from The Swords of Lankhmar

...into the dark, spacious, low-ceilinged pleasance of a subterranean rat-metropolis, lit by phosphorus, where robed and long-skirted rats whose hoods hid their long faces moved about mysteriously, where rat-swords clashed behind the next pillar and rat-money chinked, where lewd female rats danced in their fur for a fee, where masked rat-spies and rat-informers lurked, where everyone -- every-furry-one -- was cringingly conscious of the omniscient overlordship of a supernally powerful Council of Thirteen...

Fritz Leiber