Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber ...

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Scanning piercingly across the table and box, the Mouser could see no sign of
the second caller. Evening out his own voice, so it was not breathy with
apprehension, but bland with confidence, he said, to the emptiness, "My gems are
like no others in the world. In fact, they come not from the world, being of the
same substance as the stars. Yet you know by your test that one of them is harder
than diamond."
"They are truly unearthly and most beautiful jewels," the sourless silvery
voice answered. "My mind pierces them through and through, and they are what
you say they are. I shall advise Ogo to pay your asking price."
At that instant the Mouser heard behind him a little cough and a dry, rapid
scuttling. He whirled around, dirk poised to strike. There was nothing to be seen
or sensed, except for the hassock or whatever, which had not moved. The
scuttling was no longer to be heard.
He swiftly turned back, and there across the table from him, her front
illumined by the twinkling jewels, stood a slim naked girl with pale straight hair,
somewhat darker skin, and overlarge eyes staring entrancedly from a child's tinychinned,
pouty-lipped face.
Satisfying himself by a rapid glance that the jewels were in their proper
pattern under their mesh and none missing, he swiftly advanced Cat's Claw so
that its needle point touched the taut skin between the small yet jutting breasts.
"Do not seek to startle me so again!" he hissed. "Men -- aye, and girls -- have
died for less."
The girl did not stir by so much as the breadth of a fine hair; neither did her
expression nor her dreamy yet concentrated gaze change, except that her short
lips smiled, then parted to say honey-voiced, "So you are the Gray Mouser. I had
expected a crouchy, sear-faced rogue, and I find ... a prince." The very jewels
seemed to twinkle more wildly because of her sweet voice and sweeter presence,
striking opalescent glimmers from her pale irises.
"Neither seek to flatter me!" the Mouser commanded, catching up his box and
holding it open against his side. "I am inured, I'll have you know, to the
ensorcelments of all the world's minxes and nymphs."
"I speak truth only, as I did of your jewels," she answered guilelessly. Her lips
had stayed parted a little, and she spoke without moving them.
"Are you the Eyes of Ogo?" the Mouser demanded harshly, yet drawing Cat's
Claw back from her bosom. It bothered him a little, yet only a little, that the
tiniest stream of blood, like a black thread, led down for a few inches from the
prick his dirk had made.
Utterly unmindful of the tiny wound, the girl nodded. "And I can see through
you, as through your jewels, and I discover naught in you but what is noble and
fine, save for certain small subtle impulses of violence and cruelty, which a girl
like myself might find delightful."
"There your all-piercing eyes err wholly, for I am a great villain," the Mouser
answered scornfully, though he felt a pulse of fond satisfaction within him.
The girl's eyes widened as she looked over his shoulder somewhat
apprehensively, and from behind the Mouser the dry and thick voice croaked
once more, "Keep to business! Yes, I will pay you in gold your offering price, a
sum it will take me some hours to assemble. Return at the same time tomorrow
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