Karfhud lowered his hand and quietly waved Theseus up. "But perhaps I can be of some help to you, Thrasson. Knowing what the others seek may help you discover what you must find."
Theseus waded to the fiend's side. "I am listening." It was a half-truth; he was much more intent on searching the fog ahead, but he saw the wisdom in carrying on as they had been. A sudden silence would alert the monster to their vigilance, and he was anxious to have the battle done before the company grew even more weary than it was now. "Still, I fail to see how an exit can serve one person and not another."
"The Plurality." Karfhud answered. "Is it not a law of the multiverse that there are a thousand meanings for every fact?"
"No!" The answer came from the rear of the line, where Silverwind had apparently been paying more attention than Theseus realized. "That is not the way I imagined it, not at all! What you're talking about would be chaos-"
"Precisely. Chaos!" Karfhud stopped and turned around, rolling up his new map as he spoke. "That is the way of the multiverse! No one is right, and everyone is right."
Tessali groaned. "A Xaositect." The elf peered over Silverwind's shoulder at Theseus, then added, "I should have known better than to trust you to pick a guide."
"Keep your watch!" Theseus pointed his sword at the elf. "This is no time to get into an argument about-"
Karfhud's talons pinched the Thrasson's shoulder. "Did you not ask for my help, Theseus?"
"Yes, but…"
"Then listen – and learn." Karfhud slipped past Jayk and went to Silverwind, who stood his ground and looked the fiend squarely in the eye. "Are you not the imaginer of the mazes?"
The bariaur nodded. "I am the imaginer of all things."
The haze had thickened to the point where the Thrasson could barely make out their two looming shapes. The bog trees flanking the channel were little more than dark, hulking shadows, and it was no longer possible to tell the surface of the water from the fog floating upon it. Karfhud's arm snaked back to stuff his map into his satchel, and Theseus thought he understood why the fiend had picked that moment to start a debate with Silverwind.
Sheba was coming up from the rear.
Karfhud continued to speak with the bariaur. "You made the mazes, and yet you cannot find a way out?"
Silverwind shook his head. "No. I am as lost as you."
Theseus slipped by Jayk, gently nudging her and fluttering his fingers in the semblance of a spellcasting. She grabbed his arm and refused to let him pass. He scowled, then pried his arm loose and waved his fingers again. The tiefling bit her lip, but reluctantly nodded and plunged her hands into the water to retrieve the necessary ingredients. The Thrasson continued toward the others.
Karfhud was continuing to debate Silverwind, as though the differences in their particular creeds were more important than any monster stalking the party. "You are the imaginer of the mazes, yet you are lost in them," the fiend was saying. "So, your search for an exit is really a search for the inner truth of your own being, is it not?"
Silverwind's eyes lit up. "Why-why, yes it is!" The bariaur suddenly looked half a century younger, but it did not escape Theseus's notice that a pair of the old fellow's pods had stopped throbbing and grown quite firm, like melons about to burst. "I have been looking at this all wrong – I'm not trapped in the mazes at all!"
Karfhud nodded gravely. "Then you are looking for-"
"The reality of my own being!"
So excited was Silverwind that he kicked his heels up, dumping Tessali into the water. Theseus eased his way close to the bariaur's flank and, doing his best to keep an unobtrusive watch down the channel, reached for the elf.
Tessali came up sputtering and glaring at Karfhud. "The barmies in my ward speak better sense than that!"
"No doubt," Karfhud agreed. "In your wisdom, you have already discovered the essential meaning of the multiverse, have you not-that it has no meaning?"
This seemed to calm Tessali, if not Theseus. The argument was just the distraction the monster had been waiting for.
"Try not to be so overwrought, Theseus," said the fiend. "Sometimes, the only thing we can do is be patient."
Karfhud cast a cautionary glance at the Thrasson, then looked back to Tessali, who, now that his wisdom had been acknowledged, seemed to regard the tanar'ri with newfound respect.
"Tessali," the fiend continued, "I can see that you are one of those rare elves who has a true understanding of himself – and I have read enough thoughts to know. Let us describe life as a maze, and your salvation as the exit; I am sure you can tell me what you are searching for."
"Certainly." Tessali's gaze grew uneasy and shifted away from Karfhud. "But I don't see what this has to do with the plurality of the multiverse."
Karfhud's voice grew stem. "I am not explaining chaos; I am honoring my oath to the Thrasson. Given your trade, I should think you would want to help."
The tanar'ri was acting more like a celestial seraphim than an Abyssal fiend, and that made Theseus's spine creep.
Karfhud's puffy lips began to twitch – no doubt with the effort of not smirking at the Thrasson's absurd thought – but the fiend kept his attention fixed firmly on Tessali.
"Well, elf? Will you help this man or not?"
"That won't be needed," Theseus interjected. "Whatever Karfhud is playing at, it can only lead to harm."
"No, he's right," said Tessali. "I should know myself well enough to answer his question."
Tessali fell deep into thought, leaving it to Theseus alone to watch for Sheba. Karfhud's maroon eyes remained fixed on the elf, as though he had completely forgotten about the monster. Silverwind was mumbling to himself about essential realities and knowing his own mind, and Jayk was off hiding in the fog somewhere. A disturbing thought occurred to the Thrasson, and he slowly turned in a circle, searching the channel's haze-shrouded surface for the dark silhouette of the tiefling's head and shoulders. He saw nothing but gray.
Theseus was about to call her name when Tessali looked up, raising the stumps at the ends of his arms. "For too long have I let my hands dictate the meaning of my life!" His eyes were flashing with excitement, and, as with Silverwind, one of the husks hanging from his body had stopped throbbing and looked ready to burst. "But there is no meaning outside ourselves! My healing hands have only been distracting me; without them I am free to look inward."
"Then you are better off without your hands than we are without Jayk," Theseus said. He dipped his sword into the water to wet Karfhud's blood, then called, "Jayk?"
"The tiefling knows how to find her exit," Karfhud said. "She has always known, but she doesn't want to leave yet." Theseus whirled on the fiend. "What are you saying?" "I think you know." Karfhud's eyes glimmered crimson. "What is it she's always saying? 'Life is an illusion'?"
As badly as he wished that he did not, the Thrasson understood Karfhud's meaning. As a Dustman, Jayk sought the path to the One Death.
"Yes." Karfhud was smiling now. "But she is afraid to reach the end, because she knows you won't go with her."
"Where is she?" Theseus glared into the fog. "If you've let anything happen to her-"
"Me?" scoffed Karfhud. "You are the one who turned his back on her."
Theseus pushed past the tanar'ri. "Jayk!"
"She will not answer. The monster is too close upon her."
Theseus rushed into the fog, pushing through the waters and making a great splashing – loud, but not so loud that it drowned out Karfhud's wheezy snickering. The Thrasson's chest tightened with anger, though less at the fiend than at himself for allowing Jayk and the others to come with him into Sheba's lair. It was one thing to strike bargains with tanar'ri on his own behalf, and quite another to drag his friends into the quagmire with him.
When he did not find the tiefling within a dozen steps, Theseus stopped to study the area. Although the channel was no more than four arm-spans wide, he could barely see the tangled banks; they were little more than a slight darkening in the fog. Behind him, the pearly haze had swallowed Karfhud and the others entirely. It was as if he had passed through a conjunction and entered a different maze.
"Jayk?"
His answer came from the channel behind him, in the form of a startled shout that instantly intensified to a shriek of anguish. Before Theseus could identify the voice, a deafening bellow crashed through the fog, drowning out the scream and driving spikes of pain through his eardrums. He whirled around and splashed down the passage, cursing Karfhud's treachery in not telling him from which direction the monster was approaching.
By the time the ringing in Theseus's ears began to die down, he could see the fiend's black, blurry silhouette in the center of the passage. The tanar'ri was writhing about madly, his claws flinging snarled tangles of fur through the haze, his wings beating the water into a silver froth. The Thrasson angled toward the bank so he would enter the fray on the monster's flank. Even after moving past the flailing black wall of Karfhud's wings, he had trouble finding Sheba herself. So closely did her color match the pearly fog that, save for the snarl of flailing arms and hooves tucked under her far arm, Theseus would not have seen the beast at all.