Rogues

ILL SEEN IN TYRE

Steven Saylor

“What are those curious pictures on the walls?” I said. The tavern’s pretty serving girl, a voluptuous blonde, had just delivered my third cup of wine, and the pictures were looking curiouser and curiouser.

Antipater, my traveling companion and erstwhile tutor, furrowed his snowy brows and gave me that withering look I had come to know all too well during our journey. Though I was nineteen, and a man by Roman law, his look made me feel closer to nine.

“Gordianus! Can it be that you do not know the stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser?”

“The gray what?”

“Mouser,” he said.

I frowned. “I know what a mouse is, but what on earth is a mouser?”

Antipater sighed. “It is a term used for the common Egyptian house cat, a creature renowned for its hunting skills, particularly as regards rodents. Thus, mouser: a hunter of mice.”

“Ah, well, we don’t have cats in Rome, you know.” I shuddered at the very thought of such a creature, with its sharp claws and vicious fangs. I had encountered a few in our travels, living on ships. Supposedly, the captains prized their ability to keep a vessel free of vermin, but I had kept my distance from these exotic creatures. Like most Romans, I found them vaguely repellent, if not downright menacing. I had been told that the Egyptians actually worshipped these furry beasts, allowing them to roam the streets and even to live in their homes. I had not yet been to Egypt, but the idea that the Egyptians lived with cats did not make me eager to visit.

Eventually, of course, Antipater and I would have to visit Egypt, for it was home to the Great Pyramid, the oldest and some said the grandest of the Wonders of the World, and it was our intent to visit all seven of those marvels. We had just come from Rhodes, home of the Colossus, and were on our way to Babylon, home of the fabled Walls and the Hanging Gardens.

At the moment—between Wonders, so to speak—we found ourselves in the port city of Tyre, which had its own long and fabled history. Tyre was perhaps most famous for the production of dye from the murex shell; every king in the world insisted on being robed in Tyrian purple. Tyre also happened to be the birthplace of Antipater, so our visit here was in some ways a homecoming for him.

Thus did my thoughts ramble as I sipped my third cup of wine. Antipater was actually ahead of me, on his fourth cup. It was uncommon for him to indulge in immoderate drinking. His abandonment of sobriety had something to do with being in his hometown. What could be more poignant than an elderly poet surrounded by childhood memories?

“Egypt, cats, mice, pyramids—but what were we talking about?” I said. “Oh, yes—the curious pictures in this place.”

The tavern was called the Murex Shell. A large picture of its namesake was painted on the outside wall, and a border of clay tiles, impressed with such shells, surrounded the doorway. Inside the tavern, however, no murex shells were to be seen, and the frescoes on the walls had nothing to do with the production of purple dye. Instead, these pictures, painted on every available surface, appeared to depict the exploits of two heroes unknown to me. One was much taller and broader than the other, a brawny giant with a fiery red beard. The smaller of the two had a snub nose and wore a gray cloak with a peaked hood. Both carried swords, and in many of the pictures, wielded them with devastating results.

“What did you say they were called?” I said.

“Fafhrd—”

“Yes, I heard you say that the first time. I thought you were clearing your throat.”

“Very funny, Gordianus. I repeat: Fafhrd. An exotic name, to be sure. They say he was a veritable giant and came from the far north, beyond the Ister River, beyond Dacia, beyond even the wild lands of Germania.”

“But there are no lands north of Germania—are there?”

“None that any man I know has ever visited. Still, they say that’s where Fafhrd came from.”

“Fafhrd! Fafhrd!” I tried saying the name a few times, until a nod from Antipater indicated that I had it right. “And the other one? This so-called Gray Mouser?”

“He seems to have been a local boy, growing up on the streets of Tyre. Darker and smaller and wirier than his companion, but equally adept with a sword. Indeed, it is said that the two of them were the finest swordsmen of their day.”

“And when was that?”

“Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser lived in Tyre about a hundred years ago. My grandfather met them once. According to him, they were not merely the greatest swordsmen of their day, but of all time.”

“A bold claim. Why have I never heard of them?”

Antipater shrugged. “I suppose they are best known here in Tyre, where they made a great impression on the locals. And in Tyre, they are best remembered here, inside the four walls of the Murex Shell, where they spent a great deal of time drinking and wenching—”

“This smelly little place is a virtual shrine to them!” I laughed, looking at all the pictures on the walls.

Antipater sniffed. “Just because you never heard the tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, growing up in far-off Rome—”

“But Teacher, you and I have been traveling all over the Greek-speaking world for over a year—to Ephesus and Halicarnassus and Olympia, and to all those islands in the Aegean—and I don’t recall ever seeing a single image or inscription about either of these fellows, anywhere. No priest ever invokes them. No poet I know of—including you!—recounts their exploits. Could it be that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are just local legends, known only here in Tyre?”

Antipater’s grumbling was as good as an admission that I was right. But even as a callow teenager, I could imagine that the heroes of an old man’s youth must be particularly dear to him, so I desisted from casting more doubt on the renown of these supposedly great swordsmen.

“It’s funny,” I said, “what an odd couple they make. In some of the pictures, you might think you’re seeing a tall god and his dwarfish servant, and in others a diminutive sorcerer and the lumbering automaton who does his bidding.”

“Very imaginative, Gordianus,” said Antipater sourly. We had both emptied our cups, and he called for the serving girl to bring more wine.

“So what are we seeing in these pictures?” I said, striving to show more respect.

Antipater looked elsewhere and pouted for a bit, but his natural urge to play the pedagogue, along with the chance to revisit one of his boyhood fascinations, was too powerful for him to resist. “Well, since you ask … in that picture over there, we see their encounter with the Sidonian smugglers; and there, their legendary run-in with the Cilician pirates, and the rescue of the kidnapped Cappadocian princess. That image shows their encounter with the female Cyprian slave-dealer—how formidable she looks!—and there we see the rendezvous that turned into an ambush. And there, the Idumaean brigands come galloping out of the desert, in search of the priceless tomb-filched Egyptian jewels that no one ever saw.”

“And yet, we see them in the picture.”

“Artistic license, Gordianus!”

“What about that picture?” I pointed to a particularly bawdy image above the window.

“Ah, there we see pictured the night that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser together enjoyed the lascivious favors of Laodice of Egypt, who afterwards sent a troop of Nubian eunuchs to behead them. But our heroes escaped, as you can see, taking the ebony chest of Laodice with them—which turned out to contain not only her fabulous collection of aphrodisiacs, but the very cup from which Socrates drank the hemlock.”

“Fantastic!” I said. “And over on that wall—those images seem to represent a whole other set of adventures.”

“Very astute of you. Yes, those images depict exploits of a more supernatural nature. Thus you see the occasion when the two swordsmen consulted the strange demon called Ningauble, which as you can see is depicted as a fat-bellied figure wearing a cloak with a shadowy hood from which protrude seven eyes on seven writhing stalks.”

“How terrifying!”

“In fact, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes proved to be a friendly demon and a sage counselor. It was Ningauble who dispatched the two on their greatest journey, a trek to the east, far beyond the snowy peaks of the Lebanon Mountains. For a while they followed the legendary route of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand. Then they headed even farther into the unknown, arriving at last at the Lost City, and then at the Citadel Called Mist, where they encountered their greatest foe, an adept of truly terrifying magical powers.” Antipater’s eyes sparkled as he recounted the details.

I nodded, taking in the fabulous images. “And what about that picture over there? It looks as if the two are taking part in a battle. A famous battle?”

“Yes, that would be the siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great, during which the two fought valiantly to defend the city. Fafhrd is shown manning the walls and heaving stone blocks onto the besieger’s ships, while the Gray Mouser is depicted underwater, filing through the anchor chains. All around them swords clash and arrows fly—”

“But Teacher, didn’t you say that these two lived in Tyre a hundred years ago?”

“Yes.”

“And wasn’t the siege by Alexander a hundred years before that?” I smiled, because for once I actually remembered one of Antipater’s history lessons.

He coughed. “Yes, that is correct.”

“Then how could they possibly—?”

“Again, artistic license!” he insisted. “Or … it may be that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser truly were in Tyre at events a hundred years apart.”

I tried not to smirk.

“Not everything in this world is as straightforward as you hardheaded Romans would like to think,” said Antipater. “It is certain that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were in Tyre a hundred years ago—my own grandfather attested to that fact, as do all these pictures around you—but no one knows whence they came, or where they went. There are those who believe that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser arrived from a realm outside of ordinary time and space, a place of magic, if you will, and so it may be that they were present here in Tyre not just a hundred years ago, but also a hundred years before that.”

“So why not a hundred years later? Which means … they might be here today!” I made an exaggerated show of peering at our fellow patrons, most of whom were quite shabby. A few cloaked figures in the tavern might have passed for the Gray Mouser, but no red-bearded giant was to be seen.

Antipater glowered, and I felt a bit ashamed of teasing him. To distract him, I pointed to the images that had started me on this discussion. They were located to either side of the door by which we had entered. “Those are the two pictures I find most curious.”

Antipater raised a bristling white eyebrow. “Yes? And why is that? Describe!” Making a pupil enumerate the details of a statue or painting was a common tutorial exercise, one that Antipater had required of me often in our visits to temples and shrines—but never before in a tavern.

“Very well, Teacher. Each picture has two parts. In the first image, the one on the left, Fafhrd has a beautiful girl on his lap, a girl wearing a Cretan-revival dress that leaves her breasts entirely bare—but in the adjacent panel, it’s a giant sow on his lap. Since the sow is wearing the same scanty outfit as the girl, it seems we’re meant to think the girl has turned into the sow! And there, in the matching picture on the other side of the doorway, the Gray Mouser is coupled with another lovely maid, but in the next panel, she’s become a giant snail. What sort of tale is that? Heroes copulating with pigs and snails! And why are such unseemly images given such prominent placement, where no one visiting the tavern could possibly miss them? What a thing to see as you’re leaving, with a bellyful of wine and your head in a whirl!”

“Those pictures are especially noteworthy,” said Antipater, “because the events they depict happened right here, in the Murex Shell.”

“You must be joking! Women were transformed into pigs and snails on this very spot?”

“The fact is indisputable. My grandfather was a witness.”

“Yes, I’m sure he was, but—”

“They were the victims of a curse, you see—Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, I mean. Any girl they embraced turned into a loathsome creature before their very eyes. It was to banish this curse that they set out on the quest that would lead them first to Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, and then, after many perils, to the Citadel Called Mist and their confrontation with the magical adept. But the story began right here, in the Murex Shell, with the tavern wench who turned into a sow. And the adept responsible for that curse had his origin here in the city of Tyre, as well. And where do you think the adept learned his sorcery?”

“I have no idea.”

“From books that came from a private library right here in the city—strange volumes, collectively known by their owner as the Books of Secret Wisdom. Scrolls from many times and places, all full of esoteric knowledge to be found nowhere else. As a boy, I heard my grandfather speak of those books in a whisper, but when I asked if one could read them, he said they were far too dangerous. He told me to stick to my Homer instead.”

“And a good thing you did, for like Homer, you became a poet.”

“Yes, a poet of great renown; the greatest poet in the world, some say.” Antipater sighed. He had many attributes, but modesty was not among them. “Ah, but what a different life I might have led, if as a boy I’d had access to the Books of Secret Wisdom! The power contained in those volumes is said to be beyond human reckoning. Not the power of the poet to entrance an audience with laughter and pathos—no, I mean the power of sorcery, able to bend the very fabric of reality!”

We had encountered a bit of magic on our journey, as in our encounter with the witch of Corinth. I shuddered at the memory and drank deeply from my cup.

Antipater finished his cup at the same time and called for more wine. I had never seen him in such a wild mood. “And now,” he said, “after a lifetime away, I return to the city of my birth, a wiser man than when I left—and a craftier, more devious man, as well, I dare say. More determined. Less fearful.”

“Fearful of what?”

“The Books of Secret Wisdom! Don’t you understand, Gordianus? That’s why we’ve come here to Tyre.”

I frowned. “I thought Tyre was just a stop on the way between Rhodes and Babylon. That, and the place you were born, of course. It makes sense that you’d want to do a bit of reminiscing—”

“Oh, no, Gordianus, we are here for a very specific purpose. We have come to the city of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the heroes of my childhood. Their adventures meant everything to me as a boy. And their greatest adventure brought them face-to-face with the magic to be found in the Books of Secret Wisdom—which I intend to possess at last! I’ve already taken steps toward acquiring them. By this time tomorrow—ah, but here’s that pretty serving girl!”

He held his empty cup toward the girl. Was it the wine I had drunk, or was she looking more voluptuous than ever? Her smile was very friendly.

I swallowed a mouthful of wine. “By this time tomorrow … what?”

Antipater smiled. “You’ll see. Or rather, you won’t see!” He laughed aloud, sounding so strange that I hurriedly gulped down the whole cup of wine.

The next morning, in the upstairs room we had taken at the Murex Shell, I woke with a terrible hangover. Worse than the pounding in my head was the nattering of Antipater, who seemed completely unaffected by the wine he had consumed the night before.

“Up, up, Gordianus! We are in Tyre and must make the most of our brief stay here.”

“Brief?” I groaned and covered my head with a pillow. “I thought we might stay here for a while … in this nice, quiet room—”

“Ha! Once I achieve my intention, we will leave Tyre at once. So let us play tourist while we can.” He yanked the pillow away and practically kicked me out of bed.

An hour later, with some food in my belly and fresh sea air filling my lungs, I set out with Antipater for a tour of the city. Tyre was not as grand as some of the places we had seen in our travels, but it was one of the oldest cities we had visited and full of history. It was seafarers from Tyre who first sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules (known to them by his Phoenician name, Melkart); it was Queen Dido of Tyre who founded the city of Carthage, which once rivaled Rome. Carthage was no more, but Tyre still stood, though changed forever by the conquest of Alexander the Great.

“Alexander found the city an island, and left it a peninsula,” said Antipater. By winding streets we had arrived at the highest point of the city, from which Antipater pointed to the massive earth-and-stone causeway that connected the erstwhile island on which we stood to the mainland. “Alexander besieged the island fortress not just by sea but also by land, building that mole out to the island so that he could bring up huge battering rams. Seven months it took him to bring Tyre to its knees, but in the end he succeeded, and marked his conquest with a celebration over there, in the ancient Temple of Melkart. Thus did Tyre become part of the Greek-speaking world, and has been so ever since, sometimes under the sway of the Seleucids, sometimes under the Ptolemies of Egypt. But forty years ago, Tyre regained her independence and began to issue her own coinage again—the famous shekel of Tyre. Once more, she is a proud and independent city-state, and may remain so—if she can elude the clutches of Rome.” This was not the first time Antipater had expressed a degree of anti-Roman sentiment.

By winding streets we descended to the city’s waterfront, which teemed with activity. Tyre is blessed with two natural harbors, one to the north and one to the south, and both were filled with ships. The wharves were crowded with busy sailors and merchants overseeing the slaves who loaded and unloaded cargoes. The waterfront taverns were doing a brisk business (including the Murex Shell, which was off the northern harbor). Away from the waterfront, in paved enclosures, dyers went about the work of spreading wet green cloth. According to Antipater, the hot sunlight would turn the purple to green.

“How can that be?” I said. “It sounds like magic.”

“Does it? Yes, I suppose it does. But we shall come back later, and you’ll see that it’s a fact.” He smiled. “One way or another, you shall see some magic done this day!”

I looked at him sidelong. “Teacher, what are you talking about?”

“Last night, after I put you to bed, I went back downstairs and made contact with the fellow I’d been hoping to meet.”

“What fellow?”

“The man who knows the man who currently owns the Books of Secret Wisdom. We are to meet him tonight in the Murex Shell.”

“And then what?”

“You’ll see. Or not see!”

My memory was muddled by wine, but I vaguely recalled Antipater uttering a similar turn of phrase the previous night. What was my old tutor up to?

We continued our tour of the city, which was actually quite small and easily traversed on foot. Having so little land to build on, the Tyrians built up, and in the central part of the island the tightly packed residential tenements were five or six or even seven stories tall. This made Tyre an even taller city than Rome, and many of the narrow, winding streets were quite dark, even at midday. The areas more open to the sun were largely occupied by the dye manufactories, and in those neighborhoods the air was the foulest I had ever smelled in a city. This had something to do with the various solutions and compounds involved in the production of the purple dye, which emitted powerful odors.

To get a bit of sunlight and fresh air, we took a stroll on Alexander’s causeway, but Antipater declined to walk all the way to the mainland. I could see that a considerable town had grown up along the shore, but Antipater assured me there was nothing of interest to see in the drab suburbs of the mainland. Instead we turned back and made our way to the Temple of Melkart. The place was musty and dark and smelled of mildew, but it did contain an eternal flame (not unlike the hearth of Vesta back in Rome), as well as some remarkable statues and paintings of the god I knew as Hercules, who was Tyre’s most venerated deity.

On our way back to the Murex Shell, we stopped at the square where the dyers had earlier spread their cloth, and I was amazed to see that the green had indeed turned to purple as it dried.

“Like magic!” I whispered.

Antipater only smiled and nodded.

* * *

That night at the Murex Shell, in a small private room off the tavern, we dined on a salad of octopus and hearts of palm followed by fish stew, served by the same pretty blonde who had brought our wine the night before. Her name, I learned, was Galatea.

I discovered why Antipater had gone to the expense of paying for the private room when a stranger appeared in the doorway.

The man wore a dark blue tunic cinched by a broad leather belt. From the belt hung a scabbard with a dagger, the hilt of which was inlaid with ivory circled with a band of tiny rubies. The tunic was long enough to cover the man’s knees but left bare his muscular, darkly tanned arms, both of which sported elaborately chased-silver armbands and bracelets. Around his neck gleamed a tangle of silver necklaces hung with pendants of carnelian and lapis, and from his ears hung thick rings of silver so heavy they had stretched his earlobes. His hair was long and unkempt, mostly black but with a few strands of silver, and his jaw was covered with several days’ growth of beard. His creased, darkly weathered features made it hard to determine his age; I could only be sure that he was quite a bit older than I and quite a bit younger than Antipater.

Antipater, who had just finished his stew, looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Are you …?”

“My name is Kerynis. I believe we have an appointment.”

Antipater kept his eyes on the man and pushed the bowl aside, clearing the table before him. “Indeed we do. Have you brought …?”

Slung over his shoulder, the man carried a satchel that bulged with leather cylinders. He removed one of the cylinders, from which he extracted a scroll of raggedy brown papyrus.

“It looks very old,” said Antipater.

“So it is,” said Kerynis. “With a document such as this, older is better. The later the copy, the more likely that errors have crept in, and that can be … dangerous … as I’m sure you can imagine. Get the smallest detail wrong, and—poof!—you’ve turned yourself into a cabbage.”

Antipater laughed, sounding a bit nervous. “Indeed, yes, I can imagine. So old … and so delicate.”

“Handle it with care.”

“I may touch it?” said Antipater.

“You may. But until you’ve purchased it, treat it as the rare and valuable object it is.”

“Of course!” Eagerly but carefully, Antipater took the scroll from Kerynis and unrolled it on the table. It was so worn that it lay flat without being weighted.

I rose from my chair and looked over his shoulder. The Greek letters were in some archaic style I did not recognize and so badly faded that the text was almost impossible for me to read, but Antipater seemed able to make sense of it. I watched him run his finger from line to line, muttering to himself as he read.

“Fantastic! ‘Transformation of male to female’ … ‘How to kill with a gaze’ … ‘Temporary ability to understand the speech of birds’ … ‘How to control the dreams of a sleeper’ … ‘Revivification of the dead’ … Marvelous!”

“What is this, Teacher?” I said, glancing up at Kerynis. The man stood with his arms folded, watching Antipater’s reaction with a look of wry amusement.

“This document is a précis, or list of contents, of the Books of Secret Wisdom,” said Antipater. “Extraordinary! If even half of these formulas work …”

“Such a collection would be of incalculable value,” said Kerynis, finishing Antipater’s thought. He laughed. “And so you may wonder: why am I willing to sell it?” He patted the satchel. “Here’s the fact: a lot of these books are rubbish, plain and simple. You make up the witch’s brew exactly as it’s written, following the recipe to the tiniest degree, but instead of growing two heads, you just get indigestion. But I ask you: who wants two heads anyway?” Again he laughed. “And some of the volumes are pure nonsense. All the stuff about Chaldean stargazing—even if you could tell the future by reading the stars, who’d want to? Life is too dull as it is. I prefer to be surprised. As for the book of Hebrew proverbs, those I can take or leave.” He shrugged.

“It sounds like you’ve done quite a bit of reading in these books,” said Antipater.

“Indeed I have. Don’t let my appearance fool you. I know what you think when you look at me: pirate. What other sort of man walks around wearing all that jewelry, ready to hock it all at a moment’s notice in case he has to get out of town fast? But in fact, my father was a scholar at the Library of Alexandria, and I grew up among books. I could recite Hesiod before I was toilet-trained—‘Some days are like a stepmother, but others like a mother.’ ” He laughed. “My life’s taken a few twists and turns since then, but I know the value of the written word.”

“So you’re telling me the Books of Secret Wisdom are worthless?” Antipater looked crestfallen.

“I didn’t say that, my friend.” Kerynis patted the satchel and glanced down at the tightly packed leather cylinders. “Among these books are some works of true genius. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff. You could do that using trial and error, but that could take a lifetime—or shorten your lifetime, if you make a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

Kerynis nodded. “You’ll find a lot of love spells in these books. That’s what most people are interested in and willing to pay money for. Now, me, I’ve never had a problem reeling in just about any pretty fish I took a fancy to, but for some people, I understand this can be a problem. So in these scrolls you’ll find a lot of spells for that, and a lot of potions. But let’s say that some rich toad hires you to make up one of these potions and administer it to the pretty girl or boy he has his eye on, and the potion works well enough—at first—but turns out to be poisonous.” He whistled and blew out his cheeks. “You’ve never seen anybody madder than a paying customer who’s found himself in bed with a corpse, no matter how pretty, and thinks it’s your fault. Believe me, I know. I’ve been there.”

“So you have used these books?” said Antipater. “You’ve tested them?”

“In bits and pieces. But I haven’t devoted my life to it, which is what a man would have to do to make sense of it all. Candidly? It’s just not worth my time. I don’t need sorcery. I prefer direct action if you know what I mean. If I see something I want, I take it. I don’t need to use mind control or to make myself invisible.”

“Invisible?” Antipater whispered. “Is there really such a formula? The man I spoke to last night indicated …”

“Yes, that was my confederate. He knows a little of what’s in these books, but not much.”

“But he did mention invisibility.”

“Oh, yes. And he conveyed to me your particular interest in that area. So I went to the trouble of looking up that particular passage …” Kerynis rummaged about in the satchel for a while, cursing when he couldn’t seem to find what he was looking for. “Oh wait, here it is!”

From an especially battered leather cylinder, he extracted an especially tattered piece of papyrus.

“May I see it?” said Antipater, with a quaver in his voice.

“Careful! It’s ready to fall to pieces. You can see where a corner fell off yesterday when I was making up the formula.”

“You actually made a potion of invisibility?”

“Oh, yes. And not for the first time. But it’s not easy! Some of the ingredients are almost impossible to find, and you have to mix them just so.” Kerynis reached deeper into his satchel and drew out a small vial made of dark green glass with a cork stopper.

“Is that it?” Antipater asked.

“The real thing,” said Kerynis with a smile. “I brewed it myself, last night.”

“But how …?”

Kerynis nodded at the scroll. “Read the instructions.”

Antipater pored over the piece of papyrus and began to read aloud. “ ‘Take the left foot of the creature called a chameleon—’ ”

“The left foot, notice,” said Kerynis. “Front or back doesn’t make a difference, but do not use a right foot. I’ve made that mistake, and the result is not pretty. Go on.”

“ ‘Add an equal measure of the herb called chameleon’—what is that?”

Kerynis shrugged. “It grows hereabouts. Down in Egypt, too.”

Antipater nodded. “ ‘Roast in a furnace until brown but not blackened, then pulverize and mix with an unguent made of …’ ” He read silently for a while and nodded. “Yes, this recipe is simple enough. ‘Decant into a glass container.’ ”

“Glass, not metal!” said Kerynis. “Any kind of metal will make it go bad right away.”

“Ah! Good to know.” Antipater turned back to the scroll. “ ‘Kept stoppered, this concoction will retain its efficacy indefinitely. Allows the user to go about in a throng unseen. Ingest only the smallest dose on first use, and larger doses thereafter as needed.’ ”

Kerynis nodded. “You have to take larger and larger doses to make it work. I’ve done it so many times, now I’d have to swallow this whole vial to make myself invisible, and even then you’d probably still be able to see me in bright light. But if you’ve never used it before, a couple of drops on the tongue should do the trick, as least for a few minutes.”

“Fantastic!” said Antipater. “Are you saying I can try it?”

“Of course.”

“Here and now?”

“Why not? But I should warn you, it may make you feel a bit strange.”

“Strange?”

“Woozy. A little odd. Light-headed. Not drunk, exactly. It can be slightly unpleasant, but that’s the price you pay.”

Antipater frowned. “But otherwise it’s safe?”

Kerynis spread his arms. “Look at me. Still alive, and with all my senses.”

Antipater picked up the vial and pulled out the stopper. He held it to his nose and then thrust it away, replacing the stopper. “That smell! It’s vile.”

Kerynis smirked. “I never said it tasted good.”

I could stay silent no longer. “Teacher, are you sure you want to do this?”

“As a matter of fact, Gordianus, I’ve wanted to do this since I was a boy. I never dreamed I would have the chance.” Antipater stared at the vial for a long moment. “I’m going to do it! Then we’ll sit here until it takes effect, and you, my boy, will tell me how well it works.”

Kerynis shook his head. “That’s probably not going to work. As a test, I mean.”

“Why not?” said Antipater.

“Am I right that the two of you are traveling together?”

“Yes.”

“And you have been for quite some time?”

“For over a year.”

“Seeing each other pretty much every day?”

“Yes.”

“Then your young friend here will be able to see you despite the effect of the potion.”

“What are you saying?”

“It has to do with something called ‘rays of visibility.’ There’s an explanation of how it works, in one of the other volumes. I can’t claim to understand the details, but it’s sort of like seeing the afterimage of a thing you’ve been staring at, even when you close your eyes. A person who sees you every day, whose eyes have been attuned to your rays of visibility, will still see you even though others can’t.”

Antipater frowned. “That rather puts a limit on the potion’s practical use.”

Kerynis shrugged. “It means a man can’t make himself invisible and sneak past his wife, that’s true. But the same man can go out in a crowd of strangers and not be seen.”

Antipater nodded thoughtfully. “So if I use the potion and venture out into the common room, no one there will be able to see me?”

“Correct.”

“What about Galatea, the serving girl?” I said. “She’s seen Antipater lots of times over the last couple of days.”

“That’s not long enough to absorb his rays of visibility. That can take months.”

“I’m ready!” Antipater moved to unstop the bottle again, but Kerynis gripped his hand.

“Not quite yet. Let’s make sure we’re in agreement first. Did you bring the sum that was talked about?”

Antipater patted the pouch inside his tunic, producing a muffled clinking sound, then pulled out a small but bulging moneybag. “All here. You can count it if you want.”

“I intend to. And all in Tyrian shekels? I don’t want foreign coins.”

“It’s just as your man requested.”

Kerynis nodded. “Put the money on the table. And next to that, I’ll put the Books of Secret Wisdom.” He lugged the satchel onto the table. “The books for the money. That’s the deal.”

“Understood,” said Antipater. “Now let’s get on with it.”

I had never seen Antipater so eager. I watched as he unstoppered the vial, carefully poured a couple of drops of the oily brown unguent onto the back of his hand, then touched his tongue to the drops. “Like that?” he said, peering at Kerynis.

“That should do it. It may be a few minutes before you feel the effects. Have a look at the books while you’re waiting. And I’ll count the money.”

Antipater rummaged through the satchel. Attached to each of the leather cylinders was a tag that identified the title or author of the scroll inside. Meanwhile, Kerynis opened the moneybag and poured the coins onto the table, then began arranging them in little piles. I gasped at the amount of silver Antipater was ready to hand over. How had he come up with so much money?

Kerynis saw my reaction. He held up one of the coins so that it caught the light of the lamps. “The silver shekel of Tyre! Is there anything prettier? Handsome Melkart in profile on one side, and on the other, a proud eagle clutching a palm branch. Who’d want a bunch of smelly old books when he could have these instead? But to each his own, I say. So if my little collection of books is worth it to you, I’m happy to make the trade.”

Suddenly Antipater dropped the leather cylinder he was holding and sat bolt upright. Kerynis looked at him and nodded. “There, it’s beginning to take effect. You’re a little hazy around the edges already.”

“Yes, I feel it,” whispered Antipater. “A warm sensation—not unpleasant—but decidedly different …”

I squinted at him. “I’m not seeing a change.”

“Nor will you, young man,” said Kerynis. “Just as I explained. By Melkart, would you look at him fade away! It amazes me, every time.”

“Has it happened?” said Antipater, rising from his chair. “Am I invisible?” He moved toward the door.

Kerynis continued to stare at the spot where Antipater had been sitting. “Go into the common room if you like. See how the people there react. But remember, it’ll last only a few minutes.”

When Antipater pushed open the door to leave the room, Kerynis gave a start and uttered a mild curse. He shook his head and laughed. “I told myself I wouldn’t be startled, but invisible people make you jump.”

“I should go with him.” I began to get up.

Kerynis waved me back. “Let the old man have his fun.”

I looked at the piles of silver coins on the table, and the cylinders full of scrolls, and decided not to leave the room after all. There were three exits from the room, one leading to the common room, one to the kitchen, and another leading somewhere else. If no one stayed to watch him, what was to stop Kerynis from absconding with the money and the books?

He held up one of the coins and whistled. “Would you look at that! A Melkart without a nose.”

“What are you talking about?”

“These are very rare, my young friend. Apparently, something broke on the original mold, and on some coins, Melkart has no nose. Once they saw the problem, they stopped making them, so you don’t see these very often.”

“Are they valuable?”

He snorted. “No more valuable than any other shekel of the same weight. If anything, less valuable. Who wants a Melkart with no nose in his coin purse?”

While he continued to fondle the coins, doting over them like a boy with toy soldiers, I took a closer look at the so-called Books of Secret Wisdom. I chanced to pull out a scroll that gave instructions for changing men into women, and vice versa. This was a subject with which I had some acquaintance, having witnessed such an alleged transformation at the sacred spring of Salmacis in Halicarnassus. I was scanning the text to see if it mentioned Salmacis, when I realized that Kerynis had leaned forward, bringing his head close to mine, and was reading the text upside down.

“Interested in becoming a girl?” he said, flashing an ingratiating smile. “Perhaps just for the night?”

I cleared my throat. “Not with the likes of you around.”

He laughed. “Come, come, young Roman—you are Roman, aren’t you? There’s no mistaking the accent. What do you have against me? I’m just an honest fellow trying to make an honest transaction.”

“I see. And how did you come to possess these Books of Secret Wisdom?”

“Ah, now that is none of your business. But I can assure you that they are absolutely authentic. Do you think I’d try to cheat a distinguished fellow like your traveling companion? He’s a lot older and wiser than you, my young friend, and he seems to trust me.”

I glowered at him, trying to think of a response, then gave a start as the door opened and Antipater stepped back inside, grinning from ear to ear.

Kerynis heard the noise and looked toward the doorway. He stared blankly for a moment, then squinted. “Ah, yes, it’s starting to wear off. I can vaguely see your outline. How did it go?”

“Fantastic!” declared Antipater. “I was completely invisible. No one could see me at all. It made me feel quite … naughty. I couldn’t resist playing a few tricks on people.”

“What sort of tricks?” I said, dismayed at the thought of my old tutor behaving like a schoolboy.

“Never mind, Gordianus.” Antipater straightened his shoulders, as if to shrug off his puerile behavior. “The important thing is that the formula works. The implications are astounding. The value of such a tool for military purposes, or for espionage—a man could change the course of history!”

“But, Teacher, do you not recall the lesson of Icarus? If men were meant to fly, the gods would have given us wings. And if we were meant to be invisible—”

“You must try it yourself!” said Antipater, thrusting the vial toward me.

“What?”

“Yes, give it a try,” said Kerynis.

I stared at the vial for a long moment, then took it from Antipater. I pulled out the stopper and took a whiff. As Antipater had said, the smell was vile.

“Go on,” said Antipater. “Two drops on the back of your hand.”

Kerynis cocked his head. “You’re young and strong. Maybe you should try three drops.”

I took a deep breath, then carefully poured three drops of the unguent onto my hand. After a final moment of hesitation, I licked it up. The taste was horrible.

For what seemed a long time, they stared at me in silence. At last I began to feel a warm sensation in the pit of my stomach, spreading to my chest and limbs. My head felt light. The room took on a faint glow.

Kerynis smiled and nodded. “Ah, it’s beginning to work.”

Antipater frowned. “I see no change.”

“Nor will you, as I explained. How do you feel, young Roman?”

I swallowed. “Strange … but not in a bad way.” I looked at the hand from which I had lapped the drops. “I can still see myself.”

“Of course you can,” said Kerynis. “It’s the rays of visibility. You see yourself every day, so you’re not susceptible to your own invisibility.” Though I had slowly and quietly risen from my chair and walked across the room, he continued to gaze at the place where I had been sitting.

“Try it!” whispered Antipater. “Step into the common room and see what happens. I’ll come with you.”

“No, Teacher, stay here,” I said, looking at the money on the table and the bag of books, and at Kerynis, whom I still didn’t trust.

“Very well.” Antipater gladly took a seat and began looking through the cylinders.

Feeling the strange effects of the potion, I ventured into the common room. A dozen or so patrons were scattered about the small tavern, drinking wine and gambling. I walked from one side of the room to the other, treading as silently as I could. To be sure, no one seemed to see me. I conducted a few simple experiments, such as clapping my hands in front of a drunken stranger’s face, only to see him start back in surprise.

Galatea passed by, carrying a pitcher full of wine. I walked alongside her, openly staring at her lovely face and golden hair and at the upper portion of her white breasts, which were suggestively framed by the bosom of her dress. Oh, to have lived a century before, in the days of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, when the Cretan revival was in vogue and women wore garments that exposed their breasts completely!

I followed her on her rounds, and watched her flirt shamelessly with every man in the establishment. Feeling an irrational stab of jealousy, I couldn’t resist putting my lips close to her ear and whispering, “Boo!”

The poor girl gave such a start that she sloshed wine from the pitcher all over the front of her dress. Some of the wine landed on her breasts. The men who witnessed her apparent clumsiness hooted and laughed. One of them shouted, “Here, Galatea, let me lick that off for you!”

I saw her blush and felt a bit ashamed of myself. But when she turned and hurried down a narrow hallway, I followed. As she stepped into a little room, I slipped behind her and barely avoided being struck by the door.

The cluttered, windowless little room was dimly lit by a single lamp. It was apparently the room where she slept, for there was a narrow bed, a chair, and an open trunk full of clothes and other items. While I stood very still and watched, Galatea pulled the wine-spattered dress over her head and stood before me completely naked.

It had been a while since I had seen a naked woman. Through the winter months, while we stayed on Rhodes, I had enjoyed the intimate companionship of Vindovix the Gaul, but that was not the same thing. Unafraid of being seen, I openly stared. This way and that she turned in the amber light, so that I had a view of her from every angle. Galatea was like a statue of Venus, endowed with sleek white limbs, enticing hips and buttocks, and breasts that changed from one shape to another as she stooped, turned, and stood, each shape more provocative than the last.

When she pulled another dress from the trunk, I couldn’t contain my groan of disappointment.

Galatea whirled about and looked directly at me. “Is someone there?”

I held my breath.

She frowned, then went on about her business, turning her back to me as she pulled the new dress over her head. But by the time she turned to face me again, the potion of invisibility seemed to have waned, for she started back and raised her arms as if to defend herself.

“What are you—? How did you—?” She seemed at a loss for words, as any girl would be if a man suddenly materialized from nowhere in a closed room.

I, too, was speechless, but only for a moment. “I think it was my fault that you spilled the wine,” I finally said.

She frowned. “Don’t be silly. I was clumsy, that’s all. But where did you come from?”

“Does that matter?”

Galatea cracked a smile. “Ah, yes, I recognize you now. You’re the young Roman traveling with the old man. I … couldn’t quite see you at first. It must be the dim light. Even so … how did you …?”

“I’m sorry you spilled the wine.”

“The dress is ruined.” She sighed.

“I’ll buy you another.”

“That’s very sweet of you. But I must get back to work now, or else those drunken louts will climb over the counter and start serving themselves.” She moved toward the door, sidling past me so close that we touched, front to front. From that brief, brushing contact, I think she must have perceived the effect she had on me, for she glanced downward, then flashed a knowing smile and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before she pushed the door open and left me standing alone in the little room.

By the time I returned to the private dining room, Antipater and Kerynis had settled their transaction. The coins were no longer in sight, and the satchel full of scrolls was on the floor beside Antipater.

“How did it go?” said Kerynis.

“Yes, Gordianus, did you do something naughty?” I must have blushed, for Antipater laughed and shook his head. “By Hercules, I think you did do something naughty.”

Kerynis also seemed richly amused and took advantage of my consternation to give me a swat on the backside. After a few words of farewell, he was gone, leaving the books and taking the shekels with him.

That night, in our room, long after midnight, Antipater pored over his newly acquired scrolls, refilling the lamps with oil whenever they burned low. Occasionally he muttered to himself or uttered an exclamation of amazement. “Imagine that!” he would say, or “Astonishing! Can such a thing be possible?”

While Antipater read, I could think of nothing except Galatea. I lay on my narrow bed, wearing only my loincloth and covered by a sheet. From the open window came the sounds of the waterfront at night—waves gently lapping the piers, and the quiet creaking of ships—but these did nothing to calm me. My eyes were shut but I was fully awake. An idea occurred to me.

“Teacher, what became of the vial?”

“The what?”

“The vial with the potion.”

“It’s here in the satchel, along with the scrolls. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

He turned his gaze from the scroll in his lap and looked at me sidelong. “Do you have some need to be invisible tonight?”

“Of course not!”

He hummed skeptically, then returned his full attention to the scroll.

I tossed and turned. Sleep would not come.

In my imagination, I was certain that Galatea slept in the nude, without even a sheet to cover her. Try as I might, I could think of nothing else.

At some point the room grew dim, as the lamps burned low and Antipater did not refill them. He nodded, and his grip loosened, so that the scroll on his lap unfurled and rolled down his legs and onto the floor. Antipater began to snore.

Very quietly I rose from the bed. I started to put on my tunic, then realized I had no need for it. Nor did I need the loincloth I was wearing. An invisible man had no need for clothes! With the thrill that only a nineteen-year-old can feel at simply being naked, I stripped off the loincloth and luxuriated in the cool sea breeze from the window.

Moving stealthily, I found the vial, unstoppered it, and ingested a few drops. Moments later, I felt it take effect.

Downstairs, all was quiet. The empty common room was closed for the night. In the darkness I navigated the narrow hallway to Galatea’s room.

The door was not locked. Very quietly, I unlatched the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

A small lamp set atop the trunk burned very low. I had been wrong about at least one thing: Galatea slept with a sheet over her. No glimmer of flesh was revealed by the lamp’s slanting amber glow, only a jumbled linen landscape of ridges and shadows.

Next to the lamp, something shone brightly. It was a silver coin. Drawn by its glitter, I leaned over the trunk and took a closer look.

It was a shekel of Tyre, but not just any shekel. The profile of Melkart had no nose.

What were the chances that I should see not one, but two of these rare coins in a single day?

I took a closer look. Almost certainly, this was the very coin that Kerynis had shown me. How had Galatea come to have it—unless Kerynis had given it to her? And why would any man give a silver coin of such value to a mere serving girl—unless she had performed a service far more valuable than pouring wine?

To how many others in the tavern that night had Kerynis paid a silver shekel, in return for their flawless performances? He could have given a shekel to every man there and still have plenty left over.

I heard a sleepy sigh. I turned and stood at the foot of the bed. Suddenly angry at having been made a fool, I clutched the nearest corner of the sheet and yanked it from the bed.

I had been right about one thing: Galatea slept in the nude. The play of the soft amber light across her recumbent form sent a stab of longing through me despite my anger.

But she was not alone.

Next to her was Kerynis, equally naked. The two of them stirred, sleepily clutching for the sheet that had been so rudely taken from them.

A new thought occurred to me, running counter to the first: what if Kerynis had paid Galatea the shekel for the pleasure of her company, and not for going along with the pretense that two traveling fools were temporarily invisible? If that were true, my flash of anger was unjustified, and the potion did work—in which case, neither of them could see me standing before them, completely naked.

An instant later, I was disabused of this notion by Kerynis himself. Groggy from wine and who could say what other pleasures, he scooted to one side of the bed and managed to make a bit of room between himself and Galatea, then patted the empty spot.

“Come to join us, you studly Roman? The three of us can reenact the amorous encounter of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Queen Laodice!”

Galatea laughed, looked at me through narrow eyes, and flashed a sleepy smile. She joined Kerynis in patting the empty spot.

The two of them could see me, after all.

“But Teacher, I don’t understand why you’re won’t take legal action. Doesn’t Tyre have magistrates? Call the scoundrel into a court of law and demand that he return the money to you in exchange for all these worthless books!”

The first light of morning had been seeping from the open window when I woke Antipater and told him what I had discovered. Now bright, slanting sunlight shone on the masts in the harbor, and still we were arguing.

“No, no, Gordianus. I won’t do it. The money is his now, and the books are mine, and that’s the end of it.”

“It’s not right,” I said. “You were taken advantage of. He made fools of us both.”

Antipater raised a snowy brow. “Is it seemly, to call your old tutor a fool?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” I paced the room. “Whenever I think of it, my face burns hot.”

“Think of what?”

“How they must all have been laughing at us, behind our backs. That whole roomful of men, paid off by Kerynis to go along with his charade. We thought we were fooling them, walking around invisible, but they were fooling us! Because they could see us the whole time!”

“Consider the acting skills required for such a performance,” said Antipater thoughtfully. “It’s quite remarkable that none of them burst into laughter.”

“Well, I’m sure they’re laughing at us now. And they’ll laugh every time they tell the story. When I think of it—”

“Then my advice, Gordianus, is that you do not think of it.”

I drew a sharp breath. “If I could have stolen the money back from Kerynis, I would have. But I had no weapon on me …” The fact that I had not even had clothes, much less a weapon, when I encountered Kerynis, I had not revealed to Antipater. It seemed best to leave out certain details of my nocturnal encounter.

“But there was no theft in the first place, Gordianus. What law was broken?”

“Kerynis defrauded you!”

“About the potion, yes. But I wasn’t paying him for the potion; I was paying him for the Books of Secret Wisdom.”

“And what makes you think those aren’t frauds as well? Useless forgeries, utter gibberish—”

“Because last night I had the chance to closely examine them. I have no doubt: these are indeed the Books of Secret Wisdom spoken of in the legends of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.”

“But the invisibility potion was useless. We both felt a little giddy, but it didn’t make us invisible.”

“True, that batch of potion was useless; but it does not follow that the recipe itself is useless. Kerynis was at fault, not the scroll. The fellow was probably too lazy to go searching for all the proper ingredients to make a genuine batch. For one thing, I think he’s mistaken when it comes to identifying this so-called chameleon herb. I suspect it’s a plant not native to these parts at all—and it may take quite a bit of further research to determine exactly what plant the text refers to.”

“But, Teacher, what makes you think these Books of Secret Wisdom are any less fraudulent than the man who sold them to you?”

For a moment Antipater appeared to be taken aback, then he gave me a stony look. “I believe in the Books of Secret Wisdom, Gordianus, because I believe in the legends, and the legends affirm that the magic in these scrolls does exist—if we can but interpret their wisdom correctly.”

I took a deep breath. There was no arguing with a man’s faith in the legends of his childhood.

“So, Gordianus—where is our friend Kerynis now?”

“He left the tavern at first light, taking his loot with him. But we could still track him down—”

“No, no, no!” Antipater was adamant. “I am glad that you happened to encounter him and that you got the truth out of him, about the useless potion. I trust that neither of you was harmed during the interchange? You didn’t come to blows?”

“No. No violence, no physical contact … of that sort.”

He responded to this ambiguous addendum with a blank look but let it pass. “And I’m sorry that you had to face such a disappointment when you went to the girl’s room. Not only did you realize that she had taken part in deceiving us, but you discovered her in the arms of another man. Alas! Another had plucked the fruit before you. I take it that Kerynis turned tail and ran at once after you got the truth out of him?”

I shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Not exactly.”

“Ah. So you extracted the truth from him, then left him there, in bed with the girl?”

“No, I saw him get dressed and leave the room. Eventually.”

Antipater frowned. “I can’t be sure when I fell asleep, but I’ve been thinking you went to the girl’s room shortly before dawn, and returned very shortly thereafter, at first light. Or … did you go to her room earlier than that? Just how long were the three of you in that girl’s room—and what kept you so long?” He watched me fidget and raised an eyebrow. “Well, never mind. It’s none of my business. Just as my acquisition of these books, and the price I paid for them, is none of yours. Agreed?”

After a long pause, I nodded. “Agreed.”

“Then we shall never speak of it again.”

That day we hired a small team of mules and made other arrangements for the next leg of our journey, and the day after that we left Tyre and headed for Babylon.

As the mules carried us up the well-worn road toward the Lebanon Mountains, we were both quiet and pensive. How, I wondered, could a man such as Antipater, ordinarily so wise, have been such a fool as to let himself be deceived by the likes of Kerynis? And why was he so certain of the value of the Books of Secret Wisdom, which had turned out to be useless? This lapse in prudence had something to do with returning to his hometown, I thought. Half-forgotten dreams of boyhood heroes had stirred the naive child inside him and laid waste to his hard-earned wisdom.

As for any lapse in judgment on my part, I could only plead that I was nineteen and susceptible to persuasion, far from home and in the midst of a long journey. The places I visited and the people I met continually surprised me, and I continually surprised myself.

At last, Antipater spoke. “On our first night in the Murex Shell, Gordianus, you remarked that nowhere else in our travels have you encountered the legends of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and you asked why that was so. I have given that question considerable thought. Why have two figures of such remarkable interest been so scanted by the annalists and historians, so overlooked by philosophers, poets, and priests? I think it may be that they were, to put it bluntly, too disreputable. They were too stubbornly independent to give allegiance to a single city and thus become subject matter for a civic epic. They were too often involved with demons and sorcerers to appeal to the staid philosopher and too shifty to please the sober historian. In short, they were rogues, and rogues have no place in the lists of kings and demigods and heroes. It may be that no poet shall ever write of them, alas!”

For a long while we were both quiet, as the road grew steeper and the mules trudged onward.

“I wonder …”

“Yes, Gordianus?”

“Do you think that someday a poet will write of our adventures, Teacher?”

Antipater smiled ruefully. “Alas, I doubt if I’ll live long enough to do so.” Typically, at the mention of the word “poet,” Antipater thought immediately and only of himself.

“Perhaps I’ll do it,” I said.

“You, Gordianus? But you’re not a poet. And your Greek is barbaric!”

“Must every poem be in Greek?”

“Any poem worth reading.” Antipater was showing his anti-Roman sentiment again.

“I wonder, Teacher, would this poem show us as heroes or scoundrels, as wise men or fools? Or as rogues?”

“Ha! I should think the rogue in our latest encounter would be your bedmate Kerynis!” Antipater saw the chagrin on my face and laughed aloud. “Can a man not be all those things at once, as were Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser? That’s what makes them so fascinating. Some men are one thing on the surface and another underneath. The true poet shows not just the exterior of his subject, but all the contradictions within, and lets the reader draw his own conclusions.”

I looked at my snowy-haired tutor and smiled, feeling a great affection for him. “I shall remember that, Teacher, when it’s time to write my memoirs.”

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are copyrighted by the estate of Fritz Leiber and are mentioned with permission of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., agents for the estate. Leiber’s books are published by ereads.com.