The Second Book of Lankhmar

nearest Hisvet and bowed her yellow-masked head, assuming a servile posture.
    Hardly were the white and violet masks in place and the silver curtains settled to the floor than the latter were jerked rudely aside. Hisvin and Skwee appeared, both unmasked, followed by three pike-rats. Despite the presence of the huge vermin in their cages, the Mouser found it hard to banish the illusion that all the rats were actually five feet and more tall.
    Hisvin's face grew dusky red as he surveyed the scene. “Oh, most monstrous!” he cried at Hisvet. “Shameless filth! Loose with my own colleague!”
    “Don't be dramatic, Daddy,” Hisvet countered, while to the Mouser she whispered tersely, “Slay him now. I'll clear you with Skwee and the rest.”
    The Mouser, fumbling under the coverlet over the side of the bed for Scalpel, while presenting a steady white be-diamonded mask at Hisvin, said blandly, “Calm yourthelf, counthillor. If your divine daughter chootheth me above all other ratth and men, ith it my fault, Hithvin? Or herth either? Love knowth no ruleth.”
    “I'll have your head for this, Grig,” Hisvin screeched at him, advancing toward the bed.
    “Daddy, you've become a puritanical dodderer,” Hisvet said sharply, almost primly, “to indulge in antique tantrums on this night of our great conquest. Your day is done. I must take your place on the Council. Tell him so, Skwee. Daddy darling, I think you're just madly jealous of Grig because you're not where he is.”
    Hisvin screamed, “O dirt that was my daughter!” and snatching with youthful speed a stiletto from his waist, drove it at Hisvet's neck betwixt violet mask and coverlet—except that Frix, lunging suddenly on her knees, swung her open left hand hard between, as one bats a ball.
    The needlelike blade drove through her palm to the slim dagger's hilt and was wrenched from Hisvin's grasp.
    Still on one knee, the bright blade transfixing her out-stretched left palm and dripping red a little, Frix turned toward Hisvin and advancing her other hand graciously, she said in clear, winning tones, “Govern your rage for all our sakes, dear my dear mistress's father. These matters can be composed by quiet reason, surely. You must not quarrel together on this night of all nights.”
    Hisvin paled and retreated a step, daunted most likely by Frix's preternatural composure, which indeed was enough to send shivers up a man's or even a rat's spine.
    The Mouser's fumbling hand closed around Scalpel's hilt. He prepared to spring out and dash back to Grig's apartment, snatching up his bundle of clothes on the way. At some point during the last score or so heartbeats, his great undying love for Hisvet had quietly perished and was now beginning to stink in his nostrils.
    But at that instant the violet drapes were torn apart and there rushed from the Mouser's chosen escape route the rat Hreest in his gold-embellished black garb and brandishing rapier and dirk. He was followed by three gaurdsmen-rats in green uniforms, each with a like naked sword. The Mouser recognized the dirk Hreest held—it was his own Cat's Claw.
    Frix moved swiftly behind the head of the bed to the post she'd earlier taken between viper and scorpion cage, the stiletto still transfixing her left hand like a great pin. The Mouser heard her murmur rapidly, “The plot thickens. Enter armed rats at all portals. A climax nears.”
    Hreest came to a sudden halt and cried ringingly at Skwee and Hisvin, “The dismembered remains of Councillor Grig have been discovered lodged against the Fifth Level sewer's exit-grill! The human spy is impersonating him in Grig's own clothes!”
    Not at the moment, except for mask, the Mouser thought, and making one last effort cried out, “Nonthenthe! Thith ith midthummer madneth! I am Grig! It wath thome other white rat got tho foully thlain!”
    Holding up Cat's Claw and eyeing the Mouser, Hreest continued, “I discovered this dagger of human device in Grig's apartment. The spy is clearly here.”
    “Kill him in the bed,” Skwee commanded harshly, but the Mouser, anticipating a little the inevitable, had rolled out from under his sheets and now took up guard position naked, the white mask cast aside, Scalpel gleaming long and deadly in his right hand, while his left, in lieu of his dirk, held his belt and Scalpel's limp scabbard, both doubled.
    With a weird laugh Hreest lunged at him, rapier a-flicker, while Skwee drew sword and came leaping across the foot of