The Second Book of Lankhmar

voice.
           Cif extended a slender forefinger and laid it very lightly and carefully atop the pinching juncture of his finger and thumb. After a space of three heartbeats she nodded in confirmation and said, "Let's try on the opposite side of the hole."
           "Why do you use the ring finger and left hand?" Rill asked curiously
           "I don't know," Pshawri said puzzledly. "Maybe because that finger feels the touchiest of the lot. And left hand seems right for magic."
           At that last word Groniger growled a skeptical "Hmmph!"
           Fafhrd and Afreyt seemed to be digging and sifting strenuously yet still carefully at the bottom of the hole, which had gotten as much as a foot deeper. Cif called down to them an explanation of what she and Pshawri were doing, ending with, "...and then we'll spiral out from here in wider and wider circles, dowsing every few feet. When we get a strong reading — if we do — I'll signal you."
           Fafhrd waved that he understood and returned to his digging.
           The second reading showed the same results. Pshawri and Cif moved out four yards and began their first methodical circling of the hole, dowsing every few steps. One by one their small company of observers returned to the fire, wearied by sameness. A full bucket came up from the hole.
           And after a while, another.
           Slowly the white-glowing lantern with which Cif had provided herself grew more distant from the hole. Slowly the pile of dug earth beside it grew. Fingers and Gale slept in each other's arms. While the full moon inched down the western sky.
           Time passed.
         15
           The yellowing moon was no more than two fists above the western horizon of Rime Isle's central hills when Fafhrd's probing spade encountered stone. They'd deepened the hole by about a woman's height below the second tier of shoring. At first Fafhrd thought the obstruction a small boulder and tried to dig around it. Afreyt warned him against overspeed but he persisted. The boulder grew larger and larger. Soon the whole bottom of the shaft was a flat floor of solid rock.
           He lifted his eyes to Afreyt's. "What's to do now?"
           She shook her head.
           A spear's cast southeast of the hole the two dowsers began to get results.
           The twine-and-cube pendulum suspended from Pshawri's left hand instead of hanging straight down dead, as it had done over a hundred successive times by count, slowly began to swing forth and back, away from the hole and toward it. They both stared down at it wonderingly, suspiciously.
           "Are you making it do that, Pshawri?" she whispered.
           "I don't think so," he answered doubtfully.
           And then the wonder happened. The swings of the cube toward the hole began to get shorter and shorter, and those away longer and longer, until they stopped altogether and the cube hung straining away from the hole, perceptibly out of the vertical.
           "How are you doing that, Pshawri?" Her voice was small, respectful.
           "I don't know," he replied shakily. "It pulls. And I'm getting a vibration."
           She touched his hand with her forefinger, as before. Almost immediately she nodded, looking at him with awe.
           "I'll call Afreyt and Fafhrd. Don't you move."
           She rummaged a metal whistle from her pouch and blew it. The note was shrill and piercing in the cold still air.
           Down in the hole they heard it. "Cif's signal," Afreyt said, but Fafhrd had already chinned himself on the lowest peg and was hauling himself up the rest hand over hook. She hung one of the lanterns on one arm and followed him up, using both hands and feet.
           Fafhrd scanned around and saw a small white glow out in the frozen meadow across the hole from where he stood. It moved back and forth to call attention to itself. He looked down the wood-lined shaft and spotted at its foot the yellow ochre mark he'd made to show the direction Cat's Claw had pointed when it was found. It was in line with the distant lamp. He sucked in his breath, took from Afreyt the lit lamp she'd brought up with her, held it aloft, and moved it twice from side to side in answering signal. The one out in the meadow was immediately lowered.
           "That tears it," he told Afreyt, lowering the lamp. "The dagger and the dowsing agree. The