"Fritz Leiber - FGM 3 - Swords in the Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

glowed. The spot was so near the quarter of the nobles that the sounds of
music and laughter came at intervals, faintly, along with a dim rainbow-glow
of light. The two men might have been a hulking beggar and a small one, except
that their tunics and leggings and cloaks, though threadbare, were of good
stuff, and scabbarded weapons lay close to the hand of each.
The larger said, "There'll be fog tonight. I smell it coming from the
Hlal." This was Fafhrd, brawny-armed, pale and serene of face, reddish gold of
hair.
For reply the smaller shivered and fed the brazier two small gobbets of
charcoal and said sardonically, "Next predict glaciers! -- advancing down the
Street of the Gods, by preference." That was the Mouser, eyes wary, lips
quirking, cheeks muffled by gray hood drawn close.
Fafhrd grinned. As a tinkling gust of distant song came by, he asked
the dark air that carried it, "Now why aren't we warmly cushioned somewhere
inside tonight, well drunk and sweetly embraced?"
For answer the Gray Mouser drew from his belt a ratskin pouch and
slapped it by its drawstrings against his palm. It flattened as it hit and
nothing chinked. For good measure he writhed at Fafhrd the backs of his ten
fingers, all ringless. Fafhrd grinned again and said to the dusky space around
them, which was now filled with the finest mist, the fog's forerunner, "Now
that's a strange thing. We've won I know not how many jewels and oddments of
gold and electrum in our adventurings -- and even letters of credit on the
Guild of the Grain Merchants. Where have they all flown to? -- the credit-
letters on parchment wings, the jewels jetting fire like tiny red and green
and pearly cuttlefish. Why aren't we rich?"
The Mouser snorted, ''Because you dribble away our get on worthless
drabs, or oftener still pour it out for some noble whim -- some plot of bogus
angels to storm the walls of Hell. Meantime I stay poor nursemaiding you."
Fafhrd laughed and retorted, "You overlook your own whimsical
imprudences, such as slitting the Overlord's purse and picking his pocket too
the selfsame night you rescued and returned him his lost crown. No, Mouser, I
think we're poor because -- " Suddenly he lifted an elbow and flared his
nostrils as he snuffed the chill moist air. "There's a taint in the fog
tonight," he announced.
The Mouser said dryly, "I already smell dead fish, burnt fat, horse
dung, tickly lint, Lankhmar sausage gone stale, cheap temple incense burnt by
the ten-pound cake, rancid oil, moldy grain, slaves' barracks, embalmers'
tanks crowded to the black brim, and the stink of a cathedral full of unwashed
carters and trulls celebrating orgiastic rites -- and now you tell me of a
taint!"
"It is something different from all those," Fafhrd said, peering
successively down the five alleys. "Perhaps the last..." His voice trailed off
doubtfully, and he shrugged.
****
Strands of fog came questing through small high-set street-level
windows into the tavern called the Rats' Nest, interlacing curiously with the
soot-trail from a failing torch, but unnoticed except by an old harlot who
pulled her patchy fur cloak closer at her throat. All eyes were on the wrist
game being played across an ancient oaken table by the famed bravo Gnarlag and
a dark-skinned mercenary almost as big-thewed as he. Right elbows firmly