So, I was just a page shelving library books the day I first met Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. It was one of those moments when I was trying to stuff yet another paperback into the turnstile racks when I spotted Swords and Deviltry.

To be honest, I had not read many fantasy novels in a while (not since my early teens). I remember dashing through the Narnia books long before I took my job as a librarian. In fact, most of my reading of “fantastic” fiction was the Edgar Rice Burroughs books my parents had (a complete collection before the rats got hold of them), the various Doc Savage books my father had and the gothics (which in those days ranged from romantic suspense to paranormal mysteries) my mother read. I was a mystery reader by the time I hit my 20s, aspiring to be a mystery writer, but I think my love of mythology and folklore and fairytales was pushing me in a different direction without even knowing it. And I was kind of working on a saga of dark magic and witchery that spanned several 1000 years (let it never be said that I was not an ambitious writer, okay). So it was probably no wonder that I fell into the sword and sorcery trap.

But back to the dynamic duo of Nehwon. I picked up the book because it had a Frazetta-like cover (which I later learned was actually painted by the recently deceased Jeff Jones) and I remembered some similar sorts of covers gracing the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. I started reading it and discovered these two guys who were as different as night and day, and yet as alike as peas in a pod when it came to their love of thievery and women. One was a red-haired giant from the snowy lands who fled his mother and the Snow Women of his tribe (whose magic was the cold and the frost–and whose aim with frozen snowballs was nothing to sneeze at) for a life in more civilized worlds.

The other was a small man who was apprenticed to a sorcerer, fell in love with a woman beyond his reach and ended up being tortured until he turned on the ones who were torturing him and killed his master. He survived by magic and willpower and ended up in the big city of Lankmhar serving a god.

Which is where the two met, became thieving good friends and lived not so happily ever after. Because, of course, there were adventures to be had, gods to appease, treasures to be sought and magic to be fought against. It was never a dull moment when those guys were sent on a mission. I own every one of the books that were published at that time now because I went insane looking for more of them at the local used bookseller.

Then a more magical thing happened in my life. I went to a World Fantasy convention in Chicago. And there I had the brief but most satisfying privilege of meeting Fritz Leiber.

Born Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr., on December 24th of 1910, Leiber was an author who was also an accomplished fencer and chess player. The son of actors, he was destined to follow in the footsteps of his parents and even appeared on stage and in films. But his greatest achievements were in the literary fields. He admitted that he was heavily influenced by such writers as Robert Graves and H.P. Lovecraft, and later by the works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.

In August of 1939, he introduced the world to Fafhrd and Grey Mouser through his first professional sale of the story “Two Sought Adventure” (Unknown, August 1939). The character of Fafhrd was based on Leiber himself, while the Grey Mouser was his friend Harry Otto Fisher, and he admitted that they were created through a series of letters Leiber and Fisher exchanged back in the mid-1930s.

It was Leiber who first coined the phrase “sword and sorcery” to describe his works about this pair, whose antics were written about over a period of fifty years. And it was always delightful to note that the characters matured over time. The feckless youths who would dare anyone and anything became seasoned warriors and thieves whose outlook on the world showed their maturity in the way they approached life–mostly while trying to hang onto it.

When I met Leiber, it was certainly a treat. One of those moments of being in the right place at the right time. He was a frail looking gentleman (this was a few years before his death in 1992), yet the spark of his theatrical nature was still there. When he spoke, humor and wisdom filled every word. He could look at you and smile, and one could see the thoughtful giant Fafhrd grinning behind the elder’s mask.

It is a smile that I will always remember, and every time I pick up my copy of Swords and Deviltry, I always imagine Leiber with sword in hand, battling the magic of the Snow Women or chasing through the alleys of Lankmhar with Grey Mouser at his side.

Over the years since that meeting, I have lifted swords in combat (I was a state women’s fencing champion for a time), and written stories of dark magic and fighting mayhem (and have had many of my efforts published in the process). And when I look back, I have to remind myself that I owe a lot to Leiber and his dynamic duo of Nehwon.