Again, the bellow rumbled through the labyrinth's thousand passages, overwhelming even the roar of the wall-pounding hail. As before, the sound came from all directions at once, left and right and front and back; the dark sky crackled with its fury, and the brick-paved ground trembled at its might. The Amnesian Hero bent forward, as though that would help his gaze pierce the fog's turbid density. He saw nothing but cascades of white hail vaporizing against orange-glowing iron.
"That one sounded louder," whispered Tessali. To prevent the group from becoming separated in the thick fog, both he and the tiefling were holding onto the Thrasson's amphora sling. "It's getting closer."
"Good." The scalding air had reduced the Amnesian Hero's voice to a croak; each time they rounded a comer, the iron walls seemed to glow more brightly with their orange heat. "We must be nearing the exit."
The Amnesian Hero continued to clump ahead, half-lifting, half-dragging his lame foot. Despite Tessali's assurances, the brick was proving more awkward to walk upon than had the frozen ooze. The Thrasson could never quite tell when the dead thing was resting on the ground, and, after hoisting its heavy bulk so many countless times, his entire leg was burning with fatigue. When they finally met the monster, he would need to kill it quickly; if the creature tried to carry off one of his companions, the Thrasson would be helpless to give chase.
The Amnesian Hero stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Perhaps I should go on alone to hunt the beast down and kill it. I'll leave a loop of thread so we can find each other again."
"No!" Tessali and Jayk spoke at the same time.
"At last we agree on something, Jayk." The scorching heat had reduced Tessali's voice to a raw rasp. "We all stand a better chance if we stay together."
"I will not part from you, Zoombee. Not for a minute."
"As you wish. But stay close. If the monster takes one of you, I won't be able to catch it." The Amnesian Hero scowled in Tessali's direction, then added, "This brick foot is somewhat less than nimble."
"I can cut it off any time you like," replied Tessali.
Refusing to dignify the elf's offer with a response, the Amnesian Hero clumped into the hail. As he moved, he slowly twirled his left wrist ahead of him, winding the thread onto his arm while leaving his other hand free for his sword. Already, the spool had grown so thick that he could not have scratched his ear. If they did not come upon the exit in the next league, his arm would become too bulky to move.
They followed the thread down a series of short, dogleg turns, then found themselves in a region of broad, black-paved passages. The iron walls seemed to loom higher than ever, and the hail fell harder. Through the orange-glowing fog, the Amnesian Hero occasionally saw a dark, window-like square set high on a wall's iron face, but the shapes were always too distant to investigate more carefully. Every now and then, what might have been a tongue of flame licked out of one of these portals. The Thrasson tried to stay in the middle of the avenue, preferring to let the black forms remain a mystery-if that was possible.
They advanced perhaps a thousand paces into this strange region before the Amnesian Hero felt a soft tug on his left arm. So gentle was the pull that he thought he had imagined it, then it happened again.
The Thrasson said nothing and continued forward, trying to convince himself that the sensation was a result of his own weariness. He had, after all, been twirling his arm for untold hours, gathering an ever-increasing burden. Sooner or later, the repetition was bound to take its toll. The tug came again. It was difficult to be certain in the hail and the fog, but this time it seemed to him the thread had bobbed.
The Amnesian Hero felt his heart drop into his stomach. He knew at once the monster had found their thread, but he did not say anything to his companions. From the start, Tessali had despaired of Finding a way out of the mazes, and even Jayk had fallen ominously silent over the last several hours. If he told them what had happened before he thought of a way to counter the misfortune, they would lose heart and surrender to despondency.
"Zoombee, what is happening to the thread?"
"What do you mean?" The Thrasson silently cursed Jayk's watchfulness.
"I see it, too!" Tessali added. "There. It's bobbing."
The Amnesian Hero clumped forward, trying to think fast. "The spool is getting difficult to wind." He raised his hand to display the massive tangle, then cringed as the thread snapped taut and gave a sharp twang. "And, every now and then, a hailstone bounces off the line."
"Zoombee, I don't like it when you lie to me," warned Jayk. "Something pulls on the thread, yes?"
Sensing it would be useless to try hiding the truth, the Amnesian Hero sighed and stopped walking. "Yes, but don't despair. We can still find the exit."
"How?" Jayk demanded.
"I, uh… we know the general direction…"
"We can worry about that later." Tessali, sounding surprisingly resilient in the face of their disaster, spoke with an air of authority. "If something's following that thread, I'm guessing it's the monster. Cut yourself loose, and we'll flee."
"Cut the golden thread? Never!" The Amnesian Hero was appalled at the elf's cowardice. "We'll set an ambush and deal with this monster properly. I will be the bait, of course. The beast will follow the thread straight into my arms."
"And then we attack it from behind!" concluded Jayk.
"If that should prove necessary." The Thrasson's throat, already tender from breathing the hot air, ached from so much talking. "After slaying the Hydra of Thrassos, I think I can kill a single labyrinth monster."
The Amnesian Hero clumped over to a wall and began to retreat, allowing the golden line to spiral off his arm as he moved. Jayk and Tessali walked at his sides, still holding onto the amphora sling and peering over their shoulders, as though they actually expected to see the monster coming. The fog remained thick as a blanket, and the hail continued to hiss and roar as it battered the labyrinth. As they passed beneath one of the windowlike shapes high on the wall, a tongue of yellow flame shot out to crackle above them, laving their heads with blistering heat and filling the air with an acrid, ashy smell.
They moved a little away from the wall. The thread continued to jerk at regular intervals, and again the monster's bellow rumbled through the labyrinth. The roar sounded even louder than before, but no one commented on it. Tessali's expression remained one of grim fear; Jayk's shadowy face seemed more angry than frightened. The Thrasson imagined that she was less afraid of dying than of remaining trapped in the mazes and never reaping her vengeance on Komosahl Trevant.
After a time, they reached the mouth of a side corridor. Although it looked to be as broad as the one in which they had been traveling, the Amnesian Hero thought it would do for their ambush. He sent his companions down the passage, having them count out each step until they could no longer see each other. It required only five paces before their figures were completely obscured by hail and fog.
"Stop!" He had to yell to make himself heard above the thundering hailstones, further abusing his scorched throat. "Wait there until I call. Do you understand?"
The reply came in the form of a barely discernible croak that the Amnesian Hero took to mean yes. He retreated five steps into the intersection and stopped to await his foe. The hail beat a brisk, broken cadence against what remained of his armor, but he doubted the monster would hear it over the roar of the storm. He pushed his sword into its scabbard and caught a few hailstones in his palm, then slipped them into his mouth to quench his thirst. The icy balls tasted like fish, but he let them melt and forced himself to swallow the foul water. If the fight happened to last more than a few moments, he did not want his breathing troubled by a dry throat
The thread continued to tug at his left arm. The monster was winding the line up, suggesting it was a creature of foresight Would the brute pause at the comer to check for an ambush? The Amnesian Hero caught another handful of hail and slipped it into his mouth, then drew his sword again. If he felt a sudden change in the tugging of the line, he would rush-or, rather, hobble-forward to attack. The Thrasson reminded himself to be careful; now that his torso armor had been crushed, his most vulnerable area would be open to a counterstrike. His first priority would be to destroy whatever weapon his foe would be carrying. The next attack would be a crippling blow to a leg, both to put the monster on an even footing with himself and to prevent it from carrying off one of his companions. The third strike would be the killing one.
The Amnesian Hero's planning came to an abrupt end as a tall, manlike silhouette appeared in the fog. Cowering against the battering hail, the figure looked distinctly unmonsterlike. It had a bulky head with a rather squarish crown, a slender hunch-shouldered build, and a pair of skinny, goatlike legs. The creature kept its gaze fixed firmly on the ground as it twined the golden thread around the shaft of a long lance, apparently oblivious to the possibility of ambush.
A monster of ploys and deception, the Amnesian Hero decided; they were the most dangerous kind. He leapt forward, landing brick-foot forward to present his armored flank to the beast, then struck the lance off midway down the shaft. The creature croaked out a hoarse cry of astonishment and suddenly rose into the air, safely lifting its knobby legs over the Thrasson's slashing sword.
A pair of stone-hard hooves slammed one after the other into the Amnesian Hero's shoulder pauldron, driving him back before he could reverse his blade for an upstroke. Unable to bring his brick foot around quickly enough to catch his balance, the Thrasson stumbled and fell on the scorching bricks.
He found himself looking at the underside of what appeared to be a rearing goat. "A bariaur?" he gasped.
The "monster" dropped its forehooves to the bricks, and the Thrasson saw that it was, indeed, a bariaur – and an ancient one at that. Chipped and colorless as they were, the fellow's horns had two full curls. His eyes were rheumy, and a gray, mossy beard covered everything from his cheeks to his chest. His woolly pelt had grown into such a bushy mat of snarls and tangles that the shabby saddlebags laid across his back were barely visible.
The Amnesian Hero brought his sword into a guarding position, but made no move to rise off the hot bricks. "I beg your forgiveness. In this fog, I mistook you for the monster of the labyrinth."
The bariaur's gaze went to the golden spool wound around the Thrasson's arm, then he sighed in disappointment. "It can't be." His voice was brittle with age. "I won't allow it."
"I apologize for my mistake." The Thrasson gathered himself up, moving slowly to avoid alarming the old bariaur. "But you have heard the roars? When I felt the tugging on my line-"
"Nol Be strong, you fool!"
The Amnesian Hero froze in a half-crouch. "Please. I mean you no harm…"
"No harm!" The words were something between a snort and a laugh. "He must go away!"
The bariaur lifted the butt of his broken lance. The Amnesian Hero raised his guard and started to pivot away, but there was no need. The old fellow closed his baggy eyelids and brought the shaft down between his horns, striking himself soundly on his own pate.
"He must go away!"
Confused, the Amnesian Hero thought it best to do nothing. The bariaur remained motionless a moment, then opened his rheumy eyes.
"Still there." The bariaur dosed his eyes and hit himself.
"What are you doing?"