The Second Book of Lankhmar

of the newcomers had to see for themselves close up the wonder of the heavy cube cinder hanging out of true, straining away from the shaft head definitely though slightly. In the end even skeptical Groniger was convinced.
           "I must believe my eyes," he said grudgingly, "though the temptation not to is strong."
           "It's harder to believe such things by day," Rill pointed out. "Much easier at night."
           Mother Grum nodded. "Witchcraft is so."
           The sun had emerged by then, beating a yellow path to them across the top of the fog, which strangely persisted.
           And both Cif and Pshawri had to answer questions about the cord's subtle vibrations imperceptible to sight.
           "It's just there," she said, "a faint thrilling."
           "I can't tell you how I know it's from the Captain," he had to admit. "I just do."
           Groniger snorted.
           "I wish I could be as sure as Pshawri," Cif told them at that. "For me it doesn't sign his name."
           Two more dowsings brought them within sight of Rime Isle's south coast. They prepared to dowse a third time a few paces short of where the meadow grew bare and sloped down rockily and rather sharply for some ten more paces to the narrow beach lapped by the wavelets of the Outer Sea. To the west this small palisade grew gradually steeper and approached the vertical. To the east the stubborn fog reached to within a bowshot of them. Farther off they could spy rising from its whiteness the tops of the masts of the ships riding at anchor in Salthaven's harbor or docked at its wharves.
           It was Pshawri's turn to dangle the cube cinder. He seemed somewhat nervous, his movements faster, though steady enough as he locked into position with legs bent, right eye centered over the finger juncture pinching the cord.
           Cif and Rill both crouched on their knees close by, so as to observe the pendulum from the side at eye level. They seemed about to make an observation, but Pshawri from his superior vantage point forestalled them.
           "The bob no longer pulls southeast," he rapped out in a quick strident voice, "but drags down straight and true."
           There were low hisses of indrawn breaths and a "Yes!" from Rill. Cif suggested at once that she repeat his reading, and he gave her the pendulum without demur, though his nervousness seemed to increase. He stationed himself between her and the water. The others completed a ragged circle around her. Rill still crouched close.
           After a pause, "Still straight down," Cif said, with another "Yes," from Rill. "And the vibration."
           Skullick uncorked with, "If the bob slanting means he's moving in that direction, then straight down says that Captain Mouser is below us but not moving just now."
           Cif lifted her eyes toward the speaker. "If it is the Captain."
           "But the how of all this?" Groniger asked wonderingly, shaking his head.
           "Look," Rill said in a strange voice. "The bob is moving again." They all eyed another wonder. The bob was swinging back and forth between the direction of the shaft head and the sea, but at least five times as slowly as the period of a pendulum of that length. It crawled its swing.
           There was some awe in Skullick's usually irreverent voice. "As if he were pacing back and forth down there. Right now."
           "Maybe he's found a sea tunnel," Mother Grum suggested.
           "Those fables," Groniger growled.
           Without warning the gold-glinting dark-colored bob jumped seaward to taut cord's length from Cif's hand. She gave a quick hiss of pain and it sped on, trailing its cord like a comet's tail and narrowly missing Rill's head.
           In a diving catch Pshawri interposed the cupped palm of his right hand, which it smote audibly. He clapped his other hand across it as he himself rolled over and came to his feet with both hands tightly cupped together, as if they caged a small animal or large insect, the cord dangling from between them, and walked back to Cif while the rest watched fascinatedly.
           Skullick said, almost religiously, "As if, after pacing, the Captain shot off through solid earth under the sea like a bolt of lightning. If such can be imagined."
           Groniger just shook his head, a study in sorely tried skepticism. Pshawri said to Cif, lifting his elbows, "Lady,