Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber (Stories VI through X)

First edition 

Let's give the second half of my 1986 copy of 1970's Swords Against Death the MPorcius treatment.  The publication dates of these five stories by Fritz Leiber, chronicling adventures of the famous heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, range from 1942 to 1970.

"The Sunken Land" (1942)

"The Sunken Land" first appeared in the same issue of Unknown as Fredric Brown's "Etaoin Shrdlu," a good story about a dangerous linotype machine.  In 1978 Robert Silverberg included it in his anthology Lost Worlds, Unknown Horizons.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are trying to get back to Lankhmar by crossing the wide and empty Outer Sea, the two of them alone managing a sloop with outriggers.  Like Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, Fafhrd is hunting fish with a bow, and inside the stomach of one of his catches he finds a mysterious gold ring.  The Mouser doesn't recognize the style of the ring, and Fafhrd relates the legends of Simorgya, a now sunken continent that his ancient piratical ancestors raided centuries ago--he says the ring resembles a few purportedly Simorgyan artifacts he saw as a child.  Jutting out of the ring is a prong of metal much like a key.

The Mouser, superstitious, thinks the ring is dangerous, but Fafhrd ignores his friend's pleas to throw it away.

There is a storm, and out of the darkness suddenly appears a galley, manned by people of Fafhrd's race, fair-skinned Northern barbarians.  Bad luck finds Fafhrd thrown overboard, the sloop and the Mouser disappearing in the darkness, and Fafhrd finding succor by climbing aboard the pirate galley.  Taken captive, he is put to work at an oar, and learns that the ship is commanded by a madman who is on an impossible mission--to raid Simorgya, which we just learned is said to have sunk hundreds of years past.  Fafhrd's Simorgyan ring is confiscated.

Amazingly, the ship comes upon a portion of Simorgya that has recently arisen, an island covered in phosphorescent slime and flopping fish and the extensive but obscure ruins of an ancient castle or city.  Weird carvings hint at monsters like rays or skates with blanket-like bodies.  The ordinary sailors are thrilled to find rotten chests filled with gold and gems, but the insane captain is unsatisfied until he spots a locked door--he rushes to unlock it with the ring key he seized from Fafhrd.

Fafhrd suddenly realizes that all these bizarre coincidences must be the will of some alien power.  He flees from the sailors, to the edge of the island, where, good fortune, the Mouser has just arrived in the sloop.  The friends sail away in haste--the island sinks behind them, the backwash almost capsizing their little vessel.  Fafhrd never looked back, and the Mouser tells him that before the island sank he dimly saw a strange sight, the Northern raiders dancing feverishly as they donned black cloaks, and then crawling on their hands and knees, covered in the cloaks, back into the ruins.

"The Sunken Land" includes ideas and themes very reminiscent of H. P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" and "The Call of Cthulhu," while the monsters at the end are quite like those in Clark Ashton Smith's "Vaults of Yoh-Vombis."  Even if "The Sunken Land" is derivative of those classic weird tales, it is a fine piece of work in its own right--Leiber does a brilliant job with the tone and all the images on that creepy island, and the dialogue early in the story between happy optimistic Fafhrd and the superstitious and uneasy Gray Mouser is quite fun.  Thumbs up!

"The Seven Black Priests" (1953)

I've read "The Seven Black Priests" multiple times, though not yet in this century, and have long considered it my favorite Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story.  It first appeared in Other Worlds; in the 1973 Author's Introduction to my copy of Swords Against Death, Leiber dedicates "The Seven Black Priests" to the co-editor of Other Worlds, Bea Mahaffy, calling her "brilliant" and saying she inspired it.  Isfdb suggests that for some time Mahaffy did most of the editorial work on Other Worlds because her co-editor and boss, Ray Palmer, was severely injured in an automobile accident.  Wikipedia indicates that Mahaffy was considered a beauty and many male SF fans had crushes on her.  You can judge Mahaffy's editorial ability for yourself by reading Other Worlds (she worked there from 1950 to 1955,) Universe Science Fiction (published 1953-55) and Science Stories (four issues appeared from late '53 to early '54) at the internet archive, and you can judge her beauty for yourself by checking out photos at this website describing in detail a 1953 science fiction convention in London, which features photos of Mahaffy in the company of James White, Eric Frank Russell, and other SF figures.  (According to this website, Mahaffy really liked Russell and Theodore Sturgeon, but thought Isaac Asimov was a total jerk.  Sounds about right.)

"The Seven Black Priests" takes place shortly after "The Sunken Land," and refers specifically back to that story (the magazine version actually has a summary of that 1942 tale.*)  And like "The Sunken Land," "The Seven Black Priests" has Lovecraftian elements and themes.

Still on their way to Lankhmar, Fafhrd and the Mouse have left their sloop behind and are travelling on foot through some frigid mountains marked by volcanic fissures.  Clues (including an inscription, part of which they can translate) suggest that, up here in this region of the frozen North where almost nobody ever sets foot, live seven priests from tropical Klesh who have taken up residence in this unlikely place to either serve or perhaps restrain some kind of god or monster.  These priests are not happy to see people in their domain, and try to kill our heroes in various creative ways that reflect their origin (shooting poison darts at them through blowpipes) and their current locale (rolling giant snowballs down a slope at them.)  The action scenes in "The Seven Black Priests" are very good, fresh and exciting and fun.

Our heroes further antagonize the black holy men when they steal a diamond bigger than your fist that is stuck with goop to a little cleft in the face of a mountain--from a distance the diamond looks like the eye of a vaguely human, somewhat monstrous face that may be the work of human carving or simply that of natural erosion.  As they march through the mountains and into the Cold Waste, fending off attacks from the Kleshites, Fafhrd becomes fascinated, hypnotized, by the jewel, staring into it at night as the Mouser sleeps.  An astonishing, mind-bending, cosmic-terror-inducing truth is revealed--the planet of Nehwon is a living thing, once vital in its early molten days, now mostly dormant, but still conscious, and resentful of the human race that treads on its surface!  Nehwon can awake again if it can drink the blood of heroes thrown into its volcanic fissures!  Our boys Fafhrd and the Mouser have just the sort of blood Nehwon needs to shrug off the human race once and for all!

In the climax of the story Fafhrd, controlled by the jewel, tries to overpower his friend so they both can jump in some lava and become integrated with the planet, but the Mouser succeeds in preserving both their lives and in turn saving humanity.

"The Seven Black Priests" is a classic sword and sorcery tale, integrating Lovecraftian cosmic dread with quick-paced action, leveraging readers' fascination with the exotic nature of both the frozen north and the jungles of the tropics, celebrating the warm friendship of two men while exploiting white peoples' beliefs that non-whites are somehow "in touch with the earth."  I score this one seven out of seven--highly recommended.

I may think "The Seven Black Priests" is a nominee for best F&GM story of all time but it has only been anthologized once, by Otto Penzler in his 800+ page Big Book of Adventure Stories.

*The magazine version also includes references to Sheelba that are missing from the book version, perhaps evidence of an evolution in Leiber's conception of Sheelba and that character's role in the F&GM universe.

"Claws from the Night" (1951)

"Claws from the Night" first winged its way before readers' eyes under the title "Dark Vengeance," in the magazine Suspense, "The High-Tension Magazine Inspired by the CBS Radio and Television Program."  The intro to the story talks up Leiber's expertise in the realms of science, experience on the stage, and chess ability.  What a guy!

Remember when we read "The Snow Women," which had as one of its themes the war of the sexes and the plight of women in a man's world?  Well, here comes the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story all you pinkos and populists have been waiting for--the F&GM story about class conflict!

The fashionable rich of Lankhmar are in the grip of a campaign of terror!  A few weeks ago jewelry (I know, another story about jewels!  Suck it up, bro!) began disappearing from wealthy people's homes.  Slaves and servants were beaten, but no clues to who was committing this larceny emerged.  Then the incredible truth was realized--black birds were flying in people's windows to steal their baubles and adornments!  When people began sealing up their residences, the winged brigands began stealing the jewelry right off of women's ears, necks and wrists!  When women, now wary, resisted these assaults, the flying fiends became vicious, drawing the blood of courtesan and aristocratic lady, even pecking out women's eyes!

Meanwhile, Fafhrd and the Mouser have heard that Muulsh, a wealthy moneylender, has purchased a huge jewel from an Eastern potentate to give to his wife.  Our heroes covet this treasure, and the Mouser sits on Muulsh's roof, looking through its skylight into the room of Muulsh's pretty young wife Atya.  He watches with glee as Atya insults her husband, calling him fat and whining that because he is a moneylender the wives of aristocrats and the more respectable merchants won't be her friends.  You'd think the Mouser would feel some solidarity with a fellow man in the face of female cruelty, manipulation, and irrationality, but no, the thief and apprentice wizard finds the plight of this guy hilarious.  Bros before hos, GM, [smh] bros before hos.

(I stressed the class angle of "Claws from the Night" above, but there is plenty in this story for the gender studies crowd to chew on.)

When Muulsh presents the jewel to Atya, the Mouser and Fafhrd put their elaborate plan to steal it into action, and there ensues an entertaining struggle that ends with one of those blasted black birds flying off with it.  Luckily F&GM see where it goes--into a high window of one of the tall, ancient, abandoned and forbidden temples that dot the map of Lankhmar, temples to gods the government and/or religious establishment have anathematized.  "It was forbidden on pain of death to enter such places, and no man knew what evil things might lurk there, fattening on loneliness."

Our heroes proceed to the temple, where they must fight for their lives against another team of human thieves and against the reborn goddess of the birds, forbidden Tyaa, her worshipers and her dread Luftwaffe of feathered bandits.  Tyaa is of course cunning and manipulative Atya, on a campaign of revenge against the people of Lankhmar, who rejected Tyaa centuries ago, and the aristocratic and bourgeois women who have been rejecting Atya all her life:

"I was cheated of the privileges of my birth and station, and forced to consort with the uncouth and vulgar....Four months ago...I felt that Tyaa had grown to full stature in me, and that the time had come for Tyaa's reckoning with Lankhmar....So I sent the birds to take the old tribute, bidding them punish when tribute was refused, or when the woman was notorious for vanity and pride."       

(Atya is kind of like a villain from a comic book who explains his gripes and decision to begin a life of crime in the first issue in which he appears, like Moleman in the first issue of The Fantastic Four.)

Fafhrd and the Mouser drive Atya out of town, liberating Lankhmar from the reign of avian terror and Muulsh from the tyranny of marriage. 

This is another solid story with good horror ideas and good action scenes and fun fantasy elements, I love the idea of forbidden temples in the middle of a bustling town whose gods the authorities have banished but whose worship still lingers and whose power might unexpectedly wax and threaten the current order.  "Claws from the Night" was translated into Dutch and included in a 2003 anthology of fantasy stories that apparently was trying to leverage the popularity of J. R.R. Tolkien in the wake of the Peter Jackson films (according to isfdb, In De Geest van Tolkien has no Tolkien fiction in it.)

"The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970)

"The Price of Pain-Ease" was, it seems, written new for inclusion in Swords Against Death.  A year later a story under the title "The Price of Pain-Ease" was printed in the "All-Star" 22nd anniversary issue of F&SF.  When I looked at that issue of the magazine at the internet archive it immediately became clear that the story that actually appears in the magazine  is a combination of "The Circle Curse" and "The Price of Pain-Ease," one after the other.

"The Price of Pain-Ease" is a somewhat silly story in a sort of fairy tale style, meant to set the stage for the succeeding stories, in which F&GM get a lot of women and act as subordinates to Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ninguable of the Seven Eyes.

F&GM, through the fence, look into the grounds of the estate of an aristocrat and see a charming garden house.  They hire forty laborers, pick the lock of the estate's gate, and steal the house, their lackeys carrying it to the site of the ruin of the house in which the Mouser lived with his first love, Ivrian, the house in which Vlana (Fafhrd's first love) and Ivrian were killed by magical poison and then eaten by rats.  The two heroes move in to the little house, drinking that aristocrat's wine and reading his pornographic books, but they are haunted by misty and mute apparitions of Vlana and Ivrian and become depressed and half insane.  One day, Fafhrd is summoned by Ningauble and leaves without telling his comrade; later the same day the Mouser is summoned by Sheelba.  Each hero asks his wizard to restore his lost love or banish her ghost, and each wizard agrees on the condition that the adventurer become his loyal servant and, as a first task, travel to the Shadowland, the land of Death, to steal Death's Mask.  Each hero travels to the Shadowland on a magic horse provided by his patron wizard, where he meets and converses with his dead love; slack and flat eyed, grey of skin and listless in gesture, the dead women, in so many words, tell their living lovers to move on with their lives.  The heroes then meet up and, through a series of comic coincidences, each is able to secure a half of Death's Mask to give to his patron sorcerer.  Back in Lankhmar, their sadness over their first loves exorcised, they begin torrid love affairs with aristocratic ladies, the Mouser with a "slightly underage" niece of the Overlord of Lankhmar, Fafhrd with the twin daughters of the aristo whose house they stole (said house has been destroyed by Sheelba and Ningauble in a fit of pique.)

I'm not crazy about these stories that feel like a gentle loving spoof of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser rather than a sincere, legitimate horror/adventure story.  I guess I will judge it acceptable.

"Bazaar of the Bizarre" (1963)

"Bazaar of the Bizarre" was a cover story at Fantastic under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith, and in his 1973 Author's Introduction to my edition of Swords Against Death, Leiber praises Goldsmith.  Half of the editorial of this issue of Fantastic consists of a quote from Leiber explaining the etymology of the word "bizarre," that also indicates that Goldsmith chose the name for the story, which I guess is normal magazine practice.  The second half of the editorial is a quote from "Prof. Abdus Salam, scientific adviser to the President of Pakistan," lamenting that scientists don't rule the world.  (Compare to Judith Merrill's quoting of Timothy Leary in 10th Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F.)

"Bazaar of the Bizarre" is one I must have read multiple times in the '80s (and '90s?) because I remember it relatively well.  I believe it is one of the most critically acclaimed of F&GM stories, and has appeared in several anthologies including The Fantasy Hall of Fame and in Leiber "Best of" collections like Ghost Light and The Leiber Chronicles.

In "Bazaar of the Bizarre" we are introduced to Lankhmar's Plaza of Dark Delights, a sort of market square with stalls where pimps and drug dealers and sellers of oddities offer their wares at night; by tradition the Plaza is kept quite dark and very quiet, so much so, we are told, that it is a traditional spot for students and mediators to retire to enjoy peace and quiet...they are certainly not there to get high and hire a whore!

This story must take place some time, years I expect, after "The Price of Pain-Ease" because we are told that the Gray Mouser has already been sent on many difficult missions by Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, stealing grimoires and excavating artifacts and the like.  Tonight he is supposed to meet Sheelba at the Plaza of Dark Delights.  At the Plaza he finds a new stall, one that flouts tradition with its brilliant illumination.  Being early, he decides to browse in the new store before the wizard arrives, and inside he discovers a multitude of fascinating wares, items which he is sure have been produced in some other world--books which relate the fighting arts and erotic techniques of demons, lenses and telescopes which look into the treasure rooms of kings and onto the plans of deities, fetching slave girls in gold and silver cages, etc.

Meanwhile, Fafhrd, who has also been summoned to the Plaza, he by his own wizardly patron, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, arrives and meets both Sheelba and Ningauble.  The wizards explain that the new shop in the Plaza is that of The Devourers, a menace from another universe.  The Devourers are a sort of satire of businesspeople, with Leiber obliquely referencing the cliche (which I guess originates with Oscar Wilde) about people who "know the price of everything and the value of nothing," and invoking the well-worn trope about middle-class people's foolish drive to "keep up with the Jonses," as well as fears of advertising and persuasive salespeople.  The Devourers travel from universe to universe, fooling people into buying their apparently fabulous wares, which are in fact trash, and buying from them all their finest goods and knowledge at bargain prices.  Thus they despoil entire universes, their object being simply to score points in an endless and unwinnable competition with each other over who can amass the most "cash."  (I guess "Claws from the Night" was just an appetizer for all you Bolshies out there--here is the main course!)

Fafhrd, a man who makes his living by stealing and killing and is the son of a tribe of pirates, of course agrees that businesspeople are immoral and disgusting, but he is reluctant to go to war against beings whom Ninguable tells him "possess all the mightiest magics garnered from all the many universes," especially after Sheelba and Ningauble, the greatest wizards in Nehwon, make clear that they won't be accompanying Fafhrd in his assault on the Devourers' outpost.  But when it is pointed out that his friend the Gray Mouser is already in the clutches of the enemy, Fafhrd agrees to the serve his universe in the war on the interlopers, if only to rescue his little buddy.  To aid him on this perilous mission, the wizards give him a Cloak of Invisibility and a cloth to lay over his eyes that will filter out the aliens' illusions, the Blindfold of True Seeing.

Invisible, Fafhrd easily sneaks past the proprietor of the Bazaar (in fact an iron statue with a huge sword) and inside the mart sees that in those hanging cages are giant spiders, while most of the goods that seemed so fine to the Mouser are in fact dirty underwear, dead fish and old bones.  The books have blank pages and a spy glass he gazes through provides a view of people being tortured in Hell.

Fafhrd stops the Mouser, just in time, from passing through some kind of deadly door to another dimension (or something) that the Mouser thinks is a vertical swimming pool, and then fights the iron statue to the death--the Mouser, watching, thinks his friend is clowning with the inoffensive store clerk and laughs and offers jocular advice to both combatants.  Fafhrd tricks the Mouser into helping him, and when the statue falls the whole Bazaar threatens to explode--Fafhrd drags an unwilling Mouser out of the store just before it vanishes.  Fafhrd, bitter at his ill treatment at the hands of the wizards and the Mouser, thinks to use the Cloak and Blindfold to learn the true nature of the world and even put one over on Sheelba and Ningauble, but the wizards quickly pluck the devices back and disappear.

This story isn't bad, but it is not great.  The broad satire element defuses any tension or fear and makes suspension of disbelief very difficult--aliens are going to beggar the entire universe by opening one store with a single soldier in it?--so "Bazaar of the Bizarre" doesn't really work as a horror or adventure story, while the jokes (like the Mouser thinking a monster spider is a flirty girl and laughing at Fafhrd's life and death struggle with the statue), though not irritatingly bad, don't actually make you laugh, so it is not a direct hit as a humor piece.  There are clever bits, like the descriptions of the magical items loaned to Fafhrd and some of the alien devices (which aren't all trash after all, leading Fafhrd and us readers to consider the possibility that the wizards' description of the Devourers and the threat they pose isn't entirely on the up and up) and the idea that, with the Blindfold of True Seeing, Fafhrd is getting a glimpse of the true character of the Gray Mouser, and it turns out the Mouser is no prize.  Mildly good, I guess a little better than "The Bleak Shore" but certainly not as good as 'The Sunken Land," "The Seven Black Priests," "Claws from the Night," "Thieves' House" or "Jewels in the Forest." 

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Well, I've talked your ear off about these sword and sorcery stories long enough.  We'll be taking a brief break from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but before you know it we'll be back on Nehwon (and elsewhere!), exploring Swords in the Mist.