two parts in fifty alive when buried eight yards deep? What vast, fifty-to-one host can have assaulted Lankhmar without months of rumors and reports of their approach? What fleets could carry—”
    “No more