Silverwind's bushy eyebrows came together. "Of course it's really happening. It's really happening because I'm really imagining it."
"No! Do you feel this?" The Amnesian Hero slapped the bariaur's leg with the flat of his blade. "I did it-not your imagination."
Silverwind's eyes grew watery. "It's happening to me again!" He dropped Tessali into the fog, drawing a howl of pain, then started beating himself about the head. "Why can't I control my own thoughts?"
"Because we are not your thoughts!"
The Amnesian Hero sheathed his sword, then reached down and helped Tessali stand. Silverwind continued to pummel himself.
Tessali leaned close to the Thrasson's ear. "Don't… confuse… issue." The elf winced with each rasping word. "You must… accept what… Silverwind says."
The Amnesian Hero's jaw dropped. "You believe we're phantoms of his imagination?"
The elf's eyes grew stem. "His delus-ah-theory… is as sensible… as anything. If it… gets us out, I will accept… anything."
The Amnesian Hero rolled his eyes and looked back down the corridor. When he saw no shaggy silhouette skulking through the hail, he shrugged and looked back to Silverwind – and saw Jayk's limp form slipping from the bariaur's back. The tiefling hit the ground with no sound but a dull thud.
"Jayk?"
There was no answer. The Amnesian Hero slipped Tessali onto Silverwind's back, then stooped over and, rather awkwardly, scooped Jayk up in the crook of his arm. The tiefling's breath came slow and shallow. There was no sign of fresh injury, but the murky hair on the back of her head felt sticky with old blood.
The Amnesian Hero stepped closer to the bariaur, who was still pummeling himself about the head. "As you wish, Silverwind."
The bariaur stopped hitting himself. "What?"
"Don't be difficult. You have regained control of your mind." The Thrasson shoved Jayk toward the bariaur. "Now tend to your thoughts. I fear Jayk is in danger of fading."
Silverwind sighed and reached toward Jayk. Instead of taking her into his arms, he thumbed open her eyelids. Even the Thrasson could see that she was in poor shape. Her pupils were mere pinpricks, one a square and the other a triangle. An astonished blat slipped the bariaur's lips, then he reached around the back of her head and began muttering to himself as he worked his fingers through her blood-matted hair.
"How does she fare?" The Amnesian Hero's voice was sounding increasingly rough. "What happened to her?"
Silverwind continued muttering and did not answer.
Tessali, who was peering over the bariaur's shoulder, whispered, "Cracked skull… If Silverwind cannot save her… I might… but need… quiet. Try… not-" The elf scowled, his gaze shifting past the Amnesian Hero's shoulder.
Before Tessali could say more, the Thrasson thrust Jayk into Silverwind's arms. Yanking his sword from its scabbard as he moved, he spun around and saw nothing but gray hail.
"Where is it, Tessali?"
"Behind you… now," gasped the elf. "But don't worry… I saw something flapping… It's a black… ribbon."
"A ribbon?" The Amnesian Hero craned his neck and glimpsed a black tatter flapping in the hail. "What is it doing there?"
"Working… out of the amphora," said Tessali. "There's a crack-"
"In the neck of the jar. I know." The Amnesian Hero stepped to Silverwind's side, then turned around to present the amphora to Tessali. "Push the cloth back. I fear what might happen if that ribbon gets loose."
"Why?" Tessali grunted in pain, then the Thrasson felt him pushing against the amphora. "This looks like… common flax."
"Whatever it is, it is-" The words caught in the Thrasson's aching throat. He had to pause to work up enough saliva to coat his parched gullet, then continued, "It is Poseidon's gift to the Lady of Pain. I doubt there is anything common about it."
"By my curled horns!" Without warning, Silverwind turned to leave. "How feeble my mind has grown!"
The Amnesian Hero glimpsed a shaggy figure ambling through the hail, pulling up the golden thread and wadding it into a great tangled ball.
"Cut the thread!" Tessali's command came as Silverwind began to gallop away.
"I'd sooner cut you!" The Amnesian Hero clumped after his companions, wondering why, after staying to battle the monster earlier, Silverwind had suddenly decided to abandon him.
"This thread is magical."
"Dead men have no use for magic!"
Already, Silverwind and his passengers were a silhouette in the hail. The Amnesian Hero looked back and saw the monster of the labyrinth following at a cautious distance. It was drawing the line up hand-over-hand, using both arms with equal ease. The Thrasson saw no hint of weakness, or even of lingering stiffness, in the limb that had been cut off. To his disappointment, the only sign of its earlier injury lay in its wariness; the creature was trailing him at the edge of visibility, discernible only because of the golden brightness of the thread ball in its hands.
As the Amnesian Hero turned to look forward again, he ran headlong into Silverwind's bulky saddlebags.
"This way."
The bariaur trotted around a salient of iron wall, leading the way into a section of narrow, zigzagging corridors with two branches at every turn. The Amnesian Hero's throat grew so dry that it seemed to stick shut between breaths. In the cramped passages, the hail echoed off the hot iron walls louder than ever, but it seemed that fewer of the icy balls could find their way down into the bottom of the tight confines. The storm waned to little more than a tempest. Visibility stretched to more than an arrow's flight, and the Thrasson saw that the walls were speckled both high and low with the same window-shaped squares he had noticed in the broader sections of the labyrinth.
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."