The Second Book of Lankhmar

shaft must now be dug in that direction, footed upon the rock we've just uncovered and lined and roofed with wood to shield it from collapse."
           She nodded and said swiftly, "Skullick suggested earlier that was the message the horizontal attitude and pointing of Cat's Claw were intended by the Gray Mouser to convey."
           Idlers crowded around them to hear what new was up. The Northerner at the pulley gazed at Fafhrd intently.
           He continued raptly, "The side passage should be narrow and low to conserve wood. The shoring planks can be sawed in three to make its walls. We should be able to dig faster sideways, yet great care must still be exercised in breaking earth."
           Afreyt broke in, "There'll be a power of digging, nevertheless, just to take the side passage out below the point where Cif and Skullick are now standing."
           "That's true," he answered, "and also true that Captain Mouser may have been drawn away we know not how far, judging by the swiftness and ease with which he first sank. He may be anywhere out there. And yet I feel it's vital we continue on digging from that spot, abiding by the one solid clue we have that we know is from him: his pointing knife! That's a more material clue than any hints and suggestions to be got from dowsing. No, the digging that we've started must go on, else we lose all drive and organization. That we're not doing it right now carks me. But I myself have grown too frantic for the nonce to do the work properly with all due precautions." He appealed to Afreyt, "You yourself, dear, warned me that I was overspeeding, and I was."
           He turned to the stalwart at the pulley and commanded, "Udall, fetch Skor! Wake him if he's asleep. Ask him —with courtesy — to come to me here. Tell him he's needed." Udall went. Fafhrd turned back to Afreyt, explaining, "Skor has the patience for the task that I lack, at least at this moment." His voice changed. "And would you, my dear, not only continue with the sifting for now, but also take on for me the direction of the whole task in my absence? Here, take my signet. Wear it on your fist." He held out his right hand to her, fingers spread. She drew the ring from off the little one. "I want to go apart (I don't think well in company) and brood upon this matter, on ways of recovering the Gray One besides digging and dowsing. I think he will return here eventually, exit the underworld same place he entered it — that's why we must keep digging at this spot — yet that's at best the likeliest end. There are a thousand other possibilities to be considered. My mind's afire. The Gray One and I have been in a hundred predicaments and plights as bad as this one.
           "Would you do that for me, dear?" he finished. "The sifting you can assign to Rill or two of the girls, or even at a pinch to Mother Grum."
           "Leave it all to me, Captain," she said, rubbing along his jaw the clenched knuckles of her right hand, which now wore his silver crossed-swords signet upon the middle finger.
           Her action was playful, affectionate, but her violet eyes were anxious and her voice sober as death.

             * * * *

           Snowtreader had responded as swiftly as Fafhrd to Cif's whistle, bounding out across the frosty meadow. He stopped before Cif, who was still signaling with her high-held lamp. Then his eyes went to bent-over Pshawri and the object hanging oddly from the lieutenant's rock-steady hand. He sniffed at it gingerly and suspiciously, gave a whine of recognition, and hurried on across the meadow a dozen more yards with his nose close to the ground, then paused to look back and bark twice.
           Cif lowered her lamp at Fafhrd's answering signal from the shaft head. Pshawri appealed to her, "Would you mark this spot here, Lady? I think we should follow Snowtreader's lead and hurry on while the scent is hot, dowsing at intervals."
           Using her dagger pommel for a hammer, she drove into the ground over which Pshawri had been hovering one of the small stakes they'd brought and tied to it a short length of gray ribbon from her pouch. She said, "I think you're right. Though while I was signaling I had the thought that the cinder we're dowsing with is Loki's. It might he guiding us toward him rather than Mouser, and I know from experience what wild goose hunts, what weird will-o'-the-wisp chases that god might lead us