Lankhmar in Publication Order 5 Thieves' House
Thieves' House is Fritz Leiber's fifth published tale featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It was published in 1943 in Unknown magazine. Thieves' House also appears as the 3rd chapter in the second volume of the collected editions, Swords Against Death. (It was moved up in the order of that collection to serve as a sequel to the last chapter of Swords and Deviltry. Even though that story was written 27 years after this one. But more on that below.)
The first five tales were all published in Unknown, and in consecutive years from 1939 to 1943. After this story, Leiber would not pen another Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tale for four years.
Though The Bleak Shore begins in Lankhmar, Thieves' House is the first story where all the events happen in Lankhmar. Leiber also introduces the Thieves' Guild in this story, giving us a tour of the thieves' amazing headquarters as well as a look at their structure and training methods. All the little details in this tale related to the thieves and how they work are what make it so great.
A short preamble allows the reader to eavesdrop on a trio of thieves who are planning to recruit Fafhrd and Mouser for help in stealing a fabled artifact ... and then pull a double-cross. The narrative then breaks, and resumes after the band has successfully executed their plan and are fleeing from Fafhrd and Mouser.
The heist all happens off-screen! Brilliant. Because, as Leiber obviously knew, the interesting part of the story is Fafhrd and Mouser pursuing the thieves into their den to recoup their share of the treasure.
Pretty early in the narrative a hint is dropped that this isn't the duo's first run-in with the guild.
"I know these thieves, Fafhrd. I know them well. And you yourself have twice entered Thieves’ House and escaped.”
Even if we look "behind" this story in the collected editions, there is only one story from volume 1, Swords and Deviltry, in which we see Fafhrd and Mouser visit Thieves' House: Ill Met in Lankhmar (written in 1970). That story provides us with the first mention of the characters of Slevyas, Fissif, and Krovas in the collected editions.
I could only find one reference to the differences between the two versions of Thieves' House (1943 and 1970) and it seems to indicate that these thieves, or at least some of them, were not named at all in the original (http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Leiber/Thieves-House.html).
The second reference is an in-passing "reminder" of Fafhrd and Mouser's lost loves - which, if I am correct, weren't created until 27 years later, in 1970. Here it is:
“I don’t know. It awakens evil memories of my lost Vlana.”
“And of my lost Ivrian! But must we let them win because of that?”
I'll try to verify all of this as I read on. But know that these bits don't really matter to the story. If you are reading them in publishing order, as I suggest, you aren't missing anything. I suppose the big difference is that reading Ill Met in Lankmar first, as the collected editions would have you do, adds a deeper revenge plot to the reading of Thieves' House. But it's not like that revenge plot is a "thing" in the story. Mouser doesn't cut anyone's throat and whisper, "This is for Ivrian!" So that "set up" has virtually no payoff at all and I think the story is actually better without it. Why do they need a motive other than getting back at the thieves that crossed them?
(Note, I later tracked down a version of the original and made a comparison. See my post from May 27, 2016.)
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