Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber ...

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"Precious Nemia," Eyes murmured, "you're so civilized. And so very, very
clever. Next to one other, you're certainly the best thief in Lankhmar."
"Who's the other?" Nemia was eager to know.
"Myself, of course," Eyes answered modestly.
Nemia reached up and tweaked her companion's ear -- not too painfully, but
enough.
"If there were the least money depending on that," she said quietly but firmly,
"I'd teach you differently. But since it's only conversation..."
"Dearest Nemia."
"Sweetest Eyes."
The two girls gently embraced and kissed each other fondly.
* * * *
The Mouser glared thin-lipped across a table in a curtained booth in the
Golden Lamprey, a tavern not unlike the Silver Eel.
He rapped the teak before him with his fingertip, and the perfumed stale air
with his voice, saying, "Double those twenty gold pieces and I'll make the trip and
hear Prince Gwaay's proposal."
The very pale man opposite him, who squinted as if even the candlelight were
a glare, answered softly, "Twenty-five -- and you serve him for one day after
arrival."
"What sort of ass do you take me for?" the Mouser demanded dangerously. "I
might be able to settle all his troubles in one day -- I usually can -- and what
then? No, no preagreed service; I hear his proposal only. And ... thirty-five gold
pieces in advance."
"Very well, thirty gold pieces -- twenty to be refunded if you refuse to serve
my master, which would be a risky step, I warn you."
"Risk is my bedmate," the Mouser snapped. "Ten only to be refunded."
The other nodded and began slowly to count rilks onto the teak. "Ten
_now_," he said. "Ten when you join our caravan tomorrow morning at the Grain
Gate. And ten when we reach Quarmall."
"When we first glimpse the spires of Quarmall," the Mouser insisted.
The other nodded.
The Mouser moodily snatched the golden coins and stood up. They felt very
few in his fist. For a moment he thought of returning to Fafhrd and with him
devising plans against Ogo and Nemia.
No, never! He realized he couldn't in his misery and self-rage bear the
thought of even looking at Fafhrd.
Besides, the Northerner would certainly be drunk.
And two, or at most three, rilks would buy him certain tolerable and even
interesting pleasures to fill the hours before dawn brought him release from this
hateful city.
* * * *
Fafhrd was indeed drunk, being on his third jug. He had burnt up all the
black jewels and was now with the greatest delicacy and most careful use of the
needle point of his knife, releasing unharmed each of the silver-wired firebeetles,
glowwasps, nightbees, and diamondflies. They buzzed about erratically.
Two cupbearers and the chucker-out had come to protest, and now Slevyas
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