"The same way I came by you, of course. I-"
A tremendous groan rumbled down the passage, drowning out the rest of the bariaur's reply. The Amnesian Hero turned to see Periphetes slumping forward; the giant's head smashed into the labyrinth wall, loosing an avalanche of powdery dross. A raucous snort jetted from his gaping nostrils and stirred the airborne ash into a boiling gray cloud. He toppled on his side and lay in a fetal curl, blocking the corridor so completely that the howling wind faded to stillness. His skin began to grow coarse and grainy. A dark pallor blossomed over his entire body, quickly deepening to a drab, lusteriess black. His anguished expression assumed the fixed, eternal character of a statue, and any hint that he had ever been alive vanished from his eyes.
"Good… riddance." So weak was Tessali's voice that the words sounded as though they might be the elf's last.
The Amnesian Hero turned back to his companions. The blood was flowing from Jayk's ears and nose more strongly now, and there was an alarming slackness in the way her limbs dangled over Silverwind's cradling arms. Tessali looked better only because he remained conscious; his face had paled from blood loss, and his eyes had that far-off look of someone mad with pain.
"Silverwind, the time has come to care for our wounded." The Amnesian Hero slung the wineskin over his shoulder, then lifted Tessali off the bariaur's back. Despite the lightness of the elf, the Thrasson flushed at the effort. "I trust this place is quiet enough to work your magic."
Silverwind nodded, then kneeled and laid Jayk on her cape. "Which one first?"
Tessali raised his hand and lifted a finger toward the tiefling. Though Jayk might well have considered the gesture an impediment to her progress toward the One Death, the Amnesian Hero approved of the elf's charity.
"You are noble for a Sigilite."
The Thrasson offered the wineskin to Tessali. Too weak to decline with even a modest shake of the head, the elf merely closed his eyes.
Already working on Jayk, Silverwind rolled the tiefling onto her stomach and ran his fingers lightly over the back of her head. He began mumbling to himself, at the same time tracing the star-shaped pattern of a skull fracture. After a time, he gmnted, apparently satisfied that he had found the extent of her injuries. Then, to the Thrasson's astonishment, the old bariaur leaned forward and started to dribble spittle onto his patient's bloody head.
Though the Amnesian Hero was beginning to fear he had trusted Jayk's care to a senile charlatan, he restrained the urge to push the old fellow away. Things worked differently here in the mazes, and, strange as Silverwind's behavior appeared, it did not seem dangerous. Besides, Tessali had opened his eyes again, and he showed no sign of surprise at the method of treatment.
Once Jayk's head had been thoroughly wetted, Silverwind placed his palm over the tiefling's wound and uttered what sounded like a magical incantation. The bariaur grimaced, as though suffering a terrible pain, but there were no shimmering glows, no wondrous tinkling, no smoking brimstone. The tiefling's blood continued to drip from her nose and ears, and, as far as the Thrasson could tell, that was all that happened.
"What's wrong?" The Amnesian Hero wiped his brow; he was sweating harder now than he had during the battle with Periphetes. "She looks as bad as before."
Silverwind opened his eyes, then grimaced at his patient's condition. "It's my fault," he sighed, shaking his head. "I should never have given them free will. They're always straying off in strange directions."
"What are you talking about? Who's always straying off?"
Silverwind scowled. "You, of course: my thoughts."
The Thrasson was ready to take the old bariaur by the throat and choke him sane. "Jayk is not straying. She is injured."
"But she doesn't want to come back," said Silverwind. "She is content to fade into oblivion."
"You can't let her!" the Amnesian Hero commanded. "Try something else; cast another spell!"
A sudden spark lit Silverwind's old eyes. "Right you are – I am! Why didn't I think of that before?" He leaned close to Jayk's ear, then began to yell, "Tiefling, I have anointed you with my water, the water of life; I have seen your injury, I have felt your pain, and I have thought them gone – and still you think yourself dead; who are you to deny my reality? You are alive; I command you to believe me!"
It was the most absurd nonsense the Amnesian Hero had ever heard, yet the blood immediately stopped running from Jayk's nose and ears. A single rasping gurgle spilled from her lips. Her torso began to expand and contract in the steady, deep rhythm of sleep-breathing, and the Thrasson found himself holding his own breath as he waited for her to groan or lift her head.
Jayk continued to breathe, but did nothing more.
Silverwind turned the tiefling onto her back. The murky pallor was returning to her complexion, while the blood runnels below her nostrils and ears had already dried into ash-crusted stripes. The bariaur thumbed open her eyes, displaying a pair of large, round pupils.
"My focus is returning." Silverwind smiled proudly. "I'll imagine my way out of here yet I"
"You're being hasty," said the Amnesian Hero. "Before we make another run for the exit, Jayk must be ready for a fight – and Tessali, too."
Silverwind's eyebrows came together. "That's impossible. Even I can't restore their full health in the flash of a thought! It will take meditation."
The Amnesian Hero groaned. "How long?"
"As long as necessary." The bariaur's answer was curt. "What does it matter? We have as long as we need-after all, time is only a concoction of my imagination."
"As is the monster of the labyrinth, which is surely looking for us by now." The Thrasson allowed his gaze to roam from Periphetes, blocking the way ahead, back along the passage to the entrance conjunction. There were no side corridors between the black square and the giant. "Sooner or later, the beast will find our conjunction. If we don't want to be trapped, we'll have to climb over Periphetes."
The Amnesian Hero hung the wineskin around his neck and started toward the boulder.
"No!" Silverwind danced forward to block the Thrasson's way. "Have you had too much wine, or are you the dumbest thought I've ever had?"
"You have split hooves," the Amnesian Hero retorted. "With a little help, you can make the climb."
"I know I can make the climb!" Silverwind retorted. "But to where? Don't you know anything about the mazes? If we try to climb out of this one, we'll fall into another – and it's not like going through a conjunction. There's no telling where we'll end up. Then how will I return to where I found the string?"
The Amnesian Hero scowled, recalling what Tessali had reported seeing-nothing-after he scaled the wall back at the entrance of their own labyrinth. The Thrasson was not convinced that clambering over a boulder was the same thing as climbing a wall, but the consequences of being wrong were more than he cared to risk. He would prefer a quick death at the monster's hands to spending eternity lost in the scorching passages of the Lady's mazes.
"What of moving the boulder?" the Thrasson asked. "Would that be the same as climbing over?"
Silverwind scowled at Periphetes's stony corpse. "I don't see that it matters. I can't imagine moving a boulder that size."
The Amnesian Hero glanced at the iron club that had fallen from Periphetes's severed hand. "But I can."
Silverwind thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Go ahead and try, but take that off first." The bariaur pointed at the Thrasson's amphora. "It won't do to shake that thing up. We don't want any more giants materializing here."
As the Amnesian Hero slipped the amphora's sling off his shoulders, Silverwind scowled and stooped over to peer at the Thrasson's flank.
"How long have you had this?"
"Had what?"
The Amnesian Hero raised his elbow and looked under his arm. He could barely see a short cut running down the side of his chest. The wound was sealed by scorched blood and seared flesh, but beads of white pus were seeping from the jagged seam between its puffy red lips. Though the Thrasson did not remember receiving the scratch, he felt sure he had suffered it during the battle with the monster of the labyrinth.
"No wonder you look so flushed!" Silverwind reached for the wineskin hanging around the Thrasson's neck. "I've been letting you drink wine, and you have a fever!"
The Amnesian Hero pushed the bariaur's hand away. "I'm still thirsty!"
"Too much wine is dangerous for you. You shouldn't drink any more until I imagine some water into existence."
"I'm thirsty now." The Thrasson turned away before the bariaur could reach for the wineskin again. "Do what you can for Jayk and Tessali. I'll see to finding us a safe place to hide."
The Amnesian Hero stepped over to Periphetes's iron dub. The weapon was half-again as long as Silverwind was tall. The diameter of a man's ankle at one end, it swelled along its length to the size of a bear's head at the other. So thickly scaled with rust was the weapon that the Thrasson feared it might break under the strain of what he had planned.
The Amnesian Hero squatted at the thick end and wrapped his arms around the club, then heaved it out of the ash and began dragging it toward the giant's legs. He had lifted heavier burdens – for instance, when he fetched the treasure chest of King Minaros from the lair of the Ragarian Thieves-but his footing had been more secure then, and the temperature much cooler than in these mazes. By the time he had dragged the unwieldy weapon to Periphetes's side, the Thrasson's sweaty body was coated with ash from all the times he had slipped and fallen.
The Amnesian Hero dropped the head of the club beside the giant's waist, then unstoppered the wine sack and washed the dross from his mouth. After quenching his thirst, he sealed the skin and dug a deep, pitlike tunnel under Periphetes's hip. By the time he finished, the sweat was pouring from his brow in runnels; he needed another drink.