"That is a peculiar way to describe it." Karfhud's folded brow dipped in the middle, then he shook his head. "But it matters not; it is more important that they are likely to meet Sheba coming the other way. You must catch up to them before she does-then stop her."

"Why us?" Jayk demanded. The prospect of confronting the monster again seemed to make her less afraid of the fiend. "What about you?"

The tanar'ri bared a long row of fangs. "I will be behind her." He pointed up the short alley toward the broad avenue. "When you reach the Great Way, you must see it as a straight line. Ignore the corners, whichever way they turn, and count only the intersections. Go down twenty-eight alleys, counting only those on your right, and turn into the twenty-ninth-which will be on your left. Go down this lane until you reach a 'T' and turn to the left, then go eleven more intersections, counting only those on the left, and turn into the twelfth, which will be on the right. The fourth window on the left leads to the ash maze, but by then you will meet either Sheba or me."

"What if we lose our way?" asked Jayk.

"Then I will be very angry-but you may always summon me by speaking my name." The tanar'ri looked to the Amnesian Hero. "Repeat my directions."

"Count twenty-eight alleys on the right and enter the twenty-ninth, which will be on the left. Follow it to a 'T' and turn left, then count eleven passages on the left and turn into the twelfth, which will be on the right. The fourth window on the left leads to the ash maze, but we don't really need to know that. By then, we will either be dead or reunited with you."

Karfhud nodded approvingly. "For a man who cannot recall his own name, you have a most excellent memory."

"I suppose that is because it is not cluttered," the Thrasson said. "But I do have a question."

"You may ask."

The Amnesian Hero looked up the passage toward the broad avenue. "Do we turn left or right onto the Great Way?"

Karfhud scowled. "Which way do you think?" He turned away, entering the hot, crooked alleys that opened beside them. "Left!"

The fiend departed at a lope, leaving the Amnesian Hero alone with Jayk and his instructions. The Thrasson started up the alley, clumping half a dozen paces before he noticed the tiefling was not following. He stopped and looked back to see her studying the direction from which they had just come.

"Jayk?"

The tiefling glanced at him only briefly, her eyes filled with fear, then looked back the way she had been staring. For a moment, the Thrasson thought she would bolt, but then her shoulders slumped and she started up the alley toward him.

"Zoombee, how does he know?"

"Know what, Jayk?"

"That we will do what he orders." She passed the Amnesian Hero without stopping, then stepped into the Great Way. "I think we will never be free of him."

Her name is not Sheba, of course. Karfhud calls her that because she reminds him of a succubus who once bested him in the fray. But the monster of the labyrinth has no name; she would not even understand what a name is, for it is beyond her to think of others apart from herself. She is like Silverwind that way-or any of us, if we look deeply enough – except that she never despairs, and that makes her ever so much stronger-strong enough, even, to defeat a tanar'ri lord.

That is what the Amnesian Hero is thinking as he clumps down the Great Way, trying to keep pace with Jayk. Unlike the tiefling, he is losing his fear of Karfhud, for he has begun to understand what the tanar'ri wants from them. For centuries – it has been millennia, but no mortal can truly conceive of such a time – for countless ages, the fiend has been lost in the labyrinths. The Thrasson is no tanar'ri, but he knows enough about the wicked race to understand that to a powerful lord like Karfhud, being trapped is less an abuse than not being master of the prison.

What the fiend wants is to kill the monster. The Thrasson begins to form his plan; he is thinking of the amphora, of course, and of Karfhud's maps, and he is wise enough to know that the tanar'ri knows what he is thinking. But there will be a battle, and battles breed confusion, and when the confusion passes, it will be the one who still stands that has the amphora and the maps and his life.

And so, leaving it to Jayk to ignore the comers and see the Great Way as a straight line and count the alleys on the right and guide them into the twenty-ninth on the left, the Amnesian Hero plots and schemes and falls so deeply into thought that he does not notice as Jayk guides them to the left at the "T" intersection, and he does not mark the growing ramble of thunder or the rising steam-laden breeze, and he does not hear the clatter of galloping hooves reverberating off the iron walls, or heed even the monster's sonorous roar until it breaks over the maze like Hephaestus's mighty hammer knelling upon its anvil.

By the time the Amnesian Hero has realized what is happening and draws his sword, Silverwind has rounded the corner ahead at a full gallop. With Tessali's gruesome stumps wrapped around his waist and the roar of a hailstorm echoing close on his tail, the bariaur glances at Jayk and the Thrasson only briefly, as though he has expected all along to meet them in precisely that spot, and continues on.

"Flee for your lives!" Silverwind veered toward one side of the passage. "Oh, I have recalled you at a bad time!"

"The monster's hard behind us!" Tessali looked far too frightened to be surprised by the Amnesian Hero's return. "Run!"

Seeing that there was no time to convince his companions to stay and fight, the Amnesian Hero extended his brick foot and caught Silverwind's front hooves. The bariaur bleated and pitched forward, then he and Tessali bounced off the hot iron wall and went tumbling across the bricks together.

"Zoombee?" Jayk sounded more curious than alarmed. "Why do you-"

The Amnesian Hero pushed her behind him. "Prepare your spells – and tell Silverwind to do the same." A cloud of rust-colored steam boiled around the corner ahead, followed closely by a wall of driving hail. "Maybe you have something to clear the storm?"

Behind him rose Tessali's voice, groaning and cursing the Thrasson for a menace and a berk. The Amnesian Hero ignored the insults and clumped forward, veering toward the inside wall of the comer. He knew better than to think he would surprise the monster – Sheba was much too cunning to round a blind corner on the inside – but he only needed to stall her long enough for Karfhud to arrive.

The Amnesian Hero stopped two paces shy of the comer. He took his sword in both hands and pressed as close to the scorching iron as he could bear. Behind him, his companions, mere silhouettes in the curtain of hail, were standing close together. Both Jayk and Silverwind were fumbling for spell components, but their attention seemed alarmingly divided. Tessali was leaning across the bariaur's back, gesturing wildly with his wrist stumps and hurling questions at Jayk. The tiefling shrugged and shook her head in disavowal, less concerned with the coming battle than with appeasing the elf. She was still in shock from Karfhud's attack; certainly, she would never have worried about such a thing before.

The Amnesian Hero felt a cold prickle between his shoulder blades. He looked across the passage to see an ice-gray blur rounding the comer. Her long mats of fur rendered her almost invisible in the driving hail; she seemed a mere deepening of the storm, a ghostly mass drifting slowly forward through the orange steam. Only the neck of the amphora, protruding on the far side of her body, looked at all solid.

The Thrasson cursed his bad luck that the jar was on the other side of the monster, then sprang across the passage to slash at Sheba's leg. If he could strike her lame, he would be free to stall until Karfhud arrived to finish the kill. After that, surviving-and laying claim to the fiend's maps – would become a simple matter of keeping his head while the tanar'ri and the monster killed each other.