Swords and Ice Magic
Fritz Leiber
 The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories follow the lives of two larcenous but likable rogues as they adventure across the fantasy world of Nehwon. In Swords and Ice Magic the duo face a series of challenges from Death of greater or lesser subtlety ("The Sadness of the Executioner," "Beauty and the Beasts," "Trapped in the Shadowland" and "The Bait"), the pique of deities they formerly worshiped whose names they now rarely even take in vain ("Under the Thumbs of the Gods"), a voyage to the strange equatorial ocean of Nehwon ("Trapped in the Sea of Stars"), and recruitment to succor Nehwon's Iceland, the legendary Rime Isle, menaced by Sea Mingols and a pair of refugee gods ("The Frost Monstreme," "Rime Isle").