Several times, gouts of flame spewed from one of dark openings to fill the narrow passage with roiling balls of fire. Silverwind seemed to have a sixth sense about these occurrences and never failed to stop or scurry ahead just in time to keep the company from being charred. Hoping to learn the old bariaur's secret, the Amnesian Hero often tried to peer into the depths of the black squares. He never saw anything except a barrier of inky blackness.
The monster of the labyrinth lagged far behind, lingering at the edge of visibility, often vanishing entirely as the Amnesian Hero and his companions rounded a comer. Whenever their pace slowed even slightly, however, the beast rushed them, bellowing its wall-shaking roar and driving the weary companions forward at a sprint The thing was trying to run them to ground, the Thrasson knew, and it was succeeding. His tongue felt so swollen he could hardly draw breath. He had long ago sweated away the last of his water; now his blood was growing thick and gummy, and his heart had to pump like a forge bellows to force it through his veins.
The Amnesian Hero waited until they rounded the next corner, then caught Silverwind by the tail.
The bariaur danced around, his eyes flashing with irritation. 'What now?'
The Thrasson tried to answer, but his tongue was too swollen to shape the words – or to let pass the air that would give them voice. He managed only a gurgled rasp, then pointed at his sword and gestured back down the way they had come.
'No, that won't do.' Silverwind shook his head resolutely. 'Slaying the dark self is impossible. It only comes back stronger than before.'
The Thrasson wanted to retort that they had no choice, but could force no more than an angry croak from his throat
Silverwind looked the Amnesian Hero up and down. 'Well, I can't cany you, too. Not with the load I've already got.' He hefted Jayk as though to illustrate, and the Thrasson saw that her complexion had faded to an alarming blue. 'I suppose we'll have to hide.'
The bariaur galloped a dozen paces down a branch corridor, then turned toward one of the windowlike squares on the wall. The Amnesian Hero half-expected Silverwind and his passengers to smash headlong into the inky blackness, but they simply passed through, as though they had stepped across the threshold of Rivergate's dark door. The Thrasson started to follow, then barely escaped being charred to cinder as a gout of flame shot from the square.
The Amnesian Hero first croaked in shock, then gurgled in anguish, despairing at how quickly death could come in the mazes.
In the next instant, Silverwind reappeared, still holding Tessali and Jayk. The bariaur and his passengers had not emerged from the black square so much as appeared beside it.
'Come along, Thrasson!' barked the bariaur. 'If we let the dark self chase us through this conjunction, we'll be running for the next epoch.'
Still in shock, the Amnesian Hero began to clump forward. He tried to ask about the gout of flame he had seen, but could not force the words from his throat.
'Cut… thread.' Having ridden on Silverwind's back for the entire chase, Tessali had not yet lost his voice to thirst. 'If beast follows… doomed.'
Reluctantly, the Thrasson nodded and stopped beside another of the black squares. Intending to throw the thread through the conjunction and misdirect the monster, he wrapped a loop around the hilt of his dagger, then cut the golden filament with his star-forged sword.
The strand had hardly separated before the entire length of thread vanished, including the coil wrapped around his arm and the wooden spool in his hand. His stomach went hollow with loss, but he had no time to dwell on the feeling. A deafening bellow echoed through the labyrinth, followed by the distant, heavy thuds of the monster's pounding feet.
The Amnesian Hero rushed to Silverwind's side, then together they all leapt through the window of darkness.
There is a great roaring, and at first the Amnesian Hero thinks he is falling: the wind whips his hair, roars in his ears, nettles his scorched chest. Now the ash begins to scour his eyes; he sucks it in through his nose, he tastes it coating his swollen tongue, and he believes he has been incinerated by one of those flame gouts that spew from the black squares. Then his feet find purchase on something powdery but solid. He sees Silverwind standing before him, almost glowing in the strange, pearly light. Slowly the Thrasson's eyes begin to discern between the cloud of ash howling through the air and the river of ash swirling about his legs and the ramparts of ash flanking his shoulders, and he is delighted to realize he is still in the mazes.
The fool.
Yes, I am still watching. Even in the mazes, the Lady of Pain is always watching, as I am watching that scrap of black cloth that flutters from the Thrasson's cracked amphora. The ash wind has caught it, and soon the ash wind will pull it free, and what then?
Will it flutter through the mazes forever, always searching for what it can never find? Or will it rise up through that void in my chest where I once had a heart? I have not decided.
I have not decided.
I have not decided whether that strand of Poseidon's net caught me for good or ill, whether that one scrap of dream (I dare not call it memory) makes me weaker or stronger: better to know the source of the Pains, perhaps; better to know the reason for this emptiness in my chest, certainly – but what I know, I know only the half of.
And there lies the danger, does it not?
If ignorance is bliss and knowledge power, what has the King of Seas sent me? Half a truth, at best; half a memory, at worst; there is no help for it. I have seen what I have seen; a crack has opened, and I could not stop that black tatter from tearing free if I wanted to – and forgive me everyone everywhere – I do not want to!
'Do you want to mark our trail?' Silverwind grabbed the Amnesian Hero's arm and started to tug him down the passage, toward the dark mouth of a distant intersection. 'Get away from that conjunction! Didn't you see how they torch up?'
The Thrasson, still unable to speak, scowled and peered over his shoulder. The conjunction appeared almost the same on this side as on the other: a black square, so flat and featureless it looked more like a painting than a doorway. Without any visible support, it hung motionless in the ash cloud, the only thing in the labyrinth that the
