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
“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, would you please unbutton my pouch for me?'
She was studying the red-scored pads of her left ring finger and thumb, where the cord had taken skin as it had jerked away from between them, but she quickly complied with his instructions, being careful not to use these two digits in the process.
He plunged his cupped hands into his pouch and went on saying, “Now tie the cord around the button — no, through the central button hole of the pouch flap. Use a square knot. Although it is not moving now, this thing is best securely confined. I don't trust it anymore, no matter what it's told us.'
Cif followed the further instructions without argument, saying, “I thoroughly agree with you, Lieutenant Pshawri. In fact, I don't think the cinder cube has been tracing the Mouser's movements underground at all, except perhaps at first to start us off.'
The knot was firmly tied. As Pshawri withdrew his hands she closed the flap on the pouch and he buttoned its three buttons.
“Then to what power do you think it's responding?” Rill asked, getting to her feet.
“To Loki's,” Cif averred. “I think he wants to lead us on a wild goose chase across the sea. It has all the earmarks of his handiwork: a fascinating lure, strange developments mixed with painful surprises.” She popped her injured finger and thumb into her mouth and sucked them.
“It does seem like his tricksy behavior,” Rill agreed.
“He's an outlaw god, all right,” Mother Grum nodded. “And vengeful. Likely the one who sent Captain Mouser down.'
“What's more,” mumbled Cif, talking around her fingers, “I think I know the way to scotch his plots and perhaps return the Mouser to us.'
“Dowsers ahoy!” a bright new voice called out. They turned and saw Afreyt coming briskly across the Meadow carrying a hamper woven of reeds.
She went on, “There's news from the digging I thought you all should know, but Cif especially. By the way, where's Fafhrd?'
“We haven't seen him, Lady,” Pshawri told her.
“Why should he be here?” Groniger asked blankly.
“Why, he left off digging to rest and think alone,” Afreyt explained as she reached them and set the hamper on the grass. “But then Udall and another saw him take a jug and lamp and head out after you. They had nothing to do and watched him until he was halfway to you, Udall said.'
“We've none of us seen him,” Cif assured her.
“But then where are Gale and Fingers?” Afreyt next asked. “Their cot in the shelter tent was empty and their clothes gone that had been warming beside the fire. I thought they must have followed after Fafhrd, like they'd been doing all night.'
“We haven't seen pelt or paws of them either,” Cif insisted. “But what's this news you promised?'
“But then where in Nehwon…” Afreyt began, looking around at the others. They all shook their heads. She told herself, “Leave it,” and Cif, “This should please you, I think. We'd driven the sideways corridor about fifteen paces in… the digging went faster than straight down — it was a soft sand stretch — and the shoring was easier, despite the added task of roofing… when we found this embedded halfway up the face.'
And she handed Cif a grit-flecked dirk scabbard.
“Cat's Claw's?'
“The same.'
“Right!” Cif said as she examined it eagerly.
“And it was lying horizontal, point end toward us,” Afreyt went on, “as if the earth had torn it from his belt as he was being dragged or somehow gotten along, or as though he had left it that way as a clue for us.'
“It proves that Captain Mouser's down below, all right,” Skullick voiced.
“It does give weight to the two earlier findings of the dirk and cowl,” Groniger admitted.
“And so you can understand,” Afreyt went on, “why I wanted to tell Fafhrd about it at once. And you, of course, Cif. But what's been happening with the dowsing? What's brought you here to the coast? You surely haven't
