The Second Book of Lankhmar

fumbling his pouch and babbling, "Sweet Lady, I am responsible for this dire mishap to my captain. I alone am guilty. Here, let me show you."
           Without ceasing his work, Fafhrd called sharply, "Forget that, Pshawri, and come here. I have an errand for you."
           But when that one did not seem to hear his words, only continuing to stare desperately at Cif and now groping at her arms to draw her attention, Fafhrd signed to her to draw the madman aside and hear his mouthings, meanwhile commanding, "You, Skullick, then! Come here!"
           When his young sergeant swiftly obeyed, though not without an uneasy glance toward Pshawri, Fafhrd instructed him tersely, while keeping on with his scrapings, "Skullick, run like the wind back to the barracks. Find Skor and Mikkidu. Bid them haste here with one or two men apiece bringing heavy work gloves, scoops, shovels, pails, lanterns, and ropes. Don't try to explain anything — here, take my ring. Then do you choose a man each of the Mouser's men and mine — and a Mingol — and come on after with planks and the instruments needful for shoring a shaft, more rope, pulleys, food, fuel, water, a keg of brandy, blankets, the medicine case. Come as soon as these can be gathered. Use the dogcarts. Mannimark to remain in command at the barracks. Any questions? No? Then go!"
           Skullick went. Instantly Rill took his place.
           "Fafhrd," she said urgently, "Afreyt and Groniger bid me tell you that whatever you believe we saw or think we saw, deceived perhaps by a phantom, the Mouser, at the end, raced with preternatural speed toward Elvenhold and then took cover. They go to hunt him. They urge you join them, after sending for lanterns, the dogs Racer and Gripper, and an unwashed piece of the Mouser's intimate clothing."
           Fafhrd left off scraping out the square hole, which was five or six inches deep, to look around questioningly at those who had been listening.
           "Captain, he sank into the ground where you are digging," said Ourph the Mingol. "I saw."
           "It's true," growled Mother Grum, "though he grew somewhat insubstantial at the end."
           Cif broke away from the importunate Pshawri to aver with great certitude, "He went down there. I touched his pate and top hair before he sank away."
           Pshawri followed behind her, crying, "Here, Lady, I've found it. Here is the proof I lied to the Captain when I told him yesternight I brought up nothing from my Maelstrom dive."
           It was a skeleton cube of smooth metal big as an infant's fist with something dark wedged inside. The metal looked like silver in the moonlight, but Cif knew that without question it was gold —the Rimish ikon that the Mouser had slung into the Great Maelstrom's center to quieten it after the wrecking of the Sea-Mingol armada.
           "My taking of this from the whirlpool's maw," mad-eyed Pshawri proclaimed, "though meant to please him, has been the means of my captain's doom. As he himself feared might hap. Gods, was ever man so cruelly self-deceived?"
           "Why did you lie to him, then?" Fafhrd asked. "And why did you so desire to possess it?"
           "I may not tell you," Pshawri said miserably. "That is a private matter between myself and the Captain. Gods, what's to do? What is to do?"
           "We keep on digging here," Fafhrd decided, suiting action to word. "Rill, tell Afreyt and Groniger of my decision."
           "First let me make your work here easier," that one said, bringing the leviathan lantern from behind her and planting it on the ground next the square hole Fafhrd was digging, then snapping the fingers of her right hand thrice.
           "Burn without heat," she said simultaneously.
           The simple magic worked.
           Leviathan light white as new-fallen snow, pure history, sprang into being and illumined the surroundings like a piece of the full moon brought down to earth, so that every dirt grain inside the new-digged square seemed individually visible.
           Fafhrd thanked her duly and Rill made off briskly toward Elvenhold.
           Fafhrd turned back and said, "Pshawri, sit across the hole from me and feel through the new dirt uncovered by each of my ax scrapes. Two hands work faster than a hook. Gale! You — and Fingers here — come and kneel beside me and clear off to either side the earth my ax scrapes up. Now I'm