Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber ...
Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber ...
Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber ...
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wild-seeming indeed, forcing the spectators back more than once, while the<br />
Mouser improvised <strong>by</strong> gushing out some of his thick blood-red toadstool wine<br />
when they were momentarily pressed body-to-body in a fierce exchange, so that<br />
they both appeared sorely wounded.<br />
There were three in the Ghost Hall who took no interest in this seeming<br />
masterpiece of duels and hardly watched it. Ivivis was not one of them -- she soon<br />
threw back her hood, tore off her hag-mask, and came following the fight close,<br />
cheering on the Mouser. Nor were they Brilla, Kewissa and Friska -- for at the<br />
sound of swords the two girls had insisted on opening their door a crack despite<br />
the eunuch's solicitous apprehensions and now they were all peering through,<br />
head above head, Friska in the midst agonizing at Fafhrd's perils.<br />
Gwaay's eyes were clotted and the lids glued with ichor, and the tendons were<br />
dissolved where<strong>by</strong> he might have lifted his head. Nor did he seek to explore with<br />
his sorcerous senses in the direction of the fight. He clung to existence solely <strong>by</strong><br />
the thread of his great hatred for his brother, all else of life was to him less than a<br />
shadow-show; yet his hate held for him all of life's wonder and sweetness and<br />
high excitement -- it was enough.<br />
The mirror image of that hate in Hasjarl was at this moment strong enough<br />
too to dominate wholly his healthy body's instincts and hungers and all the plots<br />
and images in his crackling thoughts. He saw the first stroke of the fight, he saw<br />
Gwaay's litter unguarded, and then as if he had seen entire a winning<br />
combination of chess and been hypnotized <strong>by</strong> it, he made his move without<br />
another cogitation.<br />
Widely circling the fight and moving swiftly in the shadows like a weasel, he<br />
mounted the three steps <strong>by</strong> the wall and headed straight for the litter.<br />
There were no ideas in his mind at all, but there were some shadowy images<br />
distortedly seen as from a great distances -- one of himself as a tiny child toddling<br />
<strong>by</strong> night along a wall to Gwaay's crib, to scratch him with a pin.<br />
He did not spare a glance for the tread-slaves, and it is doubtful if they even<br />
saw, or at least took note of him, so rudimentary were their minds.<br />
He leaned eagerly between two of them and curiously surveyed his brother.<br />
His nostrils drew in at the stench, and his mouth contracted to its tightest<br />
sphincter yet still smiled.<br />
He plucked a wide dagger of blued steel from a sheath at his belt and poised it<br />
above his brother's face, which <strong>by</strong> its plagues was almost unrecognizable as such.<br />
The honed edges of the dagger were tiny hooks directed back from the point.<br />
The sword-clashing below reached one of its climaxes, but Hasjarl did not<br />
mark it.<br />
He said softly, "Open your eyes, Brother. I want you to speak once before I<br />
slay you."<br />
There was no reply from Gwaay -- not a motion, not a whisper, not a bubble<br />
of retching.<br />
"Very well," Hasjarl said harshly, "then die a prim shut-mouth," and he drove<br />
down the dagger.<br />
It stopped violently a hairbreadth above Gwaay's upper cheek, and the<br />
muscles of Hasjarl's arm driving it were stabbingly numbed <strong>by</strong> the jolt they got.<br />
Gwaay did open his eyes then, which was not very pleasant to behold since<br />
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