The Second Book of Lankhmar

would be. Perhaps she had indeed foreseen the future, for he now appeared to be wearing just such a mask.
           What the light revealed was this: He was facing into a brown wall, so close it was blurred, but not close enough to touch in any way his bared optics.
           Yet as he studied it, he seemed increasingly able to see into it, so that about a finger's length beyond the frontal blur, individual grains of earth were sharply defined, as if some occult power of vision were mixed in with the natural sort, the former merging into and extending the latter.
           By this means, whatever it might be, he saw a black pebble buried in the earth about six inches away, and beside that a dark green one big as his thumb, and next to that the ringed blank reddish face of an earthworm with small central circular mouth working, pointing almost directly at him so that its segments, seen in sharp perspective, nearly merged.
           And then for the first time the element of hallucination or pure fantasy entered his vision, for it seemed to him that the worm addressed him in a high piping voice, saying, "O Mortal Man, what guards you? Why cannot I approach you to gnaw your eyeballs?"
           Yet at the same time it so convinced the Mouser that he was beguiled into replying in soft gruff tones, "Ho, Fellow Prisoner — "
           He got no further. His own voice, however diminished, made such a clamor in the confined space, reverberating back and forth within his skull and jaw, like wind chimes in a hurricane, that both his ears felt deep pain and he almost forgot to breathe.
           The unexpectedly powerful vibrations raised by his incautious speaking also appeared to have upset the delicate equilibrium with which he hung in the sea of soil around him, for he noted that the two pebbles and the worm had begun to move upward all together, although he felt no corresponding downward pull upon his ankles. Clearly, he had prematurely attempted too much.
           He carefully closed his eyes and reconcentrated all his attention on his slowly breathing in and breathing out, resolutely ignoring the deepening of his entombment.
         12
           Aboveground notable progress had been made in the Mouser search. It had got more organized. Both parties from the barracks had arrived and there was the reassuring presence of young men busily at work, Fafhrd's big, lean ex-berserks, Northerners like him, and the Mouser's reformed thieves, compact and wiry. The two dogcarts that had brought water, food, and lumber had been unloaded and the two-bearhound team of one had been unharnessed and ranged about watchfully. A small hot fire had been built and there were the heavy rich odors of mutton soup warming and gravy brewing. Mother Grum and old Ourph huddled beside the blaze.
           Fafhrd's square hole, widened by a foot on each side, had gone deep enough so that the heads of those digging it and feeling through the dirt were below ground level. Fafhrd had given over his job to his trusty lieutenant Skor, a prematurely balding redhead, while Pshawri continued at the same task, assisted now by Mara and Klute. A Northerner stood on the rim and every minute or so drew up a big pail of earth and emptied it to the side in one sweeping throw. The Mouser's other lieutenant, Mikkidu, and another thief had started to put in the first tier of shoring from above, hammering eight-foot planks side by side with wooden mallets. Two leviathan-oil lanterns in the dark side of the hole glowed upward on their three faces. The full moon was three hours higher than when Skama had been honored by the dance across the Great Meadow.
           Fafhrd and Cif stood by the fire, sipping hot gahvey with the two oldsters. It was the first rest he'd taken. Behind him were Gale and Fingers, not drawing attention to themselves, partly for fear of being sent back to Salthaven by the next dogcart as May had been, to reassure their families all the girls were safe. Also in the fireside gahveying group were Afreyt, Groniger, and Rill, the last having run to Elvenhold to summon the other two for conference and, as it turned out, argument.
           Afreyt said to Fafhrd, without heat, "Dear man, I deeply admire and respect your loyalty to and regard for your old friend that makes you search for him with such stubborn single-mindedness along one trail only, a trail where your greatest success can hardly be more