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 howling wind seemed incapable of swaying. The iron-walled passages beyond the window remained cloaked beneath a veil of inky darkness; the monster of the labyrinth – or the Lady of Pain herself – could have been standing on the other side, and the Amnesian Hero would not have known it.
As the Thrasson studied the conjunction, the black ribbon flapping from the amphora's cracked neck finally came loose. He snatched at the scrap and missed, then tried again when the swirling ash wind changed direction and whipped the rag around his head. The tatter dodged his fingers as though it were alive, circling him two more times before it finally sailed past Silverwind. It floated about half the distance to the intersection and became caught in another whirlwind.
Hoping to catch the ribbon before it vanished altogether, the Amnesian Hero squeezed past his companions and went after it. He had no idea what to do even if he caught the scrap, but he knew miserly Poseidon would seize any excuse to withhold the promised payment. When the Thrasson returned to Arborea, he was determined that he would be able to report that the Lady of Pain had received the entire contents of the amphora.
As the Amnesian Hero clumped forward, he was relieved to see a black stripe flashing amidst the gray ash of the whirlwind. Then the stripe became a solid band, the band began to widen both up and down, and soon the entire swirling ash cloud had turned as black as shadow.
The whirlwind began to slow, shaping itself into the silhouette of a huge, barrel-chested giant. The Amnesian Hero's brick foot dropped like an anchor and brought him to a gape-mouthed stop. He felt as if the howling ash winds had stirred his thoughts into a muddle. He could not quite comprehend what had happened to the black tatter, or how he was going to recapture a shadow and feed it back into the amphora.
"Who wishes to pass this way?" So loud was the question that it shook tiny avalanches of ash off the passage walls.
"Aigggh!" cried Silverwind. "What has risen from the depths of your foul mind now, old fool?"
The giant took a single step forward, leaving his shadow behind and bringing himself belt-to-nose with the Amnesian Hero. The brute was as broad as the passage, with a pair of lice-ridden lion skins girding his loins and an iron club the size of a galley oar in his hand. His legs were big as trees, his skin as coarse as pumice stone, and his hairy belly so huge it bulged over the Thrasson's head like a billowing sail.
"Who wishes to travel the road of Periphetes?"
Coated as it was with ash, the Amnesian Hero's throat was much too dry to shape an answer-but he knew better than to think any answer would satisfy the giant. He had fought enough of the brutes to realize that Periphetes was about to demand a toll, and that the toll would be one they would not care to pay.
The Thrasson slammed the hilt of his sword into Periphetes's kneecap, then deftly leaned aside as the giant brought down a great palm to slap the irritation. Before the hand could rise again, the Amnesian Hero touched his blade to the middle knuckle, using just enough strength to inflict an admonishing prick and pin the great appendage in placemen of renown did not fell even the greediest of giants without first warning them to behave.
Periphetes lowered his head to peer over his enormous belly, showing a huge moon-shaped face with a grimy thatch of beard and a cavernous pug-nose. When the giant found his hand pinned to his own kneecap, he poised his great club over the Thrasson's head.
"Don't make me smash you, little man."