Labyrinth [The Secret Of Kazan-Oud]

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 1

LABYRINTH

Joe Dever and John Grant

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 2

DEDICATION

For Dan Fortney

JD

For Cathryn-Ann – though how could I match the teddy with the red balloon? JG

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CONTENTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Youth is Age Two are One Mind is Body Bad Luck is Good Loss is Gain Law is Justice Brain is Brawn Death is Life A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

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1 YOUTH IS AGE Lone Wolf came to the Magiocracy of Dessi with the memory of a field. He had been in a field in a world somewhere in the interstices of time, and there he had conversed with an old man and a young woman. The old man he had encountered many times before, both in the chambers of his mind and in the real world of flesh, but had only now had Lone Wolf been given a name to call him by. The young woman he had encountered only in dreams, and she had declined to tell him her name, saying that he would discover it only when he had become worthy to do so. However, although she had withheld her name, she had given him the wisdom of love, which he had lacked – which, indeed, he had before then rejected as a weakness rather than grasped as a strength. She had also given him the name of a place. That place was Herdos, and all he knew of it was that it was somewhere in the Magiocracy of Dessi. Few lures could have enticed him to Dessi. He had no especial reason to fear the land, for its inhabitants were not known to be antagonistic to his kind, the Sommlending. They were descendants of the Elder Magi, the race of beings who had brought the first discipline of magic to the world of Magnamund. Sent into the world more than a century of centuries ago to rid it of Agarash the Damned and thereby end the Age of Eternal Night, they had succeeded in this aim but had succumbed to a lesser foe: the germ that spread the Great Plague of 2514MS. More than nine out of every ten of them had perished, and the few survivors had retreated to the wilder lands of Dessi, where they watched impassively the fate of the world unfold, as Evil duelled Good with Magnamund as stake. No, Lone Wolf had no real reason to fear the mages of Dessi, and yet he still retained the warrior's instinctive distrust of magic and all its doings, even though they had saved his life more times than one. But, for the prize that awaited him in the Magiocracy of Dessi, he would equally willingly have ventured into the very heart of Darkness in Helgedad and confronted all the hosts of necromancers that spawned there. For the Nameless Woman had told him that he might discover the Lorestone of Herdos in Dessi. #

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To reach Dessi he had had to traverse three turbulent lands: Slovia, Anari and Kakush. Fortunately he had been able to ingratiate himself at the court of Grand Prince Ormond of Suentina, the ruler of Slovia, by delivering up to him the leader of a troop of bandits that had been plaguing the approach roads to the capital: the man had died cruelly, more cruelly than Lone Wolf would have wished, and he regretted not having slain the criminal himself. Ormond had desired that Lone Wolf remain at his court, and the Kai Lord had done so for a while. From there he had sent a messenger north all the long miles to the Monastery of the Kai in Sommerlund, bearing news of Lone Wolf's welfare and seeking in return an account of all that proceeded there. The messenger did not return, finding that the community of the Monastery was congenial to his tastes; but in his place there came a warrior whom Lone Wolf knew well. Once she had been a soldier serving in the King's Guard, but she had renounced her commission to serve instead the cause of the Kai. Her name was Petra, and she was a trusted friend of his. She had become weary, she explained, of the tranquillity of the Monastery, and had determined to join him in order to seek adventure; she did not tell him of the other reason why she had come, and he was too wrapped up in his own concerns to notice the pain behind her eyes. Though she was dear to him, at first he resented her presence, for he felt he had companions enough in his horse, Reason for Coming Back, and his sword, the Sommerswerd, and besides that she might be a burden to him; but then he remembered her courage in other exploits, in particular how she had fought so bravely at Ruanon and at the Temple Deep by the Maakengorge, and thus he accepted her and her steed, the grey stallion that she had whimsically named The Joker's Choice. Ormond, though resentful that Lone Wolf did not wish to remain in Suentina as an adornment to the royal court, nevertheless gave them a pass of safe conduct that endured not only all through his own land of Slovia but also across Anari, to which, though it was a Vassa nation, Slovia was allied. In Tahou, Anari's capital, President Dabudei had greeted them grumpily, as that land's prickly protocols dictated, but had lent them a troop of his own wild warriors to escort them along the Eagle trail from his capital, Nikesa, as far as the border with Dessi. And there it was that, as the Kakushan warriors waved their blades and left the two Sommlending with whooping and the waving of bright sabres, Lone Wolf gazed at the ragged peaks of the southern Xulun Mountains and found his thoughts instead ranging across a field.

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# The seven Lorestones had been created over seventeen millennia before by a wise dragon called Nyxator, who along with others of his kind had been sent into Magnamund by the Sun God Kai. At first these dragons had dwelt in the sea, but then the God had warned Nyxator that some among them were turning to the course of Evil; thus Nyxator and many of his fellows had invaded the desolate land of primaeval Magnamund, creating for themselves a realm called Cynx. It was at this time, before the Evil that they had left behind followed them onto the land, that Nyxator had determined to create the Lorestones in order to preserve the wisdom with which the God had imbued him. It was as well that he did so, for after some thousands of years had passed the God of Darkness, Naar, sent into Magnamund his catspaw Agarash the Damned, who slew Nyxator at the world's core and ruled the tormented land until Kai and Ishir, the Goddess of the Moon, introduced the Elder Magi and their magic to the world of mortals, thus sealing the fate of Agarash. The seven Lorestones somehow survived all this, as centuries became millennia, and the millennia followed each other in their relentless trudge. Not until nearly four thousand years after the creation by the Shianti of another totem of power, the Moonstone, did a mortal rediscover the Lorestones and the wisdom encapsulated within them. That man was Raunor, Baron of Toran, who had been present when the first King Ulnar of Sommerlund had challenged the Archlord of Darkness, Vashna, to the duel in which both had died. Armed with the Sommerswerd, Raunor had founded the Order of the Kai all those long centuries ago, and had taken to himself the name Sun Eagle. He had quested to locate the Lorestones, and had recorded his successes in the Book of the Magnakai, which book Lone Wolf now himself possessed, having rescued it from the Tomb of the Majhan in the deserts of Vassagonia. The writing in this book was faded and hard to decipher, but Lone Wolf had spent years poring over it as his friends and acolytes rebuilt the Monastery of the Kai around him. He had discovered that the book was no normal artefact written by a mortal for all time, but that instead it wrote itself, for his own name began to appear in its pages, and his own deeds came to be recorded. And in an earlier part of the book he found reference to the Lorestones, and enough of a clue to guide him to the location of one of them, the Lorestone of Varetta, which he followed to its hiding-place deep beneath the temple of Tekaro, in westernmost

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 7 Slovia. There he had also lost his life – or seemed to, for his mind, independent of its fleshly frame, had found itself in a field. And in that field the Nameless Woman had told him that time was not the simple smoothly flowing river that he had always assumed it to be. # "We can reach Lamoas by nightfall," said Petra, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to look at her, focusing his mind with difficulty. She was holding The Joker's Choice steady with her knees as she scrutinized the scrolled map that President Dabudei's men had left with them. The wind was trying to whip the curled edges of the parchment from her fingers. "I'm sorry," he said vaguely. "I said that we can reach Lamoas by nightfall," she repeated, pointing with her eyes towards the track ahead of them that wound upwards through the foothills of the Xuluns. "It looks as if it's a large enough place to have somewhere that we can lodge ourselves for the night." Lone Wolf drew himself fully back from the shadowland of his thoughts into the reality of the here and now. "How many miles is it?" he said, glancing at the Sun, which had yet to reach its noon position. "Hard to tell," remarked Petra brusquely. "The Kakushans aren't the best of mapmakers. No more than a score of miles, I'd say, and perhaps as few as a dozen. Almost all of it's uphill, of course, but if the trail gets no worse than this ..." She shrugged. "As I say, we should be able to make it comfortably by nightfall, Ishir willing. And then on towards Elzian in the morning." Lone Wolf felt Reason for Coming Back moving beneath him, as if the mare were trying to communicate to him that she was eager to get started on the journey. He patted her on the shoulder so that she moved over, swishing her tail, to the side of The Joker's Choice. "Let me look," said Lone Wolf, reaching out for the map. Petra had been right: the Kakushans were no great mapmakers. There was a childishness about the scrawls on the parchment that made him smile. The scale of the map was as much a matter of guesswork as anything else. Swiftly he identified their position on the Eagle Trail and then oriented himself, darting glances backwards and forwards between the mist-shrouded mountaintops and their crude, dagger-like depictions on the parchment. As Petra had said, unless the map were hopelessly more inaccurate even that it seemed, they ought, all other things

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 8 being equal, to be able to reach the high township of Lamoas before night fell. Between there and here, however, a series of coarse, jagged parallel lines had been inscribed across the trail. "What do you think those mean?" he said, holding the map out to Petra. She glanced at the point his finger touched. "Steep gradients," she said. "Nothing more?" "Perhaps. It's hard to tell." She grinned at him. "Only one way to find out." "And we have very little choice in the matter anyway," he said, finishing the thought for her. "Onward to Lamoas, then. But first we eat – and eat well. For all we know, Lamoas may be a dead town by now." While Lone Wolf created a fire, Petra foraged through the woods that girded the trail. The flames were past their first flush of enthusiasm by the time she returned, carrying a dead rabbit by its heels. Squatting down by the fireside next to Lone Wolf, she swiftly skinned and gutted the beast with the dagger from her belt. Lone Wolf watched her at work, then turned to look at the two horses, who were quarrelling good-naturedly over tussocks of grass. "What do you expect the Lorestone to give you?" said Petra conversationally, once she had the carcase spitted over the replenished fire. Lone Wolf shrugged. "It's hard to tell. The Book of the Magnakai never seems to go into particulars like that. It's as if learning to interpret its teachings were part of those teachings. To be honest, if you asked me exactly what it was that the Lorestone of Varetta gave to me, I would have difficulty explaining it to you." She looked at him expectantly. He brushed some grass from his cape of silver fur. "At the moment the wisdom of the Lorestone flooded through me," he said, picking his words very carefully, "it was as if I had within me the power to know everything. I can remember that. But it was all so confused. The dakomyd that had been set to guard the hiding-place of the Lorestone was at my back, still regenerating itself, still trying to kill me. I was thinking as much about the fact that the creature was trying to kill me as I was about the Lorestone. Afterwards ... afterwards there was the time I've told you about, when I was beyond both life and death, and maybe that was a part of the Lorestone's wisdom as well. And then there were the things that the Nameless Woman told me – she implied that they had come from me, that all she was doing was drawing out knowledge that I hadn't known I had, but I'm not sure that I can believe her. If she's anything like the other Gestalt entity whom I know rather

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 9 better – the old man, Gwynian – then she will do anything rather than simply tell me straight out what she means." He glanced up through the smoke at Petra. She was sitting with her arms around her bare, scratched knees, watching him intently. She had let her yellow hair grow a little, so that it was like an urchin's. Her eyes were very blue, and they were unblinking in their regard for him as he spoke. "That's why I can't tell you what I expect to gain through discovering the Lorestone of Herdos," he added. "Because I don't know what I gained through discovering the Lorestone of Varetta. All I do know is that I gained something – something whose nature I will doubtless come to understand as my own, self-derived wisdom grows." "Does the Book of the Magnakai give you no clue?" "No," he said with sudden irritability. Then he calmed himself. "Forgive me. I forget that it is not your fault that I've been able to explain so very little to you. And I'm not sure that it's my fault, either. More that the sort of wisdom that lies at the heart of the Magnakai disciplines is not something that can easily be tied down in words. We are bound to share many campfires before our quest in Dessi is done – perhaps I can take the opportunity as we watch the flames to try to communicate to you more effectively what it is that I have discovered about ... about ..." Again words failed to come to his tongue. He was remembering how, years ago, back in the Zultan's palace in Barrakeesh, Qinefer had tried to explain to him what she had discovered at the Birthplace, and how, uncomprehending, he had dismissed her attempts as the wanderings of a tired mind. Only later, after it had properly sunk in that she had discarded him – regretfully, of course, but discarded him nevertheless – had he come to realize that his failure to comprehend was not her fault but his own. "The rabbit's cooked," said Petra, the crispness of her voice telling him that she was consciously changing the subject. They tore at the still red meat with their daggers and crammed it into their mouths. Afterwards Lone Wolf had to go and rinse the grease out of his beard in the chilly waters of a nearby stream. As ever he marvelled at the fact that Petra could seem to remain freshly kempt no matter what she had done. She had wiped her chin with a handful of grass, but it was as if she had so merely as a formality: he had seen no spots of grease there. By mid-afternoon they were well up the slopes of the Xulun Mountains, continuing to follow the Eagle Trail as it wound its casual way up over saddlebacks and through gorges. The Sun was very bright and the air deliciously cold in their faces; the wind that had pestered them earlier had disappeared. Lone Wolf felt a

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 10 tremendous sensation of freedom, as if he and Petra and the horses were alone in a world that was theirs and theirs alone to command. Frequently he glanced across at the young soldier and saw something of the same on her face. They encountered no fellow-travellers, although once or twice they came across piles of dried horses' dung to show them that they were not the first to follow this route. The trail itself was in surprisingly good condition, considering how rarely it was used. Its packed mud was grown through frequently by patches of tough weeds, but these became less common the further the trail rose into the mountains. Every hour or so Lone Wolf or Petra called a halt to allow the horses to rest and themselves to acclimatize to their increasing altitude. The pressure in Lone Wolf's ears made everything sound slightly hollow, as if the sky were a solid dome over their heads and he could hear every noise in the world as an echo from it. He remarked on this effect to Petra, who responded with a grin, indicating that she, too, had noticed the effect. "It'll pass soon," he said. "I wonder if the horses have the same experience?" she said. "You could always ask them," he said, laughing. Then he sobered, realizing that this was something that he could, indeed, ask the Nameless Woman the next time she revealed herself to him. And always the trail wound higher, until it seemed that it must penetrate the very clouds themselves. Now the road was more frequently forced to follow treacherous contours, so that they had top pick their way more carefully, following one behind the other, sometimes having to dismount to lead the horses past a place where the trail's edge crumbled over a precipitous drop. Petra seemed oblivious to the dizzying dangers of such places, but Lone Wolf was all too alert to them, and thanked his Magnakai abilities for keeping any threat of vertigo at bay. Up here the only vegetation was scrubby heather and bracken; they had long ago left the last of the trees behind them. Once they saw, strewn out on the steep side of a gorge beneath them, the shattered wreckage of a carriage and the bones of those who had travelled in it. The sight was not auspicious, and from then on, as the afternoon darkened towards dusk, there was a quietness between them. Evening was almost upon them when they came to the lights of Lamoas. The settlement proved to be less of a town than a large hamlet, with but two streets, arranged in the form of a cross, surrounded by outlying cottages, dotted here and there on the slopes and linked by snaky footpaths. The wind had returned

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 11 again, and howled coldly between the peaks as Reason for Coming Back and The Joker's Choice ambled tiredly down the hill towards the lights. The first they heard of Lamoas was singing. Even from the distance Lone Wolf and Petra had been able to see that there was some sort of gathering in the larger of Lamoas's two main streets. Now that they were closer they could see that perhaps thirty or forty men and women were standing together in a ragged group around one of their number, who was standing on a box waving his arms in time to the music. "It's a choir," said Lone Wolf, "of sorts." The wind was too fickle for them at first to be able to make out what the choristers were singing. As they grew closer, however, they could discern the rudiments of the tune and enough of the words to know that they were in a tongue totally unrelated to Sommlending. Even Lone Wolf, who had long ago acquired the gift of comprehending languages with very little effort, was unable to ascertain any meaning. "I hope it's not a war song," said Petra, fingering the sword at her side. "Doesn't sound like it," said Lone Wolf. There was something stiffly formal in what the choir was singing. He guessed that it must be some kind of ritual incantation to mark the passing of another day. The words could be unrecognizable to him because they were from a ritual language rather than a spoken one. With one accord the two of them drew their horses to a halt and waited until the song should be over. Petra stayed in the saddle but Lone Wolf leapt down to the ground and talked to Reason for Coming Back's impassive face, smoothing the hair between her ears and patting his palm against the bony plain of her forehead. Her great brown eyes looked trustfully into his as the gloom of evening settled around them. At last the singing was done. Without any ceremony the choirmaster descended from his box and the little crowd dispersed. Lone Wolf and Petra led the horses the last couple of hundred yards into the village and caught the choirmaster just as he was about to stagger away, burdened by his box. "Hail, friend," said Lone Wolf, his tongue instinctively moulding itself to the syllables of the local dialect. The man paused and looked back at them, startled. Clearly he had been too lost in his own thoughts to hear the sounds of their arrival. "Hail," he said. "I mean, greetings, strangers." He peered at them through the dimness. "You are strangers, are you not? Yes. I thought you must be. Otherwise you'd have ... but listen how I do

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 12 keep prattling on. You must have come in search of lodgings for the night." "We have indeed," said Lone Wolf. "We are on the road to Elzian, the stronghold of the Elder Magi. We are journeyers from a faraway ..." "Quite so," said the choirmaster. "Any stranger who comes here to Lamoas must be a journeyer from a faraway land. It stands to reason, doesn't it? But to return to the point: there is no inn here in our humble township, but on the rare occasions that people wish to stop here there are warm beds for them at the House of the Stove." "`The House of the Stove'?" repeated Lone Wolf. "What is that?" "It is the guild hall of the children," said the choirmaster. "I'm sorry, I should have explained that at first. You put me in such a tizzy by creeping up on me unawares. At least, I was unawares. I assume that you were perfectly awares, as it were. Oh dear, oh dear, I'm getting in a muddle again ..." Lone Wolf laughed and clapped his hand to the man's shoulder. "Don't apologize, my friend," he said. "It is our fault for not having given you better warning of our approach. My companion and I are accustomed to being secretive in our movements, and it is a habit hard to break." "Well, if you're sure that's all right ...?" "We're sure," said Lone Wolf. He translated the conversation briefly for Petra's benefit, then returned his attention to the choirmaster. "But if you could direct us to the House of the Stove ...?" The choirmaster eagerly led them down the now deserted streets to the House of the Stove, which stood a little back from the northern bar of the cross that made up the town of Lamoas. After he had left them, Lone Wolf stood silently for a few moments in the moonlight, examining the place. It was a largish building, separated from its neighbours on either side by a couple yards of grit and mud in which a few scraggy plants were endeavouring unsuccessfully to find a foothold. Its front garden was much the same. The windows were lit by a warm glow of candlelight and the rickety front door was open. The place looked inviting and yet somehow he sensed that it was totally deserted. He glanced at Petra. "It seems safe enough to me," he said. Now that he had attuned himself to the Dessi language, the Sommlending words felt strangely uncomfortable on his tongue. "That little man couldn't wait to get away from us," she said, looking worried.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 13 "There was no trace of treachery in him," reassured Lone Wolf. "I would have detected the taint of deception in his thoughts, had there been any." He saw that Petra was frowning at him, and realized that he'd spoken very matter-of-factly about abilities of which she knew nothing. "My travels through to Stornlands in search of the Lorestone of Varetta taught me how to place trust in my senses," he explained. "I was alone for much of the time, and the solitude allowed me time to discover things about myself that I hadn't known before. I would not kill a man simply because my senses warned me that he meant me harm, but I would be ready to do so the moment he attempted to put his intentions into practice." "I, too, sensed that he was honest," she said tightly. "Let's go in." They hammered on the open door and shouted into the well lit entrance hall, but received no answer. However, it was obvious that the place was not untenanted: there were fresh flowers in vases and the torches along the walls had not long been lit. Then Lone Wolf noticed, spinning in the air above the bare boards of the hall, a purple spiral of what seemed like thin smoke. As his eye caught it, the spiral appeared to move slightly towards him. Welcome, said a wispy voice in his mind. He started back, brushing against Petra. Her hand shot to the pommel of her sword as her feet moved instinctively into a combat posture. Lone Wolf, controlling his own surprise, stayed her with a hand on her arm. "Fear nothing, Petra, my friend," he said softly. "I don't know what it is that welcomes us here to the House of the Stove, but I can tell that it means us no ill." As he gestured towards the coil of smoke it vanished. Petra partly relaxed. Lone Wolf could still feel the tension of the muscles in her arm. "I place a deal of trust in your senses, Lone Wolf," she said heavily. "Then pay heed to your own," whispered Lone Wolf. He allowed a little of his Magnakai soul-stuff to flow through the point where his fingers touched her forearm and watched her eyes. After a moment she broke away. "I have no need of your gifts, Lone Wolf," she said curtly. "My senses have brought me through my years to this time, and I will choose to rely upon them a while longer yet. When I require any senses greater than those I shall ask you. Of my own volition." Still not looking at him, she began to lead The Joker's Choice across the front of the dilapidated mansion. "The stables

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 14 are presumably around the back," she said, her voice becoming businesslike once more. Feeling chastened, Lone Wolf followed her with Reason for Coming Back at his side. He wondered how often he must have seemed patronizing to Petra since she had joined him at Suentina. His motives had been good but his methods clumsy. Now that he had acquired so many abilities that were unknown to ordinary mortals he felt a constant urge to try to share them with his allies, and yet he had offered them to her without paying any heed to her own wishes in the matter, as if he knew better than she did what she desired. It was no wonder that she had snapped at him. He wondered how to go about restoring her good will. The wisdoms he had derived from the Book of the Magnakai and the Lorestone of Varetta seemed to have ignored altogether the gentle skills of dealing with relationships with other people. As Petra had predicted, the stables were in the untidy yard at the rear of the House of the Stove. There were boxes for eight horses, but only two of them had been scrubbed out and supplied with fresh hay and water, as if the landlord of the place had somehow known hours before that Lone Wolf and Petra were coming, and made preparations for them. It was an unsettling thought, and Lone Wolf shivered; he shivered again when he realized that here, in the Magiocracy of Dessi, it was all too very likely that indeed their arrival had been accurately foretold. He remembered how, a year or more ago, his friend Banedon had told them around a campfire near the Monastery of his own sojourn into Dessi, and of how sometimes even the very landscape itself seemed to be possessed of magic. "I apologize," he said roughly to Petra as they returned alone around the sheer grey walls of the building. "It is a long while since I've been travelling in the company of close friends, and I've forgotten the niceties of behaviour." "There's no need to apologize," she said. "I was wrong to be so short with you. It is I who should be apologizing to you." Without thinking, Lone Wolf felt the shape of her thoughts and realized that she was lying, but that the lie was born out of the warmth of her friendship for him. He touched her on the elbow in silent acknowledgement, and by the time they reached the light of the front door once more they were talking amicably about inconsequentials as if nothing had come between them. As they crossed the threshold their pleasantries ceased. Lone Wolf could sense no malice in the silence of the house, and yet its very emptiness unnerved him. Their boots seemed to echo too loudly as they moved into the hall, Petra pushing the door shut on its creaking hinges behind them.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 15 "Is there anyone there?" said Lone Wolf, knowing the answer to the question, speaking only for the comforting sound of the words. But there was a response, of sorts. The torches in the entrance hall dimmed and one of the doors leading off it opened part-way, revealing a gaily lit room beyond. The signal could not have been clearer that whoever or whatever occupied the house – or perhaps it was even the house itself – was beckoning them through into that further room. Petra's sword was already out. Holding the weapon vertically, its point in the air, she slipped from Lone Wolf's side and along the wall towards the open door. He was amazed by the speed and assuredness of her movement. He followed her more slowly, keeping to the centre of the hall. She reached out cautiously and shoved at the face of the door, so that it opened a little more. "We're expected," said Lone Wolf flatly, looking into the room. There was a fire wrestling in the middle of a hearth of black wrought iron. In front of the blaze stood a long, time-stained, heavy-looking trestle table, at one end of which two places had been set either side of an elegantly branched pewter candelabrum. Steam rose from the earthenware bowls, as if they had been put there only scant seconds before; the candles' flames were still popping, the wicks not yet having drawn enough wax up into themselves. Beside each bowl was a small crystal vase with a single wilting dandelion in it. On the further end of the table rested a square box; brightly coloured paper was peeling away from its sides and top, as if inexpertly stuck. "We're expected," repeated Lone Wolf quietly, "but I wish I knew by whom." Petra stood square in the doorway, blocking off his view for a moment before she stepped ahead of him into the room. She surprised him by seeming suddenly to accept the circumstances: seconds before, she had been far more wary than he had been, but now she was utterly relaxed. "Come on in, Lone Wolf," she said. "The fire's warm." She was holding her palms out in front of it. She kicked away some painted cubes of wood that had been left littering the woven carpet in front of the hearth. Suddenly Lone Wolf noticed something odd. For all that the flames were leaping in the hearth, the fire was making no noise. He felt somehow as if he were skulking as he followed Petra into the room, the door quietly closing behind him. Still there was no sensation that they were under any sort of threat; it was a nameless guilt that was starting to make him feel so uneasy – that and the uncanny silence of the fire.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 16 He looked around the walls of the room, expecting them to be bare. Instead, however, they were decorated here and there by clumsily coloured pictures of domesticated animals. He stopped and stared at the simplified grins on the beasts' faces and the crude washes of primary colours that made up their simplified shapes. "You know what this place reminds me of?" he said abruptly. "A room," said Petra, shrugging. "A warm room. A room with hot food in it. The kind of room you like to find at the end of a long day's trekking through cold mountains. That's what it reminds me of." "It's a nursery," he said. "This is a place where children play. Look at the building blocks by your feet. At the pictures on the walls. It's as if the father and mother have left out supper for two of the older children who they knew would be getting home late, after the others had gone to bed." "Big children," observed Petra, pulling one of the heavy oaken chairs out from the table. It was a full-size chair, not an infant's. "It depends on the size of the adults," remarked Lone Wolf. It was not a reassuring thought, and yet it didn't disturb him as much as it should have. Yet again he was struck by the total lack of menace that the place seemed to exude. Following Petra's lead, he sat himself down at the table and picked up the horn spoon that had been left neatly on the wrong side of the earthenware bowl. Petra had already taken a mouthful of the hot brown broth, and her face told him that it tasted good. He tucked in hungrily, without another word. At last he had eaten his fill. He reached out for the pewter tankard of ale that he had not noticed before was standing at his elbow, and drained a great draught of what proved to be the juice of some aromatic fruit. As he put the mug back down on the darkened wood of the table he saw to his bemusement that both bowl and mug were still full. Then, as he watched, their contents slowly faded out of existence, leaving the two containers spotlessly clean. Petra, who had been watching the same phenomenon occurring in her own bowl and tankard, looked up at him with wide eyes. "Mother and Father don't believe in us children wasting our food," she said casually enough, though Lone Wolf could detect that the tension had returned to her. "I wonder if we're going to be allowed to play with our toys for a while before bedtime," he said, deliberately copying her lightness of tone. "Perhaps," she said. "Assuming we've been good."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 17 The door crashed open. The two of them were on their feet swifter than thought could have commanded them. Petra's blade snaked from its scabbard. The Sommerswerd was already in Lone Wolf's hands, its golden metal beginning to throb with light. Through the door poured a dozen or more children, all seemingly aged between about six and fourteen. They were dressed in brightly coloured homespun tunics and trousers, those of the younger children being much torn and patched. The two eldest-seeming, a pair of grave girls, one dressed in grey and the other in blue, were ushering the singing and yelling younger ones, who clutched painted wooden animals and bows and knitted dolls and animals. "Welcome," said the girl in grey courteously. "We welcome you, Lone Wolf and Petra, to share our hearthside with us this night. My name is Paido." Out of the corner of his eye, Lone Wolf noticed that Petra had comprehended the girl's words, even though they were spoken in the eerie cadences of the Dessi tongue. He bowed his head sombrely, sheathing the Sommerswerd despite the efforts of several sets of eager small fingers to grasp at its hilt. "We had not realized that you were expecting us," he said, "but we thank you for your kindness in extending us your welcome." "All honest travellers across the Xulun Mountains to the Magiocracy of Dessi are welcome at the House of the Stove," said the girl. "We are glad that you have deemed us honest," said Lone Wolf formally. "Your sincerity is easy enough to see," responded the girl with equal formality. "Please be seated, for my brothers and sisters and myself have yet to eat this evening." As Lone Wolf obeyed he noticed to his amazement that the number of chairs at the trestle table was greater than he had thought it to be. Earlier it had seemed to him that there were only about eight, but now he saw that there were more than a dozen – exactly enough, as it soon proved, to seat all of the children as well as Petra and himself. Moreover, the chairs were apparently of carefully graded height, for all of the children, including even the smallest, were comfortably positioned at the table. And each of them had a steaming earthenware bowl of broth and a pewter tankard of fruit juice ... He realized that he was hungry all over again. He looked across the table at Petra, and saw exactly the same realization crossing her pale face. He reached out his hand to her and their fingertips touched. It was only then that he began to wonder why

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 18 the two of them had done this. It was, he supposed, as good a way as any of reassuring each other that they were indeed there. "We'd best eat," he murmured to her. To his surprise her face was suddenly lit up by a broad grin; above it her blue eyes danced merrily. "Yes," she said in Sommlending, "let's eat. It's all right, Lone Wolf. I trust our friends. I'm glad to be here among them." Lone Wolf felt as if her words had removed a weighty burden of doubt from his shoulders. Nodding to the girl who had spoken to them, he picked up his horn spoon and commenced eating. The meal was a noisy and incredibly messy affair. The older children were decorous and careful, but the same could hardly be said of their younger siblings. The most raucous was a fat-faced little boy, who seemed to delight in splashing the broth everywhere but into his mouth. Each time he was reproved by one of the two older girls he adopted a look of such solemn contrition that Lone Wolf and Petra had great difficulty in not bursting out laughing – and then moments later, remorse forgotten, he would be spraying those around him once more. Eventually the girl beside him, barely older than himself, tired of the game and hit him. The two vanished in a tempest of small fists beneath the surface of the table, while the others continued with their meal as before, paying no attention to the shrieks and screams from below. At last the girl in grey put her spoon to one side, slammed the side of her fist on the table and stood up. Slowly the hubbub around her died. The two combatants rather sheepishly regained their places. When she had achieved some degree of silence the girl began to speak. "We have wayfaring friends among us, my sisters and brothers," she said, "and we are glad of their company. It is too rare that journeyers travel here from the world outside our fair land of Dessi. We have bid them welcome here to the House of the Stove with our words and with our humble food and drink, and now the time has come that we must perform for them a greater act of welcome." Lone Wolf became alert. Too often in his experience honeyed words like these concealed some dark and hideous intent. And yet his senses told him that there was no danger. Was it possible that these magical children could somehow have misled his senses, lulled them into a false security? "We announce," said the girl in grey, striking a histrionic pose, "a rendition for the benefit of our good friends Petra and Lone Wolf of a play that is as old as the Magiocracy of Dessi itself.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 19 As players we have the distinguished members of the all-singing, all-dancing House of the Stove Thespian Troupette." Paido looked directly into Lone Wolf's eyes for a moment, then did the same for Petra. She held Petra's gaze for longer, perhaps, than might have been expected, but Lone Wolf thought nothing of it at the time. "Lower the lights and rattle the drums!" she cried. Obediently the torches dimmed in their wall-sconces and the fire in the hearth subsided to a red glow. Somewhere in what Lone Wolf could now perceive was a vast chamber a drum sounded like hail. "Paint the stage across the walls!" commanded the girl. About twenty yards in front of Lone Wolf and Petra, who were now sitting side by side, a brilliantly coloured rectangle appeared, broad enough that it extended the full width of his vision. Roughly painted on the stage's backdrop was a sky of childishly pure blue with a single cottonwool cloud bulging improbably in its centre. Scattered across the stage itself were rustic props – a wheelbarrow, a broken gate, part of a fence, a chopping-block with an axe embedded in it, an overturned bucket – all being soberly regarded by a painted wooden cow which, as Lone Wolf watched, toppled over. "Strike up the music!" All around them a brass band was playing a stirring march. Very badly. Lone Wolf turned his head. Aside from the dazzling stage, all that he could see in the gloom was the white, seemingly disembodied face of the girl floating in the darkness near to him, the Moon in the night sky. "Tell us the title of your play," he murmured. "It is for us only to perform the play," she said neatly. "It is for our audience to give it its title." Her face winked out of existence: the Moon suddenly occluded. Lone Wolf felt Petra's hand gripping his own. The band stilled, leaving a palpable silence, which was shattered seconds later by some brash notes on a trumpet. On the piercingly blue sky seven small green painted birds appeared, flapping their stylized wings jerkily. At the front of the stage the fat-faced boy who had caused so much trouble earlier was pushed out from the wing, struggling against implacable hands. He was dressed in a tattered fur rug; small branches had been tied to his head like horns. "Starring," said the voice of the girl in grey from somewhere, "Rimoah in the part of Agarash the Damned. And," the voice added as the taller girl in blue came on stage from the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 20 opposite wing, dressed in a costume of paper scales, "Lianda as Nyxator the wise dragon. Put your hands together please for our stars!" Obediently Lone Wolf and Petra clapped. Lone Wolf was beginning to panic, and he sensed that Petra was in a similar state. He tried to reach for the Sommerswerd, his inevitable reaction to danger, but found that his hand refused to obey his will, instead continuing to beat against the other, as the girl's voice had commanded. An attempt to get to his feet was similarly doomed. He could not even turn his head to look to Petra for some obscure sort of reassurance: like it or not, his gaze was fixed on the luminous swathe of the stage. The seven birds were twitching their way across the sky towards the costumed figure of the girl Lianda. As Lone Wolf watched, first one and then another detached itself from the backdrop and fluttered clumsily down to settle on her shoulder. Soon all seven were there in a row, going through the motions of preening themselves. "I, Nyxator ..." said the girl in a soft voice, and then, more loudly, as if in response to an inaudible prompt, she repeated: "I, Nyxator, have drawn my wisdoms from the lights of the sky, and have them gathered about me, so that they are like a part of me and I am like a part of them." She gestured towards the birds on her shoulder. "They are as living things, for they are born from the life-spirit of Magnamund and of Aon." The little boy, Rimoah, his voice cracking as if he were about to burst into either tears or laughter, chipped in: "And I, Agarash the Damned, want those wisdoms bad, and I'm gonna get 'em even if I have to kill everyone, 'cause I'm bad." "I'm not going to let have my wisdoms, Agarash, you stinker," said Nyxator. "You'd use them for real evil purposes, like your slimy God, Naar, wants you to." "Naar's better than your rotten old Kai, any day!" "No he's not! He's horrible. If I had him as a God I'd not want to show my face in public. He's not all cute, like Kai is." "Isn't." "Is." "Do we get to the fight now?" "Yes. Take that, accursed varlet!" As Lone Wolf and Petra watched, Agarash and Nyxator fell on each other. Agarash was by far the smaller of the two, but compensated for his size by the vigour of his attack. Reinforcements arrived from both sides of the stage, so that soon the play had degenerated into a squalling free-for-all. The painted green birds circled uncertainly above the fray, looking down disconsolately from time to time.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 21 The noise rose to a fresh crescendo and then suddenly stopped. The heap of costumed children froze, their eyes, by seeming coincidence, all fixed on the place where Lone Wolf sat, with Petra by his side. Only the painted birds continued to move. They performed a couple more uneasy circuits of the stage, seemingly completely at a loss, and then their movements abruptly became more certain as they grouped and flew out from the stage over the auditorium, directly towards Lone Wolf. Before he knew quite what they were about, they were all swooping and chattering around his head, seizing his cape by the shoulders and dragging him from his seat. Still gripping Petra's hand in his, he was dragged forwards to the stage, which, now that he returned his gaze to it, he saw had been transformed: in place of the pile of children there was now a painted green ribbon, a couple of yards wide and clearly intended to represent a road, winding an impossible number of times between the front of the stage and the backdrop, into which it seemed to recede until lost to sight. Chivvied and hauled by the birds, Lone Wolf and Petra struggled up onto the apron of the stage and found themselves walking the road. At first they attempted to resist, and the birds' piping voice rose in consternation; then, however, they resigned themselves to treading the road, and the birds released their grips on Lone Wolf's cape, instead fluttering eagerly ahead and behind the two humans. It was hot on the stage – the heat of a desert land under a cloudless tropical sky. Lone Wolf squinted upwards once and saw that the stage's earlier multiplicity of light had been replaced by a single yellow glare. He darted a look at Petra, but her face was fixed, her eyes directed straight ahead towards the backdrop ... which seemed no closer now than it had been when first Lone Wolf and herself had come up on the stage. Indeed, Lone Wolf suddenly realized, they had been walking for an unconscionably long time, as if they had long ago crossed the full depth of the stage and were now a part of the backdrop, receding into it the same way that the road did. He turned his head to look behind them, but all he could see was the endless serpentine road: the auditorium was too distant to be visible even as a darkened rectangle. Agarash leapt out from a roadside rock ahead. Lone Wolf had the unsettling sensation of seeing the snarling foe both as a small boy in an improvised costume and as a genuinely monstrous creature, rearing high above them, its horns pricking the painted sky, its flamed eyes rolling, its clawed hands reaching out to seize himself and Petra. The Sommerswerd was in his hand and he thrust Petra behind him, hearing her cry of protest. A detached part of him was aware that his eyes had not instantly filled with the red mist of his

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 22 bloodlust, but that his mind was clear and his rage under total control as he advanced towards the slavering monstrosity that towered above him. A clawed paw snatched at the air in front of his face and he stabbed with the point of the Sommerswerd. There was a spray of yellow-green ichor, filling his face with droplets of its stench. Agarash let out a deafening mewl of agony and retreated a step, shaking its injured paw. Lone Wolf hesitated. The illusion that this was not just a monster but a small boy persisted, staying his urge to attack. "Who are you?" he yelled upwards at the creature's tormented face, shielding his eyes from the poignant blaze of the Sun. "I am Agarash, proud to be called The Damned!" bellowed the beast, feinting at him with its other paw. "Not Rimoah?" shouted Lone Wolf, leaping aside as the claws whistled past him. "Not the boy Rimoah?" "Not the accursed Rimoah – him least of all, who would thwart me!" "Then die!" Lone Wolf slashed at the monster's matted exposed stomach with the Sommerswerd. The blade missed its target completely – mystifyingly – throwing him momentarily off-balance. Agarash took this chance to seize him, wrapping its uninjured paw about his torso and lifting him clear of the ground. Lone Wolf struck out time and again with the Sommerswerd in a fever of panic, but the blade was moving in slow motion, as if through water, and none of his blows seemed able to meet their mark. He began to pound at the monster's fist with his own, but again his punches slid away from their target. Agarash laughed at his struggles, its red eyes spouting fire. "It is you who must die, Kai upstart! How dare you bring your callow youth to combat my gifts of age?" "But you," cried Lone Wolf with difficulty as the monster's grip about his waist began to tighten yet further, "but you must be the one to die, Agarash, for you are already dead!" The monster looked briefly confused. "Am I?" it said. "Am I really?" "Aeons ago!" "How very curious. Do you mean to tell me that ...?" It spoke no more, for at that moment seven bright green darts shot past Lone Wolf's shoulders and assailed the creature's head and shoulders. Screaming, it released Lone Wolf, so that he tumbled back down towards the road, landing heavily, the senses jarred momentarily from him.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 23 When he had recovered himself he looked up to see Agarash staggering under the onslaught of the frail painted birds, which were ripping clutches of the monster's flesh from its body. As soon as it was separated, each slab of flesh dissolved away into a thin green mist, rapidly dispersed by an unfelt breeze. Within moments, as Lone Wolf watched, the huge form of the creature had been reduced to a pitifully stumbling armless, headless torso. Finally this last vestige dissolved of its own accord, to the excited tweeting of the triumphant birds. Where the colossus had stood there was now only the untidy figure of the small boy Rimoah, his hands on his waist. "Phew!" the boy said, looking up at the birds and then across to where Lone Wolf lay sprawled, Petra solicitous beside him. "Thanks, friends. I thought I was a goner there for sure until you guys came to rescue me. Imagine spending the rest of my life locked up inside that nasty great smelly monster." He came over to Lone Wolf and took him by the hand, helping him to his feet. With his other hand he reached out to take Petra's. "Let's all keep going now," he said. "It shouldn't be long until we get to Elzian if we just keep going." Lone Wolf looked over the top of the boy's head at Petra, baffled. She looked back at him, equally baffled. "I think we'd best do just as he says," she said reluctantly. "I don't see that we've got any choice." As they walked along the painted road with Rimoah chattering and swinging between them and the birds playing in the air above, Lone Wolf realized that his body was seemed totally unscathed by his struggles with Agarash and the bone-numbing fall he had sustained. He sent his Kai senses out through his own flesh and detected not even the signs of recent healing: it was as if his body had not been harmed in the first place, as if ... It's all illusion, he thought grimly. None of this has really been happening. "Oh yes it has," said Rimoah cheerfully. "Don't place so very much reliance on the evidence of your physical senses, Lone Wolf. You're always too ready to dismiss anything that isn't tangible and solid as if it didn't exist. You should understand that every experience you undergo is really just a collection of your perceptions of it, so that it really makes no difference whether or not the cause of the experience, the event that sparked it off, had an independent physical existence. Your experience is still real – still happened, like it or not." "You don't speak much like a small boy should," said Lone Wolf suspiciously, before the import of Rimoah's words had properly sunk in.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 24 "How do you know how a small boy should speak?" Lone Wolf was saved from having to try to answer this question by a sudden change in the nature of the road along which the three of them had been travelling for ... for minutes, maybe, or was it for hours? In place of the glossy, featureless green surface beneath their feet there was now cracked grey macadam with weeds growing through it. Glancing back, Lone Wolf noticed detachedly that the road had been like this all along. He also observed something else that he hadn't seen before: that in place of the empty stage to either side of the road there were steep, encroaching, ominous faces of sharp-edged slaty rock. He looked up and saw a narrow jagged band of cobalt sky between the tops of the cliff-faces. "What's happening?" said Petra. He had seen her cool and fearless in war, and yet now it was clear from the tremulousness of her voice that she was terrified. Like himself a warrior, she distrusted the workings of magic as much as he did. For himself, Lone Wolf felt a sort of icy detachedness that he knew came from being beyond terror, as if all this were happening to somebody else entirely and he were merely watching it. "I think we're being taken a very long way in a very short time," he said. "But I don't know if our guides – the children – are our friends or our foes." He looked down at Rimoah, dancing between them. "It seems hard to think of this little fellow as a foe, but ..." He let the words hang. For the first time the name of the boy registered on him. He'd surely heard it somewhere before, in some quite different context – spoken not in a child's voice, nor in his own, but ... "Banedon!" he exclaimed. "A good friend of mine!" burbled Rimoah cheerfully. "What are you talking about?" said Petra. "Banedon told us about you!" said Lone Wolf to the boy. "Don't you remember, Petra? When he told us the story around the campfire about how he'd come to Dessi and done battle with the Gagadoth? That was a monster of the mind, as well, just like the figure of Agarash the Damned was a monster born out of our minds a little while ago! Banedon told us about Rimoah – the Speaker for the High Council of the Elder Magi!" "But the Rimoah he told us of was an old man," said Petra, puzzled. "And a young man as well!" cried Lone Wolf. Again he looked down at the boy's dancing figure. "Banedon saw you not just as an ancient but as a youth, didn't he, Rimoah? There's no reason why you shouldn't appear to us as an infant, is there?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 25 "I can't think of any if you can't," said the child glibly, "but you're wrong when you say that the Agarash you tried to fight was merely born from your two minds. It was born from all the mortal minds of Magnamund, and it retains its grasp on existence because it still lives in those minds. The birds – the seven birds that were your saviours – they were the ones to be born from your mind, Lone Wolf. Not Petra's mind and not mine, Lone Wolf, but yours alone, for we are not versed in the lore of the Magnakai. Those are the birds of wisdom: they are the seven wisdoms that are already within you, requiring only the Lorestones to be released. One of them already flies free in the outer world, because of the Lorestone you gained in Tekaro, but the other six can only know their freedom here. For the moment. Until you have found the keys that will release each of them from its cage within you." Lone Wolf thought for a while as they continued to walk along the increasingly narrow road. "The birds seemed so weak, and yet they tore strong Agarash asunder," he said quietly. "So it is with wisdom," said the boy, his voice becoming deeper, more mature. "You cannot touch it or weigh it. It is not a weapon you can wield like the Sommerswerd – and yet it's a weapon for all that, and a much more powerful one once you have learnt to wield it aright." Petra, who had been silent for some time, suddenly said: "Where are you taking us, Rimoah? Where does this road lead?" "I'm taking you nowhere," said Rimoah, "because we're already there." Lone Wolf glancing at him, realized to his astonishment that all this while the person he'd taken to be a small boy was in fact a tall, someone stooping elderly man clad in a dark hooded robe. "Welcome to Elzian," Rimoah continued. "Welcome to the chamber of the High Council of the Elder Magi in the Tower of Truth. My fellows and I are glad that you both have come to us here." Lone Wolf looked up and saw, as he had half-way expected, that the cliff-tops overhead had now knitted together to form a perfect dome, cutting off altogether the sky's shine. As he let his gaze fall once more he saw all the colours and lines of the cliff-faces themselves melt and resort themselves until it seemed obvious to him that he had only mistaken them for cliff-faces, that but for a flaw in his vision he would have seen them for what they were: the walls of a great domed room, with raised benches in galleries around its edges, and with himself and Rimoah and Petra standing on a green marble platform at its centre being coolly observed by the eyes of the countless hooded figures who sat in silence all around them on those benches.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 26 "And tell me, what title would you wish to give our play?" said Rimoah.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 27

2 TWO ARE ONE What little light there was in the chamber hung heavy in the air, as if draped there like skeins of grey finespun wool. Lone Wolf, still breathless from the sudden transition, stared around at the serried ranks of the Elder Magi, playing for time as much as anything else. He could hear Petra gasping beside him, and assumed that she must be doing much the same. Rimoah was observing the two of them with cool amusement; Lone Wolf imagined that he could see blue eyes shining from the gloom inside the old man's hood. "I can think of no title for your play," he said at last, "but my congratulations to the players." Rimoah threw back his hood and smiled. His face was a crystallization of all things aged. Taut, parchment-like yellow skin clung to the bones of his skull. What little hair he had was the white of an untrodden snowfield. His eyes were, as Lone Wolf had imagined them, blue and calculating, and yet not without an impish humour – there was still left in their gaze something of the small boy who had been so disruptive at the supper table. "Whatever happened to Nyxator?" said Petra, filling the silence. "Nyxator? Surely you know what happened to Nyxator," said Rimoah. "He was destroyed by Agarash the Damned at the core of the ..." "No," said Petra. "That's not what I meant. Nyxator in the play. Lianda. The girl-child who was dressed up in the costume of scales." "She had no further part in the play," said Rimoah. "At least, not in its first act, which is all that it is right for you to see as yet. Later, perhaps, when you realize the power that wisdom has to create as well as destroy, then will come the time that the act in which Nyxator performs can be born from your minds." "Where are our horses?" asked Lone Wolf suddenly, conscious of the banality of his question. "We left them stabled behind the House of the Stove in Lamoas, and ..." "Do not fear, Lone Wolf," said Rimoah. "Your animals have been brought here to Elzian, albeit not by the same route as yourselves. They are now settled in a stables near to our Tower of Truth. You may shortly go to satisfy yourselves as to their welfare." All this while the assembled Councillors had been observing them in silence, save for the occasional rustling of their robes, but now there was a slight commotion as Petra suddenly strode to the edge of the dais and pointed to one of the mages in

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 28 the front row. "I see you," she said clearly. "You're Lianda, aren't you?" The woman slowly rose to her feet, nodding in acknowledgement, and pushed aside her hood to reveal her face, which displayed the same gravity and, curiously, the same quality of youth in its time-chiselled lines. As with Rimoah, her eyes were not entirely those of an old woman. "Yes, I am Lianda. I played the part of Nyxator in our entertainment." "But you're so beautiful!" Petra exclaimed. "Why do you dress yourself up in the folds of an aged body?" As soon as she'd spoken the words she flushed, sucking in her thin lips. Lianda laughed. "You must be very young, child," she said at last, "still to think that beauty is a prerequisite only of youth, and that age holds no joys of its own. Besides, were I to wear a body as old as I truly am, in terms of the ways in which you people count years, you would see how youthful my current aspect actually is." Petra, still obviously embarrassed by her own forthrightness, glanced imploringly at Lone Wolf. "Tell me," he said to Rimoah, "we are grateful to you and your fellows for having brought us here, and for having saved us so many weary miles of travel, but why have you done so?" Disconcertingly, it was Lianda who replied. "Our magic does not permit us to foretell exactly what the future holds," she said. "We think it is not truly within power of any magic to do that. However, it was, shall we say, unsurprising to us that you, Lone Wolf, and your ally Petra should come among us at about this time. This we were told not only by the powers of our divination but also as a matter of straightforward logic." She paused and smiled; there was a treasurehouse of beauty in her smile. "It's always reassuring when mundane logic backs up the mystical bit, you know, as I'm sure Banedon must have told you time and again." Both Lone Wolf and Petra grinned. Lianda's words could indeed have fallen from the lips of their friend. "We have been watching you for a long time, Lone Wolf," Lianda continued. "From about the time, indeed, that you were struck by a low-hanging branch while you were out collecting wood for the Monastery's furnaces one early morning." Lone Wolf started. "But that means ...?" "Yes, it does. From almost the very moment that Alyss the Outsider chose in her somewhat quirky wisdom to select you as the representative who would survive Zagarna's massacre of all the others of your Order, that cruel equinox long years ago – chose you as your Order's last hope in the perpetuation of its lore. Since then our eyes have followed you wherever you have quested, and

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 29 we have recorded in our minds your exploits. It was clear to us that, just as your predecessor Sun Eagle came to us, so would you. We were looking over your shoulder as you worked to decipher the Book of the Magnakai, and we saw your surge of triumph as at last you came across those few lines that set you off to gather the Lorestones of Nyxator. We were at your side as you strove to conquer the dakomyd that guarded the first of those Lorestones, and we saw your failure. And we were even there with you in the field that Gwynian and your other Gestalt entity created for you in the hidden hinterlands that lie between this mortal existence and its afterlife. So it was, in that moment, that we came to know that next you should seek the Lorestone of Herdos; it took little of our wisdom to guess that you would do as you should, and that Petra would accompany you." "But what about me?" said Petra, once again forgetting her courtesy. It was easy to forget formal courtesy in the presence of these people, for, despite the austerity of their appearance and their surroundings, they radiated a casual friendliness – the same quality, in fact, as they had in their incarnations as children at the House of the Stove. "How did you know that I might join Lone Wolf? That I did so was merely a matter of a sudden whim! However closely you were watching me, you couldn't have known that I would suddenly decide that I needed to seek adventure at his side! I didn't know myself that I would do so until the messenger from Ormond's court arrived, and I ... I ... That's curious." She rubbed her cheek thoughtfully with the heel of her hand. "Now that I come to think of it, I'm not really certain what it was that made me wish to depart the Monastery. I was eager to see if the spring crops would be successful. In the normal way, wild horses wouldn't have ... and yet, a sudden whim ..." She froze, then looked up at Lianda, who was shrugging apologetically. "That," said Petra deliberately, "is not funny. I'm going. I'm going now. I'm going back to the Monastery. Lead me to my horse." Lone Wolf flinched as her gaze tracked across him, thankful that he was not the object of her fury. Even Rimoah seemed uncomfortable at the way her wrathful blue eyes bore into his. The old man shuffled uneasily. "It is not your entitlement," said Petra, her voice like a whip, "no matter what your power and wisdom and no matter what the worthiness of your aims, to toy with the minds of those whom you no doubt consider to be lesser mortals. It should have been my decision – mine and mine alone – as to whether or not I wished to join Lone Wolf on this quest. You had no right to make that decision for me."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 30 "But we ..." Rimoah stammered. "There are no buts! You played God with me, Rimoah, and I resent it! Whatever your motives, their importance is as nothing by comparison with the seriousness of the crime you have committed in raping my mind! I'm going! Lead me to my horse so that I can get out of here. If the only way that you can get people to do as you wish them to is by turning them into puppets, then it's not worth it, do you hear? Not – worth – it!" "Petra ..." began Lone Wolf feebly. "You keep out of this! I don't blame you for what your new-found friends have done, but you're significantly easier to hit than they are!" In the midst of her wrath she gave him an incongruously affectionate smile. "Will you wait perhaps a few minutes, Petra?" said Rimoah, his voice becoming strong and overriding her further protests. "Will you give us time to think among ourselves, and to make our apologies and explanations to you, so that you may perhaps reconsider your actions? Please?" "A few minutes, then," said Petra after an uncomfortably long pause. "For Lone Wolf's sake. I would not wishfully let him go to his death for reason of my absence, simply because of your obscene violation of my will." Her eyes still terrifyingly incandescent, she stood staring in turn at Lianda and Rimoah, her legs set apart and her hands on her hips. Lone Wolf had seen Petra in many guises before, but never had he seen her as the embodiment of such naked fury – never, indeed, had he seen her so willingly display such an intensity of any of the passions. It gave her a splendour that transcended any normal meaning of beauty. He was fearful of her, despite all the assuaging influences of his own Kai qualities; fearful also for her. He was like a suitor terrified by the enchantment of his cherished one while at the same time drawn inexorably by it. He felt that if he so much as stepped forward and touched her with his fingertips she might break. The conference among the Elder Magi was a silent one. Lone Wolf could sense that it was happening, because of the flow of their alien soul-stuffs around the interior of the chamber, but he had no knowledge of its nature – whether there were angry recriminations or amicable agreements or merely a fusion of minds to deal with an unanticipated problem. Lianda, he thought ruefully, was quite right when she said that their magic couldn't foretell precisely what the future would hold. And then his thoughts trickled on, following a not entirely logical course, to wonder why it was that Petra objected so strongly to the Elder Magi having forced a decision on her to come to Dessi but yet seemed unconcerned by the much greater tampering those same individuals had enacted on her mind

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 31 and his own in order to bring the two of them, through the medium of the "play", from Lamoas to here. It must be the furtiveness of the earlier deed ... "We owe you an apology," said Rimoah suddenly. "It has taken you all this while to come to that conclusion?" Petra spoke sardonically. "It was evident from the outset that you owed me at least that much." "Let me finish, my child," said the old man mildly. "I am not your child. I am not a child at all." "Yes you are!" It was Rimoah's turn to use sharp words. Immediately, however, his tone softened once more. "We are all children here. It is perhaps the greatest gift that the Gods have given to us here in the world – that we are still children, even if not everyone can, like ourselves, don childish forms to express that youth." "It is my turn to apologize," said Petra. "You are wise to correct me. I spoke in haste and in anger." Rimoah looked briefly surprised at her acquiescence – As well you might, thought Lone Wolf – but continued. "We were indeed wrong to meddle with your volition by forcing a decision upon you which otherwise you would not have taken. We can offer no excuses for our crime, although perhaps we may offer some explanations. In the light of those, perhaps you will understand the reasons for our folly – for our crime – and thus be able to bring yourself to forgive it, and us." "Speak on," said Petra. She swung her gaze around the scores of hooded figures, conscious that she was the subject of their undivided attention. "I do not wish to be unreasonable." "First, we ask you to bear in mind that we are an isolated race. What commerce we have with the outside world is but slight, and most often it is mundane. In the remoteness of this forest land we too easily come to forget the dignities to which other mortals are entitled." "Too right," muttered Petra tersely. Rimoah spread his hands towards her. "I seek to explain," he said. "I listen." "Second, it is our belief that the attainment by Lone Wolf of the Lorestones is a matter of such fundamental importance to the future of this world of Magnamund that the furtherance of that mission would seem to override all other considerations, even those of individual integrity and freedom. While we should certainly have been more open in our persuasion of you to assist him in this mission, do not make any mistake about our ultimate intention to achieve our purpose. Had you declined our open persuasion we would, anyway, have resorted to force or subterfuge in order to

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 32 ensure your presence here. You see, Petra, I am being entirely open to you now." Lone Wolf was astonished. What Rimoah was saying seemed calculated to fan the flames of Petra's fury, and yet his words were evidently having the opposite effect, for she was nodding her head in agreement. "I am a warrior myself," she said grimly, "and I know only too well how sometimes one must use deception against one's allies as much as one's enemies in order to assure a virtuous outcome." Rimoah visibly relaxed. "I have given you our explanations," he said. "As I said, they are not excuses. And, while the first may be taken to constitute a form of apology, the second cannot. I fear that, should you still wish to desert us, there is nothing more that I can say to persuade you." Again he opened his hands to Petra, as if to symbolize that he bore no weapons of persuasion now except his good will. "Your explanations seem plausibly sound enough to me," said Petra, tapping a foot, "and I accept that part of them which is an apology. The other part I will perhaps likewise accept once you have told me why it is that my presence here should be so important. If I agree with your judgement as to that, then I shall provide both yourselves and Lone Wolf with every assistance that it is within my power to offer." "We could ask for no more," said Rimoah sombrely. "I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we agree to your terms." The old man cast his eye rapidly around the ranks of his fellows. None of them seem to acknowledge his glance, and yet Lone Wolf sensed that they were each somehow transmitting their agreement to their Speaker. "There," said Rimoah. "That is done. We are as one in this." Lianda, who had been still as a statue all this while, moved at last. She stepped forward and took Petra's elbow in an affectionate gesture. For a moment Lone Wolf thought that the tall young warrior was going to throw off the older woman's grasp, but then Petra's posture lost its rigidity, and she allowed herself to be led forward to where the two men were standing. "To explain why Lone Wolf needs you," said Rimoah, speaking more casually now, "we must first of all explain to him the nature of the task that confronts him." He gestured to the other three to move backwards a pace or two, then waved his hand over the floor of the platform. There was no flash of light or any other sign that magic was being worked, but at his behest a circular line opened in the marble, and then a cylindrical portion of the solid dark-green rock slowly rose up until its top was at about waist-height.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 33 "Our own fate is bound to yours, Lone Wolf," said Rimoah ruminatively, as if to himself, "and yours is bound to this warrior woman's. It is strange how fate seems to form chains of consequence, is it not?" Lone Wolf nodded mutely. Rimoah shrugged, then again waved his hand in a curiously complicated movement, this time over the flat top of the cylindrical column. The marble surface shimmered, and was a lake of shiny molten metal, whiter than silver. Lone Wolf flinched away from it briefly. As with many of the transitions that had occurred during the Elder Magi's bizarre "play", it was not as if the marble surface had changed but more as if it had revealed to his eyes a form of itself which he had been hitherto too lacking in perception to notice. The old man went down upon one knee, so that his face was level with the metal's skin. Reaching out with his left hand he delicately touched the very tip of his little finger to the surface, blowing gently through pursed lips across the mirror as he did so. Small wavelets spread rapidly over the metal from both his fingertip and his breath, and in the area between the two formed a complex network of tiny intersecting crests, which remained there as blemishes on the surface after the original wavelets had died. As Lone Wolf watched, the network suddenly spread out all over the metal, and then, equally abruptly, the crests themselves seemed to melt and flow and become alive. He was looking at a living picture whose lines and colours, through their boldness and intensity, seemed somehow to be realer than reality itself could have made them. "Here," said Rimoah gravely, "is Kazan-Oud." Lone Wolf saw the black, rippled waters of a moonlit lake. High above it the disc of Ishir graced the sky with three-quarters of the Goddess's face. Nothing rose above the surface of the ominous water except a single craggy island, its shore a mask of seamed rock. Squatting astride the island was a lightless fortress, a reptilian mass of polished dark stone that seemed to suck in and devour the energy of the air around it. "Kazan-Oud," said Rimoah again, "the Castle of Death. You can see it from Herdos, two hundred miles to the northwest of here. It is there in Kazan-Oud, deep in is unhallowed halls, that the Lorestone of Herdos has rested these past thousand years or more, waiting for another such as Sun Eagle to have the courage and ability to penetrate the walls of Kazan-Oud's invisible Evil to claim its wisdom. You, Lone Wolf, may be that other. For the sake of us all, I dearly hope so."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 34 Lone Wolf glanced at Rimoah. The old man's face was set in bleak and stonelike lines. The casual amiability that had marked it before was gone, and in its place Lone Wolf saw doubt. "I swear upon my soul that I will try," he said. "It may be your soul that is at stake," said Lianda quietly. "Cheery bunch, aren't you?" said Petra. "Wouldn't it be simpler if we just all cut our own throats?" Her words punctured the spell of gloom that had sprung up in the chamber. Lone Wolf began to laugh softly. The laughter was not echoed by either Rimoah or Lianda, nor by the other Councillors of the Elder Magi, but nevertheless even they seemed to ease a little. "Petra's right," Lone Wolf said. "If we carry on talking like that too long, then we're defeated before we've even begun." And you, Petra, he thought, have already given me enough of a reason, even if it's not the one the Elder Magi thought of, why you should be here alongside me. "You speak truly," said Lianda. "Both of you. Still, it will not serve you to underestimate the power of the necromancy that protects Kazan-Oud from those who would trespass within it. Even we, with all the powers of our ancient magic, can do no more than restrict that evil right-handed magic to the centre of the lake, so that it may not spread throughout the land, corrupting everything that it touches. Even the higher orders of magic that we have learnt about from the mind of your friend Banedon could likely effect no greater a restraint upon it." Lone Wolf was impressed, and somewhat daunted. "And so what makes you think that Petra and I might prevail where all your magic fails?" he said. "Your Kai abilities and Petra's valour and purity of heart," said Lianda promptly. Lone Wolf frowned. He would have appreciated his own valour and purity of heart being added to the list. Lianda seemed to read his mind – and quite possibly did – for she added: "We do not wish to decry those qualities in yourself, Lone Wolf, but if you turn inwards and read your own self you will understand why we said that." Again he frowned. He rather reluctantly looked inside himself, as Lianda had suggested, and immediately saw her meaning. Petra was manifestly prepared to venture inside Kazan-Oud and risk all its perils without having, as he did, the shield of any Kai lore or ability. Either she had a quality of valour that he himself no longer possessed or she was guilty of folly – and no one could ever called her a fool. And she could lay greater claim, too, to purity of heart, for her courage had a freshness and youth that had long gone from his own. He remembered how, months ago, he had seen evidence of its departure when he had

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 35 found himself killing outlaws by the side of the Ruanon Pike and realized that he could have used his abilities instead to spare their lives. He still had faith in his own virtue, but it was a matured quality that was no longer the same as Petra's purity. "I accept your perception," said Lone Wolf. "It is a true one." Lianda smiled at him. "It is a sign of your own virtue that you should," she said. "You say that Sun Eagle found a way to penetrate this Evil?" said Lone Wolf. "No," said Rimoah. "When he came here the forces that guarded Kazan-Oud were mortal ones. Their Evil was not trivial, and they were stern foes, but they could be slain by mundane means. He displayed great bravery in conquering them – anything less and he would have died – but in those days it was possible for any mortal brave enough and strong enough to battle through to the heart of Kazan-Oud. Since then, however, the malevolence that enshrouds the place has swollen, as if all of its evils have bred together. Clearly the hands of Naar and his Nadziranim are behind this, for now the Evil goes far beyond the mundane. As I say, it is as much as all our magic can do simply to constrain it. The day cannot surely be far off when it becomes too great for any barrier we create to stand up against it, and on that day Dessi must assuredly be doomed. And, after Dessi ..." Rimoah needed to say no more: the implications were clear enough. After Dessi had fallen it could surely not be long before Kazan-Oud's malevolence had spread its shadows all across the Lastlands. "You say that others have tried to penetrate Kazan-Oud since then?" said Petra. "Yes." Rimoah looked sorrowful. "Brave warriors have come here from all over the Lastlands, and even from other nations of Magnamund, and have lost their lives – some sooner, some later, but all in the end have perished. If anyone is to succeed it will be you two." "I shall indeed stay and help you," murmured Petra, as if it had been a foregone conclusion. She was staring in fascination at the moving picture portrayed where the shining metal surface had been. Lone Wolf could see the light of determination in her eyes. He wondered if Rimoah and the others realized that what they had done was to present Petra with a challenge which she deemed to be worthy of her. "I am glad," said Rimoah. Lianda muttered her agreement. There was a rustle of concord among the rest of the Councillors. "What form of help can you give us?" said Lone Wolf.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 36 "We will give you as much help as we can," said Lianda. "Surely you must know that. As to the nature of that help – it is perhaps best if you wait until you reach Herdos before we explain it to you." Lone Wolf looked at her suspiciously. Her face revealed no sign of trickery, and so he decided not to question her further. "How shall we get to Herdos?" said Petra. "Will you show us another of your `plays'?" Rimoah laughed deeply. "No," he said. "I think you have seen enough of the `all-singing, all-dancing House of the Stove Thespian Troupette' for now. Instead, I suggest you sail the skies." # Lone Wolf had travelled in one of the Elder Magi's skyships before. Some years earlier Banedon had ventured here and had been given one of the aethereal vessels as a reward for ridding the land of a monster that preyed on human minds, the Gagadoth. On this vessel Lone Wolf had journeyed with him across the deserts of Vassagonia to the Tomb of the Majhan, the ancient resting place of the Book of the Magnakai. But Petra had only heard tell of the skyship, and her eyes were wide as Rimoah and Lianda, bearing torches, led the two Sommlending out from the base of the Tower of Truth and across a series of dark, deserted streets and courtyards to a brightly lit rooftop platform where some half-dozen of the craft were tethered. It was clear which of them was to carry them northwest: only one of the craft bore torches on its mast and bows. From it hung several rope ladders, up and down which several youthful-seeming mages were clambering laden with bales of provisions. "When do we sail?" said Lone Wolf, looking upwards at the floating golden hull. "We'll have everything shipped aboard by dawn," said Rimoah. "If you leave soon after that, you should be in Herdos by noon. We anticipate storms later in the day, so it would be best if you departed early." "Then let it be dawn," said Petra, her fingers twitching nervously on the pommel of her sword. Clearly she didn't want to delay their voyage any longer than was necessary. The sleeping accommodations with which they were provided were startlingly primitive, bearing in mind how luxurious the magic of the Elder Magi could have easily rendered them. In fact, Lone Wolf realized, nowhere around Elzian had he seen the kind of ostentation which would surely be within the magicians' abilities to create. Clearly the Elder Magi tended towards austerity in terms of their material comforts.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 37 He gave Petra the choice of which of the two bales of straw she would prefer to sleep on, and she opted for the one under the unpaned slit window. Before they could settle down to sleep, however, the two Sommlending made a rigorous check of their equipment. There was no reason to believe that anything could have gone missing since last they'd checked it, just before setting off through the foothills for Lamoas, but both of them instinctively displayed a warrior's caution. The image of Kazan-Oud, as he had seen it in Rimoah's scrying column, kept coming back before Lone Wolf's eyes, and he had to make a conscious effort to force from his mind both it and the sullen dread it inspired in him. It was long after midnight before they had finished, and then the two of them threw themselves on their separate pallets, not even bothering to undress. Lone Wolf slept deeply and dreamlessly for the few remaining hours of the night. Rimoah came for them himself not long before dawn, gliding ahead of them through the bare white corridors of the house in which they had lodged and out into the still desolate street. As they blinked their eyes in the wet light from the rising Sun Lone Wolf wondered, not for the first time, why it was that Elzian seemed to be totally deserted. He muttered something to this effect to Petra, who looked at him in exasperation. "If you were a magician," she said, "would you necessarily want to go everywhere on foot?" Rimoah, hearing this exchange, turned and grinned at them. His face had lost all of its gloominess of the night before: the little boy was once again in residence. Soon they were at the rooftop dock of the skyships. It was surely merely an illusion, but they one on which they were to travel seemed to have settled more heavily in the air. Standing at the base of the sole remaining rope ladder was a tall young man with sharp-cornered, swift-moving eyes and a skin of a smooth brown that reminded Lone Wolf, inevitably, of Qinefer. Unlike her, however, this man had a long mane of flaxen hair, loosely plaited behind his neck. He was of about the same height as Lone Wolf, but even more burly around the shoulders. His eyes rested more than briefly on Petra, holding herself trimly in her rumpled tunic and her furred jacket, and Lone Wolf could see his lips purse. He was dressed in a crashingly loud costume of gold and scarlet which Lone Wolf knew to be the uniform of the Vakeros, the warrior-magicians of Dessi. "Hail, Paido," said Rimoah, bowing his head formally. "Hail, my lord Rimoah," said the brawny youth. "`Paido'?" said Petra. "I thought that was a girl's name among the Elder Magi?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 38 "It is," said the youth with a smile. "We met in the House of the Stove last night. And now, if you would wish to embark?" He gestured towards the dangling ladder, which moved restlessly in the breeze. Petra hefted her pack and, with a look of determinedly controlled fear on her face, walked over to the ladder and set her foot on the first rung. There she paused, nodded a farewell to Rimoah, and then began to climb. Lone Wolf remained staring at Paido. "You're wondering why I should have chosen to present myself in the aspect of a girl," said Paido easily. "So many of you Lastlanders have that sort of worry. You'll forgive me if I find it amusing. I'll be finding it even more amusing before this day is done." Lone Wolf was too flabbergasted to pick up this last remark. He had seen the youth's appreciative regard for Petra, and now he recalled that in the House of the Stove having half-noticed that the girl in grey's glance had from time to time lingered a little overlong on the warrior woman. Such indications seemed to Lone Wolf to clash with Paido's apparent willingness to take on female form. Then he shrugged, leaving it as a mystery that was irrelevant to him at the moment. He turned to Rimoah. "I bid you farewell," he said with respectful formality. "I thank you for your kindness and guidance, and for the aid you have promised me." Yet again the image of Kazan-Oud came into his mind, but he banished it instantly and his voice hardly faltered. "I trust it shall not be many days before we see each other again." "Not many days, Lone Wolf," concurred Rimoah. "If you live." Moments later Lone Wolf was clambering up the struggling rope ladder towards the golden hull of their skyship. His heavy pack seemed to have taken on a life of its own, swinging him around unpredictably in the light dawn winds. He remembered having made equally undignified exhibitions of himself while boarding and unboarding Banedon's Skyrider, and smiled. He hoped that Petra was watching: she was clearly scared by the prospect of sailing through the skies, and it would be good for her to see him in such confusion. The vessel he found himself on, the Starry Messenger, was strongly reminiscent of the Skyrider but a little larger and certainly a great deal tidier. There seemed to be something missing, and for a few seconds Lone Wolf puzzled as to what it could be. Then he realized that what he was sensing was the absence of the Borean dwarfs who served as Banedon's crew: even when the little men were silent there was a sort of subliminal aura of bustle and

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 39 commotion in their vicinity. He smiled at his memories of their boisterous, waspish quarrelsomeness. Paido's crew numbered only four, and they were quiet, reserved men – or, at least, they appeared to be men. Petra was leaning on the rail, her pack dumped on the deck by her feet, tension showing in every line of her body. Lone Wolf came up beside her, depositing his own pack. "You might find it easier if you went below for the duration," he said mildly. "I'm sure I would," she said tersely, "which is why I'm staying up here." He looked sideways at her. She was staring fixedly at the dark horizon on the far side of the sky from the rising Sun, whose light caught her shortish pale hair and made it seem as if she had a frail halo. She was chewing her lips agitatedly and her face was white. "You don't have to prove yourself to me, you know," said Lone Wolf. "I've seen your bravery for myself." "I know. It's not that." "Or to Paido," he suggested shyly. She snorted. "Don't fancy him, and even if I did ... It's not that, either. I guess I have to prove myself to myself, or something. No, that's wrong, too." She didn't expand, but Lone Wolf knew what she meant. By exposing herself entirely to the source of her terror she hoped to conquer it. He moved to leave her. "But I wouldn't mind your arm around my shoulders for a little while," she added offhandedly. Lone Wolf complied. The muscles across her upper back were initially like steel ropes, but he could feel them relaxing slowly under his touch. # Half an hour later, Elzian and the Tower of Truth far behind them, they were sailing over the emerald-green forests of Dessi. The trees were like a sea beneath them, broken rarely by roads and rivers. In the distance Lone Wolf could see a great grey gash cutting across the greenness, like a deep and terrible wound festering on the flesh of some alien creature, and he guessed that this must be the Chasm of Gorgoron, into which – or into some mental analogue of which – Banedon had descended in order to duel with the Gagadoth. He wondered if the wound would, now that the poison at its heart had been removed, slowly heal over and in the course of years be lost to sight. He said as much to Paido, who had joined them at the rail.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 40 "Perhaps," said the Vakeros, rubbing his freshly shaven chin, "but I think not. The Gagadoth was born from the minds of mortals and, however often it is killed, it will never die – or, at least, not for a longer time than either you or I will live, Lone Wolf. But it may be a long time, thanks to Banedon, before it revives to plague us. The whole of our nation is thankful to him for that – and also, of course, for the insights he gave us into the higher orders of left-handed magic." "He's nobody's fool, Banedon," said Petra, breaking her silence for the first time since the Starry Messenger had cleared the broad circular canal that surrounded the city of Elzian, "whatever he looks like. He's a good man." Lone Wolf nodded his agreement, feeling vaguely embarrassed, as if it had been himself whom Petra had praised. Despite all their superficial differences and frequent bickering, he and Banedon had become too close companions for him ever really to notice what the magician looked like or seemed like. "Tell me something of the Vakeros," he said to Paido to change the subject. "What is there to tell that you can't guess?" said Paido. "The land of Dessi is largely left alone by the rest of the world, not just because to the unperceptive it seems to hold so little promise but also because we of the Elder Magi have constructed an elaborate web of spells around our borders which dissuades all but the most persistent of those who might wish us ill from entering. I gather from what Banedon revealed to us that your Sommlending Brotherhood of the Crystal Star have something similar surrounding their city of Toran, although their forcefield is much more intense than ours could ever be, spread out as it is over such a long boundary. Every few years the tribesmen of southern Vassagonia stop squabbling among themselves for long enough to try and mount an invasion over the mountains. It is the task of we Vakeros to dampen their ardour." "Wouldn't it be easier simply to blast them magically?" said Lone Wolf. "True," said Paido with a grin, "but we of the Elder Magi are more merciful than that. Besides, we have no wish to advertise to the world quite how great our abilities and resources truly are. We use only battle magic in our occasional skirmishes with the Vassagonians, and then but sparingly – mostly we rely on our normal martial skills." "Something puzzles me," said Petra. "You keep referring to yourself as of the Elder Magi, and yet manifestly you are not of their race." "The Elder Magi long ago abandoned any notion of physical heredity," said Paido. "Most of us are a mixture of the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 41 race who came here seven and a half thousand years ago, who were the original Elder Magi, and the aboriginal race of Dessi, who took the refugees into their land and made them welcome. In return the Elder Magi gave those aboriginals the powers of magic that they had brought with them, and soon the two races became as one. People from other parts of Magnamund have joined us since then, in ones and twos, and have become Elder Magi in their turn. It's not something that we think about too much – the concordance of minds is a lot thicker than blood, after all. We wouldn't be so conscious of you two being Sommlending were it not for the fact that you are so constantly aware of it yourselves." "But your appearance is so different," she persisted. "I look much like one of the old Dessi aboriginals at the moment," said Paido. "Partly because I choose to do so and partly because that is my natural appearance, the way I was born. I'm unusual in that." And were you born a male or a female? wondered Lone Wolf. "None of us is born entirely one or the other," replied Paido, clearly not noticing that Lone Wolf hadn't spoken aloud. "My body was male, if that's what you want to know, but like all of the Elder Magi my spirit contains both male and female aspects. The same is true of you Sommlending, but you rather comically – in our eyes – choose to disguise the fact from yourselves." "It is a part of Sun Eagle's teachings that a Kai Master should recognize both aspects and learn to meld them together," said Lone Wolf, wondering why he found himself suddenly on the defensive. He thought of the Nameless Woman, who was as much an aspect of himself as was Gwynian, the wizened old man who represented the other Gestalt entity of which Lone Wolf was a part. "We Sommlending are not as primitive as you seem to think." "Then you will both find yourselves well prepared for what you will experience tonight," said Paido cryptically. Lone Wolf pounced on the remark. "You said something like that before. What do you mean by it?" Paido spread his hands, shrugging. "It is better if you wait and see," he said. "That's Rimoah's line," said Petra caustically. "We're overdue for a few explanations of what we must undergo if we are to succeed in penetrating Kazan-Oud's defences." "I understand your frustration, but Rimoah spoke wisely." More than that Paido declined to tell them. Later, as they strolled around the deck, Petra by now having recovered her confidence to the extent that most of the time she could walk without Lone Wolf's support, Lone Wolf found himself talking about his exploits in Vassagonia, and about the battles he himself had had with the Zultan's men. He stopped short

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 42 when he noticed that an expression of pain had come to the Vakeros's countenance. "Have I said something wrong?" "No," replied Paido. "It's just that your tales remind me of my brother Kasin. He told similar stories of the desert in Vassagonia – he once had to lead a party into the Dry Main to recover some children whom the tribesmen had abducted. He was a brave man, my brother, braver than I could lay claim to myself. But foolhardy." "Dead?" said Petra. "Dead," said Paido, speaking the single syllable with a flat finality. "The Vassagonian desert dwellers are cruel," murmured Lone Wolf. "No," said Paido with a sigh. "Nothing like that at all. He came to believe that he had the strength and skill to venture into the heart of Kazan-Oud and slay the Evil there. Like so many before him, instead he was slain by it, and we never saw him again. If you come across his bones in that foul place, look upon them with my sibling love." There were unashamed tears in the Vakeros's eyes. Paido's words and obvious emotion filled Lone Wolf with gloom once more. So many warriors had died attempting the downfall of Kazan-Oud's Evil, it was impossible to convince himself that he might succeed where they had failed. And yet he was oddly reassured by the way in which Petra had managed at least in part to govern her own visceral terror of travelling by skyship: she, too, must at some time have regarded the prospect as insurmountable, and yet she had forced herself to persevere. They ate a late breakfast in the middle of the morning. The fresh cold air among the clouds had given them ravenous appetites, and they said little as they tore with their teeth at the fresh bread and grilled fish that one of the crew had prepared for them. In the distance ahead of them they could see a tangle of peaks that represented the Carcos Range; closer by was shining ribbon of the River Doi. Paido, his meal finished, pointed out these landmarks to them and drew their attention also to the bank of stormclouds advancing towards them from the east. "Rimoah was wise to instruct us to leave Elzian at dawn," he commented. "Myself, I thought he was being unduly pessimistic. I would have chosen to spend another hour in my warm bed." Lone Wolf remembered the uncomfortable straw pallets on which he and Petra had slept. Perhaps Paido had used magic to alter his own perceptions of his surroundings, or perhaps the Elder Magi simply had little consideration for the comfort of their guests.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 43 Soon they could see the domed buildings of Herdos itself, nestling around the shore of a dead-looking body of water that Lone Wolf realized must be the one he had seen in the Tower of Truth. He called upon his Kai abilities to increase the farness of his seeing, and could eventually discern, in the middle of the lake, the steep-shored island with the obscene-seeming fortress of Kazan-Oud squatting atop it. He tried to bring the image of the place into a clearer focus but found, to his puzzlement, that it was impossible: there seemed to be some kind of pale green shimmering mist in the way. He turned to ask Paido about this, but found that the young Vakeros had gone below to the skyship's privy. By the time he returned, a few minutes later, Lone Wolf had forgotten the question, for Petra was asking him to describe the sights that her own unaided vision could still not see. Lone Wolf was glad enough of the distraction, for that first glimpse of Kazan-Oud as a physical object rather than as a picture had brought a sudden return of the dread that had tormented him earlier. He wondered if perhaps the dread was a projection from Kazan-Oud itself, a part of the evil fortress's necromantic armoury. He tried to shrug it way from himself as he chattered with Petra, who now seemed perfectly at home aboard the Starry Messenger. Less than an hour passed before they were above a broad landing stage not far from the lakeshore at Herdos. The town they had crossed looked to Lone Wolf as if it might house two or three thousand souls. Neither the public buildings nor the private homes were more than a couple of storeys high, although the domes of the former made them somehow seem much taller. The one exception to the general rule of squatness was a tower near to the small harbour of Herdos; the glass of its dome radiated an almost invisibly pale green light that reminded Lone Wolf of the mist that had seemed to come between his eyes and Kazan-Oud when he had been peering over the forest. Once again he turned to ask Paido about this, and once again the youth was elsewhere, this time aiding his crew as they cast ladders and ropes over the vessel's sides as she sank lower and lower towards the flagstoned landing stage. After that all was commotion and bustle, and in what seemed to Lone Wolf to be an astonishingly short space of time they were standing on the landing stage being greeted by a detachment of Vakeros guards with, at their head, and elderly robed man whom Paido introduced to them as Ardan, Speaker of the Council of Herdos. Ardan greeted them warmly, obviously already knowing as much about them as did Rimoah and Paido. Lone Wolf was unsurprised by this, having already gleaned the sense that, when speaking to any single individual of the Elder Magi, one was speaking to them all. Talking to Ardan was rather

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 44 like continuing a conversation that one couldn't remember having started. "We apologize for the hardness of your beds last night," Ardan was saying to Petra, "but it was something that simply slipped our minds. We of the Elder Magi are so accustomed to adjusting our environment as we go that we forgot that such an ability is not shared by the other peoples of Magnamund. It was discourteous of us. I do hope you will forgive us, milady, but ..." "I didn't notice that our beds were uncomfortable," said Petra firmly, walking alongside the floating figure of the ancient as they left the landing stage. "Perhaps Lone Wolf was more aware of them than I." Liar! thought Lone Wolf. "Of course," said Paido at his elbow. As Lone Wolf turned towards him the young man's smile faded. "This is where our ways must part, at least for a while, Lone Wolf," he said clumsily. "I shall of course never be far from you in spirit until you enter" – he swallowed, gesturing with his head towards the blackened finger of rock at the centre of the lake – "that place, but my frame will soon be on its way back to Elzian." "It has been good travelling with you," said Lone Wolf, realizing to his surprise that he meant it. "I hope that we meet again soon." Paido continued gazing towards the island, and Kazan-Oud, and it was clear where his thoughts were taking him. It was all too likely that no one would meet Lone Wolf again after he had ventured there. "One more thing," said Paido, clearly even more embarrassed than before. "Take good care of ... her." Lone Wolf laughed. "I think, my friend," he said, clapping the man on his gold and scarlet shoulder, "that it is more a question of Petra taking good care of me. But be assured that I would lay down my life, if need be, to preserve hers." "Is that truly spoken?" said Paido shrewdly, his head on one side. Lone Wolf thought of all that hung on his own survival, and found himself weighing the future of Magnamund against the life of his friend. "As truly as it can be," he said at length. Then, before Paido could speak further, he was hurrying after Ardan's troop, and Petra in its midst. # "You can't mean that!" said Lone Wolf.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 45 He and Petra looked at each other, their faces masks of dismay. They were seated on large cushions scattered across the wooden floor of the principal room of Ardan's residence. Outside the windows the sky was grey with twilight. All afternoon since they had come here the old man had been talking to them about the mission that lay before them, but Lone Wolf had suspected that Ardan had been biding his time about approaching one subject in particular, and now his suspicions were being proven correct. Ardan had explained the green mist that had seemed to shroud Lone Wolf's first sighting of Kazan-Oud. As the two Sommlending already knew, the Elder Magi had, in order to seal off the fortress's Evil from the world, erected a forcefield of magic surrounding the Isle of Khor on which it stood. The barrier was held in place by a magical network sustained from six towers set equidistantly around the shores of the lake, one of which, the one near Herdos's harbour, Lone Wolf had already noticed. The barrier was impermeable to all sentient entities – whether mortal or spiritual – but the Elder Magi had created small crystalline nexi which could be used as keys to penetrate it. One of these Ardan had given to Lone Wolf, and the apple-sized red gem now rested in one of the pockets of the warrior's cape. Conscious of its rocky presence, he recalled the words that the ancient mage had used while presenting it to him: "Guard it well, for so long as you retain it in your possession you will have some chance of fulfilling your quest or at least returning to us from Kazan-Oud. Lose it and you will never be able to come back through the six-fold shield of power, and will be confined forever to the Isle of Khor." Ardan had also told them of how they would be conveyed across the lake to the barrier. "At midnight my Vakeros will take you by boat to the edge of the shield. On board there will be a small coracle in which you may pass through the shield, using the key that I have given you, and so, if your Gods smile upon your endeavour, you may come to the merciless cliffs of the Isle of Khor. For our part, Lone Wolf, we shall pray to our own Gods that they look kindly upon you, and guide your steps. Once you are within the barrier there is nothing else that we can do to aid you." The words had brought the wave of dread back into Lone Wolf's soul, and he had had to draw upon the depths of his Kai abilities to stem it. "And now," Ardan was saying hastily, "it is time for dinner. Let me offer you ..." "No!" shouted Lone Wolf and Petra together. "Explain yourself, old man," Petra continued, her eyes as hard as polished blue jewels. "Don't attempt to divert us with food or entertainments."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 46 "It's as I said." All the magic of the Elder Magi could not conceal the fact that Ardan was unable to meet her gaze. "The Evil is not unconscious of our activities at the edge of the shield. The key that I have given you has the property not only of counteracting the barrier locally but also of deflecting magical awareness, so that, if fortune is with you, you may go undetected by the fortress's evil soul. Indeed, you will become invisible to our own magical observations in the instant that you start to use the key. However, the power of the key is limited. It can act to conceal the presence of only one soul at a time – yet all our prognostications tell us that the presence of both of you inside Kazan-Oud is necessary if your quest is to succeed. And we cannot enter the barrier using a key more than once in every forty-eight hours. We are left with no choice in the matter." He shrugged his shoulders, looking for a moment like a seller of second-hand horses. "So that's why Rimoah and Paido refused to tell us what your people had in mind," said Petra angrily. "I repeat, we have no choice. For the short time that it takes for you to go from here across the lake and through the forcefield, your two souls must be united to become one. It would not be sufficient were one of you simply to lodge their consciousness within that of the other: your two souls must be fused, as otherwise the sphere of influence of the key will be insufficient to conceal either of you." "But ..." Lone Wolf didn't know how to explain the terror that the concept held for him. The prospect of the temporary immersion of his own identity, his own being, within such a bastard amalgam was horrifying enough; more awful still was the possibility that, through some mishap, the two souls might prove to be inseparable once coalesced. Such a fate – the complete loss of individuality for all time, not merely in this mortal life – seemed worse to him than any form of death could be. He looked towards Petra and saw from her face that she, too, was struggling with the loathsomeness of the Elder Magi's plan. "When you were on the landing stage earlier today," Ardan said softly, "one of us asked you, Lone Wolf, if you would be prepared to lay down your life to save that of your friend. Once you thought about the consequences for all of Magnamund should your life be forfeit, you realized that your initial glib response, while seemingly so brave and virtuous, in fact held little merit. I ask you once again, both of you this time, to consider the future of this world and all who dwell upon her." "You're right," said Petra decisively. "There isn't any sensible alternative. No matter how distasteful the idea may seem to you, Lone Wolf, we've got to go ahead with it."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 47 Lone Wolf, who had just reached the same conclusion himself, nodded irritatedly at her. "There's one more thing that I haven't yet told you about," said Ardan nervously.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 48

3 MIND IS BODY The three-quarter Moon looked down coldly on the black mirror of Lake Khor. Nothing disturbed the water except a swimming bird, far from its nest; the ripples from its passage spread out across the icy surface until losing themselves into nothingness. Little relieved the darkness save for the Moon's light and the almost imperceptible green glow of the dome of magical energy surrounding the Isle of Khor and the brooding, malevolent silhouette of Kazan-Oud. A pair of bats flickered and danced briefly out across the lake, then fled for more congenial environs. No – there was another movement. Barely discernible on the night air there came the sound of creaking timbers as, cautiously, a small square-rigger, its sails furled, crept from the lapping shore. Oarsman plied their paddles carefully, so that the sound they made carving into the stygian waters was barely audible even to the vessel's skipper, Kreota, standing by the vessel's brow. She shivered and pulled her robe closer around her shoulders. The night air was stingingly cold in her nostrils. Yet again, fascinated in spite of herself, she turned to look at the monstrosity crouched on the deck. For a moment, as a wraith of cloud crossed the Moon, the freak was hidden from her; then, as the silver light returned, she could see the hideous form. It seemed to sense her gaze upon it, for the heavy bulk moved restlessly until one of its great, glistening eyes stared liquidly and blinklessly back at her. The eye was a perfect circle of paleness against the ponderous, dark fleshiness of the rest of monster's body; it was surrounded by coarse, knotted hairs, parodies of lashes. Slowly, as Kreota tried but failed to shift her attention away, this first eye was joined by a second. She muttered a few spells under her breath, but they did nothing to diminish the mindless ominousness of those two chilling gazes. She wished that her task was over and done with. On being assigned to it she had initially assumed that it would be nothing more than the usual job of ferrying another poor brave fool out to the magical barrier that held Kazan-Oud. No one had said anything to her of the nature of her cargo – this ... thing. Accustomed as she was to the shapeshifting proclivities of her kind, she couldn't recall having encountered such an obscene distortion of the human form. When she had first seen it, in the bright lights of the dockside, she had assumed that the sight of it would be more tolerable once the darkness out on the lake shrouded most of its vile details; now she wished for the shore's illumination, for her

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 49 imagination conjured up even worse grotesqueries from the glistening aspects she could see of the beast in the dimness. The monster made a quiet, squelching, grunting noise at her, and her hands tightened about the folds of her robe. The fact that she knew that it meant her no harm – indeed, that it was her ally – helped not at all: she still found its every attribute loathsome. Wishing that she could find something innocuous to say in response to the bestial noise but finding that words had deserted her, she dragged her eyes away to look out across the water towards the gauzy green curtain of the power shield and the Isle of Khor beyond it. Even the squatting Kazan-Oud was more pleasing to her eyes than the monster aboard her craft. Again the monster gave vent to its flatulent vocalization. She guessed that it must be trying to communicate with her, must be asking her a question, but there were no words in that splurge of undifferentiated wet sound. And the notion of opening her mind to it, so that she could read its undisguised thoughts ... Bravely, she'd tried that earlier, and her stomach still lurched whenever she accidentally let herself remember what the quagmire of its thoughts and emotions had been like ... # The room was in the basement of the Speaker's residence. It was large, and shaped like the inner side of a squashed soap-bubble; it was no wonder that this was the image that sprang to Lone Wolf's mind, for the walls were painted in a smeary marbled wash of oily translucent colours. On the concave floor rested various pieces of equipment about which he could guess nothing except that they could never be made to work in the ordinary way of machines: their beams and shafts and gears were twisted everywhere out of true, and some seemed to stray into other dimensions, becoming not so much invisible as extremely difficult to see, no matter how hard he hard he concentrated his mind on looking at them. The largest of these bizarre structures was close to the centre of the floor in a space that had obviously been only recently cleared; beside it Ardan was waiting for them with a distinctly nervous smile on his craggy features. Lone Wolf was vaguely aware, as he pottered around examining the various items of gadgetry that Ardan and Petra were arguing. It was clear enough to him from Ardan's shiftiness and the occasional terse word that escaped from the altercation that the Elder Magi were not wholly certain whether or not their stratagem would work, and that Petra was irately extracting this fact from the Speaker. Lone Wolf knew that she was right to be both furious and frightened by the prospect of the two of them being treated as

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 50 experimental guinea-pigs, but he deliberately invoked his Kai sensibilities to damp down such emotions in himself; he felt no more nervous than if he were about to engage in a friendly practice combat with a competitor whom he suspected to be stronger than he looked. He made himself breathe easily. The prospect of danger was easy enough to cope with. There was little to worry about. Or so he thought. Petra and Ardan had not so much finished their argument as come to a dubious armed truce. Her eyes flaring, she was subjecting the elderly Speaker to a cruel scrutiny, while he, his gaze everywhere but meeting hers, fiddled clumsily with a few of the large apparatus's appendages, making final and, Lone Wolf suspected, unnecessary fine adjustments. "You can leave us now," Ardan said eventually to those of the Elder Magi who had accompanied the two Sommlending here, his voice betraying his uncertainty. Obediently the hooded figures rustled from the room. "Be prepared to return when I give you the command!" he called after them. "I, ah, think it would be better if there were just the three of us for the final stages," Ardan said to Lone Wolf and Petra, rubbing his palms together as he were trying to wash some indelible stain from them. Petra, still silent, still glared at him. Ardan winced for the hundredth time from her eyes. "No," he continued, "if the two of you would just be kind enough to slip out of your clothes ..." "What?" said Lone Wolf, his Kai-induced complacency shattered. "Obviously," said Petra impatiently. "Don't be a fool, Lone Wolf. Ardan told us – it's about the one thing the creep was straight with us about – that, in order to fuse our souls together temporarily, they also have to jam our bodies together into a single frame. Think things through. Clearly we can't keep our clothes on through that – not unless you fancy the idea of spitting out buttons and ..." Lone Wolf held up a hand to stop her. "All right," he said weakly. "I get the point." Embarrassed, he slipped out of his garments, his back towards the other two. Once finished, he made a parcel of the clothes together with his weapons and his backpack, tying its straps around the rest so that the whole ungainly bundle would be portable. Taking a deep breath, he turned to see Petra, already naked, crouching down by the apparatus, looking intently through its mica door at the chamber within. He tried not to look at her more than he had to, but failed.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 51 "Good," said Ardan rapidly, still rubbing his hands. "Now, if one of you could tie your two bundles together ... For all we know, the amalgam that we're going to form will have only the one pair of hands, after all." Lone Wolf moved to obey. Petra, still crouching, was now arching her head back to look straight above her towards the huge black crystal that was suspended from the curved ceiling. From the ponderous stone hung an intricate lacing of cords that flared out like a fisherman's cast net before uniting to form a single thing rope that was attached to top of the big, onion-shaped device. He was reminded of the colossal crystal star that hung, seemingly unsupported, over the city of Toran, where the magical Brotherhood of the Crystal Star maintained its guildhall. He supposed that the magic of the Elder Magi could, like the left-handed magic of the Brotherhood, be focused and controlled through the countless juxtaposed facets of the shining stone. He had no wish to know any more; despite the efforts of his Kai sensibilities, he was still instinctively wary of anything having so much to do with magic as this current endeavour. Ardan looked at the cumbersome assemblage of clothing, weaponry and equipment that Lone Wolf had dumped on the floor in front of him. "Good, good," he said. Apparently conscious of the fact that he'd been rubbing his hands together in false eagerness for far too long, he was now tugging at his ear. "We think that your combined bodies will also have the strength of two – it'll need to have, because of course it'll have to shift around the weight of two – and so, with luck, you shouldn't have any difficulty with the baggage. Now the next thing is for you both to climb into the chamber ..." Lone Wolf flushed. The chamber inside the onion-shaped contraption was not particularly spacious. "We can't be transformed ... er ... separately?" he said, realizing the stupidity of the question even before he'd finished it. Petra stood up and looked at him pityingly. "What are you so frightened of, Lone Wolf?" she said. "Me?" "No," he replied quietly. "Me." He shrugged and then, before he could think about it, pushed past her and clambered in through the metal door-frame to seat himself as comfortably as possible in the chamber. The stuff of which its walls and floor were made shiny, like metal, but seemed somehow softer; its clammy touch was equally cold against the naked flesh, he discovered to his chagrin. He huddled himself up with his arms around his knees. A few seconds later Petra had stacked herself in a similar position facing him, so that their knees were together. Impulsively he took one of her hands and tried to persuade himself that it was

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 52 he who was passing the warmth of moral support to her through the bond, rather than the other way around. They looked up towards the opening as Ardan moved to close the door. At this close range Lone Wolf could see how deep were the lines of worry on the old man's face. He suddenly realized that, however shifty and nervous Ardan might have appeared earlier, the old man had been brilliantly concealing the true depths of his apprehension. "You will need to be in closer contact than that," said the mage crisply. "Enfold yourselves in each other's arms, please." Lone Wolf braced his back against the chamber wall, as if preparing to hurl himself through it. Petra laughed. "Aw, come on, Lone Wolf," she said. "We're not kids, after all. It'll only be for a moment." He shut his eyes and felt her pull him towards her, felt the chaste kiss of encouragement she gave his cheek, and felt the door to the chamber slam down upon them. He found himself beginning to giggle at the ridiculousness of it all. "Your hair's getting up my nose," he whispered, and then she was laughing too. What happened next was beyond the powers of his senses to interpret. Later he was to liken the experience to a brilliant flash of blinding light, or to a colossal explosion inside his head, or to the sensation of being neatly flipped inside out, but in truth it was nothing like any of these, or even a combination of them all. It was as if he were dying and being reborn a thousand times in rapid succession, all within the single second that it took for his fluttering life-spark to be absorbed and blended with that of Petra, except that there was no longer a Petra and no longer a Lone Wolf, but instead a single harshly breathing entity that was neither of them, a glutinous abomination that forced itself with difficulty through the door that Ardan had terrifiedly reopened and stood before him in massive, obscene splendour. The creature threw back its head and screamed its anguish. # The woman-thing at the prow of the vessel is talking to the creature again. It can sense the abject terror with which she regards it, and some part of its nonhuman intelligence admires the courage she is displaying in simply staying as near to it as she is. But it is difficult to think anything through the racking pain, and it knows that any gesture of amicability it makes towards her will only terrify her the more. It some while ago gave up attempting to speak to her, aware of the jolts of fear that spiked through her each time it opened the gash of its mouth.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 53 "We will be at the barrier in a few moments," she is saying. "The crew have already unlashed the coracle from the deck, and are preparing to cast it overboard for you. We are lucky that the weather's changed." The creature for the first time realizes that the cooling sensations it has been feeling on its raw flesh are raindrops. Ponderously it turns one of its eyes towards the sky, and sees that a black mass of clouds has blotted out the reassuring Moon. Before it retracts the eye it sees a bolt of lightning dance, seemingly in slow motion and with an unnaturally dim light, from the cloud towards a distant hilltop. "There will be enough commotion in the skies," the woman-thing is saying, "that the Evil within Kazan-Oud will be even less likely to notice your intrusion." Half-ignoring her, the creature scrabbles around on the deck behind it with one of its improperly controlled arms. The sausage-like clawed fingers at last find the gross assemblage of weaponry and clothing. Satisfied that nothing has detached itself from the bundle during the precarious journey from Ardan's residence to the docks and then aboard the vessel, the fingers probe into the pockets of one of the backpacks until they encounter the hard, fist-sized crystal that the creature's fuddled memory tells it is the key that will prise open the magical barrier. It heaves a sigh of relief and hears the woman-thing's swiftly bitten-back shriek of alarm. There are other things that the creature recalls, but the constant agony of its existence has the effect of shattering the memories, so that trying to bring them into focus is like trying to see a reflection in a mirror that has been smashed into a million constantly tumbling shards of brightness. Only a few of its recollections survive intact, the most insistent of them being of something – itself, perhaps – speaking a jest: "... not unless you fancy spitting out buttons ..." The irony is not lost on the creature: spitting out buttons would be a pleasure compared with its tormented misery. There is another reason why it finds its memories confusing: it doesn't really know what they are. The pain has made the creature's existence perpetual, so that there is no clear comprehension that there ever was any condition other than this excruciating anguish of being. It is at best dimly aware of the passage of time – it understands that it checked the bundle before it gave its attention back to the woman-thing, and it knows that a clear night was replaced by a stormy one, but these things appear to it as if they were different positions on a board rather than as events separated by intervals of duration. It does not know why it has had to satisfy itself that its accoutrements are in order and that

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 54 the crystal has not been lost, any more than it knows why it has next to board the coracle and use the crystal to gain entrance to the stretch of water that will take it to the island: these are not recollections of the instructions given to it by Ardan but imperatives imprinted onto the fabric of its very existence. There are other imperatives. It must not harm the frail human-things that flinch from it with thought-expressions of fear and disgust. It must not permit itself to use the crystal a second time, as a way of changing something – it knows not what – about the nature of its own being, not until it has reached some place where it is free from the observation of living creatures and safe. The creature does not know where these imperatives came from, or even, indeed, that there could be such a thing as their coming from anywhere: they have always been there, as underpinnings of the creature's own hellish universe. The woman-thing is advancing towards it now, her fear threatening to peak. She has her hands open, as if to show that she bears no weapons with which to harm it – which is foolish, because it so much more powerful than she is that, even with axe or sword, she could do it no damage before it destroyed her. Its eyes follow, one after the other, as she inches round it and then starts to retreat from it. It senses, however, that this retreat is not flight; instead, her thoughts are requesting that it follow at her heels. Gripping a strap of its ragamuffin bundle with one of its powerful misshapen hands, it hauls itself clumsily to its feet and slaps along the deck behind her. Frequently it sees the pale globe of her face flashing back towards it. She has mastered most of her dread, it observes, and in some obscure way this brings it a little pleasure amid the torrents of pain. The human-things that have been untying the coracle from its place on the aft-deck are less courageous, all bar one, whom the creature senses is more strongly linked to its guide than are the others. As it watches them, making occasional ungainly movements of its limbs as if it would wish to offer them help, the two woman-things make the last preparations of the coracle. Then one of them, its erstwhile guide, is pushing towards it an object which it recognizes as a paddle. The creature is pleased that the woman-thing recoils hardly at all when the back of her hand accidentally brushes its own slithery flesh. It starts to reach out a tendril of gratitude and warmth towards her mind but then desists, deducing that the mental encounter would cause her nausea. Instead, it permits her and the other woman-thing to retreat from the now unfettered coracle before it reaches down and picks up the flimsy craft. There is one last tie, it notices – a cord linking the rim of the coracle to the square-rigger's deckrail. The creature is just about to tear this asunder, believing it to have been left by

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 55 oversight, when it realizes the rope's purpose. Grunting an acknowledgement, it drops its bundle and throws the feather-light coracle over the rail, watching the craft dwindle into the rain-streaked darkness. The boat rocks as the creature plods heavily across the deck to the rail. The freezing wind off the water, which it senses is paining the woman-things, is like balm against its own mucous surface. Its circular eyes cooperate with each other to seek out the coracle on the chopped waters beneath; a flare of the curiously dim lightning reveals the frail little craft bobbing there by the vessel's side, straining against its tether. The creature's eyes turn towards the woman-things for one last time, but it decides better than to try to speak its thanks to them. Feeling the deckrail strain and then splinter against its body, it lets itself topple into the water. As it falls it discovers that it has ignored one of its imperatives. The bundle of equipment is not in its grasp, but must be still lying up there on the deck. Its mind is filled with an overwhelming panic. But then the blissfully cold, lightless waters of the lake are all around it. If it were not for its knowledge that it cannot breathe the water it would allow itself to sink downwards and ever downwards until it came to rest in some submarine arbour on the lake's fathomless bed, there to endure its own anguish until eternity ceased. The imperative to preserve itself overrides this urge, however, and it flounders with its mismatched limbs until it comes cumbrously to the surface, a few feet from the boat's hull and the bobbing coracle. At that moment the miserable realization returns that its baggage and the crystal are out of its reach. Equally dismal is the recognition that it will be unable to heave itself from the water into the fragile coracle. It knows that the coracle has a purpose, and yet there is no clue in its scrambled thoughts as to what this purpose could be other than to carry the creature to the shore. Its emotions a sparkling flurry of agonized confusion, it looks up towards the deck, where it sees the woman-thing who stayed beside it in the bows. She is looking down on the creature as it splashes in the water, and if it did not know her loathing so well it would believe that the emotion now leaking from her was concern for its welfare. She and her companion have bullied the bundle of clothing and equipment up on the deckrail, with what intention the creature cannot guess. Then the bundle is falling. The creature's consternation is immense. Are they jettisoning the things that it requires if it is to satisfy its other imperatives, notably the task of changing its state of being in some as yet unknown fashion? It shrieks a protest that has the woman-things staggering back across the deck.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 56 The impact of the fallen bundle nearly sinks the coracle. A wave from under the coracle's side hits the creature full in both eyes, bringing it merciful moment of brightly coloured darkness. When the creature can see once more, the coracle has righted itself, its inside almost filled by the irregular cargo. Calmer now within itself, it throws its gaze up towards the deck, where it sees the woman-thing it has come to regard as its friend; she is waving to it, and pointing towards the coracle, and then making regular beating movements with her arms. After a while the creature realizes that she is trying to indicate to it that it should swim, and it kicks with its limbs until it is beside the burdened coracle. The woman-thing is slapping her upper appendages together and giving a shout that the creature interprets, to its astonishment, as indicative of friendship – empathy, even. Encouraged, it allows its ball of thoughts to stretch out in the woman-thing's direction, embracing her mind, allowing its undiluted affection to seethe into her. Her voice is like a sensuously cold icicle inside the creature. Thank you, beast, her thought says. The creature is incapable of dragging words out of the incoherence that is its consciousness. Instead all it can do is produce a snatch of discordant music that somehow expresses both its perplexity over her gratitude and its unequivocal love for the woman-thing, whom it now regards as parent, deity and fleshly lover. It feels her mind absorb the complexities of the string of discords, briefly reel, and then speak to it again: Because you have taught me something that I, as one of the Elder Magi, should have known better than any other – that a being's intrinsic nature is independent of its form, and that that is true not only of its bodily appearance but also of its mental construction. That is why I proffer you my thanks, beast: you have given me the gift of a new perception. Now it pulls its thought-ball back from her, bearing with it her warmth. The creature concentrates on not overturning the coracle as it swishes the little craft around in the water. Teeth that the creature did not know it possessed spring from its palm and sever the thin tether. And then, towing the coracle, the creature is clumsily shoving its way through the black water towards the misty curtain of green that is the sorcerous barrier shielding Kazan-Oud from the world. As it goes, the creature feels a creeping consciousness that the thing that it is approaching is inimical not only to itself but to all forms of natural life. The creature has neither the word nor the concept with which to tag this inimical essence – in its timeless state of incessant being there is no room for such abstracts as Good and Evil – yet it has the understanding that its own function is in some fashion to counter the essence's will, and perhaps even to destroy

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 57 the essence itself. Accordingly, despite the increasing reluctance of its limbs, the creature forces itself to push forward towards the barrier, the coracle by its side. Its encounter with the barrier itself is mystifying to the creature. All of its hazy senses are telling it that what is in front of it is nothing more than empty air, despite the greenish cast it holds, and yet the creature feels as if it were pushing against some kind of resilient skin. It treads water for a while, pondering this, aware for the first time that the vessel bearing its "friend" has deserted it, and is now heading through the storm for the distant shore. There is no one upon whom it can call for advice – if, indeed, there ever was, for the creature's awareness of the recent touching of minds is already becoming jumbled, and now seems possibly to be no more than an delusion. Hopelessly perplexed by the barrier, unaware that it possesses any means of dealing with the obstacle, the creatures knot of confused thoughts and emotions begins to fold in on itself, rejecting the outer world. But then this inward collapse is halted. The imperative that brought the creature here is revealing another aspect of itself, and aspect which the creature recognizes as something with which it is not entirely unfamiliar. Still treading water, the creature throws a heavy limb over the side of the coracle, moving with an unanticipated delicacy to release the flap of one of the pockets bulging from the bundle of accoutrements. The fat, slimy fingers probe inside the fold of cloth to discover the hard jewel that must surely always have been there, even though, in the creature's distorted awareness, there is the conviction that its own searches have brought the crystal into existence in its correct place. The gross hand envelops the stone, draws it out of the pocket, and holds it aloft so that its redness can be seen in the unpredictable lethargic glare of the too-slow lightning. Unconscious of the reasons for its action, the creature commands the hand to draw the gem downwards across the surface of the invisible, springy skin. As if one of the stone's sharp edges were cutting like a knife through hide, the skin separates, leaping back from the severed edges. The creature, beyond reasoning now, thrusts the coracle through the gap and awkwardly follows it through. The skin closes again before the creature is properly clear, catching it by the swollen base of one of its rear appendages, so that it has to kick and struggle before finally, with an excruciating snapping noise, the barrier releases it. An imperative forbids the creature to scream again, or otherwise it would do so now. The essence that detests life is all around it now, and oddly enough the creature finds that it is capable of drawing strength from this unlikely source. Its swimming stroke becomes less

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 58 hit-or-miss, so that soon it is cleaving through the water cleanly, propelling the coracle ahead of it with butts of its squashed-up face. It is aware that the storm-torn sky ahead of it is partly occulted by a massive form, and shortly thereafter it correctly identifies the cliffs of the Isle of Khor and the louring Kazan-Oud above: these, its imperatives are repeating to it, are its targets. Moreover, as if to encourage the creature with the forthcoming fulfilment of a lust, once there the creature will be permitted to use the crystal key for a second time, and thus alter its existence – certainly for the better, for no state of existence could be worse than the one it currently endures. The creature's mind staggers from this, for the idea that there might be such a thing as a time that is not this one is unfamiliar to it; then, perhaps thanks to a subliminal harmonic from the imperative, the creature's unpractised mind restates the situation in more tangible terms, so that the problem becomes one of altering positions rather than effecting a progressive change; and the same kind of feeling comes over the creature's consciousness as did when the woman-thing was expressing her warmth inside it. Soon there is a sound similar to but distinct from the creature's own swimming noises. There is a place nearby where the glorious, cold, peace-giving water takes on a different nature, becoming hard and rocky. There is a narrow strip of this new, boulder-studded type of water before the place where the cliffs rear; the creature knows that the strip must be crossed if it is to get itself into the position that accords with the permissibility of reusing the crystal key, and it accepts that the hard kind of water will not balm it in the same way that the soft cold variety does. How much does it want to reach the place where its existence can be changed? The creature's mind itself is too much of a maelstrom to answer that question, but the rigid bar of the imperative makes the decision for it. With a horrible silent sluggishness, the creature heaves its reluctant mass up across the sharp stones of the water's edge, chucking its laden coracle up the shingle ahead of it. Once the full, blistering agony of the dry air is playing all over its exposed flesh, the creature draws itself up on its nether limbs, and instructs its eyes to regard the place in which it now finds itself. The gem is still clutched in its hand, and one of the creature's eyes ventures towards it. Yet the imperative still insists that this is not the right position for the crystal's use; miserably the eye retreats again to rejoin its fellow and assist in the task of surveying the surroundings. The thunder sounds loudly within the bell of the magical barrier. The lightning is bright, puzzling the creature, which believes that each new flash is dim and slow-moving until its senses tell it otherwise. There are other lights, as well, closer by: small red glows that chase each other in illogical patterns. The creature is

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 59 convinced that these are illusionary, that its own vision is malfunctioning, until a brighter than usual burst of lightning reveals that the red glows are savage, yearning eyes, and that the eyes are accompanied by serried sharpnesses. The animals ringing and watching the creature are uncertain as to what they should do. It knows that the position they desire to be in is one where they are attacking and devouring it – that much is clear from their snarlings and taut postures – but the creature can see that also they fear its hugeness. Each of the animals has a body as long as the creature's own forelimb, and behind that a muscular rope of twitching tail. They have long pointed faces. Above the sharpnesses that the creature now knows to be teeth are fans of hair. A wave of starvation comes from them, almost overwhelming the creature's consciousness, so that it lurches, clutching at its head, almost dropping the crystal key. The sudden movement makes the gaunt ratlike creatures retreat, growling, but the creature knows the strength of their hunger, knows that it is great enough that even their terror of him is powerless to constrain it. As if by a revelation, the creature finds that it knows that some of the things in the bundle will assist it to resist their imminent attack. Shouting, knowing that the shout will increase their fear and thus offer a further respite, it crumps across the shingle to where the coracle lies askant, the heap of clothing and objects still in it. The creature grabs out at a cruciform projection and pulls, discovering that it holds in its bulging hand a weapon. The weapon, at its touch, glows uncertainly with a golden light that is pleasurably familiar to the creature, even though it does not know why this should be so. Again the rattish animals snap and snarl. The creature, with its free hand, tucks the gem away inside a pocket chosen at random and then picks up the tangled bundle as a whole and hoists it up on its shoulders. It would retreat into the ecstatic embrace of the water were it not that an imperative commands the creature not to do so: the position it seeks is here on the hardness ... somewhere. Instead, the creature moves towards one side, both of its eyes staring at the clustered red eyes of the predators. There are larger rocks under the creature's feet, jabbing into the flesh and causing flames of even greater agony to surge throughout its body. It holds the golden stick out in front of it, between itself and the animals, and they seem temporarily mesmerised by its light. The creature takes a further few crablike steps, ignoring the unevenness of the surface underfoot, and still the pack of killers is seemingly unable to strike. Then the creature stumbles, and the spell is broken. The predators strike.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 60 But they do not spring for the creature. Instead, they attack the empty coracle, seizing it in their blade-sharp teeth, wrestling it as if it were a living prey, tearing it to pieces as it seems to struggle. Soon the fragments of the coracle are invisible beneath a liquid tide of jostling bodies, and the creature retreats ever more quickly along the shoreline. A strap of the bundle cutting into the place where its head joins to its shoulders, it scrambles along on all four of its limbs, gashing its flesh countlessly as it flees, its grunting and yowling drowning out even the shattering noise made by the predators as they destroy and devour the fragile woven coracle. Then the creature finds itself on a more yielding surface. The muddy black sand around its feet seems to it, in the darkness, to be the stuff of which night is made. It prepares to fall into oblivion, and reels when it does not do so. Tentatively, it forces one of its hindlimbs forwards, and discovers that it has taken a lumbering stride. Rejoicing at the new-found ability, it takes another, and another, then commands its eyes to peer back behind it to find out if the host of predators has yet finished with the coracle. As if aware of the creature's gaze, the animals turn and, leaving scraps of wood and several of their own dead in chewed rags on the shingle, pour across the snarl of rocks. This time there is no coracle to deflect their hunger, and the creature realizes that the next position in which it will find itself will be one of defence as countless toothed bodies fight for its flesh. It turns and raises the glowing sword-thing yet again, knowing that its defiance is futile, but knowing also that flight is barely possible, for the predators are fleet and the creature itself is far from that. But the animals halt their precipitate rush. The foremost among them reach the edge of the boulder-strewn region and fall out over the black sand, then scrabble back upwards, squealing in frenzy, shoving against the bulk of their fellows, clearly desperate to reach what they regard as the greater safety of the rocks. The creature cannot understand why their fear of itself has suddenly conquered their starvation, for certainly it is fear that is driving the animals back. It looks at the sword in its grip, wondering if the weapon has the capacity to hurl terror out of itself, but, although the golden glow pulsates uneasily, there is no such emanation that the creature can detect. Something eventually tells the creature that the predators' aghast gaze is fastened not upon itself or the sword but on something in the same direction. The creature several some seconds to deduce from this that, since it cannot see any object in front of itself that might be responsible, the source of their terror may surely be to its rear. Wearily it instructs its eyes to look behind it.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 61 Not ten feet away, there are other eyes, watching. The eyes are set in a monstrous reptilian face. The face, splattered by the rain, belongs to a massive, bloated worm of a body, bigger across its bole than the creature itself is tall and perhaps yet more revolting than the creature's own. This distended body, it seems, is emerging from a fissure in the cliff no wider than itself in order to bask in the intermittent flares of the lightning. The pale, swollen form reminds the creature of its own fingers, but it is a thousand times or more greater than they are, and it is covered in translucent scales except where its skin is punctured by sores and deep lacerations. A barbed, razor-edged tongue flicks out from between its wickedly triangular teeth. Its eyes, as they focus on the golden gleam of the sword, seem to the creature to fill with a ravenous lust even greater than that of the pack of predators. The creature's thoughts are not nimble, but it sees that the sword which was moments ago its friend is now its unwitting enemy. It makes to cast the weapon away from it, but then something lesser than an imperative but of similar nature forces it to desist, and instead the creature plunges the blade behind its shoulders into the bundle of garments. As the glow is quenched the eyes of the monstrosity from the cliffs momentarily lose their focus, and, when they regain it, it has changed. Clearly the monster has lost all the interest it ever had in the creature: the cave-beast no longer recognizes it as a living being, and thus as a potential food-source. Now the object of its attention has become the pack of whining animals on the boulders at the creature's back. Slowly, not wishing to attract that implacable gaze once more, the creature eases itself to one side in an elephantine pas, then lurches forwards past the monster's overinflated body and along the black, squelching sands. Behind it, as it flees, it hears an unearthly bellow, and knows without turning that at last the cave-monster has struck among the howling pack of predators. The sounds of killing and death continue as the creature staggers onwards. Even on a firm surface it can move only sluggishly; here, with the black sand around its feet like treacle, its progress is pitifully slow. The distant promontory of rock towards which its sucking lurch is taking the creature seems to be not only impossibly distant but also, if anything, becoming even more so, as the creature, its breath wheezing and shrieking, forces its limbs to carry it onwards in the direction of this sought position. The creature's veering path takes it up across the thin strip of blackness so that it is lumbering close to the looming cliff. Its near-side eye observes a fissure of darker darkness in the seamed rock, and the creature pauses for a moment, uncertain, considering

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 62 the wisdom of taking refuge in this place. But then, from the jagged aperture, it hears rustlings and scrabblings, and restarts its staggering progress even before a new host of the starving sharp-toothed predators gouts from the rock wall. Forgetful of how the glowing sword attracted the hunger of the bloated worm-monster, the creature plucks the weapon from the jouncing bundle on its back and once more watches its light throb. The predators spit and snarl, but they are wary of this artefact. They continue to dog the creature's footsteps, but it feels reasonably certain that the immediate lust for food is controlled within them by their fear. And at last the creature the creature is close to the spiked black promontory. Its face not nearly as sheer as that of the cliffs, and the slaty rocks of which it is made, though slick with rain, are angled and eroded so that the creature should be able to find holding-places in plenty. Waving the gleaming blade in one last defiant flourish, the creature plunges it back into its bed of cloth and fumbles with protrusions on the rock. Soon it is scrambling, insecurely and with despairing slowness, up towards the promontory's ridge, the pack of predators close up against the face beneath it. The creature is almost certain that at last it has shaken them off before one of their number, bolder and perhaps more imaginative than the rest, emulates the creature's scrabbling movements and finds itself several feet above the heads of its fellows. Soon, inspired by its example, more and more of them are scaling the rockface, moving more nimbly than ever the creature could hope for itself. Drawing, in its desperation, upon a source of imaginativeness that it did not know it possessed, the creature kicks loose stones and rock-chips down into the faces of its pursuers, and this painful hail distracts them for long enough that the creature make a precious extra foot or two of height, yet it is obvious to the fugitive that the position where itself and the predators shall be superimposed is not far beyond the ridge of rock towards which it is climbing. Unable to imagine a different stratagem, it kicks down another shower of chippings at the predators. Now, because they have learnt from experience in a more sophisticated way than is available to the creature, they are less delayed by the ruse. The creature's advantage is measurable not in feet, as before, but in inches. And now the position of the creature is on top of the promontory, whereas its pursuers have still to draw level with the lip of the ridge. It stumbles away from them, momentarily forgetting their existence because it has lost both sight and sound of them. Looking ahead of itself with one of its eyes, the creature sees in the murky light that the promontory is split by a gully chiselled

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 63 out from its middle over the aeons by the black waters of a stream that cascades down from the higher cliffs adjacent to it. There seems to be no way that the creature can skirt the gully, and certainly its body is far too massive for there to be any chance of its leaping over the gap; but it sees that a narrow bridge of rock, carved either by the acid winds or by an intelligent hand, traverses the gorge. Had the creature any foresight it would realize that the bridge is dangerously thin, that its rickety span looks too unstable to support the creature's great weight, but the creature is not so blessed, and it stumbles poundingly across the rank dark grass of the ridge to the base of the arch. As it reaches this point, the vanguard of the wave of predators comes over the lip of the ridge and simultaneously, of course, back into the creature's consciousness. It gives a grunting shriek of fear as it perceives them and the threat they bear with them, and, without pausing in its flight, lumbers straight ahead until it is standing on the creaking arch of rock. Not understanding what this new noise beneath its feet might mean, the creature directs one of its eyes downwards and sees what seems to be an eternal plummet through the gloom towards the distant streambed. Readjusting the focus of this eye so that it can keep track of the creature's feet on the thin arch, and keeping its other on its pursuers, the creature advances with foolhardy confidence out over the gap until it is standing at the arch's centre and narrowest point. The predators attempt to swarm onto the arch but their efforts are largely thwarted by its narrowness. Several of the pitifully ribbed animals, too eager for the prey to stop themselves in time at the gorge's edge, go tumbling away downwards into their distant doom. But others, more fortunately placed, are able to edge out on the arch, their red eyes fixing hungrily on the creature's hideous flesh. Once more the creature draws the golden object from the pack on its back, but this time the advancing hunters are in too a frenzy of starvation to be deterred by their fear. The leader of them bunches its hindquarters and springs blindly towards the tottering creature. Not knowing why it should be doing so, the creature slashes the air with the shining weapon, and watches in a slow-witted astonishment as the predator erupts in a shower of redness and falls in two obviously discrete parts into the gulf below. Another of the attackers springs, and the creature responds according to its same unsuspected reflex; once more there is a scream of fury and the sundered animal vanishes downwards. A third is flying through the air, its dried lips drawn back from its lines of wicked teeth. Yet again the golden blade becomes a liquid arc of light, and yet again the attacker is split in two, but

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 64 this time the sword continues in its sweep and crashes against the thin body of rock beside the creature's feet. The shock of the impact goes right through the decayed stone arch, and flakes of it split off with loud scattershot cracks. At last the bloodlust of the predators is penetrated, and a few among them set up a terrified ululation as they try to force themselves backwards from the arch. Even the creature itself becomes aware of its danger – more accurately, that there is a high likelihood of its next position being in a smashed heap on the rocks far below – and it turns to scuttle towards the far side of the disintegrating bridge. For a moment it looks as if the creature will be just in time to reach its goal, but the rotten rock beneath its feet is now disintegrating too fast. The creature screams, which only serves to fragment the rock yet further. The central portion of the arch drops away as a unit, taking several of the predators with it, leaving the creature alone on one of the remaining stumps, but even that is falling apart now. Falling apart too quickly. Shrieking again, the creature hurls itself at the base of the stump, throwing the sword ahead of itself, forcing its claws into old fissures there. The remainder of the stump falls away at that moment, like a carious tooth finally escaping from the grip of its socket. The creature's body, astraddle on the rock, drops with it. Something tells the creature to open its limbs, releasing the rock, so that the falling chunk is no longer dragging it down. The creature's body slams against the side of the gorge, forcing the breath out of itself. Yet again the creature howls. But somehow its claws do not lose their hold. For a time long enough that the creature knows of no existence before it, the creature hangs there, its horribly shaped shoulders convulsing in an obscene parody of weeping. Then, feeling as if it were hauling itself into a fresh and even keener forest of agony, the creature drags itself slowly up out of the gully until it is lying face-down on the wet, sharp-edged grasses of the promontory's top. There is a renewed outburst of thwarted shrilling from the predators stranded on the far side of the gorge, but the creature has difficulty imagining what the sound could be, and consequently ignores it entirely. Crawling away a little further from the dizzying drop, its breath sounding like the barking of a large hound, the creature at last believes that it has attained a position where the second use of the crystal key has become permissible. It shrugs the baggage from its shoulders and reaches out with its hand, probing instinctively for the pocket where it knows it must have stowed the gem. Sure enough, it has the stone.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 65 A further bolt of lightning illumines the scene as the creature draws the sharp edge of the crystal down through the air in front of itself, as if it were once again cutting open the skin of the magical barrier that the Elder Magi long ago set about the Isle of Khor in order to restrain the Evil that emanates from the malevolently squatting Kazan-Oud. Existence trembles and dissolves ...

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 66

4 BAD LUCK IS GOOD "How much of that can you remember?" gasped Lone Wolf. "Very little," said Petra. "Too much." The two of them were sitting side by side on the coarse grass of the rocky promontory, their heap of weaponry, clothing and provisions between them. The red crystal was still in Lone Wolf's hand; he looked at it numbly, knowing that he should stow it away safely yet unable for the moment to summon up the initiative to do so. Both of them had been weeping. Their bodies were filled with the remembered aches of the countless bruises and gashes the creature had suffered, although neither of them in fact bore evidence of the wounds. They had no idea how long it had been since their restitution as two individual human beings from the single conglomerated form of the creature: the Moon was hidden by clouds and the storm was raging unabated, the heavy raindrops spattering their bodies and the ground all around them. "Well ..." said Lone Wolf, staring hopelessly at his open hands, the crystal seeming black in his pale palm. "Well, the Elder Magi never promised us that it would be much fun." "Yes," said Petra. "But even so ..." "Yes. Even so." Lone Wolf was at last beginning to rediscover the Kai abilities within himself. They seemed to have been scared into dormancy by the traumatic experience of being jumbled together with the elements of Petra's soul, and it was as if he had to coax them back into activity. Within minutes, however, they were spreading their influence throughout his body, soothing the throbbing pains as well as the continuing mental anguish. He found that there was enough of his mind left over to marvel at the way that Petra seemed to be coping without any such Kai aids. There was silence between them for a while. "We can't stay here forever," said Petra finally, her voice firmly under control. "We'd better get moving. We'll need to find somewhere to sleep pretty soon. I'm shattered." Lone Wolf agreed with her. They'd both managed to catch a short nap the previous evening, but that had hardly been sufficient to prepare them for the exhaustion of the hours they'd spent as the creature. They needed to find somewhere more secure than the rainswept promontory: there was always the danger, if they remained here any longer, that the starving giant rats would find their way around the stem of the gully and attack them once more. Sighing, Lone Wolf hauled himself to his feet.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 67 It felt strange to be wearing clothes again. It was only once they were again fully dressed that they became properly conscious of the fact that they had been naked. Lone Wolf, strapping the Sommerswerd to his waist, noticed with relief that the glow from the blade was steady and assured as he handled it, unlike the uncertainty it had shown in the hands of the creature. The hands of the creature. His mind wanted to shy away from his recollections of that frenzied, confusing period when he and Petra had been one, but he knew that he would have to face up to the mental scars at some time or another, and that the sooner he did so the easier the healing process would be. He expressed something of this to Petra as he tied up the cords of his boots around his calves, and not to his surprise she agreed. He wondered if perhaps there were still traces of her soul left behind in his, and likewise parts of himself in her. It was odd to realize that the two of them now knew each other more intimately than any man and woman could expect to do in a lifetime together, and yet so much of that knowledge was lodged not in their outer, conscious minds but at a far deeper level than that – at the same primitive level of semiconsciousness as the creature's mental processes had functioned. He suspected that over the years to come they would each continually be coming across reflex reactions and quasi-instinctive thoughts that only after consideration would they realize were not entirely their own. He shuddered. What he and Petra had undergone was in its effects not unlike the Elder Magi's mental interference, to which Petra had objected so bitterly – but surely it was much worse, because not under deliberate control. Or did the calculated approach of the Elder Magi in some way make their crime worse ...? His thoughts were beginning to go around in circles. As he and Petra hefted their backpacks he took her hand and pressed it to his heart, as if that were a more complete means of communication than words could supply. His Kai sensibilities registered the warmth of her soul-stuff, and he recognized that his half-thought surmise had been correct. They clambered side by side down the far side of the promontory. Lone Wolf was amazed that the creature had been able to ascend the cracked rocky ledges, for the stones were slippery in the rain. Either the creature must have been far more agile than it had seemed at the time or its fear was greater than Lone Wolf had realized. By the time they reached the shingly beach he had torn a fingernail almost completely from the quick, and would have been howling in pain had not his Kai powers been able to move smoothly and automatically to ease the pain. Petra, as always, looked prim and neatly turned out despite the downpour and the strenuous descent.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 68 "What next?" she said. She was looking around her at the poorly lit beach. The waters of Lake Khor lapped sluggishly at the stony shore, as if reluctant to be in contact with it for longer than was necessary. "What's that down there?" she said suddenly, pointing ahead of her as a clap of thunder echoed fiercely along the shingle. Lone Wolf tried to use his Kai vision to see more clearly through the murk, but could distinguish nothing until, half a minute later, there was a further flash of lightning. Analysing the brief image he had seen – a dark horizontal bar stretching from the cliff to the shore – he recognized it as a fallen tower, its stone blocks scattered in an uneven line on the shingle like the vertebrae of a monstrous spine. Here the walls of Kazan-Oud came right to the cliff's edge, and it looked as if the gash left by the missing tower might permit the two Sommlending some way of getting inside the fortress. Petra looked eager when he told of her this, and he realized that she wanted to be doing anything that would take her away from this bleak, depressing shoreline and the incessant rain. This time it was she who grabbed his hand as they ran helter-skelter over the stony beach. Minutes later they were clambering over the great blocks of fallen masonry near to the cliff's base. Lone Wolf had been quite right: there was indeed a breach in Kazan-Oud's walls here. He could see above them the torn edges of the stonework, crusted in a wet-seeming blackness that the lightning revealed to be dark-green moss. Moreover, someone or something had long ago carved out of the cliff-face a set of rudimentary steps leading up to the opening. Gesturing Petra to keep back, Lone Wolf reached out to touch one of the lowermost steps. It took his Kai sensibilities only a few moments to confirm that decades if not centuries had passed since the niche had been chiselled out. Some of the steps bore an undisturbed sheen of the dark-green moss, and this reassured him further that by climbing the crude stairway he and Petra would be running little risk of bumping into unknown foes. Nevertheless he enjoined her to keep as quiet as possible as they scaled the face. The climb was not difficult, and Lone Wolf's breathing was hardly disturbed as he came level with the top of the cliff. There, however, a fresh problem presented itself. Standing at the top, he leant down to haul Petra up beside him. "I thought the perspective looked a bit odd from down there," she said glumly, "but I guessed it was just the light." The upper part of the missing tower must have been built partly into the rock of the cliff. Whatever had sundered the tower from the rest of the fortress had also taken with it a chunk of the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 69 cliff, so that there was now an abyss some twenty feet across between the thin lip where Lone Wolf and Petra stood and the open wound in Kazan-Oud's wall. The rent in the ground extended for yards in either direction, parallel with the wall, so that the nearest they could get to the opening was where they were now standing. Close by their feet they could see a couple of thick wooden posts driven into the ground, clear signs that whoever or whatever had carved out the steps had also built a wooden bridge, now long vanished, over the abyss. Petra obviously had an idea. She was kicking at one of these posts, as if trying to loosen it. The stake seemed well sunk, however, and her efforts moved it not at all. This clearly satisfied her. "There may be another set of moorings on the far side," she said to Lone Wolf. Just then a gust of wind took her, and she swayed unnervingly on the cliff edge before being able to bring herself back under control. "See if you can catch a sight of them the next time there's a flash of lightning." They waited patiently for a minute or two until the sky obediently blazed. "There!" cried Lone Wolf. Directly opposite them he had seen, just as Petra had predicted, another pair of stocky posts. Now that he had located them, his night vision was good enough that he could make them out quite clearly even in the dark. Keeping his gaze fixed on them, he gestured impatiently for Petra to dig a rope out of his backpack. Once he had it in his hands he swiftly fashioned a loop in it. His first cast at the stakes fell short, but at his second the loop wrapped itself securely around them. It was the work of seconds to rig a slip-knot over the two posts by their feet. Lone Wolf swiftly hauled himself across the rope, hand over hand, and Petra did likewise as soon as he had established himself safely on the far side of the gap. While he went a few yards further, investigating cautiously the rubble-strewn area between the broken walls, she flicked the slip-knot clear and recoiled the rope, then followed him. "I'd try not to get the moss on yourself, if I were you," he said to her quietly, his voice barely audible above the sound of the beating rain. "It doesn't seem to be harmful, but it feels revolting against your skin – like a slug-trail – and it's hard to get it off." He turned towards her, grimacing, and she could see a dark smear on his cheekbone. The walls of Kazan-Oud proved to be, at least here, some forty or fifty feet thick. Weapons in their hands, the two crept forward among the huge, slippery, moss-covered stones of the wrecked walls, the light of the Sommerswerd guiding their way. As they came to the far side of the breach, Lone Wolf sheathed the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 70 weapon, and he and Petra went the last ten feet or so in almost totally darkness. She tripped at one point, and he was amused to hear the floridity of the curse she breathed. As if at the direction of some celestial stage producer, a colossal flash of lightning rent the heavens directly overhead just as they emerged from the breach. In the split second during which the scene in front of them was illuminated, Lone Wolf recorded everything he could see. Putting his arm around Petra's shoulders in the gloom, he drew her close to him and described what he had seen. At some time in the remote past, some force – presumably the same one that had blasted the tower from its moorings – had devastated the great keep of the fortress. Certainly the area now looked as if it were devoid of all life, and had been for centuries. A few stone structures remained roughly intact, but their crumbling walls showed the black, angry streaks of ancient flames. Everywhere metal objects lay strewn and distorted, their twisted forms telling of the colossal temperatures of that long-ago combustion. Since the conflagration, the tougher forms of plant life had recolonized the keep, so that most surfaces were bedecked by tangled, knuckled weeds and mildewy bunches of the dark mosslike parasite. The largest structure left more or less whole stood at the centre of the keep; from the reflections of the lightning Lone Wolf had been able to guess that much of its roof was still in place, but the windowless walls looked as if they had been punished by a giant fist. This building, he guessed from the charred remains and contorted hinges of what must once have been a mighty door, was the great hall of the fortress. "There might be somewhere in there that we could get some sleep," said Petra quietly. "Let's go for it, then," said Lone Wolf, equally quietly. It struck him as bizarre that they were both keeping their voices down when the sky was now sounding as if it were filled with huge firecrackers all being set off at once, but the brooding atmosphere of the ravaged keep seemed to be forbidding them to speak any louder. By the glare of the intermittent lightning, they made their way warily across the shambles of the keep, helping each other over obstacles as they came to them. At the great doorway to the hall they paused, pressing themselves flat against the wall to either side of it. Motioning to Petra to keep back, Lone Wolf cautiously peered round into the blackness of the hall, praying that a further burst of lightning might give him some clue as to the interior. Perversely, the sky refused to oblige for some minutes, but then made up for the delay by producing the most spectacular explosion that they had seen since coming to the island. Lone Wolf, dazzled

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 71 by the flare, found that the Sommerswerd was in his hand, seemingly having sprung there of its own accord. Grinning ruefully at Petra, he held the golden weapon up in front of him and in its calming radiance examined the inside of the stronghold. The vaulted room was larger than the Sommerswerd's light would reach. Lone Wolf could see that the floor was made up of huge flagstones chiselled from some dark rock in which glittering veins of red shone. Huge rootlike creeping plants spread across the flagstones, their rough, twisted stems covered with evil-looking thorns and as thick as the boles of trees. He was aware that the dank, moss-infested walls bore hangings of some kind, but these were no more than torn rectangles of darker darkness at the periphery of his vision, for his attention was focused on two points of faint red light seeming to float in the air a couple of yards directly in front of him. As he watched, the two lights ceased their aimless wanderings and settled themselves about five inches apart and about six feet above the ground. Lone Wolf was coldly conscious of the fact that they were observing him. Gesturing wildly with his free hand to Petra, telling her to retreat along the wall, he waited, his knuckles tight on the hilt of the Sommerswerd. The pair of red lights brightened slowly, taking on a more orange hue, until they were like twin coals. Lone Wolf found himself incapable of flight, although all the muscles of his body seemed to be telling him to run. A chill colder than even the driving rain embraced him as the two lights, now almost too bright to look upon, suddenly darted straight towards his head. He ducked, yelling, holding the Sommerswerd up in front of him as if it were a shield. He heard a swoosh as the two lights shot past him, one on either side. Off-balance, he fell to his knees on the stony ground in front of the wrecked doorway, the Sommerswerd almost slipping from his hand. Lone Wolf was back on his feet instantly, twisting as he rose to follow where the lights had gone. A movement to his right told him that Petra was advancing to face this threat alongside him, but he swore violently at her, driving her back. For a moment he could see nothing through the dense rain but the blackness of the riven sky. The twin red sparks seemed to have vanished altogether, and he allowed his muscles to relax a little: perhaps the lights were insects of some kind, like fireflies, scaring but harmless ... The entire courtyard was a blaze of red-orange light. He heard himself scream as his vision was momentarily burnt out by the sudden brilliance. As sight crept back to him he saw the twin red flares again, but now he saw them for eyes – angrily flaring eyes set in the terrifying reptilian visage of a monstrous spectral

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 72 figure floating in the air twenty yards away, a warrior clad from head to foot in an armour that seemed to have been woven from threads of blood. The loops of the mail glistened slickly as the warrior moved his shoulders, and Lone Wolf could see the massive morningstar in the spectre's right hand. There seemed nothing ethereal about the weapon's heavy metal ball, studded with thorns from the bizarre plants within the hall, as it swung in ponderous expectancy on the end of its thick chain. Before Lone Wolf could do more than set his feet in anticipation, the spectre was swooping towards him, its shriek buffeting him, the ball of the morningstar a blur around its head. Lone Wolf reeled instinctively aside, and felt the spiked ball whistle through the space his head had occupied an instant before. He jabbed clumsily upwards with the Sommerswerd at the warrior's armoured torso, but the gesture was feeble and slow, and he knew it was futile even as he made it. Spinning on his heels, he saw through the doorway the warrior turning at the far end of the hall, its eyes lighting up the entirety of that shattered chamber. Again the spectre moved with impossible speed as it came straight towards Lone Wolf, standing transfixed in the doorway. As he threw himself down he knew that no mortal weapon, not even the Sommerswerd, could affect so otherworldly a foe as this. He concentrated all his efforts on rolling clear of its path, ignoring the lumpy stones that dug into his spine, holding the Sommerswerd clear of his body so that he didn't cut himself to ribbons on its twirling blade. He knew that he was bellowing in fear and disgust, but his brutish yells seemed to have nothing to do with him. This time he came to his feet more slowly. The spectre might be invulnerable to mortal weapons, but, as Lone Wolf had noted, there seemed nothing so immaterial about its morningstar. This time as the warrior rocketed towards him, its lipless, snakelike mouth drawn into a thin line of anticipated triumph, Lone Wolf stood his ground as long as he dared, the wall close behind his back. At the very last moment he leapt to his left, howling with the effort as the great spiked ball came whining through the rain towards him. It missed and bit a chunk out of the wall's masonry. The apparition, seemingly unable to halt its own flight, continued through the wall as if there were no obstacle, but its hand remained fastened about the stave of the morningstar. Swiftly Lone Wolf struck downwards with the Sommerswerd, cutting right through the time-hardened shaft of the warrior's weapon. The ball dropped like a stone to the ground and, though encumbered by its chain and half of the stave, rolled

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 73 dangerously towards his legs, so that he had to leap frantically away from it. As it rattled among the fallen masonry behind him, he steadied himself as best he could on his trembling legs and prepared to face the spectral foe once more. As the warrior re-emerged from the rotted wet stones Lone Wolf could see that the loss of its weapon was draining the strength from it. It snarled wordlessly at him, and with long clawed fingers made scrabbling snatches at his face, but he was able to evade these easily as the substance slowly drained away from the spectre's blood-armoured body. He threatened it uselessly with the Sommerswerd, knowing that this was no more than a belated gesture of token defiance, for the apparition was already little more than a cloud of rusty-grey mist dissolving in the ceaseless rain. Shoulders heaving, Lone Wolf rested himself on the Sommerswerd. Petra was beside him, her arm around him, supporting him, speaking soft words to him. He allowed her to guide him in through the gaping doorway to the great hall, and slumped down against the wall just inside. He prayed that they would not be assaulted by another spectral guard, for he knew that he would be unable to draw further on his reserves of strength in order to deal with it as he had the first. He could feel his emollient Kai abilities already at work in his body, restoring energy to his fatigued tissues and calming his turbulent mind. You can relax for a time, Lone Wolf, he heard the sere voice of Gwynian saying inside his head. You've been travelling so long alone that you forget you have a companion with you who is near as fine a warrior as you are yourself. She can be trusted to fight off any further attackers during the minutes it will take you to restore yourself ... Besides, I sense no danger imminent ... Lone Wolf allowed the dusty old voice to lull him off to sleep, sleep that could ease his weariness far better than could even the tender fingers of his Kai sensibilities ... He came alert instantly when Petra shook him awake. Looking up into her smooth, fair-skinned face, he was reminded of how once, long ago, she had been there at his bedside in the besieged city of Ruanon when he'd awoken from a fever, and he'd thought that hers was the face of Ishir, welcoming him to the afterlife. He smiled at the recollection. She misunderstood the reason for the smile. "I don't have the advantage of Kai powers of endurance," she said tartly. "I've been watching you snuffling and snoring for hours now, and I need to grab some sleep myself." "That wasn't what I was thinking about." "Hmm. Well. Good. Just a couple of hours – no longer. Right?" She was settling herself down in the warmer place which

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 74 he had just vacated by the wall, wrapping her cape around her deceptively thin shoulders. She eased her body like a cat, as if it were made of some viscous liquid, until she was comfortable, then closed her eyes and lost herself instantly to sleep. Lone Wolf watched her face relaxing until it looked like that of a child, then he tucked her cloak more securely around her and retreated to urinate against the wreckage of a weighty marble table, heaped up against the wall as if tossed there. Looking out the doorway of the great hall, he saw that the dawn had come some little while ago. No wonder Petra had been so abrasive: she had been standing guard over him for more hours than he'd realized. The rain had at last stopped; in the thin light of the morning the weed-infested keep looked more bedraggled than cleansed by the storm. Standing in the portal, chewing some jerky from his pack, wishing he could step outside for a few minutes to reexamine the place in daylight but knowing that he must not let the sleeping Petra out of his sight for even a moment, he breathed the cold air, smelling in it the cloying scent of an ancient decay. He wondered what had happened here. The Elder Magi had been maddeningly nonspecific about Kazan-Oud's builders, and about the nature of the fate that had befallen them. Had the devastation he saw all around him occurred when the forces of Evil had seized the place, or had it happened much later, when some other force – perhaps even the Elder Magi themselves? – had attacked the malevolent new occupants of the fortress, succeeding not in driving them out but only in forcing them deeper into their usurped lair? He supposed an answer to these questions had no real bearing on his mission, but still he would have liked to know. The last of the jerky gone, leaving its salty, rather un-foodlike taste in his mouth, he spat a couple of times and then turned back into the building to explore it further. Petra was still sleeping peacefully, and the sight made him grin briefly. Making sure that she was never out of his line of sight, glancing back at her over his shoulder repeatedly, he crept along one wall of the hall, the Sommerswerd drawn and ready for use. The voice of Gwynian – his primary Gestalt voice – had told him that they were unthreatened in this place, but that had been a long time ago, and, besides, there might be creatures lurking here like the dimly remembered rats of the shore who would be no threat unless startled. But he heard no scrabbling sounds – nothing at all save for dripping rainwater and the faint susurration of Petra's distant breath, and a snort as she shifted her position in her sleep. Parts of the hall were given over to the briary plant to the extent that they were like thorny jungles in miniature. From these huge knots of vegetation the long branch-like ropes of the plant seemed to extend their twisted forms everywhere, groping up the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 75 walls like the avaricious tentacles of some predatory sea monster, twining their narrower offshoots through the rotting frames of paintings that had themselves long since rotted into oblivion. Some of the wall-hangings that he had seen from the doorway had survived a little better than the painted canvases, however. Almost totally black with age and dampness, they hung heavily and lifelessly on the slimy stone walls. Lone Wolf paused to examine one of them in more detail, trying to pick out the scene portrayed from the few surviving clues of stained, muted colour. When at last he succeeded in doing so he wished that he hadn't, although now at least one of his earlier questions seemed to have been answered. From the obscene cruelty of the scene it wasn't hard to deduce that the last occupants of this hall before disaster had struck Kazan-Oud had not been benign servants of Good. At the far end of the hall – the furthest he planned to permit himself to venture in his exploration until Petra awoke – there was a mighty fireplace made of a lighter stone than the floor and walls. The cavernous hearth itself was black from countless ancient fires, and, to judge by a couple of much more recent bones that lay there, some carnivorous animal had more recently made the place its lair. Lone Wolf looked around him nervously, but the bones were small, and the ubiquitous lichen had already invaded the end of one of them. Nevertheless, he peered long and hard back at Petra through the gloom to reassure himself that she was undisturbed before he moved closer. On the wall over the fireplace there still hung, as if it were a trophy, a gargantuan broadsword, clearly designed for a wielder larger than any man. Lone Wolf winced at the thought of the being that must have borne that weapon, and of the combatant that had succeeded in taking the sword from its original owner. But the blade was rusted and pitted, and was so eaten away around the massive hilt that it looked as if soon it might collapse under its own weight; both of those terrifying giants he had conjured up in his mind's eye must be centuries dead by now. Which didn't mean that their descendants might not still be nearby, of course ... He tightened his grip on the pommel of the Sommerswerd, knowing as he did so that even that golden blade was puny by comparison with the one over the fireplace. This was as far as he could go. Already he had been longer from Petra's side than he had intended; the couple of hours that she had stipulated were more than half gone. As he turned to retreat his eyes followed the line of the broadsword down towards the shadows at the side of the hearth. Now that his attention was no longer focused on the chewed bones in the fireplace's centre he could see that there was another form here. He paused indecisively then crept forwards to investigate, all

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 76 his senses alert for any movement around him, his acute hearing registering Petra's still-even breathing at the other end of the hall. The object was a corpse. He knew that before he had taken more than a step towards it. And it could be no more than a few weeks old, for there was still flesh filling out the leather trousers of its uniform. Yet his nose told him that death had not been recent, and he chose to pull on the trousers rather than the roughly shod ankles as he drag the corpse out into the dim light of the hall. Ignoring the stench, he looked past the slumped shoulders into the fireplace, and saw that the cadaver must have been lying with its torso half beyond a small hinged section of the blackened stone at the back of the hearth. Beyond this forbidding portal Lone Wolf could see a couple of wedge-shaped stone steps; the doorway presumably opened on a spiral staircase that led underground. But that was for later. Once Petra had awoken he could return here with her. The corpse was clearly that of a warrior. The black, brown and grey stripes of the uniform were those of the Grand Principalities of Slovia; for all Lone Wolf knew, the man might even have been at Ormond's court in Suentina when he himself had been there. The thought was sobering, as was the knowledge that somehow others aside from himself and Petra had pierced the magical barrier in the not too distant past – and presumably with the Elder Magi's knowledge, if not necessarily with their approval. For the hundredth time he wished that the reclusive sorcerers could rid themselves of their obsessive surreptitiousness: he had no wish that he and Petra should lose their lives in this foul place simply because the Elder Magi had decided, for impenetrable reasons of their own, to keep some vital piece of information from them. Carefully, his breath straining, he manoeuvred the corpse over to lie on its back, hoping that the face revealed wouldn't be that of any of the Slovian warriors he had met. He needn't have worried. As he turned away, retching bitterly, he acknowledged to himself that the dead man might have been a close friend for all that Lone Wolf would have been able to tell. Scavengers must have been at the body – at least, that was what Lone Wolf hoped had been the case, and that the mutilations had not been inflicted before death. The eyes were long gone, the vacant sockets black and shining with putrefaction. The lolling tongue, too, had largely decomposed, but not enough so that Lone Wolf couldn't see the vicious bites that had been taken out of the rich flesh. From the corners of the deliquescing lips oozed a thick greenish muck that stank of rot.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 77 It was no trial for Lone Wolf to leave his gruesome discovery where it lay. His stomach still aching, he returned along the length of the hall as cautiously as he had come. His whole body felt greasily besmirched, as if he had rubbed that green ooze all over his skin; he itched to take off his damp, heavy clothing and bathe, but knew that it would be a long time – days, perhaps – before he would be able to allow himself that luxury. As he knelt down beside Petra he marvelled as always at the way she could look so fresh no matter what she had just come through. It seemed a shame to wake her. She awoke at his touch, her blue eyes showing none of the usual confusion of someone freshly roused. As she got smoothly to her feet and rummaged around in her backpack for some food he explained tersely what he had discovered at the far end of the hall, and she grunted occasional acknowledgements. They both shouldered their packs and, with swords at the ready, retraced Lone Wolf's footsteps, this time careless of any noise they might be making. Petra munched loudly on a large green apple as they walked; there was the briefest of pauses in the chomping sound when first she set eyes on the corpse Lone Wolf had overturned, but otherwise she seemed totally unconcerned by it. Lone Wolf led the way into the fireplace with Petra close behind him. The glow of the Sommerswerd lit up the steps, spiralling downwards. Taking each step cautiously, wary that one of the blocks might crumble underfoot or that a trap could suddenly open beneath them, they crept downwards. The walls were slippery abominations best left untouched, so they kept as much as possible to the middle of the stairway. After forty-two steps downwards into the gloom – Lone Wolf's mind had been keeping a tally – the stairway debouched into an equally narrow corridor sandwiched between two walls of mouldering masonry. Foul, oily water glooped stickily along a gutter in the floor, and instinctively Lone Wolf turned to edge along the thin passageway in the direction of the channel's slow, reluctant flow, downwards into the bowels beneath Kazan-Oud. His own breath, echoing between the walls, seemed incredibly loud to him, drowning out the slight sounds of Petra's progress as she followed him; one time he found himself turning his head just to check that she was indeed still there. He had no idea how far they had gone in this creeping, apprehensive fashion when they came to a low, square-topped archway barred by a metal portcullis; the metal bars were well rusted but still thick enough to present a formidable obstacle. Lone Wolf drew himself to a halt beside the portcullis and Petra came alongside him. He could feel her soft breath on his cheek. Together they peered through at the continuation of the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 78 passageway on the far side of the barrier; there was just enough light from the Sommerswerd that they could see, in the distance, the corridor beginning to broaden out. "What now?" she said. "I don't want to have to try to break through that thing," he said. "It could take us a while and make a lot of noise. Besides, for all we know it may be booby-trapped." "There's no lock on it," she observed. "Maybe it wasn't designed to be opened at all." "No. Look at the way the sides of it are built into grooves in the stone. The thing opens, all right. The big question is how." Petra started feeling with her fingers all the way around the stone frame of the archway. Within seconds she gave a little grunt of satisfaction that told Lone Wolf that she'd found something. "What is it?" "Some kind of a lock. Here, you have a look at it." In the sword's yellow light he saw a circular plate, rather like a clock-face, although the numbers around its rim ran all the way up to 40. There was a brass pointer like an hour hand indicating noon. Beneath the dial a stubby metal lever protruded from the wall. "Pick a number and pull the lever," said Petra. "Simple." "Yes, but which number?" "I don't know. I'm not the one around here with Kai senses, am I? I'd have thought you could just take one look at it, Lone Wolf, and – hey presto!" She was teasing him, and he liked that. She knew the warrior's trick of fending off fear by making a joke out of even the greatest peril. "It's not that easy," he said. "I can't perform miracles." "Could this be any clue?" she said, pointing to a little metal plaque bolted to the bars of the portcullis at about waist-height. Lone Wolf stooped to look at it. The device was shaped like an inverted equilateral triangle, the area within it scored to form nine smaller triangles. "I don't know," he said. "Might do. I don't feel as if it does, though – my Kai awarenesses are usually sensitive enough for that. I think it's probably just some kind of maker's mark, or maybe a heraldic design. I'm pretty sure it's not important. I wish that it were. If only something ..." Petra cut him short. "I'll take your word for it. Now, if you'd like to stop trying to put off the moment when you have to tackle that dial ...?" He grinned at her: although he knew that she couldn't read his mind, there were times when she came uncannily close to it.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 79 "OK," he said, stepping back and running his fingertips over the face of the dial, trying to sense from whatever mechanism lay beneath the surface what number it would accept as its key. "One other cheery thought, just before you start, Lone Wolf." "What?" "You know you were saying that the portcullis might be rigged with a trap for anyone who tried to break through it?" Her voice sounded quite casual. "Well, isn't it just as likely that the people who built this infernal thing might have booby-trapped the dial as well? If you choose the wrong number, my friend, there's a good chance that you're going to blow us both to Naar." Lone Wolf was silent for a moment. Then at last, with heavy formality, he said: "I thank you for having appraised me of that fact." "My pleasure." Now he concentrated even harder on the dial, opening his Kai mind to whatever signals the mechanism might give it. Almost as an afterthought, he squeezed the hilt of the Sommerswerd, trying to will it to assist him in the task. To his surprise the sword responded – or, at least, the Gestalt entity that its soulstuff could form with his did so, and he became aware of the presence of Gwynian in his consciousness. Greetings, Lone Wolf remarked drily. It makes a change for you to come to me when I actually want you to. Sarcasm ill befits you, Lone Wolf, came the ancient voice. You're not subtle enough to master it properly. But let us discuss that on some other, more relaxed occasion. For the moment, still your coarsenesses while I bend my selfness to aid you in your task ... Lone Wolf could see in his mind's eye the old man standing in the middle of a blizzard – seemingly his preferred environment. He was juggling with snowflakes, tossing most of them aside but occasionally seizing upon one in particular and holding it out towards the young Kai. Lone Wolf was baffled. Clearly Gwynian was trying to show him something important, but the heat of the old man's hand was melting the flakes before Lone Wolf could see them properly. Finally, irritation angling his entire frame, Gwynian snatched one of the flakes from the air and blew on it with what seemed to be a freezing breath. He held it out with a furious expression on his face, and this time could see that the flake had the shape of the number 3. Three! said Lone Wolf. That's the number that I need – is that what you mean? Gwynian was shaking his head reprovingly, as if he were a dominie dealing with a pupil who Could Try Harder.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 80 Something to do with the number three! thought Lone Wolf. A number that's all threes, like nine or twenty-seven or thirty-three? The disapproving expression had gone from the old man's face, but it was clear that Lone Wolf's guesses still weren't correct. Why can't you simply tell me the right number? raged Lone Wolf. Why do we have to go through with this ridiculous charade? Just as you told Petra, responded Gwynian acidly: Your Kai sensibilities don't allow you to perform miracles. You have to be prepared to do some of the work yourself – that's one of the differences between your abilities and magic. I can assist you to a very considerable degree, but I cannot take the final step for you. That last step you must take for yourself. Lone Wolf cursed even as he recognized the truth of what Gwynian had said. Still retaining the image of the blizzard and the old man within it in his mind's eye, he renewed his fingers' examination of the dial, probing it with his Kai awareness, seeking desperately for whatever numerical clues the device might hold. But all he received from the mechanism was a sensation of considerable misfortune – yet a misfortune that pleased him, as if he were some cruel warrior sadistically laughing at the ill luck that befell those at his mercy. Will we die whatever number I select? he asked Gwynian. The old man shook his head sternly. No. But I'm sensing so much bad luck from ... Wait a moment. Bad luck! A number associated with the number three! And now Gwynian was smiling. Banishing the image from his mind, Lone Wolf confidently turned the pointer to the number 13 and, not allowing himself to think too much about what he was doing, yanked the little lever downwards. There was a deafening shriek of metal upon metal, and the wall against which they were leaning shook. Flakes of rust snowed down on the moist floor around their feet. They retreated a few yards up the passageway away from the sound of stripping cog-wheels and waited, their arms around each other, as the portcullis grudgingly rose from the floor. About halfway up, it stuck. "Come on," said Lone Wolf, seizing Petra's elbow. "Are you sure?" She resisted him, pulling her arm away. "Wait a moment. This could be a trap! You could have got the wrong number!" "No, it's OK. The mechanism's stuck, that's all. Gwynian wouldn't lie to me. We've got to get through quick in case the gear train disintegrates altogether! Come on, woman, blast you! Come on!" She paused for a split second, then saw the sense of what he was saying. The two of them were almost side by side as they

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 81 sprinted, nearly bent double, under the sharp, quivering cusps of the heavy metal gate. Hearing a creak overhead, they hurled themselves the last few feet. They were not a moment too soon. With a dreadful scream the mechanism within the walls gave way, and the portcullis came crashing to the stone floor just behind their heels. The lower parts of the vertical bars shattered, sending pieces of torn metal flying everywhere. The portcullis gate lurched sideways in its frame, finally coming to rest at a crazily drunken angle. They lay side by side on either edge of the slurried central gutter, gasping. "Well at least," said Petra after a few seconds, "there won't be anybody following us through there." "Equally," countered Lone Wolf grimly, "there won't be any going back the way we came. Will there?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 82

5 LOSS IS GAIN They picked themselves up and, with a last rueful look at the ruined gate, headed on along the passageway. The smell of dampness and dead earth was if anything slightly stronger now, and for the first time since coming underground they had evidence of life here other than their own, as rats fled from the sound of their footfalls. As they had seen from the portcullis, the passageway soon widened, ending in a circular domed chamber from which another flight of stairs led downwards. In the golden light of the Sommerswerd they looked at each other, shrugging; they had no alternative, now, but to continue wherever the passageway should lead them. A horrible notion came to Lone Wolf, that perhaps the route they were following led to a dead end, so that they would die slowly of starvation deep beneath the cursed fortress. He shuddered, and dismissed the idea: surely no one would be crazed enough to build such an elaborate structure to no purpose? And, yet, there might have been a rockfall ... Angry with himself for his own morbidity, he banished the idea for the second time from his mind. "Down we go, then," said Petra with mock cheerfulness. This time it was she who led the way, stepping carefully down into her own shadow. Looking down on her yellow-swathed head, the crease of her exposed neck and her thin shoulders, seemingly hardly strong enough to bear the weight of her heavy backpack, Lone Wolf was suddenly conscious of her not just as a warrior companion but as a woman, and he puzzled not just over the incongruity of the moment for this surge of awareness but also over the fact that it hadn't happened before, in all the time that he had known Petra so well. Possibly it was just a question of the enforced close proximity and the ever-present sense of danger, but he was certain there was something more than that. He wondered if it was he himself who had changed – if he were at last getting over the misery of Qinefer's departure and thus becoming more receptive to the attractions of other women – or if Petra were the one who had changed. Certainly he had noticed, at some subliminal level, that there was something different about her, a new sadness underlying her habitual cheer. He puzzled as to what the explanation for that could be, but now, as he followed her cautiously down the stone steps, was not the time to take the thought further. More subterranean animal life.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 83 This time it was a colony of bats. They flew up suddenly around Petra's face, squealing in terror and flapping their thin leathery wings, nipping at her hair and ears with their ratlike teeth. Screaming in surprise, she staggered and would have fallen down into the dark well of the stairs had not Lone Wolf grabbed her cape and lugged. She sat down smartly with an "Oof!" of pain. Lone Wolf paid her no attention. The bats seemed to have focused on his own face as a target for their hostility. A dozen or more of them were attacking him, fluttering back and forward in determined little dives, slapping at his eyes and cheeks with their wings and trying to bite his flesh. He dropped the Sommerswerd and heard it rattle away down the stairs as its light ebbed. In the abrupt darkness he beat at the marauders, feeling one soft body crumple in his fist but knowing that, blinded like this, he was in danger from the bats' teeth and whatever infections they might carry. Forcing himself not to succumb to panic, he sought succour in his Kai abilities, and the means they offered of extending his senses beyond the normal human extremes. There was one desperate chance, but he wasn't sure that his vocal cords could stand it. Steadying himself against the stair wall, he sang a single, high drawn-out tone through his nostrils. The attacking bats made it so confoundedly difficult to concentrate! Already feeling the septum of his nose beginning to sting, he raised the pitch of the note progressively higher until it had passed the limits of normal hearing. The rear of his throat was had joined his nose in a synchrony of sharp, throbbing pain, but still he forced the note higher until he could barely hear it himself, even with his enhanced Kai senses. And then at last, just as a particularly persistent bat was sinking its fangs into the flesh at the base of his left thumb, he hit the correct frequency. Confusedly, their hypersensitive ears overloaded by the tone that Lone Wolf continued to maintain, the bats began blundering about in the air, slamming into the walls, ceiling and floor, and into Lone Wolf's and Petra's clothing. The two Sommlending started stamping their feet and beating with their fists, crushing the firm little bodies into extinction in a mindless massacre that left them both, some minutes later, feeling obscurely guilty. The last of the bats fled shrieking up the stairs away from them. "I have it," said Petra in answer to Lone Wolf's unspoken question. "I caught its handguard with my toe just as it was slithering out of reach." In the gloom he could hear her straining as she doubled up to stretch for the Sommerswerd. He leant over to

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 84 take the weapon from her, the back of his hand brushing the smooth skin of the side of her neck. Once in his hand, the great weapon began to emit pulses of warm light, and soon its full glow was illuminating their way once more. The stairs came to an end in a bare stone room that seemed to be a sentry position, for on one wall there was a weapons rack holding a spear and a broadsword. Petra eyed these closely. "Well, now we know that there's probably a way out ahead of us," she said. "These weapons are comparatively new – not like that monstrosity in the great hall. I guess no one must use the way we came by any longer." "Bit of a mixed blessing," muttered Lone Wolf dourly. "Presumably the people who use these weapons must be somewhere up ahead of us." "If they're people," said Petra, mocking his gloomy tones. "Come on, Lone Wolf, look on the bright side, for Ishir's sake." "I don't know why I let myself in for this," he blurted, his sudden mood of despondency threatening to engulf him entirely. "If it weren't for the need to attain the Lorestone of Herdos ... As for you – well, I wish I hadn't brought you into this madness!" "You didn't bring me, Lone Wolf," she said cuttingly. "I came. There's a mighty big difference there. I came to join you of my own free will ... or, at least, I think I did: it's so hard to be sure of things like that, thanks to those devious sorcerers, the bastards! I can't even be certain that it wasn't them who got to Remir's mind, as well!" Lone Wolf was too startled by her vehemence and by her evident loathing of the Elder Magi, which obviously ran far deeper than he had suspected, to take in the rest of what she was saying. "Yes, they're devious," he said, "but you can't blame them for everything. Rimoah gave me good enough warning of the dangers of coming here, and I could have changed my mind at any stage, right up to the time that Ardan watched us climb into his apparatus, but I was too headstrong, too self-absorbed, too greedy to have the Lorestone in my mitts. And it was unforgivable of me not to have tried to deter you from coming with me!" "I just said, you buffoon, that you had no choice in the matter of my coming with you." Petra's voice was like a dagger's edge. "Stop patronizing me, as if I were your complaisant little puppet, ever prepared to dance to your tune." "I'm not patronizing you, you stupid bitch!" he snarled. "I'm just trying to apologize to you for my folly in letting you be here! Much good to me you've been so far, anyway!" "Oh yeah? Slept well in the great hall, did you? The rats that came up from the shore might have been put off by your snoring, but that wouldn't have kept them off you for long!"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 85 "What rats?" he shouted, his face inches from hers. "I don't believe there were any such rats, you ..." "You're not so despondent any longer, are you, Lone Wolf?" she said calmly. "That's good. I was worried you might turn into a liability with all that fatalistic talk." "You mean you ...?" She was right. The feelings of gloom had evaporated as swiftly as they had arrived. "That was all delib ..." "Yes, of course it was, though I meant the bit about you thinking of me as just a puppet who'll obey your pull on the strings. You do have a habit of doing that, you pompous bear. Well, here's how disobedient your puppet can be." To his astonishment she reached behind his face and jammed his lips down onto hers, kissing him long and deeply before she released him. "Hardly the auspicious moment for a declaration of romantic intent," she said calmly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as he staggered back in consternation, "but when ever is there an auspicious moment, hmm?" <> Nothing in Lone Wolf's Kai learnings had prepared him for the situation. His impulse was to kiss her again, but he knew that was madness – at this very moment there could be unseen foes stalking them. "Another time," he said breathlessly. "I promise you that. I promise ..." "It's not just your promise to make," she said darkly, then grinned mischievously. "But I may keep you to it, anyway. Now, come on, we'd best get moving again. Any idea which way would be best?" "Downwards," said Lone Wolf thickly. "My senses keep telling me that we should keep on going downwards." There were two tunnels leading off the chamber in which they stood, and it wasn't immediately easy to see if either of them led down. In the end Lone Wolf convinced himself that one was preferable to the other, and they opted for it. About twenty yards along there was a sharp kink in the passageway, and to their surprise they discovered that they had come to a section where torches burned in sockets along the wall. After they had gone a further quarter of a mile or so – it was difficult to judge distances down here – the littered stone floor, much dryer than before, began to bear signs of being in frequent and recent use. Petra pointed at a curved damp stain on the wall, her eyebrows raised, and she shrugged expressively. "Either they heard us coming – not very difficult – or it's just by lucky chance that

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 86 there's no one around at the moment," she said. "That can't be more than an hour old, and I'd guess a lot less." "Let's keep moving quickly, then," said Lone Wolf, eying a discarded apple core that had yet to turn completely brown. "There's nowhere to flee if they come at us here." They hurried on, the floor of the passageway beginning to slope steeply downwards as they went. Finally, after another five minutes or so, they found themselves coming out at the edge of a hall so vast that even Kazan-Oud's ruined great hall on the surface would have been dwarfed beside this one. Its vaulted roof seemed impossibly high above them, barely visible through the yellow sulphurous smoke that bellied hissingly up all round; even more alarmingly, there was no floor in sight, just a pair of stone walkways crossing the smoky gulf, intersecting at right angles at its centre. "Back? Forward? What do you think, Lone Wolf?" "Keep going, I guess. But be careful." The walkway wasn't broad enough for the two of them to walk side by side. Lone Wolf led the way and, after a few paces, decided it made more sense to drop down to his hands and knees. Petra followed suit, and they scuttled as quickly as they could towards the intersection at the centre of the chamber, pausing to cough convulsively from time to time in the thick, sickly fumes. "Any idea what we should do once we get to the middle, Lone Wolf?" called Petra from behind him. "I'll think about that when we get there," said Lone Wolf grimly. It seemed to take them a long time to reach the junction, though in fact it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Lone Wolf looked straight ahead at the walkway leading to an archway just like the one from which they had exited, then to the left and right, where there were similar walkways and similar archways. All three prospects looked equally unpromising, and his Kai sensibilities declined to give him any assistance in deciding which course to follow. He sensed Petra waiting expectantly behind him for his verdict, and that made him think of the hard pressure of her lips against his, and that didn't help the decision-making process in the slightest. He was saved from his knot of perplexity by the sound of running footsteps. He glanced to the right and saw a warrior tumbling from the archway there. The man saw Lone Wolf and Petra and scrambled to a halt, looking at them in abject terror. He wore the black, brown and grey leather uniform of Ormond's warriors. His face pouring with sweat, he shot a look backwards over his shoulder at the black maw from which he had just emerged, and, evidently deciding that Lone Wolf and Petra were

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 87 the lesser of two evils, unsheathed his sword and began to walk purposefully towards them. Gesturing automatically to Petra to stay where she was, Lone Wolf began to heave himself to his feet, reaching for the Sommerswerd. "Stay where you are, you thickhead!" she hissed. "This man means us no harm." Lone Wolf bit back an angry oath. "Hello there, stranger!" Petra called. "Well met in this vile place." The Slovian stopped and put his finger to his lips. "Hush, friends, if friends you are," he said firmly and quietly. " Don't shout. I may have lost them, if we're lucky." He was within a few yards of them now. Lone Wolf kept his eyes on the man's sword, which was still unsheathed. Even though his instincts agreed with Petra's assessment, he was still wary, and kept his hand on the Sommerswerd as he came fully to his feet. "Who might you have lost?" "What," the warrior corrected. "And you really don't want to know." Petra, too, was standing now, peering back in the direction from which the warrior had come. Clearly she was trying to listen for any signs of his pursuers, but the hiss of the smoke – or of its source, somewhere beneath them – muffled any sounds there might have been. "We greet you in amity," said Lone Wolf. "We are from Sommerlund, and we know your lord well. It is not long ago that he was pleased to entertain me at his court." "I wouldn't care if you were a Vassagonian child-molester right now," said the Slovian. "You'd still have to be better than the dark-souled inhuman swine that dwell in this hell-hole." Lone Wolf tensed at the man's remark, remembering Vassagonians such as Allani, who had become almost his blood-brother, but he bit back his retort. Later, if they lived, there would be time to discuss such niceties. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the slightly sick look on Petra's face, and then the way she was likewise controlling her tongue. "Let's get out of here," said the warrior, still looking backwards towards the archway. "You must have come from somewhere safe. Take me there, I beg you." "Dead end," said Petra succinctly. "Strictly one way only." "Well, that still leaves us ... oh, shit!" <> Through the archway were coming the Slovian's pursuers. Lone Wolf had never seen anything like them, and assumed they

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 88 must be agarashi – monstrous mutant creatures spawned when Agarash the Damned had reigned almost supreme over Magnamund and still not wholly extinct. These three beasts were like some hideous cross between a wolf and an alligator, with long green tongues that flickered malevolently between rows of inwardly curving teeth. Their hides were scaled and the colour of water so muddy that it is nearly black. Their eyes were small and brightly yellow; their four legs, ending in webbed digits where talons flickered in and out of fleshy sheaths, were squat and short, yet obviously powerful – Lone Wolf would have wagered that they could outstrip a man and outleap a hound. "Their armour is too tough for any weapon save a crossbow," said the Slovian with a catch in his voice. "I know, I've tried – by the honour of the Gods I've tried. We all did. I think I'm the only one of us still alive to tell the tale, and I doubt I'll ..." Lone Wolf came to a rapid conclusion. There wasn't time for Petra to unstrap her crossbow and load a bolt. "Let's get the hell out of here!" he snapped. For a fraction of a second he thought that Petra might stand her ground, but then she was running like the wind along the perilously narrow walkway diametrically opposite from the archway where the hissing, gurgling creatures stood contemplating what they obviously regarded as easy prey. Lone Wolf and the Slovian were close behind her. The creatures were dimwitted – it was to that that the three humans owed their lives. It took the beasts a few long moments to realize that their intended victims were fleeing and a few further seconds to push their heavy bodies into pursuit, and that gave the humans just enough of a head start. In front of the archway Petra halted abruptly, and the other two caromed into her. Lone Wolf stumbled sideways, and would have fallen into the void had the Slovian not grabbed his backpack and steadied him. "Wise girl," said the warrior. "Not just a pretty face." He barged past the two Sommlending and pointed at a pair of parallel cracks on the grey floor in front of them, one about three feet further ahead than the other. Behind, there was a bestial scream as one of their pursuers lost its footing and tumbled into emptiness. "Leap!" the Slovian shouted at Petra. "Right over both of them! Snake-pit! They're everywhere!" She leapt, covering the distance easily. The Slovian followed and, with a last glance over his shoulder, Lone Wolf. As he landed he tripped over the stranger's heels and the two of them fell painfully to the floor. Lone Wolf felt a stab from his knee just before his chin smashed into the flagstones, and for a couple of

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 89 seconds he could think of nothing except how pretty were the coloured lights that danced in front of his eyes. When he regained his senses the echoing cries of the triumphant pursuers were a hideous song in his ears. He rolled over on his back, struggling to free the Sommerswerd from its scabbard, twisting his head around to face the direction in which he thought the attackers might be. He saw a flash of Petra's legs as she dropped down beside him, her crossbow to her shoulder, her finger tightening to release the bolt. "No need!" yelled the Slovian. "They're stupid, I tell you!" Sure enough, just as Lone Wolf got them into vision, the two confidently advancing predators, seeming to chuckle through their closely set teeth, crossed the first of the two cracks in the floor. The flagstones beneath Lone Wolf shook and the sound of groaning machinery filled the air; then a rectangle of the floor dropped cleanly away beneath the creatures. Their screams persisted for a long time, fading away downwards until they ceased with an abrupt and chilling finality. Petra was looking shocked. "I hit one of them in the mouth," she said, gaping at the crossbow in their hands, "and it didn't seem to disconcert the beast in the slightest. I don't believe it. That was good Sommlending steel, not your Slovian rubbish, and the bloody thing just ..." The Slovian cleared his throat. "No offence meant, I'm sure," continued Petra. "The beast should have been dead where it stood, but instead it just had a good meal. A good but final meal," she added with a trace of satisfaction, "so I guess it's all well that ends well, but even so ..." "We'd better get clear of here," said the Slovian to Lone Wolf. "We were lucky with the snake-pit being there – otherwise we'd be the creatures' supper right now, not your second-rate Sommlending crossbow bolt. But there'll be others on their trail, and not all of Zahda's little pets are as stupid as those. Come on – put your weapons away and follow me. I know somewhere we'll be safe for a while. Bring the wench with you." Lone Wolf shot a look at Petra. Her lips were a taut line, but she nodded back at him. Neither of them much liked their new companion, but he seemed to be honest – at least for as long as it suited him to remain so. And, if he really did know somewhere safe ... The Slovian led them too swiftly for any conversation to be possible. Moving at a pace little short of a run along a route he clearly knew well, stopping every now and then for a second or two to peer around a corner in case danger might lurk there, he took them along passageways and tunnels, through chambers small and large, bare and furnished, up and down stairways, across viaducts and through small streams until Lone Wolf hadn't a clue of where

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 90 they might be, his tracking sense long since hopelessly confused. All he knew was that the general trend of their course had been downward, so that he estimated that they must by now be at least a quarter of a mile beneath the surface of the Isle of Khor. The air all around them was hot and humid enough that he wished the Slovian would stop for long enough to allow them to shed at least one layer of their encumbering garments, but the warrior clearly had no intention of waiting for anything. They ended up scrabbling over a rockfall of some scarlet ore, the crystalline blades stabbing into their hands and knees, to find themselves in a small, musty chamber. The echoes of their gasping breath as they collapsed to the dusty floor were muffled, giving the place a deadened feeling, as if it had been a long time since any other living creature had been here. Once more there was only the glow of the Sommerswerd for illumination, and their new companion admired the weapon. "How long have you been tunnel-running?" said the Slovian to Lone Wolf, passing him a hip-flask. "And where'd you get the doxy from? She's a pretty enough little thing, and you've obviously trained her well to use a crossbow. Bet she's a corker when you get her going, eh? Are there any more like her, or shall we share her?" "She's a warrior," said Lone Wolf curtly, "and I'll wager she's a finer one than you are. Some other time you might think to try her mettle, if you feel like gaining a few broken bones." He took a gulp of the strongly aromatic liquor from the flask. It tasted throat-burningly good. The Slovian snorted. "Want to keep her to yourself, eh? Well, I'd do the same in your position. Like I said, she's a pretty little thing, and spirited with it. I like 'em with spirit." "If you don't change the topic of conversation pretty speedily, my friend," said Petra, her voice barely more than a whisper but as deadly as a blade, "you're going to be a spirit." The Slovian chortled complacently. "Hearken to the tongue on her!" he said. "Plenty of fire, eh? You did very well – really very well, I mean it – with that crossbow, love." He patted Petra reassuringly on the thigh. "Very well," he repeated. "You were asking how long we'd been down here, `tunnel-running'," said Lone Wolf firmly. "Just a few hours, that's all." "What?" The Slovian smacked his own brow and got half to his feet. "You mean we were only a few hours from the surface when I met you. Why in damnation didn't you say so, man?" Lone Wolf didn't know what to answer. "You never asked us," said Petra coldly.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 91 "Shut up, wench. This is man's talk. If I'd known we were so close to the surface I'd have gone back across the snake-pit ..." "What we did tell you, though," said Petra, "was that it was a dead end the way we'd come. If you'd gone back there you'd have been trapped." Lone Wolf realized that this wasn't necessarily strictly true – there'd been another passageway off the chamber that had looked like a sentry's position – but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Instead he looked towards Petra respectfully, hoping that the Slovian would have sense enough to pick up the cue. "Bit gabby, though," said the Slovian, following Lone Wolf's gaze. "But to business. I've been down here in this warren for nigh on a year, I think – if only I'd realized that we were so close to the blessed light of the Sun! I'd even have taken my chances with those dhax. We still could go back, you know – it'd be easy enough to retrace our steps. Once you've been down here a while you get used to keeping a mental record of where you've been. Wait until we've rested a bit, and then ..." "We don't want to go back yet," said Petra, her eyes half closed as if she were weary. She probably was. "Stop interrupting, woman, or I'll give you a taste of the back of my hand." He drew back his arm and Lone Wolf thought for a horrified moment that the Slovian was about to deliver the threatened blow. It was obvious to Lone Wolf that Petra was waiting for an excuse to retaliate. He seized the Slovian by the wrist and glared at him. "Stop it, you fool! If you're too stupid to accept her as a warrior, then at least get it into your thick head that she's dangerous. And bear in mind, also, that she's a friend of mine: strike her, and you'll have the two of us to contend with. Not that, frankly, she'd have much need of my help." "All right, all right," said the Slovian, releasing himself from Lone Wolf's grip. "No need to act so possessive. How you discipline your women's your affair, my fine Sommlending turkey-cock." "And you might profit a great deal if you listened to what she was telling you," said Lone Wolf. He explained tersely about the portcullis, and the combination that had sealed it. "The lock was on the outside," he said. "You couldn't have reached it from this side, and now it's no use anyway." The Slovian listened patiently to Lone Wolf, and clearly infuriated Petra yet more. "We seek a great treasure," said Lone Wolf, "which we know has been secreted somewhere in the bowels of Kazan-Oud, and we do not propose to leave here until we have discovered it." As he continued, he took great care not to mention anything specific about the Lorestone of Herdos, and he was relieved to notice that the Slovian was too slow-thinking to start

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 92 wondering what this mysterious treasure might be. He also mentioned nothing about the transformation of Petra and himself into the creature that had penetrated the Elder Magi's magical power barrier – that, he felt, was probably the Elder Magi's secret to divulge if they so wished, not his. At the end of Lone Wolf's brief account the Slovian nodded, rubbing his chin. "I wish I had as powerful reason as you do, my friend, for incurring the wrath of Zahda ..." "Who's this Zahda?" said Lone Wolf. "You've mentioned him before." "He's the lord of this hellhole," said the Slovian, shrugging, "and probably the source of all the Evil here. More than that I can't tell you, except that he's a sadistic bastard – gets a kick out of seeing people squirm before they die." "In some cases, I can quite understand," murmured Petra, her eyes still half closed. The Slovian ignored her. "Myself, I came here for the sake of a woman, would you believe it?" he said, shaking his head at his own stupidity. "Might as well tell you about it, I suppose." He gestured to Lone Wolf to feel free to have another belt of the liquor, then leaned back, evidently summoning his thoughts, before beginning to tell them his story. There was, it seemed, a slaver called Sadzar who worked out of the port of Gzor, and his piratical vessels terrorized the seas all around those parts. The Slovian himself – whose name was Tavig – came from a high-born family of Suentina, connected via a wrong-side-of-the-blanket liaison some generations back to the royal line of the Grand Prince Ormond. Tavig's elder sister, Sulam, was not much of a beauty "and had a hell of a tongue on her, just like this wench of yours here", but was nevertheless a middlingly noteworthy prize in the marriage market because of the loftiness of her birth. At last a minor princeling from a foreign land – Tavig did not elaborate – had successfully sought her hand, having settled with her father a suitable fee of five thousand crowns for the privilege of taking the daughter as his bride. This sum was of considerable importance to Tavig's family since, whatever the blueness of their blood, successive generations of hell-raising had reduced their circumstances to that form of genteel poverty that is most abject because it can never be admitted. They packed the shrew eagerly into a vessel bound for her future husband's dominion – "cash on delivery, o' course" – and settled back to wait for the lucre. Unfortunately, the ship to which they'd consigned the young woman had been seized by Sadzar's slavers: the male passengers had been slaughtered in various barbaric ways inconvenient to describe in the presence of the frailer sex – a jerk of the head towards a glowering Petra – while the women in general

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 93 had been packed off to a somewhat worse fate. With the exception of Sulam, that was – Here Tavig tugged indicatively on his tongue – who was offered back to her family on the payment of a thousand crowns' ransom, "which was a deal more than she was worth in the normal way of things, see, but still a good lot less than this idiot foreigner was willing to pay for her". Hearing that the Elder Magi could be induced to offer a packet to anyone who could lift the Evil that blighted Kazan-Oud and cocky about his own abilities with the sword, Tavig had come east and offered his services. Like Lone Wolf and Petra, he had been brought in one of the Elder Magi's vessels to the barrier and given a crystal key with which to effect his entrance. Thereafter he had followed a different route to theirs, landing at the far end of the island and descending into the tunnel system via what he had assumed to be an air-vent but which he now knew to have been a trap. Lone Wolf looked at Petra grimly. Like Tavig, they had gained entrance to the warren beneath Kazan-Oud easily enough – too easily, it now seemed, when looked on with the benefit of hindsight. Since then Tavig had been on the run. He'd teamed up for a while with a group of earlier venturers who'd congregated one by one, discovering each other by chance in the endless labyrinth. These resourceful survivors had taken to themselves the name "tunnel-runners" with pride, seeing in it a reflection of their own wiles and fortitude, but over the course of time "Zahda's pets" had picked them off, until now only Tavig was left of that group. He'd assumed, on discovering him, that Lone Wolf must be a member of a different group of tunnel-runners, perhaps new to this region of the tangled skein of tunnels. "That's a fascinating tale," said Lone Wolf, who believed about one word in three of the earlier part of it. He guessed that Tavig was a mercenary, pure and simple, who was trying to impress them by imputing to himself some marginally higher motives. He yawned. He hadn't a clue what time of the day it might be, but the few hours' sleep he had snatched back in the great hall seemed a long time ago. The strong liquor that Tavig had given him had gone to his head a little. "You say this place is safe from Zahda's creatures?" "Nowhere's safe from Zahda's creatures," said Tavig heavily, "not for long. But so far as I know they've never come this way. If you two want to get some shuteye, I'll take the watch." "Will I be safe from your unwelcome attentions as I slumber?" said Petra lazily, unnecessarily picking her fingernails with the point of a dagger. It looked sharper than any dagger had a right to be.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 94 "And don't worry," said Tavig heartily to Lone Wolf, "I won't lay a finger on your doxy. Besides, they're better with a bit more flesh where it counts, eh?" And Tavig indicated graphically just precisely where it counted. # Sleep came instantly to Lone Wolf, despite the fact that he no longer felt that Tavig was as trustworthy as he had at first assumed. His dreams were confused, and afterwards he would never be able to remember them as anything more than a jumble of incompatible images, but one certain thing about them was that, for the first time in months, the Nameless Woman played a pivotal role. Concern was written all over her face, and she seemed to be trying to warn him about something, but his sleeping mind was too befuddled to take in anything that she was saying. He awoke some time later to the sensation that a thousand tiny creatures were attacking the inside of his skull with pickaxes. The inside of his mouth felt as if it were lined with a bearskin rug, and tasted as if the bear had put up a hell of a fight. Sitting up, he put his hands over his ears, squeezed his eyes tight shut and called blearily on his Kai abilities to clear him of the hangover. As the symptoms slowly ebbed he ruminated confusedly that whatever Slovian moonshine Tavig had been feeding him must have been exceptionally potent ... He reached out in the darkness for the reassuring weight of the Sommerswerd, and with some difficulty found it. As the weapon responded to his grasp by beginning to radiate its warm yellow light, he saw Petra sitting opposite him, once more attending to her fingernails with the point of her dagger. She looked up briefly, smiled courteously at him, and then resumed her manicure. "Where's Tavig?" said Lone Wolf. "Gone." "What do you mean, gone? Where the ...?" "There are some advantages to being a non-person, you know, Lone Wolf." She held out her hand, splaying her fingers and looking admiringly at them, then swapped the dagger over and set to work on the other hand. "For one thing," she said smoothly, "people – real people – don't think to offer you drinks from their hip-flask, so that you don't sleep as if you were dead." "Did he try to molest you as we slept? And you – where's he gone?" Again she looked up at him with a smile. "Oh – that. No, he's alive, all right. He went limping off feeling distinctly sorry for

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 95 himself – nothing like breaking a few bones to cheer a woman up. But he'd been trying to do something a lot worse than ..." "And you let him go? We needed him as our guide, however much of a swine he might have been. Couldn't you just have knocked him flat, or something? – anything to keep him here. I know he was getting on your nerves, but ..." Without finishing the sentence, Lone Wolf turned his back on her and scrambled through the chamber's narrow entrance and over the loose pile of ore, cursing as the crystalline stones gave way under his feet. He skidded down into the dark passageway, landing on his bottom with another string of oaths. He paused there for a second, allowing his Kai sensibilities to take over his powers of observation. There were scuffmarks in the dust along both stretches of corridor, but those in one direction seemed to have been disturbed a few hours more recently than any of the others, and he guessed that this must be the way that Tavig had gone. Instructing one part of his mind to keep a careful track of every twist and turn he might take through the labyrinth, Lone Wolf set off in pursuit, keeping close to the wall and prepared to dive for cover at the least sign of danger. It was lucky that he was memorizing the route, for Tavig seemed to have taken pleasure in following a course that twisted and turned at every conceivable point, sometimes even doubling back on himself – as if, Lone Wolf suddenly realized, he's trying to make sure we don't follow him. Another worry came to him: if Tavig were indeed as untrustworthy as Lone Wolf had come to believe, was their any guarantee that he might not try to use Petra and himself as bargaining counters in some kind of a deal with the mysterious Zahda? Of course, the evil lord would wait until Tavig had told him everything he knew and then simply have him slaughtered out of hand, but the Slovian had not struck Lone Wolf as being particularly bright, and might well be fool enough to hope he could buy his freedom from the spell of Kazan-Oud. Lone Wolf stared back uselessly over his shoulder for a moment, wishing that he'd thought to bring Petra with him rather than abandoning her in his fury; then, settling his shoulders, he continued his frenzied chase. Soon he could hear Tavig's running footsteps echoing ahead of him. The Slovian had presumably realized that Lone Wolf was not far behind and had resorted to speed alone, for he was making no attempt to disguise the sounds of his flight. At this rate Lone Wolf would be on him in seconds, and then ... There was a horrible, anguished scream. The voice was so distorted by agony that for a moment Lone Wolf couldn't believe that it could have sprung from Tavig's throat.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 96 He snaked along the wall to the next corner, almost entirely sheathing the Sommerswerd lest its light give him away to whatever had attacked the Slovian. The dull glow from his belt gave his Kai vision just enough to work with. There was a flight of steps, and he sped up it, his shoulders low, his hand to his sword, controlling the noise of his breathing. He was halfway up when he saw a fog of movement ahead of him. Drawing the Sommerswerd fully, reckless of the consequences, Lone Wolf was just in time to see the Slovian swaying at the top of the stairway, his face covered by his hands, thick blood pouring between his fingers. Lone Wolf prepared for the man to tumble down on top of him, but a monstrous hand suddenly pounced from the darkness and snatched the Slovian. Lone Wolf was up the stairs three at a time, feeling the red mist of combat filling his mind. The Sommerswerd was like a serpent in his hand, the blade seeming to flow sinuously, ready to make a strike. The huge green fingers were almost completely hiding Tavig's struggling figure. There were sharp horns at the hirsute green knuckles, and the fingers ended in hooked claws, yet the hand was using none of these weapons but instead merely clenching with the Slovian's body inside it. Through the haze of his fury Lone Wolf could hear the sound of bones cracking as they succumbed to the monstrous pressure. There was a fountain of blood between two of the fingers, about the height off the floor that Tavig's face must be ... The Sommerswerd struck, a great sideways stroke that cut deep along the length of the hand's index finger, shearing through green flesh and, with a jolting screech, into the yellow-grey knuckle-bone beneath. There was a gargantuan shriek from the darkness, a thunder of agony that seemed to make the floor shake. Filth fell from the ceiling, covering Lone Wolf and the huge, clenching fist. Green ichor sprayed from the wound the Sommerswerd had cloven, drenching Lone Wolf and the stairs behind him. Shielding his eyes with his free hand, he hacked again with the golden blade, striking down with all his main at the base of the maimed finger. Another shock running up through the weapon to jar Lone Wolf's shoulder. Another earth-shaking scream. Another shower of the sticky ichor. The blade chopped right through the bone, lopping the finger off. The great mass of meat, half the weight of a man, dropped to the floor and rolled erratically towards Lone Wolf, so that he had to leap over it. Behind him it pounded down the stairs.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 97 The fingers were unclenching. Lone Wolf, expecting the hand now to strike out for him, poised himself on the balls of his feet, ready to take evasive action. Drenched in slithering green, the golden blade of the Sommerswerd swished this way and that in the fetid air of the passageway, seemingly ravenous for more of the monster's essence. A thing flopped to the ground as the fingers retracted. For a moment, through the red fog of his wrath, Lone Wolf didn't recognize it for a man. Tavig, of course – what was left of Tavig. Sneaking forward warily, crouched down to present as small a target as possible, eyes combing the gloom of the corridor into which the arm had retreated, Lone Wolf came to the Slovian's side. He had borne little love for the man, but in this mess of blood and anger and fear such matters as likes and dislikes were diminished to nothing in the light of the fact that the two of them shared human-ness in the face of a monstrously alien foe. It was folly to expect the soul to remain in the tattered form, and yet Lone Wolf sensed that there was a last flutter of life still present in that tortured flesh. He gently rolled Tavig over, still tensed to leap aside should the mammoth hand and its owner renew the assault, and bit his lips as the Slovian's face came into view. The features looked as if they had been smashed by the full blow of a morningstar – no, worse, for the heavy spiked weapon would have compacted the flesh and bone, whereas the components of Tavig's face appeared to have erupted from their positions. His eyes were jellies; his nostrils and his ears and his mouth were the sources of rivers of redness. He had bitten half through his tongue, so that it lolled hopelessly between his burst lips. His arms flopped like heavy-linked chains, the bones obviously shattered in numerous places. His ribcage was a mess, its contours impossible under his gore-saturated jacket. Yet the last spark of life had not fled. There's still a chance! thought Lone Wolf madly, drawing on his resources of Kai sensibility, depleted as they already were by the stresses of his combat with the fiend. Ishir give me your strength, and Kai give me your strength also – fill this worthless vessel with your godly vitality so that it may be poured into the Slovian and give him back his life! I entreat you, Ishir! I entreat you, Kai! Gripping the Sommerswerd firmly, so that its soul-stuff was enabled to join with his own, he forced himself to press down hard with his other hand on the smashed wreckage of the Slovian's breast. He could feel the sundered ribs giving way under the pressure, spiking down into the softer tissues of the lung cavity. It seemed crazy to be inflicting yet worse damage on the splintered remnants of the ribcage, yet Lone Wolf knew that only by the use

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 98 of such force could he ensure a sufficiently strong physical contact between himself and Tavig's body that enough of the balming Kai essence might flow through to the other. The effort was intense, rending, agonizing. Stripping himself of all the balms of the Kai powers in order to devote them to the broken Slovian, Lone Wolf felt as if he were being tormented on the wheel. His tissues screamed their protest; he was dimly aware of the tendons on his neck standing out like knotted cords; droplets of sweat sparked from his forehead and ran saltily into his throbbing eyes. He knew that he was burbling from the effort, uttering liquid sounds that ran together until they were little short of a scream. He forgot that the shadows of that dark tunnel might still hold a deathly threat; had the owner of the ghastly fist chosen to strike then, Lone Wolf would have died without noticing it. There was what seemed to be a pop! noise in Lone Wolf's ears, and he had the sensation of bursting through some rubbery barrier. In an instant the pain began to lift from him, and the red to recede from his vision. He wasn't in the tunnel of creeping shadows any longer; instead he was in a brightly sunlit field. Birds sang. There were clouds puffy in the sky. Trees swished their leaf-laden branches together like water rushing over rocks. And ahead of him, on a grassy knoll, stood the Nameless Woman and the old man, Gwynian, holding her hand. She was looking at Lone Wolf with a grave intensity in her eyes, the pupils implausibly large pools of liquid darkness. Her unkempt black hair was being teased by the meadow's breezes. Beneath her overly large cheekbones the thin lips of her small mouth were drawn into a rueful line. There is no hope for the Slovian, Lone Wolf, she said in her sweet, almost girlish voice. His soul has journeyed too far towards the dark regions of condemnation for any guide to be able to reach him and draw him back. Even were his body hale, his soul could never return to it. But I must try! I must! He is our friend – our only friend in this cruel labyrinth! He – An ironic smile momentarily broke the line of her lips. How much of a friend is he to you, Lone Wolf? Have you thought to ask Petra for her views? I do not like him, Lone Wolf confessed, breathing the clean air, appalled by his own heartlessness in being able to luxuriate in the fresh taste of it, and I know that he inspires a deep loathing in Petra, yet that is surely no way to judge the worth of a man. He has courage – this I have seen – and he has dedication. The Nameless Woman shook her head sadly. Lone Wolf knew that she would not weep, knew that she never wept, that it

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 99 would be impossible for her to weep, and yet her eyes seemed moist. Lone Wolf, came her cool stream of thought, even were he your Kai comrade or your most dearly beloved, there is still no way that his soul could be drawn back to his flesh. Bid farewell to him: do not waste your precious Kai energies in a futile attempt to resurrect him. Do not, I say! Great danger could result if you continue to deploy your sensibilities in a wasted attempt to drag back his soul – for all you might succeed in doing is to make his body a welcoming bourne for the soul of another. And the souls that tenant the fell labyrinth beneath Kazan-Oud are often those of tortured beings, and many have borne Evil from this world into the shadowland, and would willingly return it to the flesh. You have no wish to see the form of the Slovian animated by a soul of Darkness, have you? Lone Wolf recoiled from the thought. No! he cried. No! No! Then leave his tattered body be. And know, too, that he was a man of less worth than you believe. You are poor at listening when your friends try to tell you things, Lone Wolf – you lost Qinefer because of that, as you have begun to understand, and yet you still have not learned to mend your ways. Listen to what Petra has to tell you about Tavig ... and listen also to the things that she tells you through media other than her words. For she – but no, that is something you must learn from her, and not from me. Now go, Lone Wolf – go back to your fleshly place in the scheme of things. I do not permit you longer to stay here. She turned away abruptly, tossing her hair. Lone Wolf felt as if he had just been dismissed by a lover. As the scene began to disintegrate around him, he cast one last imploring glance at the old man, but Gwynian merely shrugged at him and tossed him a crushed ball of parchment. Lone Wolf caught it deftly and ... ... found it still in his bloodied and ichor-drenched fingers, back in the gloom of the passageway beneath Kazan-Oud. The crumpled wreckage of the Slovian, heaped on the dirty stone floor in front of him, seemed more dead than could have any object that had never lived. Through the fingers of his other hand, still firmly pressed into the spongy rubble of the object's chest, Lone Wolf could feel nothing that betrayed life. As the Nameless Woman had told him, the Slovian's soul had truly fled. Lone Wolf took his hand away from the crushed breast. Taking up the Sommerswerd, which must have fallen from his senseless fingers and so curtailed his journey to the Kai place where the woman and the old man dwelt, Lone Wolf lifted its light and scrabbled the parchment open with his finger and thumb. There were letters scrawled on the parchment. They were spiky and ugly and totally alien to Lone Wolf's Sommlending eyes, and yet almost immediately the wisdom of the Kai changed his vision of them, so that they formed into words that he could read and understand:

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 100 "The labyrinth is yours now, Northlander. I wish you luck in it. I cannot tell you all that I know of its ways, for that would fill many books and my soul aches to flee from this plane, yet I can advise you thus: Beware the Green, Northlander. Beware the Green. For the Green is death." As Lone Wolf watched, baffled, in the Sommerswerd's warm light, the parchment faded quietly from existence, so that his eyes were staring at the black-lined creases of his own hand. I didn't like you, old campaigner, he thought sadly at the corpse, aware as he did so that there was nothing of humanity left in it, but I thank your tenacious from the depths of my heart for the goodness that inspired it to give me this warning. Finding the Slovian's sword in the shadowy passageway was no easy matter, yet at last Lone Wolf discovered it, lying at the foot of the stairs near the already putrefying finger of the monstrous beast. In Slovia, he knew from his time at the court of Grand Prince Ormond, it was the custom when a valiant warrior had fallen in battle to lay his sword upon his breast, and to close his eyes so that they might better see the bright scenes of the blessed afterlife. Although these were practices strange to the Sommlending and the Kai, he respectfully placed the weapon across the Slovian's corpse, and forced himself to draw the eyelids down over the jellied messes that were all now left of Tavig's eyes. But it was a prayer to Ishir that he mouthed as he knelt briefly beside the Slovian's remains, and it was to the Goddess that he consigned the dead man's soul. # Petra was waiting for him in the darkness. As he climbed over the crystalline rockfall into the stuffy little room and the radiance of the Sommerswerd lit up the ancient stone walls, he found her sitting in the middle of the floor, cross-legged, offering crumbs to a rat. At Lone Wolf's appearance the rat fled. Petra looked up at him, furious over the interruption of her game. "Tavig," said Lone Wolf. "He's dead. Some ... thing sprang out of the darkness and snatched away his life." "I can't pretend to be overly upset," said Petra coolly. She seemed singularly more concerned by the desertion of the rat, frowning towards the corner into which it had scuttled. "I wouldn't have wished for his death, yet it seems somehow quite satisfactory that he has died. I trust that his death was not too great an agony ..." "Woman!" snapped Lone Wolf. "How can you talk like that? You had nothing to fear from his clumsy attempts to molest you – you know that!"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 101 "The fact that I would have been able to defend myself," she said, turning to look at him with eyes of polished steel, "does not make the crime any the less heinous. He would have been as guilty – had his persecutions escalated, as inevitably they would have done – even while he nursed his broken bones, as if he'd assailed some frailer victim, and succeeded in violating her. As, likely, he had done in the past. But that was not, in fact, the primary reason why I'm less than troubled to hear of his demise." "Then what was?" "You slept, Lone Wolf, you slept so soundly. Of course, Tavig had made sure to furnish you with sufficient strong liquor to keep a giant asleep – your wisdom must have deserted you as you drank. But luckily, as I tried to explain to you before you shot off into the tunnels, he regarded me, in his boorish fashion, as a non-person, a mere woman – an animal about as intelligent as a dog, but more obedient and singularly less ferocious. Tavig never dreamt that this animal would attempt to intercede as he tried to steal the Sommerswerd. He ..." "What?" Lone Wolf roared. "Tried to steal the ..." "In the name of the Lords of Darkness! He did that?" "Yes. Listen to what you're told. You're not very good at listening, Lone Wolf, are you?" Petra's echo of what the Nameless Woman had said to him silenced the words in Lone Wolf's throat. No wonder she was glad to hear of the Slovian's death – indeed, the wonder was that she had had the mercy not to slaughter the man where he stood. Without the Sommerswerd, not just as a weapon but far more importantly for the light it gave, he and Petra, ignorant of this labyrinth of passageways, would have been doomed. The Slovian might as well have cut their throats as they slept. Except, of course, Petra had not slept ... "Please forgive me," he said humbly. "You're right. I should listen more before I act. And I should ... trust more, as well. I should have realized your good sense, not immediately assumed that you'd acted rashly and stupidly. In fact, if it comes to stupidity, I myself have ..." "There's no need to actually grovel, Lone Wolf," she said impatiently. "We know each other well enough by now not to have to wallow publicly in our contritions, for Ishir's sake. Forget it. Just don't," she added with a glinty look in her eye, "do it again." She grinned. "OK?" "Yup. OK." He sat down with his back against the wall, the Sommerswerd propped up between his knees, and looked at his

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 102 gore-smeared hands. "Do you think you're little friend'll come back?" he said at last, nodding towards the corner. "Maybe. I doubt it. He's a creature of the darkness, not the light. The Sommerswerd doesn't leave enough shadows in the room for him." "Hmm. Sorry about that, too." "No grovelling." "OK." "Anyway, the ones who should be apologizing to us are the blasted Elder Magi. Look what they've got us into. Look what they did to get us into it!" "You're too harsh on them, Petra," he said, wrinkling his eyes painedly. "I wouldn't trust a word they said, but at the same time I trust their motives implicitly – I trust them to act for the overall good, even if they're deceptive about the details. After all, if it hadn't been for them we'd never have been able to penetrate the barrier and have a chance at the Lorestone – be fair to them." "Yes, but I can't forgive them for what they did to make us come here. More specifically, to make me come here." "They tampered with your mind, all right," he said wearily. "We've been through all that before." "I wish I could be sure that mine was the only mind they meddled with." She drew a deep breath. Like himself, she was now sitting with her back to the wall, her knees up, and was speaking to her hands rather than directly to him. "What do you mean by that? That they interfered with my will, as well? Well, if they did, it was a waste of their magical energies – I had every reason to come here. I was desperate to come here. I need the Lorestone – need it more, and more deeply, than I could ever explain to someone who was not of the Kai. I ..." "I wasn't talking about you, Lone Wolf." "Then who?" "D'Val. Remir." He breathed a long sigh through his teeth before responding. "You've lost me somewhere along the line, Petra." "He and I were ..." "Lovers." "Lovers. For a long time – since before you and I met, in Ruanon, when the bandit Barraka was threatening to raise the spectre of Vashna. You know all that. And even when I decided to join you and the others at the Monastery for a few years, that didn't stop Remir and I meeting up with each other whenever we could. I guess I just kind of assumed – I guess we both assumed – that this was the way it'd be for the future. So when he came and told me that ..."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 103 Lone Wolf glanced up at Petra's face. Her lips were tight and her voice was brittle, yet he sensed no grief coming from her. "Told you what?" he prompted quietly. "I'd never have expected it of him. That's the thing, you know? Some frumpet of a camp-follower, impressed by the bright shiny buttons of his uniform. When he first started talking about it, I thought it was just a quick fling, like can happen to anybody. But it wasn't. Good old Remir's not that type. No: he'd jumped in hook, line and sinker, or however it is one jumps into things totally, utterly committedly. Prospects of raising a brood of brats in Holmgard, all that kind of thing. Security. Not a wild warrior woman stuck away in the middle of the wilderness most of the time – better a good little housewife." She shook her head scornfully – not, Lone Wolf sensed, at Remir but at the cosy domesticity her words were conjuring up. "And so that's it, Petra: been nice knowing you, and perhaps we can always remain the best of friends." Lone Wolf could barely hear the curse that she added in a taut little voice. "I'm sorry," he said at last, knowing how inadequate that sounded. "No wonder you were so mad at the Elder Magi, if you think there's any likelihood that this ... this change in Remir came about because of their interference." "That's not the worst of it," she said grimly, and now she was looking intently at him. "There's worse?" "Oh yes. The next bad thing was that, when Remir was telling me all this stuff, I wasn't thinking about beating him silly. I wasn't even resigning myself ruefully to my new status, or anything like that – not being noble and sympathetic, so that he'd feel really bad. All that was going through me was this incredible surge of relief. I was glad that he was ditching me. It was as if his words were revealing to me how amazingly bored I'd become with the situation – with him, even. I cut short his painfully tortuous explanations with a breezy `That's all right, then!' – I guess that was a bit rotten of me, come to think of it. Poor old Remir." She made a wistful grin. "Poor ... old ... Remir. Swine." Lone Wolf was confused for a moment, then realized the full offence of which she was accusing the Elder Magi. "You think they entered both of you, twisted your feelings for each other, and killed the love you had?" he said hesitantly, not wanting to give the words too much credence by speaking them too loudly. "Something like that," she said, stretching her body and leaning her head back to stare at the ceiling. "Oh, and a bit more." "More?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 104 "Oh, yes, Lone Wolf. I'm surprised you haven't noticed. Hasn't it occurred to you to wonder why I should have such a powerful, overwhelmingly compulsive urge to leave the Monastery and all that I've been building there, to cross several hundred miles of often dangerous territory, where a man's life isn't worth a curse and a woman's life is worth even less, to come here to the Magiocracy of Dessi in order to be by your side? Some whim, eh?" "The compulsion the Elder Magi planted in your mind must have been a very powerful one," said Lone Wolf slowly. "If they did." "You clot, you're not making this very easy for me, are you? I wish I'd never got into this conversation. Let's talk about something else. Let's grab some sleep instead – or, at least, I can while you stand watch. Let's –" "I'm sorry," said Lone Wolf, not clear quite what he was apologizing for. "If I can ..." And then the words ran out. He suddenly perceived what it was she was talking about. "Oh." "Yes, Lone Wolf: `Oh.' That's about the size of it." But Lone Wolf wasn't listening. He was wildly thinking through the consequences of this new dimension in their status, taking on board the fact that Petra was coming as near as she possibly ever would – ever could – to professing love for him. It changed everything. Before, they had shared affection, comradeliness, unswerving loyalty – but this was different, disturbingly so. If he'd had any idea of the true nature of her feelings he'd have barred her entirely from coming into Kazan-Oud with him. This new emotion, unpredictable as love always is, represented an unwanted hazard – one that might put both of their lives at even greater risk than they were anyway incurring simply by being here. And now he knew, too, Petra's horror. If the love she felt for him were not some natural development but simply a synthetic emotion, an artificially induced warming of the turbulent soup of her emotions, then how could she rely on anything she felt? Was it really her that loved Lone Wolf, or was it just some set of programmed instructions? Scrambling through the forest of possibilities, Lone Wolf's mind stumbled over something that he hadn't noticed there before. He picked it up, inquisitively, and looked it over – and then he began to share in full measure all of Petra's wrath, and dismay, and uncertainty. Like her, he found himself staring at the ceiling. "Your emotion," he said tightly, "is not ... uh ... is not unreciprocated." "If it is my emotion," she said. "If it's an emotion at all."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 105 He carried on as if she hadn't spoken. "I knew there was some difference in the relationship between us, but I never stopped to wonder what it was. Since we've been on the island, I've just assumed it was some kind of aftermath of us having been crammed together as the creature, some feeling that our bodies and minds are still a little bit shared, the way they were so completely then. But I haven't questioned that assumption too much – to be frank, it hasn't seemed important enough to do so, until now. Now, it's ... it's become very important indeed. Looking back, I can see the way I felt when first I caught sight of your face at Ormond's court; I saw you not only with my eyes but with my heart, if that's a way of explaining it – I'm sorry: I'm a warrior, not a wordsmith, and all of this may be just a jumble to you ..." "It's not, Lone Wolf," she said, her voice little more than a murmur. "I know exactly what you're getting at." He dared to drop his gaze from the ceiling. She was staring at him, her eyes seeming exceptionally large in her face, glowing with a mixture of affection and apprehension. "The trouble is," she added, speaking no more loudly than before, "that you don't know, either, if it's you who feels that way about me. Maybe the Elder Magi have programmed you as well." "Does it matter?" he said after a while. She gave a derisive laugh. "Does life matter?" she said. "I mean, we're only talking love and devotion here, Lone Wolf – little things like lifelong commitment." "You misunderstand me. I wasn't trying to trivialize what you feel ... what I feel, too. I was just asking if it mattered where the love we feel for each other came from. If it's there, if it's real – at least for the moment – shouldn't we just accept it, welcome it even, and not keep worrying about whether it sprang up from ourselves or was triggered by the Elder Magi's presumptuous meddlings? I mean, I look inside myself at the bundle of warm emotions I'm feeling for you right now, and it looks real enough to me – it doesn't really matter where it came from. It's like people looking at a child and worrying about who its father was, forgetting that the important thing isn't that, it's who the child is. Well, I'm looking at this child inside me and I don't give a storgh's wind who its father was: I'm just proud to have been privileged to know the child. And if the Elder Magi are the parents, not me and you, that's just a ... a curious happenstance, is all: a minor bit of information that's vaguely intriguing but of so little import that it's easy to forget it." "I find it easy to forget, as well," she said. She reached her hand across the narrow room and put it over his fingers, resting on his knee. The touch of her skin against his made Lone Wolf seem whole, as if there'd always been a bit of him missing until now, and he hadn't noticed.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 106

fingers.

He turned his hand around, so that he could grip her

"I could think of better places to declare a mad passion for each other," said Petra lightly. "Just about anywhere, really, other than stuck in a million-mile labyrinth of dark passageways under the accursed fortress of Kazan-Oud, likely at any moment to be hunted to death by monsters out of someone's nightmare." "At least we have privacy," he said, adopting her mood. His fingers, of their own accord, were softly stroking the smooth skin on the inside of her wrist. "No Viveka watching us and making snide comments." "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's bad manners to mention another woman's name at a time like this?" The soft tickle of her breath on the hairs of his upper lip.

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6 LAW IS JUSTICE Petra sprang from him. "What's that?" she said, standing in the centre of the little chamber, her legs set solidly apart, poised ready to leap into motion. "What's what?" "Hush. I can hear something." She bent and groped around on the floor for her sword. "A noise. From outside. Not far away." Then Lone Wolf heard it too. Marching feet. About a dozen heavily booted troopers, if his ears were not misleading him – down here in the tunnels, it was easy to be deceived by echoes. They were distant as yet, but, after listening for a few moments longer, he was certain that the marchers were moving in their direction. He buckled on his belt hurriedly and, checking first that Petra had no further need of the weapon's light, sheathed the Sommerswerd at his waist. They waited in the darkness, powerless to do anything more than that. He was acutely aware of the warmth of Petra's body nearby him in the gloom; his subconscious told him that she must be radiating a brilliant light, and that he should throw his cape over her to shield her from detection by the marchers. He resisted the irrational temptation. The regular sound of the tramping feet cam ever closer. Pushing him back with her left hand, Petra moved silently towards the narrow, irregular doorway of their chamber. Rattled by her presumption, he joined her, so that they could both observe the corridor outside. At first there was nothing there to observe: only more blackness. But then the dark faded to an inconstant, flickering twilight, and Lone Wolf realized that the troopers must be coming closer. Now he could hear more than just the sounds of their feet: there were also creaks of articulated metal joints, grunts of exertion and the occasional sound of a weapon clanging against armour plating. The light in the corridor grew brighter as the noise grew louder, until Lone Wolf and Petra could see, on the wall by the next corner along from their hiding-place, distinct shadows – shadows distorted into monstrous shapes by the movement and perspective. The two of them instinctively pulled each other back a few inches.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 108 The first of the marchers rounded the corner. He was a huge man, well over seven feet tall, and his face under the rounded black dome of his iron helmet was completely white, as if it had been painted in a coating of chalk that might crack at any moment. His thin lips were a single line of black charcoal slashed across his jaw. His eyes and his nose were likewise linear black sketches dashed onto the featureless parchment of his face. At first Lone Wolf assumed that the man must be wearing a primitive mask, but as he drew nearer at the head of a troop of similarly visaged fellows it become clear that this was indeed their natural appearance. The sense of artificiality was heightened by the way in which these men moved, their unnaturally long limbs ticking backwards and forwards with all the over-meticulous precision and consequent inefficiency of the parts of a machine. They had tails that looked like lifeless wires dragging along in the tunnel's dust behind them. Only the dancing flames of the brands carried by four of their number seemed to be alive. Lone Wolf and Petra drew yet further back into the shadows as this bizarre company marched past. A minute or so later the sounds of the white men's tramping feet were fading off into the distance towards their unguessable destination. "They're ... horrible," breathed Petra, close by Lone Wolf's ear. "Who – what in the world are they?" "I don't know," he replied, equally quietly, as if the troopers might still be within earshot. "Tavig said that the whole of this warren was ruled by an evil lord called Zahda. These must be his warriors – his guards. Yet I can't make any better a guess as to their race than you." "Are they spawn, like the Darklords' creatures?" "Who can tell? If they are, then we may find ourselves up against a force of Evil even greater than I'd anticipated. I hope they're not. Maybe they've just become that way through having been underground, hidden from the Sun's light, all these generations. Maybe –" He bit back his next conjecture, not wishing to alarm her further. "Maybe they started out as humans beings like ourselves," she said coolly, her words precisely echoing his thoughts, "fugitives in the tunnels, captured by the minions of this Zahda character and somehow ... transformed into the creatures we saw. One more reason not to get ourselves caught, eh, Lone Wolf? Better to die quickly, fighting until the strength deserts us, than to be captured alive and condemned to that kind of walking nonexistence, hmm?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 109 Her tone was so light that he realized she must be terrified by the prospect. He didn't blame her. It appalled him as well. He tasted bile at the back of his mouth. "Come on," he said, speaking more loudly than he needed to as if it would reassure her. "Come on, let's get moving. Probably safest if we follow them. That way we're less likely to run into another company of them." "Agreed," she said curtly. For a few seconds he dared to expose the blade of the Sommerswerd as they checked around the chamber in case anything had been forgotten. Lone Wolf wrinkled his nose. Presumably the marching beings must have no very developed sense of smell, for already the small enclosed space had become redolent of unwashed humanity. He was shocked that he hadn't noticed it earlier himself. They emerged into the tunnel just in time to be able to hear the last vestiges of the tramping. The Sommerswerd's light guiding their way, they sprang to follow, half running along the tunnel, pausing for only the briefest of moments at the first corner to check that the marchers hadn't left a guard behind them. Then it was along the next straight to the next corner, and the whole process was repeated. And so to the next corner ... Gradually, as they scurried onwards in this disconcerting stop=start fashion, Lone Wolf became aware that they were moving into an area of the warren that, unlike the deserted tunnels they were leaving behind them, was frequently habituated: there were sconces along the walls, bearing torches at first every twenty or thirty yards, then every ten yards, then finally every five. Crudely woven matting in drab colours covered the grey stone floor in a thin strip down the centre of their way. There was also litter – bones and bits of rotting meat, broken implements, greasy bits of paper. Although he and Petra were able to move much more swiftly in the torchlight, Lone Wolf was uncomfortably aware that the danger of their being discovered was increasing all the time. And they were having to pause more and more frequently as smaller tunnels joined this larger one. He had the impression that wherever they were heading must be somewhere fairly important, even though the regular beat of the marching feet, unchanging in its rhythm, seemed to bear witness to the fact that that destination must still be some way off. Then the marching stopped. Lone Wolf and Petra halted as one, trying desperately not to let their boots make a noise on the coarse matting. They listened, not daring to move. For long seconds there was nothing to hear except the muffled popping of the torches along the walls and their own stifled

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 110 breathing. Then, from up ahead, they heard a confused jostling and jangling and a couple of commands barked in a language that Lone Wolf was certain could not be human. After a further pause and a loud, curdling yell the sound of marching began again – this time heading back towards them. "They can't have detected us," said Petra anxiously, turning her head sharply to look at Lone Wolf through a straying screen of hair. Her face looked weary from lack of sleep. "Not over the noise they were making themselves." "No time to think," he whispered urgently. He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her back a few paces to the nearest tributary corridor. It looked black, narrow and uninviting. "Down here!" For a split second she resisted him, and then she was creeping along behind him into the darkness. With a silent curse he slid the Sommerswerd into its scabbard, drowning its light, effectively blinding them. He cast a glance back over his shoulder and saw, silhouetted against the now seemingly very remote rectangle of light that was the passageway they'd just left, that Petra had reached out her arms to either side and was running her flattened-out palms against the walls so that they would give her at least some kind of guidance. Turning his head back again to face the obscurity, he followed her example. Lone Wolf lost track of time as they ventured cautiously onwards into nothingness. From time to time he checked behind them as the rectangle of torchlight diminished until it was nothing more than a dim star and then finally was gone. His mind conceived the image of himself and Petra truly hanging in nothingness – that, despite the evidence of their feet against the floor and their hands against the walls, they were walking through empty space. He became inordinately frightened at the prospect that some unknown hand might suddenly turn the lights on, shattering the illusion and sending them plunging to their deaths many miles below. He shuddered, and forced himself to keep walking. "The Sommerswerd," said Petra. "Surely it must be safe now to draw it again." Stopping abruptly, so that she bumped into him, he obeyed, praying to Ishir that his fancy of their walking through vacuum really had been nothing more than that – a fancy. The golden light immediately showed them the stark mundaneness of the reality, and he almost laughed aloud. Clearly no one had been down this way for a very long time, for the dust was an inch or more thick beneath their feet. The walls were bare and filthy; his hands looked as if he had been trying to wash them in soot. The ceiling was only a foot or so above his head. He

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 111 guessed this must originally have been an access tunnel for the slaves or skivvies of Kazan-Oud in the days when the fortress's occupants made no secret of their existence here – before Evil had captured the place for itself. Probably no one except the occasional tunnel-runner, like Tavig, even knew that the narrow passage existed. It was likely that Lone Wolf and Petra could remain here undetected and safe for as long as they liked – except, of course, that the converse of their safety would be that they would in effect be trapped here. "Keep going, Lone Wolf," said Petra, clearly having been thinking along much the same lines. "This blasted tunnel must lead somewhere, surely." It did. A few minutes later they saw through the Sommerswerd's glow a pinpoint of whiter light ahead of them, and before long they were coming out on the landing at the top of a narrow spiral staircase made of black wrought-iron; its rungs were as dust-covered as had been the passageway's floor. In a bracket on the wall opposite was the source of the cold light he and Petra had seen: a huge m'lare lamp, glowing sadly. Lone Wolf shuddered, remembering when he had encountered m'lare before, in the icy northern land of Kalte, and his discovery that the crystalline substance glowed forever because of the sparkling energies of lost souls. He thrust the thought from his mind as he and Petra crept down the stairs, taking precautions lest a scabbard or a trailing buckle clatter against the iron. At the stairway's foot, perhaps fifty steps down, they found themselves in a short hall at whose far end a doorway shone with ripe, mellow light. As they tiptoed close to it they saw that the light's ripeness was due not to its source – more m'lare lamps – but to the richness of the furnishings of the room beyond the doorway. There was dust everywhere, again, but this could not disguise the fullness of the reds, browns and golds used in the opulent woven fabrics, nor the splendour of the precious gems and metals wound into their weavings. The overall effect was in fact too impressive for splendour, like a king's crown of gold and jewels so vast and elaborate that it stops being imposing and just looks pretentious. The impact on Lone Wolf and especially Petra, accustomed as they were to the fairly stark Sommlending notions of decoration, was not far short of nausea. "A dead end," said Petra, advancing into the room, narrowing her eyes against the glare of warm reflected light. "Still, we might as well rest here a while before going back." She plopped herself down, her backpack by her feet, in an overupholstered armchair, raising a grey cloud of dust. Lone Wolf remained standing in the centre of the room, looking around himself suspiciously. "I can't believe that whoever

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 112 created this warren would be so ... so wasteful as to allow a dead end. Besides, that last passage we were in had no reason for its existence unless it was supposed to lead from one place to another." "You're trying to read the minds of the ancients," said Petra wearily, drawing a hand across her forehead; Lone Wolf was suddenly reminded of the fact that, unlike himself, she hadn't slept while they'd been in their hiding-place with Tavig. "Who's to say that this wasn't the private sanctuary of some noble, so that he could retreat from the rest of the court? Something like that." She glanced across at a broad, overstuffed bed in the corner. "Or an assignation chamber, perhaps," she added. "This was a fortress from the start," observed Lone Wolf, "not a palace." "Same difference." "Do you need to get some sleep?" he said bluntly. "You look it." "Five minutes would be a help. Ten'd be better." "OK. I'll wake you soon. Love you." Without any fuss, she turned half on her side and was instantly asleep. Her military training had taught her how to catnap: as he stood there looking at her Lone Wolf smiled, thinking how apposite an expression "catnap" was in her case, for she lay in the armchair with the ease of a drowsy kitten. Moving quietly, for he knew that the slightest untoward noise would wake her, he edged along one of the walls, brushing aside dust with his hand to admire the workmanship of the tapestries hanging there. They showed pastoral scenes, with bucolic maidens and affectionate mythological creatures disporting themselves in fields ringed by waving trees and pure streams and rounded hillsides. Clearly they must have been created before Kazan-Oud's bloodthirsty current occupants had come to the place; perhaps Petra had been right in her suggestion that this chamber was where some long-forgotten lordling fulfilled his assignations. Or ladyling, for that matter ... His eye was caught by the image of the Sun in one of the tapestries, and he moved along to examine it more closely. Rubbing it clean of dust, he saw that the image had been created entirely of uncut but polished precious and semi-precious stones, set in concentric rings around a solitary cut gem, a huge diamond of an almost blue-white glory. The faceted stone was beautiful, but that was not what drew Lone Wolf to it; rather it was a strong sense that the diamond was in some way calling to him. He touched the hilt of the Sommerswerd to reassure himself that this sense was more than an illusion, and the weapon's soul-stuff gave a responsive surge. Looking around him furtively, feeling as if he were about to steal from a public collection, he drew

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 113 a dagger from his belt and with its sharp tip cut the jewel from its setting, trying to damage the rest of the array of stones as little as possible. Still feeling guilty, he slipped the diamond into a pocket of his cape. Petra still slept. He was obscurely glad that she hadn't seen him commit the theft. He gathered a handful of dust from the floor and rubbed it over the marred image of the Sun, covering up the evidence as best he could. He took a couple of brisk steps sideways, distancing himself from the scene of the crime. He glanced again at Petra, at her side rising and falling slowly as she slept. He wished that the two of them were back at the Monastery, or anywhere else safe, so that she could sleep as long as her body demanded she should, and so that when she awoke it would be to find him there waiting for her with a smile in his eyes and a kiss on his lips ... He shrugged, and sighed. Such a day would surely come, if it were the wish of the Gods that it should do so. The other tapestries were as marvellous as the one he had pillaged, but somehow they had now all lost their attraction for him. He realized that he needed to get well clear of this room as soon as possible – like a small boy's instinctively fleeing from the orchard where he has stolen an apple. Lone Wolf was tempted to awaken Petra, even though only two or three minutes could have passed, but he repressed the impulse. Instead, he looked around the little room again, searching in case there might be something else of interest. But nothing called to him the way that the diamond had called. Once again, as his eyes roamed the walls, he found himself repelled by the over-lushness of the room, the way that the superfluity of decoration submerged the beauty of the individual pieces. Glumly, he walked over to the bloated bed and lowered himself down on it, putting his elbows on his knees and gazing at his open palms. Banedon had once told him what the lines of the palm signified for a person's future, and Lone Wolf entertained himself for a few desultory moments by looking for as many ways as possible in which his own creases differed from any of the rules in the system that the magician had expounded. The most significant was that, if one of the lines was to be believed, he had died some while ago – in the same year, he noted wryly, that he had put an end to the evil existence of the Archlord Zagarna. He smiled whimsically. So much for predictive magic. Out of the corner of his eye noticed an additional line, one that shouldn't be there. Focusing on it, he realized that it was an optical illusion: there was indeed a line, but only a trick of his vision had persuaded him that it was on his hand. The line was a straight one, hair-thin, and it rose from the floor; it was almost

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 114 invisible in the patterned red-brown flock paper with which that part of the wall was covered. Following it with his eyes, Lone Wolf saw that it was one of a set of three forming, with the floor itself as a fourth side, a neat rectangle about two and a half feet high and about two feet across. In a moment he was on his knees beside it, running his hands along the lines. As he had already begun to suspect, they marked the edges of a hatch or doorway – a doorway, his fingertips confirmed, discovering hinges on one of the uprights. He dug his nails into the crack opposite, trying to get a purchase, but without success. He was reaching for his dagger again when he spotted an asymmetry among the flock wallpaper's otherwise regular pattern – a small rectangular area that had been partly disguised by curlicues and swashes. This time he did dig into the area with the point of his dagger, and a little looped brass handle, painted along one edge to match the wallpaper, leapt out from the wall, as if spring-mounted. He tugged on the loop and the door opened easily. Crouching there, his dagger clenched between his teeth, he peered through the aperture. The shaft he saw had the same dimensions as the door and was about twelve feet long; at its far end was a brightly lit opening through which he could see what appeared to be a scene out of a Vassagonian dream of the afterlife. Palm trees thronged around cool-looking blue bathing pools. Although the light was vivid, it was paler than sunlight – yet it did not have the death-born pallor of m'lare-shine. Brightly coloured fruits hung among the breeze-swayed green fronds of the trees. Birds chirped and darted. This subterranean cavern must be on a scale that far transcended anything that Lone Wolf had encountered before: it was a world within the world. Women in flowing gauzy garments, or less, moved among the pools or played splashingly in the water. Singing fountains joined their hissing voices to the women's cries of laughter. As Lone Wolf watched a gorgeously coloured butterfly lazily wafted itself past the opening, seeming to pause momentarily in its flight to exchange glances with him. He felt as if he were spying on the scene through a keyhole. He looked back at Petra. She had turned in her sleep, so that she appeared to be watching him through the paper-pale skin and the fine blue lines of her closed eyelids. He could see from the movement behind them that she was dreaming. He sighed. It was a shame to wake her up, yet he needed to explore this marvellous cavern – they both did. He woke her. She was alert in instants, and listened intently as he poured out a confused description of the scene he'd observed. He waited a few moments while she retreated into the concealing

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 115 shadows at the foot of the spiral staircase outside the little room, and then, with her directly behind him, he crawled in through the door in the wall, the Sommerswerd held out ahead of him like an incandescent metal probe. His breath sounded very loud in the enclosed space, louder than it should do, it seemed to him. The air was surprisingly stale; there was no trace of the scent of trees and fruits and flowers that me might have expected to detect. Abruptly the diminutive shaft seemed to him like nothing more than an oversized coffin, with himself as a still-living body too ready to crawl in. Too many things were wrong here. His Kai instincts let out a sudden yell of warning, and he bunched up his hips to retreat. Too late. Petra screamed an alarm behind him. "Get back!" he bellowed, not turning his head; the shout boomed around him. The paradisiac panorama ahead of him was changing, the women transmuting into white-faced monstrosities like the marchers he and Petra had seen in the passageway above; they were craning their necks to leer at him. But he could see now that they were not real monsters, not even chimeras moving in a real scene: they were painted illusions, given the gift of motion by some fell sorcerous hand. "Get back!" he repeated, his voice rising in panic. This time he did turn to try to look at her; instead what he saw was a black iron panel chunking down, blotting out her fear-wrought face from his view with the speed and finality of a guillotine blade. "Get back," he said in a hoarse, futile whisper to the inscrutable iron wall. There was a chorus of tiny laughter from the other end of the coffin. The white-faced creatures were dancing now, joining their death-touched hands in a circle as they gaily trooped around one of the pools. The water was no longer a tranquil blue; instead it had become a fiery orange, lava-like colour, and through the tormented, bubbling surface was rising a gigantic head. Around Lone Wolf hidden vents were opening, and noxious, stinging gas was wafting insistently into his nostrils, but all he had eyes for was that emergent head. It was as chalk-white as those of the marchers, its eyes black nail-heads and its mouth an axe-cut. Then the lips opened and an ear-shattering shriek of vindictive laughter buffeted him, so that he fell forward, flat on his face. His breathing was coming thickly now, as he choked on the soporific gas. Nothing to be seen but the brilliantly flashing jagged edges of that laughter. #

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 116

Images crowding into his head in no particular order, tripping over each other, intermingling with each other to produce grotesque juxtapositions, parodies of reality ... mirages spawned by a God in clown's bright braces ... ... "She had no further part in the play," said Rimoah. "At least, not in its first act, which is all that it is right for you to see as yet. Later, perhaps, when you realize the power that wisdom has to create as well as destroy, then will come the time that the act in which Nyxator performs can be born from your minds. Of course," said Paido at his elbow, "this is where our ways must part, at least for a while, Lone Wolf. I shall of course never be far from you in spirit until you enter" – he swallowed, gesturing with his head towards the blackened finger of rock at the centre of the lake – "that place, but my frame will soon be on its way back to Elzian. When you were on the landing stage earlier today," Ardan said softly, "one of us asked you, Lone Wolf, if you would be prepared to lay down your life to save that of your friend. Once you thought about the consequences for all of Magnamund should your life be forfeit, you realized that your initial glib response, while seemingly so brave and virtuous, in fact held little merit. Beware the Green, Northlander. Beware the Green. For the Green is death. I ask you once again, both of you this time, to consider the future of this world and all who dwell upon her." ... ... A heliotrope flame sawing at the black air, the buzz of its razor-sharp teeth filling his skull. He screams and the sound recedes. He's being carried somewhere, to the sawmill where the heliotrope flame saws at the black air, the buzz of its razor-sharp teeth filling his skull ... He screams and the sound recedes ... ... Petra with her arms embrace-wide, half-seen, entirely felt: "I ask you once again, both of you this time, to consider the future of this world and all who dwell upon her." The buzz of the old voice rattling around the unopened cabinets in the cellar of his memory is like the buzz of razor-sharp teeth filling his skull, conjuring up from his scream a heliotrope flame that saws at the black air of the sawmill to which he is/isn't being carried ... the sawmill where Petra lies with her arms embrace-wide, sheathed in heliotrope so that he can only half-see her, yet entirely feel her: her frame will soon be on its way back to Elzian, where she will be able to realize the power that wisdom has to create as well as destroy, where the act in which Nyxator performs will be born from her mind: "I ask you once again, both of you this time, to consider the future of this world and all who dwell upon her." Some change in the being-carried/not-being-carried status: impossible to verify the precise nature of the change, but knowledge there that status has indeed changed. Arrival. I have arrived somewhere. Somewhere that a heliotrope flame saws at the black air, the buzz of its razor-sharp teeth filling my skull. I scream and the sound recedes until it is nothing but a buzz filling my skull. I = Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf = I.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 117 I am Lone Wolf. Positive identification made: I am Lone Wolf. Positive identification made also of the place where a heliotrope flame saws at the black air, the buzz of its razor-sharp teeth filling my skull, where I can realize the power that wisdom has to create as well as destroy, where the act in which Nyxator performs can be born from my mind, where Petra lies with her arms embrace-wide, sheathed in heliotrope so that I can only half-see her, yet entirely feel her, where I can ask myself once again, both of me this time, to consider the future of this world and all who dwell upon her. Here = sawmill. This is the sawmill. And I am the log. # The first thing that he saw was the darkness. Then the darkness began to take form. The sound that he had assumed to be the rushing of waves onto the shore gradually became identifiable as that of many whispering voices, and slowly Lone Wolf gained the awareness that he was in some way the focus of those whispers. There was light in the darkness, a grey light that served to make perception possible and yet somehow not to illuminate. He raised his head on weary, reluctant shoulders and gazed around him. He was somewhere near the centre, he discovered, of a vast oval hall, its roof a dark dome far above him. Constructed around the central clearing in which he found himself were tiered ranks of stone stalls, in which stood or sat – he couldn't be sure – more spectators than his muddled mind could estimate. Some of the audience were whispering eagerly to each other, but most of the preternaturally white faces were turned in his direction, watching him silently, thin, snake-like tongues flickering over narrow lips. He rocked his head around, following the lines of the tiers, seeing that they encircled him on both sides as far as his neck would reach; whispers from behind him indicated that there were watchers there, too. He was not alone in the hall's central oval. Directly ahead of him a spike of black metal, about two yards in diameter at its base, protruded from a circular pit in the floor and reached towards the rocky dome, far above. The spike was bathed in sheets of flame that cast neither warmth nor light, like ghostly luminescence wrapping the mast of a wrecked and skeletal ship. He contemplated the cold fire that must rage icily in the pit, and shuddered. His hands were secured above him by rough cords. He could feel the cold shine of metal against his wrists. Looking down, he could see his spread legs, grotesquely foreshortened, his feet

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 118 moored by clumsily knotted ropes to hoops of bronze. He deduced wearily that he was pinned to some sort of wooden edifice shaped like an inverted Y. He had been stripped of his clothing, but around his waist someone had fastened a grubby loincloth. Incongruously, his belt had been replaced over this, and hanging by its scabbard from his belt was the Sommerswerd. There were fresh bruises over much of his body: his captors had not treated him with gentleness as they'd brought him here. The image of the sawmill lingered from his jumbled dreaming, and he swallowed. How much of the truth could there have been in that frenetic torrent of images? Was he to be fed, still pinioned to the Y, into the teeth of the saw? A jolt of concern. How long since my consciousness fled? Where was Petra? Had she escaped? Or had she likewise been captured by the creatures of the underworld? Had she already been here in this hellish place, tormented in the eager gaze of these unearthly spectators, and then disposed of, a broken carcase, into the chilling pit? No – she must still be alive. His Kai sensibilities were as yet still moving sluggishly within him, but he was sure that he would be conscious of some kind of a hole in his awareness were Petra to be already dead. But was she still free? – or was she penned in some antechamber, awaiting her turn to delight the white-faced watchers? He focused his thoughts with difficulty. Concern for Petra must wait: he could do her no good by these futile anxieties. His task was to remain completely aware of his own situation, so that he could seize on any opportunity there might be to ensure his own preservation – then there might be some point in his concern for her. But, where he was now, there seemed little likelihood that any such opportunity would present itself. He was staring into the jaws of his own doom. And, perhaps, hers. He cursed the Elder Magi for having sent her here with him, for having perverted her thoughts so that she had brought herself here. No: stop thinking of Petra! You can serve her best by bringing your thoughts – all of your thoughts – back into yourself. The resigned gloom of his mood was difficult to dispel. His Kai sensibilities fought within him to drive it back, but for long moments it looked as if they would never prevail. Then, at last, they succeeded in driving back the fog of misery, and he raised his head again with a new determination and looked around him with a new clarity. As he did so, the echoing chamber was filled with the clangour of a brassy gong, and a new shape began to take form beyond the flame-shrouded spike. The susurration of whispering ebbed and swiftly ceased. Lone Wolf watched as the spike itself

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 119 smoothly retracted into the pit, leaving behind it the shadowy silhouette of a massive throne with, hanging in the air above, two dark, angular objects. A hatch slid silently over the pit, covering the last of those pallid flames. There was a pause during which Lone Wolf could hear nothing but his own heart beating. Then another crash of the gong, followed an instant later by the blare of a single horn, then by a pounding of the gong and a protracted, raucous, tone-rending barrage of sound from the horn. Silence except for the pulsing echoes, fading. Between the two objects floating above the throne there suddenly sprang a crackling arc of blue light. Slowly this intensified in brilliance until Lone Wolf could make out that there was a man seated on the throne, the upper half of his body lolling sideways, the gaunt, shadow-crossed head seemingly inadequately supported on the scrawny neck. The man's face was clumsily painted white in a bizarre parody of the faces of the hordes of silent creatures shuffling on the stepped tiers. A powdered wig perched on his head. I've been here before! thought Lone Wolf crazily. I recognize all this! I'm in the council chamber of the Elder Magi, back in Elzian, and that is Rimoah on the throne ahead of me. All of this time – the voyage through the skies, my fusion with Petra, our journey to the Isle of Khor, our flight through the warren of tunnels beneath the fortress of Kazan-Oud – all of that has been nothing more than illusion, another of the Elder Magi's sorcerous tricks! But just then a pillar of light sprang into being, a column of brilliance that reached down from the distant dome overhead to throw the throne and its occupant into stark illumination. The throne was of gold – Lone Wolf could see that now – and its frame was moulded into gnarled and obscene forms. Cushions were fastened to its seat, arms and back; Lone Wolf recognized the same over-opulence of style that had characterized the room where he had last seen Petra. The suspended forms above this monstrous construction he could now see were of crystalline shape, one of them clear and vibrant as a polished diamond, seeming to draw strength from the cascade of light pouring down from the roof, the other a black so deep as almost to have a green sheen, seeming to devour that deluging light. The ragged path of energy between the two crystals intensified, as if the dark object were sucking into itself more and more the living energy of the bright. The throne's occupant moved with creaking difficulty to raise an enormous silver goblet to his lips. His neck convulsed several times as he drank deeply of the contents of the goblet. With shaking hands he replaced the vessel on the flat arm of the throne and turned his pitifully fleshless gaze upon the fettered Lone Wolf.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 120 The emaciated face smiled beneath its peeling paint. The smile struck a spear of ice into Lone Wolf's heart. "Let the trial commence!" boomed a voice, filling the chamber. Before the last syllable had finished the man in the throne was speaking. Although his voice was soft, barely more than a hissed whisper, its sharp edge cut through the echoes cleanly. "Welcome, intruder. Welcome to my humble demesne." Lone Wolf tried to respond with some flip rejoinder, but his dry throat would produce nothing more than a croak. Again the painfully thin smile. Again the goblet raised precariously to those bloodless lips. It suddenly dawned on Lone Wolf that the man in the throne was drunk – not merely tipsy or slightly out of control, but stupendously, overwhelmingly, dangerously drunk. The few words the man had spoken had been formed with the meticulous exactitude that betrayed the difficulty the speaker was having in enunciating them at all. The realization terrified Lone Wolf beyond anything that he had felt before since recovering consciousness: drunken men, he knew, held the capacity for far greater cruelty, mindless barbarity, than if they were sober. "I am a fair and just lord," said the man with the painted face, "and, though your crime is great, I have decreed that you should receive a scrupulous trial, in which you may speak in your own defence. To that end – bring the culprit some water, Szargor!" From the front row of the terraces one of the pale watchers emerged a rickety, hunchbacked creature, somewhat smaller than his fellows. He was carrying a leaky wooden bucket. He ramshackled – there was no other verb for it – up to Lone Wolf and leered at him, then, with a single convulsive movement, drenched him from head to foot with water. Coughing and spluttering, his eyes stretching, Lone Wolf captured on his tongue as much of the liquid as he could as it streamed down his face. "Unsubtly done, Szargor," said the man on the throne. "You must learn to treat our guests with greater consideration. We wouldn't want one of them to send in a complaint afterwards, would we?" The thin figure snickered, and for the first time since the throne had descended the ranks of onlookers broke their silence, joining in sycophantically with their leader's mockery. Szargor retreated to his seat, cackling. "Now," continued the man on the throne, "before we proceed to the verdict, have you anything to say in your own defence, stranger? No? Then I have no hesitation in ..." "Wait!" cried Lone Wolf, his tongue feeling thick. "Wait! You said this was to be a fair and scrupulous trial. Yet where is the judge? Where are the advocates? Where is the jury of my peers?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 121 "My," said the man, taking yet another long draught from the goblet, "but you do have old-fashioned ideas, don't you. Still, the court is in an indulgent humour today, and it appeals us to grant you your wish. Call forth the jury!" A different section of the floor opened up, and in the gap Lone Wolf could see more of the colourless fire. Through the opening rose a stout mahogany trestle table, with a row of nine white candles in pewter candle-sticks down the centre of it. The yellow flames fluttered in the chamber's cool air as the floor closed again beneath the table's feet. "Here are your jury, hand-picked for their integrity," said the man on the throne silkily. "Each of them has no wish other than to see the equitable conduct of the court in attaining its verdict against you. Would you wish me to introduce them to you, or will you place your trust in my own keen sense of honour?" "These aren't jurors!" blurted Lone Wolf. "They're ... they're" – he shook his head angrily to clear the madness from it – "they're nothing but candles!" "Nothing but candles?" said his inquisitor. "Oh, no, dear boy, whatever led you to think that? These, your jurors, are much more than merely candles. They hold the power of life and death over you. I should not insult them, if I were you, by dismissing them as mere candles." "But ... but ... but what then are they?" "A candle is more than just a pillar of wax, my friend. You forget that. The pillars of wax you see before you are, I openly admit, no more than that. But a candle also comprises a flame, and it is the flames that are your jurors. For they're no ordinary flames. Instead, they're the lives of nine human mortals who currently languish in my deepest dungeons, flickering and fluttering and sputtering as they teeter on the narrow rim that divides life from death. See" – as one of the flames guttered alarmingly – "how my torturers have had to move in to remind one of them of the importance of his duty to this court." The flame slowly regained its strength. "Ah, yes – only a small reminder this time." "How can these poor forsaken wretches be deemed fit to judge my fate?" hissed Lone Wolf. "Perfectly well," said the man with the painted face airily. "They know the penalty for failing to attend adequately upon the proceedings of my court. Should any one of them be so remiss in his duty as to neglect some of the evidence as to doubt your guilt, then my torturers shall move in upon him for a final time – to administer a final reminder, as it were. Then we can all watch the death of the flame-that-is-not-a-flame together, and wish the poor sufferer an eternity in the arms of Naar. It will be a touchingly sentimental scene, will it not? Perhaps, indeed, too richly

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 122 sentimental for my own delicate tastes, which incline a little towards the ascetic, as you have no doubt become aware. Still, it will be pleasant watching for my friends here" – he waved an arm around the gathering – "and perhaps also for yourself, stranger, with your kitsch Sommlending sensibilities. "Enough of such preliminaries! Let the trial begin!" "No witnesses?" said Lone Wolf. "And still no advocates?" "Stop pettifogging, prisoner," lashed the voice of the man on the throne, "or I shall have you tormented to death for contempt of my court. Is that wholly understood?" Lone Wolf said nothing. "Very well then. Let us continue. The charge." From somewhere behind him the skeletal man produced a scroll of tattered parchment. He unrolled it, held it up in front of his nose, adjusted imaginary spectacles, and read: "You, Sommlending stranger, are accused of coming here to our tranquil abode of Kazan-Oud with murder in your dark, fell heart. This court has no understanding of why you should wish it – in the person of the august Lord Zahda (myself, you understand) – such mortal harm, unless it might be that you are in the pay of those treacherous mercenary necromancers of Elzian and all points around, the accursed Elder Magi, upon whose foul faces may the cosmos forver deposit the worst and most noisome of its excretions. But I digress. If the charge is true, or even if it is not, the court sees little alternative but to condemn you out of hand. You may answer the charge, murderer, but only very briefly and preferably not very loudly." Lone Wolf's thoughts were racing. The ridiculous charge-sheet made no mention of Petra, so there was every chance that she had escaped Zahda's minions unnoticed. Unless, of course, they've simply disposed of her like so much excess baggage, as if she weren't worth thinking about. Tavig's attitude to women might be typical not only of his countrymen but also of the other creatures down here ... I wish I could be sure! But, even if she lives, there's not much she can to help me now. "I do not kill anyone for pay!" he said stoutly, trying to give himself more time to think. "You are a warrior," observed the man with the painted face. "That fact gives your claim the lie." "That's different, and you know it!" "Do I?" Lone Wolf floundered for words. "This court of yours is a travesty!" he cried, again playing for time. "It mocks all concepts of justice!" "But this is the only justice you've got, my dear boy," said Zahda, pausing with the goblet half-way to his lips and looking at Lone Wolf between histrionically raised eyebrows. "You'd be wisest

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 123 to make the best of it, don't you think? Now let us hear something more germane from you by way of plea, or I shall be obliged to treat the charge as undefended. What do you say?" "How can you find it even within your own dark heart to give countenance to this tomfoolery?" snarled Lone Wolf. The irrationality of the proceedings was thwarting any attempt of his to come with an argument in his own defence. "Even if it pleases you to toy with me thus, how can your cronies stomach it? Are they so much your cat's-paws that they will willingly see murder done?" "Do you deny," said Zahda with sudden drunken sternness, "that you came here to Kazan-Oud to kill me?" "I deny it!" said Lone Wolf, conscious that he was being a little selective with the truth. "I bore you no enmity, for I had no knowledge of your very existence. I came to Kazan-Oud for quite different reasons." Zahda regarded him keenly for a moment that seemed to stretch beyond endurance. "But you admit that you came here to destroy our peaceful livelihood?" he said at last. "That at least you can hardly disavow, I think. And you came here at the instigation of my arch-enemies, the Elder Magi, did you not?" He waved an admonitory forefinger at Lone Wolf. For a moment his drunken gaze concentrated more upon the forefinger than upon Lone Wolf, and it was obviously only with a great effort that he returned his attentions to the court. "You are like a man who pleads innocence of murder because he only wished to burn down the house in which his victims lay sleeping. Is that not the case?" Not for the first time since he had come to Dessi, Lone Wolf found himself presented with an unpalatable truth. What Zahda had just said was not the way that Lone Wolf himself would have construed his own actions. He had indeed intended to destroy the foundations of the community that made up Kazan-Oud, without any thought for the consequences of his actions on those who dwelt therein. He had cheerfully taken it for granted that all who dwelt beneath the ruined fortress deserved to die, and had given no heed whatever to any other possibility. And, had he known of Zahda's existence here, he would certainly have put the destruction of the evil lord high on his list of priorities. Yet none of it had seemed that way to him before. He had regarded his quest as a pure one, his aim to retrieve the Lorestone of Herdos for the cause of Good, whatever that endeavour might cost. He paused. Zahda's simple yet sophisticated argument was coming within a hair of persuading him of his own guilt. This could not be allowed. "I am not in the pay of the Elder Magi!" he said. "I came to this place, to Kazan-Oud, for reasons that had nothing to do with

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 124 their ambitions. I concede that their desires in part concur with my own, but that is all." "Oh, I lose patience with this prevarication!" snapped Zahda. "Why can't you just admit that you're guilty, man, and let's be done with it!" "I cannot admit guilt for I am not guilty!" roared Lone Wolf, wishing that he were internally as confident as he was trying to sound. "I am innocent of your charge of intended murder!" "Not – so – loud," pleaded Zahda, clutching his head in both hands and rocking from side to side on his massive throne. "Not so loud. There's really no need to shout. Indeed, did I not at the outset abjure you from shouting? Yes, I recall that I did. Your contempt for my rulings merely compounds your guilt, Sommlending intruder." "But I –" "Silence! Silence. You may crave the court's mercy, but that is all. Already your guilt, as charged, is more than proven. Would you seek to make my sentencing yet more severe than it is already going to be." "I have yet to be judged guilty," said Lone Wolf weakly. "The matter has yet to be put to your jurors." "A formality, surely, when a defendant's guilt is as manifest as yours now is." "A formality," said Lone Wolf savagely, "when a court is as rigged as this one. Go ahead. Perform your pantomime. But it is my right to insist that at least it be performed." "Very well. It shall be as you demand. Let it never be said that I would not permit the last trivial niceties of justice to be enacted in my court." The outlandishly painted face turned towards the trestle table where the row of candles guttered. "Gentlemen of the jury," he said contemptuously, "I call upon you to find this miserable reprobate guilty – and hurry up about it." Zahda took another deep swig of the liquor in the goblet. Resignedly, Lone Wolf looked at the candle-flames. They seemed unaffected by everything that had been going on around them. He wondered if it were really true, what Zahda had said: if the flames really were the lives of prisoners incarcerated in the dungeons, prisoners whose choice lay between finding Lone Wolf guilty and being themselves tortured to death. He had come to the conclusion that Zahda had probably been lying but that it didn't much matter, anyway, when he noted to his astonishment that one of the flames had suddenly popped out of existence. As if this had given them some sort of signal, two of the others abruptly dimmed and shrank; then one of them followed its

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 125 predecessor into oblivion. The other, seemingly given courage by this, flickered a few final times and then did likewise. Lone Wolf couldn't believe his eyes. The notion that Zahda had been lying about the true nature of the flames was banished from his mind: these brave captives were willing to suffer all the cruelties of a hideously tormented death rather than bow to the will of the captor and declare Lone Wolf to be guilty! He mentally bowed before their courage and integrity; he tried not to think too hard about what he would have done had their circumstances been reversed. A fourth flame – a fourth prisoner – died. Zahda, leaning forward in his throne with studious precariousness, was beginning to drivel a constant stream of wordless fury, but Lone Wolf paid him no attention. This was incredible! Tears came to his eyes as he realized how honoured he was to share the same world as men so brave that they were willing to lay down their ... I have it! thought Lone Wolf suddenly. Brave they are – I wouldn't for one moment detract from their bravery – but what's really happened is that that silly fool Zahda has likely gone and landed himself in a double bind. His tormenting thugs have so maltreated those poor wretches that the notion of being tortured to death holds few terrors for them! Quite the converse, they are eager for an end to be put to their torment! A fifth candle-flame ebbed and was dead. So stupid – Evil is always so stupid! Zahda himself might not have been a particularly stupid man, once, but he welcomed Evil into his heart and Naar rewarded him by making a dolt out of him! It's an endless circle, isn't it: only the stupid would willingly accept the rule of Evil, but Evil, once accepted, must make the accepters even more stupid as otherwise it can never guarantee that they won't muster the brainpower to cast it out again. Anyone with any wits would have promised those miserable wretches in their cells their freedom or, at the very least, a swift and merciful death if they found me guilty – but Zahda forgot that! All he could think in terms of were the absolutes of life and death: he was too brainless, his thinking too narrowly focused, to recognize that death might be more palatable to them than continued existence. The sixth and seventh flames expired together, almost as if they had made a pact with other. The eighth hurried to follow suit. Now only the ninth burnt on, but with little fervour. Lone Wolf could sense that Zahda and his hundreds of cronies were close to exploding with fury. Every eye in the whole vast chamber was focused upon that fickle, hesitant light. Although he was yards from it, Lone Wolf drew breath to puff at it, confident that even the slightest breeze would be sufficient to snuff it out of existence. But then he checked himself. It is not my entitlement to decide whether or not that man should give his life for mine, he thought. The echoes of what Ardan had said to him –

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 126 "Once you thought about the consequences for all of Magnamund should your life be forfeit, you realized that your initial glib response, while seemingly so brave and virtuous, in fact held little merit" – rattled around mockingly inside his head as he realized that Ardan had been wrong! If Lone Wolf could survive only by sacrificing the life of another who had done him no harm, who might for all he knew be his natural ally, then the variety of Good that he purported to espouse was in fact little different from the Evil against which he claimed to fight. The Gods would guide this unseen prisoner in his decision, just as they would guide Lone Wolf's actions, whatever the outcome: it was not Lone Wolf's right to usurp the man's decision. As if having waited for the result of Lone Wolf's internal debate, the distant captive, the brands of the torturers bright before him, decided. The ninth flame flickered. The ninth flame died. "Fools!" screamed Zahda, his voice an incandescence of wrath. "Fools!" bellowed his subjects in a single cry that seemed to make the entire chamber rock. The man with the painted face waved a scrawny arm, no longer so imperious-seeming in his thwarting, and the trestle table vanished beneath the floor with terrified speed. "It seems that your jury has found me innocent," said Lone Wolf with all the calmness at his command. His words were lost amidst the chanting of the white-faced multitude, and he repeated them again and again until finally the noise abated enough for him to be heard. In an instant silence Zahda loured vengefully at him. The lord drew the back of his sleeve across his chin, wiping away the spittle that had gathered there. "No," he said in a voice as deadly as a cobra's strike. "No, Sommlending, they have not found you innocent, for it was established at the very outset that you were guilty." "You defy the verdict of your own court!" "I am the court!" "You defy justice, then! Your court is a travesty!" "I am justice." "You – You –" But Lone Wolf halted. It was useless. Zahda had determined that he was doomed. The whole business with the jurors had been merely a piece of by-play that had backfired; Zahda could ignore it, safe in the knowledge that his lieges were so much in his power that they would emphatically endorse his decision – as if, in truth, any objection they might propose would make any difference.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 127 "You are guilty, stranger," said Zahda, more loudly now, as if to banish any doubt that might still exist among his minions. "But my jury has demanded that I should exercise clemency in my sentencing of you." A small blessing, thought Lone Wolf glumly. But quite how small? "Had it not been for their weak-stomached, lily-livered misbegotten notions of misplaced mercy," said Zahda, draining the last of the liquor from his goblet and casting the vessel aside, so that it clattered shockingly across the dark stone floor, "the court would have had no alternative but to condemn you to death – to a lingering death that fully matched the heinousness of your intended crime. But instead the court will give you a chance – a slender but existent chance. I condemn you, Sommlending assassin, to the Maze!" "The Maze! The Maze!" chanted the white-faced audience wildly, pounding on the lecterns in front of them. "The Maze! The Maze!" Lone Wolf was bewildered. Surely it was the labyrinth from which he had been plucked, the labyrinth of tunnels criss-crossing through the ground beneath Kazan-Oud. If the sentence of the court was simply to return him there, then he had few complaints to make. Petra – if she lived – might soon find him, and together the two of them could ... But then his thoughts withered. From the looks of sadistic glee on the faces of Zahda and all the evil lord's cronies, the labyrinth to which he was to be consigned must be something far worse than that. The man with the painted face held up one trembling hand to still the clangour. In the receding echoes of the mindless chant he said: "Szargor! Strip the criminal of his clothes and weapons!" Once again the bent creature approached Lone Wolf, cackling as he came. He looked up at the spreadeagled captive with a single, malevolently beady eye. "Not so bold and cheeky now, heh-heh," he said, whipping away the loincloth, the sole garment that Lone Wolf had been left with. "Not so all-fired cocky now our master's had his say, heh?" "I am not a dead man yet," said Lone Wolf coldly. "Beware of what you say to someone who may still return to exact his vengeance." "Big words, heh-heh, big words, from a little fella like you, ho-ho. Now let's be having the big sword off of you, heh-heh." Lone Wolf had been puzzled as to why Zahda's creatures, when baring him of everything else, had left him with the loincloth and the Sommerswerd. Now he realized that their purpose had been to leave the way open for this ritualized stripping, and all the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 128 humiliation that it was supposed to entail. The white-faced monsters and Zahda himself were filling the air with their jeers and abuse, pointing at Lone Wolf's exposed body as if they saw something hilarious, taunting him with obscene suggestions and exaggerated comparisons. Of all the emotional torments that had been practised upon him since he had recovered consciousness in this courtroom, this attempted humbling was perhaps the most effective. Even while he scorned their mockery as irrelevant, he cringed under their lashes of contempt. "Nice scabbard," commented Szargor in his ear. The crooked creature was examining the Sommerswerd's finely wrought hilt. "It'd be worth a pretty penny in the world of mortals, it'd be, heh-heh. Pity it won't ever get there, heh? Still, my Lord Zahda will be glad of it for his collection, won't he, so you'll be able to die in the Maze assured in the knowledge that you've brought a little spark of happiness to Kazan-Oud, won't you?" Lone Wolf watched miserably as Szargor's clicking claw folded around the weapon's pommel. A flash of golden light. A clap of thunder. A shroud of smoke. A sudden end to the chants of Lone Wolf's harassers. When the smoke dissipated he could see that the Sommerswerd, with only a little of its blade showing above the sheath, was lying on the marble floor at Szargor's feet. Those feet were dancing as the bent little beast howled in pain, clutching one hand with the other. The soul-stuff of the violated Sommerswerd had seared away the fingers from Szargor's hand, cauterizing the wounds with the heat of its unleashed energy. Despite himself, Lone Wolf began to laugh. The punishment the weapon had meted out, while dreadful, had been so richly deserved ... The sound of his laughter sobered Szargor. "So funny, heh-heh? So very, very funny?" Szargor drew back a hand to punch Lone Wolf in the face, paused, thought better of it, changed position, and punched him with the unmutilated fist. Lone Wolf felt blood spurt from his nose, but the pain was lost in his mirth. "Enough!" cracked Zahda's thin voice as Szargor squared himself to land another blow. "Enough, I say! Cut him down from the frame and cast him into the Maze! But leave his weapon here – it ... interests me. Clearly it is no normal sword, and I would ..." His words trickled away into silence as the Sommerswerd raised itself from the floor. Lone Wolf, as stunned as the rest of them, watched as a cushion of blue mist formed beneath the sheathed weapon, bearing it as if it were a sword of state being carried in a procession. Higher and higher the Sommerswerd rose,

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 129 and then, with dreamlike slowness, it drifted towards the brighter of the two crystals that hung above Zahda's throne. The sword and the crystal – it's as if they know each other! thought Lone Wolf. Then the crystal can surely be no mere tool of Zahda's necromancy. Instead it must be ... His mind faltered. I've found it! Here, at the deep heart of Kazan-Oud, I've found it! That's the Lorestone! It can't be anything else! But there's no way that I can reach it ... no way that I can make it mine!

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 130

7 BRAIN IS BRAWN Numbed by having lost the Lorestone before he had so much as set a finger on it, Lone Wolf experiences the next few minutes as if they are the script of a play, rather than the play itself. He is aware of being cut down by a maliciously grumbling Szargor, who digs the tip of the blade spitefully into the soft skin at Lone Wolf's wrists and ankles, making long gouges in the flesh, drawing just not quite enough blood to incur the wrath of his master, Zahda. Then Lone Wolf is being dragged from the centre of the great tribunal chamber by four of the armoured white-faced creatures and on through a narrow passageway that leads beneath the banks of marble forms. Behind him, squealing with vengefulness, Szargor cavorts. Now Lone Wolf is in a steel-lined corridor, along the walls of which stand a gauntlet of Zahda's bestial minions, their lank tails protruding between their legs to trip him, their eager claws pinching his naked flesh, their stinking spit stinging the skin of his face. The noise of their taunts, contained by the steel walls, is deafening. Too tired and disheartened to make any movement to defend himself, Lone Wolf endures the torments as if they were being inflicted on somebody else. Somebody else, in fact, whom he doesn't like very much. A pause in the racket, and he and his escort are in front of a huge convex door of bonded iron. He senses that the crowd, now bunched behind him, are saving their breath for a cheer of triumph at the moment when he will be thrust through that door into whatever infernal fate Zahda's perverted imagination has dreamt up for his victims. Lone Wolf speculates briefly as to what that fate might be, but is too lethargic to follow the train of thought for very long. None of this is happening to him, after all: he is merely an observer; he no longer has the power to feel sympathy for whichever poor dupe it is who is facing this evil destiny. The door is thrown open. Belatedly, Lone Wolf wonders if he should struggle, set up at least a token protest against what is being done to the man convicted by Zahda's show tribunal; but now there are four spear-points at his throat, and the temptation flees. What could he, a mere spectator, do? It would be a different story if any of this were happening to him ... A shock runs through his frame. This is happening to him! But before he can do anything to resist he is being thrust through the open doorway and into a miasma of foul-smelling fumes, and he is falling, falling, falling ... falling until there is a lifetime of falling.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 131 The metal door, slamming shut above him, cuts off the triumphant cheers of his tormentors from his ears ... He strikes soft, mulchy ground. # Tavig, a shattered assemblage of bones and blood, is dying. From between his wrecked lips he whispers: "Beware the Green, Northlander. Beware the Green. For the Green is death." Lone Wolf cannot hear the words, but he can make them out nevertheless. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what Tavig's talking about. # Lone Wolf's Kai sensibilities recorded the time that he remained unconscious on the bed of human ordure at the bottom of the pit. He was relieved to find, on recovering his senses, that only a few minutes had passed. Making a conscious effort to repel the worst of the odours that assailed his nose, he picked himself up wearily and checked his body for serious injury; it was the matter of only a few further minutes to heal his bruises and cuts. The most difficult part was tearing the flaky patch of dried blood out of the hairs of his beard beneath his nostrils. Still feeling weak, he looked around him. The place was illuminated by a fitful grey light that in other contexts might have seemed restful; here it was oddly threatening. He was standing inside a perfect cylinder, its wall made of polished stone; there were no visible cracks that he might think of using as footholds to try to climb out. There seemed little point in climbing, anyway, because the cylinder was capped, some thirty or forty feet above his head, by another smooth surface of solid rock. Somewhere in the wall there was the door through which he had been hurled, but he was under no illusion that there was any chance of escape that way ... even if he could reach it, which of course he couldn't. As he stood there, naked and defenceless, it took all of his Kai abilities to stop him from giving in to blind panic. A drunken cough interrupted his thoughts. A cloud of mist had coalesced about halfway up the cylinder, and now, as Lone Wolf watched, it slowly moved to take the form of Zahda;s painted face. The eyes were rolling and wild, and there was spittle dribbling from the mouth. There was triumph on the face, yes, but Lone Wolf noticed that the triumph was barely able to cover some other emotion, something which he tentatively identified as pain. He had the sudden sense that the lord of Kazan-Oud was driven by something more than merely the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 132 desire for Evil, something that tormented him deeply. However, Lone Wolf had little time to wonder what this might be, for the misty face was speaking to him. "Welcome to my Maze," it said with a forced sneer. "You came here to kill, Sommlending stranger, but your vile plans have been foiled and now you must face the consequence. You have been sentenced in a fair court to be cast into the Maze of Zahda. Should you escape from it, your life may be spared. Should you fail, then assuredly you shall die – a fitting end for one who came here to Kazan-Oud in search of death. "Not, of course," it added with a snicker, "that anyone ever does escape, you understand." The image of Zahda's face dissolved, but the cloud of mist out of which it had been composed remained. For a few moments longer it continued to hover in the foul air over Lone Wolf's head; then it darted downwards and to the side and spread itself out over the surface of the wall, a darker grey in the grey light. As Lone Wolf watched, the patch of mist went from grey to black, and its outline became regular and more definite in shape. The transformation occurred faster than his eyes could follow, but suddenly he was looking at the mouth of what appeared to be yet another tunnel. As if to confirm this, a sudden whiplash of icy air puffed out of the dark maw and chilled his flesh. "Enter," said Zahda's voice from somewhere. "Enter the Maze, Sommlending intruder, or you die where you stand." A sudden wind passed all down the front of Lone Wolf's body and a crossbow bolt abruptly appeared in the ordure between his feet. Zahda's threat was not an idle one. He heard the click of a steel drawstring, and knew that the next bolt would not miss him. Shivering, his arms crossed over his chest as if to ward off the cold, he stepped through a curtain of darkness and found himself in a smooth-walled passageway. Mist ran in a line along the centre of its ceiling and gave off more of the grey light he had encountered in the pit. It was just enough for him to see everything clearly, not enough for him to do so without having to peer. There was little to see except, a few yards ahead of him, resting against the wall, a shapeless collection of objects that seemed somehow familiar to him. He approached it cautiously, wary lest it be a trap. His suspicions increased when he recognized his clothing and his backpack, which had been taken from him before his appearance in Zahda's ridiculous court. He picked through the heap slowly, searching for barbs or other secret hazards, but could find nothing. His possessions seemed to be intact, save for anything that might be construed as a weapon. Smiling wryly, he turned over in his hands the collection of objects that still remained to him – knickknacks, mostly, picked up during

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 133 his travels and, often, retained for no other reason than that he'd never got round to throwing them away. An onyx medallion, a storgh's tooth, the diamond he'd dug out of its tapestry – how long ago? – a painted shell, a lock of Qinefer's hair, and half a dozen other items; he was surprised to notice that whoever had left this pile here for him had failed to remove the red crystal key that the Elder Magi had given to Petra and himself. They must have assumed that it was nothing more than a jewel, a trinket – of incalculable value in the outside world, of course, but worthless here under Kazan-Oud. Right now, even Lone Wolf couldn't think of what use it might be to him: the chances of employing it again to penetrate the magical barrier seemed a lifetime away. Shuddering, he pulled on his breeches, jacket and cape, trying to ignore the stinking squelchiness that still stuck to him. His Kai sensibilities moved to counter the discomfort, but had only partial success. He realized grimly that right now he'd be prepared to exchange all the possessions he'd rediscovered for a long hot bath. His pack on his back, he moved carefully along the passageway, alert for the slightest sound that might represent danger. For a long time all he heard was his own controlled breathing and the soft shuffle of his hide boots on the floor. He rounded a corner and came to a small circular vault, its ribs and ceiling clean and polished like the walls of the passageway. He paused in the opening to the vault, clinging to the smooth stone of its jamb, waiting until he was certain that nothing hostile stirred within. In the centre of the vaulted chamber's floor there was a block of the dark marble of which the builders of Kazan-Oud had been so fond; on top of the block, seemingly laid out for him, was a lacklustre steel sword with a plain grip and a straight two-piece handguard. He let his Kai senses explore the vault, the weapon and its plinth, but they could detect no immediate danger. He took a first step into the vault, and then froze, half-twisted, poised to leap back into the passageway. There was a sudden rumbling noise, and two portions of the wall slipped from their moorings and descended, grating, into the floor. Through the gaps they left Lone Wolf could see two further passages, both featureless, both grayly lit, both with the same walls of polished stone. After a long moment, he began to inch towards the marble plinth, half-expecting, despite the unconcernedness of his Kai senses, that the floor would suddenly drop out beneath him. But nothing happened. He reached out for the weapon. I guess, by his own lights, Zahda's giving me a fair chance, he thought. Whatever the perils awaiting me in the Maze, I have my pack and my clothing and now, at last, a sword with

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 134 which to defend myself. Unless Zahda is merely toying with me, using me for sport – finding ways to prolong my existence before an inevitable death – there is something more to him than I'd realized. If he were a true servant of Naar, like one of the Darklords, he'd have destroyed me by now – there'd have been none of that nonsense with the tribunal ... His hand closed around the sword's hilt. The air changed, and a voice from out of nowhere spoke to him: Hand to take; Spell to break; Stir a terror In your wake. He was still looking around him, desperately trying to locate whoever or whatever it was that had spoken the piece of doggerel, when his ears were assaulted by a new sound. "How-w-w-w-l!" The noise was like that of a mountain wolf baying at the Moon, and it seemed very close to him. He dropped to his knees, holding the sword almost like a crossbow, with the unpolished blade propped up against his forearm. His eyes roved the vault and the mouths of the three passageways opening off it, but he could see nothing. "How-w-w-w-l!" The din seemed no closer, no further away. He wondered if it came from within him. Was Zahda threatening him with attack from a monster out of his own mind? Lone Wolf didn't want to stop and find out. Another howl – and this time he sensed that it was coming from the direction of the pit. He'd seen nowhere that a wolf might be introduced back there, unless Zahda's minions had simply hurled it down into the pit, the way they had done to Lone Wolf. If so, doubtless the beast was angry or terrified – it didn't matter which: both were equally dangerous. Retreating rapidly, his eyes on the passageway he'd left, he retreated across the vaulted room until his back touched the smooth wall. He sidled to his right until he felt empty space behind his shoulder; then he turned and ran at full speed down this new tunnel. He hadn't gone a hundred yards when there was another of the blood-curdling yells behind him. "How-w-w-w-l!" At a guess the beast had reached the vaulted room and was baying its frustration that he'd gone. He redoubled his pace. Still stinking from the pit, he'd be leaving an easy trail for the animal to follow. "How-w-w-w-l!" This was right behind him. He spun round, stumbling. Framed by the distant portal to the vault he saw the head and shoulders of a great beast. From

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 135 here it looked like one of the Darklords' doomwolves, only if anything bigger. The sword in his hand seemed overly light and puny; for the hundredth time he wished that he had the Sommerswerd. Lacking it, he lacked also the confidence to stand and fight the creature. The sound of racing claws on the smooth marble floor. The echoes of hot breath pumping as the doomwolf accelerated towards him. He fled. There was no dignity in his flight – just a despair to put as much distance behind him as he could. The walls sped past him with the swiftness of arrows. He was aware of them as just a blur. No time to look back at the doomwolf, but he sensed it was gaining on him. His brain seemed all at sea; he let his body do the thinking for him. His legs found new strength from somewhere. Faster, faster, faster ... He slammed into a wall, cracking his skull against it. Breath whooped out of him. The impact threw him sideways, so that he fell, half-stunned, the sword skittering out of his grasp, ahead of him along a side-tunnel. He scrabbled after it on hands and knees, grabbed it, got to his feet somehow, and glanced behind him. The doomwolf hadn't yet reached the corner, but its eager breath was thunder. He reeled, then charged on. Into a mass of spongy blue bubbles that buffeted him gently as they floated in the passageway. He trod on one of them, and it slipped out from under his foot, throwing him over so that he landed with jarring force on the floor. Again his head took punishment. Consciousness ebbed and flowed in red, muzzy clouds. His Kai senses were a riot of activity, desperately trying to keep oblivion at bay. Sprawled, he twisted his head around. The doomwolf was only a few yards away. Its jaws seemed yards wide, its broken teeth the size of a country fence. Its bulbous grey tongue was dripping. The shoulders were tensing to spring. Lone Wolf lashed out wildly, purposelessly. The steel blade went nowhere near the beast, but the point punctured one of the aimlessly floating bubbles. There was a loud bang and a flash of bright green. He screamed in terror and his bladder emptied itself. There was another scream. The doomwolf's jaws clamped shut, closing with a snap on the protruding tongue. Gray blood gouted. Forelegs stiff, the beast countered its forward impetus, then opened its mouth and screamed again. The tongue was hanging off to one side, fastened by a strip of flesh. Another scream – he didn't know if it were the beast's or his own. Both of them were scratching at the floor to try to back off from each other. He stabbed out blindly with his sword and burst another bubble: again the deafening report and the flash of green light. This time he was half-expecting them. The

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 136 doomwolf wasn't. Again the beast screamed in stark terror. On his back, Lone Wolf shoved frenziedly with his feet, forcing himself along the floor. The doomwolf bit through the last remaining strip of its tongue, and screamed again. Lone Wolf beat out around him with his sword, smashing more of the pulpy bubbles, creating a cacophony of sound, an explosion of green lights. Misery and pain combined in the doomwolf's howling now. Lone Wolf aimed a blow at its grizzled muzzle, but missed. The gesture was enough, though, to break the creature's spirit entirely. With a final yowled protest it turned away, a madness of pain jigging its powerful shoulders. Its rough tail whipped across Lone Wolf's face, bringing up a row of welts and loosening a back tooth. Then the beast was gone. He lay alone, coughing for breath. The floating bubbles jounced gently around him. An empty skin flopped down onto the side of his face, and he brushed it away. Up on his knees, he retched dryly, painfully, several times before his head began to clear; he wiped away the red tears with the back of his sleeve, feeling the large bubble pressing softly against his shoulders, face and torso, as if they were blindly trying to comfort him. It was some minutes before he felt enough in control of himself to get to his feet and carry on. He shoved his way firmly but gently through the cluster of bubbles, treating them as if they were sentient beings who had come to his rescue, rather than as the mindless objects he was pretty certain they were. Having sacrificed several of them to drive off the doomwolf, it would have seemed criminal to destroy any more of them. Once free of them, he pressed on further along the passageway. The light was perhaps a little brighter here. He passed a skeleton, slumped in a corner, a rusted dagger still lodged in place in its ribcage. Clearly others condemned to the Maze had been less lucky than himself. The bones were a reminder, however, of the fact that his own life hung by a thread, and he was glad, a few moments later, to round a corner and be out of sight of them. A long time passed, during which nothing happened to disturb him. Zahda had left some hard-tack in his backpack, and he paused to chew a little of it; liquid was another problem, and one that he saw no immediate means of solving. The next hazard first showed itself as a blotch of shadow across the tunnel floor ahead of him. As he came nearer to it, slowing his stride, he saw that it was a hole, a dozen or so yards wide and stretching from side to side of the passageway. He stopped, leaning on his borrowed sword, and contemplated the chasm glumly. There was no way that, even with his Kai sensibilities working to coordinate his muscles, he could hope to leap across that black divide; even had Zahda left him with a rope,

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 137 there was nothing on the far side that he could have used as moorage. He seemed to have come to a complete dead end. The prospect of retracing his steps filled his spirit with leaden gloom. There was a sudden turbulence in the mist by the ceiling, and once again he heard the strange voice that seemed to be half in and half out of his skull: The path across defies your sight; Find the path or stay and fight. Well, thanks a bundle for the advice, thought Lone Wolf angrily. That helps me a whole lot. He continued to regard the pit bleakly. Dropping to his knees, he advanced warily towards the edge and looked over: beneath there was nothing but impenetrable blackness. He was preparing to retreat when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Reacting instinctively, he threw himself against the wall, holding his breath as he waited. This was no troop of soldiers, he realized almost at once, even though the echoes multiplied the sounds: there was only one person coming along the passageway towards him. Find the path or stay and fight, the voice had said, and it seemed to have spoken truly: unable to find the path across the chasm, he must indeed be prepared to fight. The trouble was that he could see no sign of his adversary, even though the sound of the footsteps was telling him that that foe was nearly upon him. Could this be another of Zahda's tricks? The footsteps halted. They could be no more than a couple of yards away from him. Then Lone Wolf heard another sound. Breathing. Although he could still see nothing, there was indeed someone standing only a few feet away. He could inhuman eyes watching him. He reached out with his Kai awarenesses, trying to discover more about his unseen adversary. He could detect nothing at all. Maybe, even despite the noise of laborious breathing, this was ... The pain on his cheek came as such a shock that he shrieked, almost dropping his sword. He raised his free hand to his face and felt wet blood. It was only then that he registered the crrrack! of the blow, just in time to be struck again, this time around the groin; luckily he had twitched away from the shock of the first impact, and the unseen weapon wrapped itself relatively painlessly around his thigh. He took a couple of steps back, realizing sickly that the brink of the chasm was not far behind him. Another blow split his ear open.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 138 Lone Wolf charged straight forward, away from the pit. The manoeuvre clearly took his foe by surprise, for Lone Wolf ran straight into a heavy body, which he felt stumble and fall. Halting only a few feet further, he swung his disconcertingly flimsy sword down through the space where he reckoned the fallen attacker must be. There was a satisfying thwunk! as the blade bit into bone, and a narrow, bestial scream filled the passageway. Eager to press his advantage, Lone Wolf lugged the blade clear of the obstruction and struck again. And again there was a thwunk! as metal embedded itself in flesh. Steeping forward, Lone Wolf trod heavily on a writhing limb. Mercilessly, he stamped down hard once, twice, and felt bones crack. With both fists now on the hilt of his sword, he slashed the blade backwards and forwards with metronomic regularity, the speed of his cuts increasing as the bloodlust came upon him for the first time since he had been thrown into the Maze. He felt liquid spraying his breeches; clearing the red haze from his eyes for a moment, he saw splotches of grey-green blood appearing on his legs – his foe might be invisible, but its blood could be all too clearly seen. And then the fog was down on Lone Wolf's brain again, and he carried on hacking at the unseen form beneath his feet, killing like a berserker rather than a trained warrior of the Magnakai. He stopped. He never knew what made him do so. Perhaps his Kai instincts, earlier drowned by the tsunamis of his bloodlust, finally surfaced. He looked down at his foe, visible now that all life had long since fled. It was difficult to make out the features of the creature that had attacked him. Its weapon, which Lone Wolf had been unable to identify when it was striking his face and body, proved to have been a whip; it was now in three pieces. The face of the creature was a mass of deep cuts and blood, but Lone Wolf could make out that it had been the same anaemic white as those of Zahda's other subjects. Yet, even allowing for the fact that its head and torso had been comprehensively mangled by Lone Wolf's crazed swordwork, it was clear that this beast was less human that the others he had seen, as if Petra had indeed been correct in her guess that Zahda's minions were transmuted humans, and this one had been further transformed than any he had so far seen. Lone Wolf wondered sickly what the end-result of such transformation might be: something more like, he guessed, a great night-cat. He shivered. His revulsion was less at the creature or the mess that his fury had made of it than at his own complete loss of self-control. His senses were all somewhat numb in the aftermath

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 139 of that possession by the bloodlust: for some minutes he had been more bestial than the mutilated creature that lay before him. The beast had been carrying a spear hung by a cord over its shoulder and a silver whistle hung from its neck by a chain. Both of these items had escaped the punishing blows from Lone Wolf's sword, and he felt no compunction about stripping them from the corpse. He crouched by the creature's side and riffled through its leather-faced clothing, seeking other potentially useful items, but there was nothing. He set his Kai abilities to work, repairing the damage the whip-wielding animal had inflicted on him as well as his earlier abrasions. He was beginning to get worried about how long those abilities might be able to continue effecting this sort of repair: he knew that there capacities were not infinite, and that at some point he would have to take some rest to allow them to replenish themselves, but for the moment they were showing no sign of flagging. He hoped that they wouldn't give up on him suddenly, at a moment when he was least prepared for them to do so. At last, feeling once more full of vitality and strength, he turned to leave. As he did so, he cast a last glance back over his shoulder to look at the crumpled corpse of the cattish creature and noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that something had changed in the vicinity of the pit. He turned nervously to see what it was, expecting yet another nasty surprise. Instead he found that Zahda – or somebody – had rewarded him by placing a thin beam of shining blue metal across the divide. Not giving himself time to think of the consequences, Lone Wolf ran straight at the beam and across the gaping pit. The thin metal bucked under the weight of his feet, twisting and trying to throw him off; it finally succeeded when he was only a couple of feet from the far side of the chasm. He threw his arms out over the rim, feeling the cold stone of the floor beyond, and hung there gasping as the metal spiralled away into the darkness below. After a few seconds, he hauled himself up to kneel on the tunnel floor. Immediately there was a great creaking noise, and the ground beneath him shook and grumbled. He felt himself being carried backwards, and tried to scramble away, but before he had got more than a few feet the shaking stopped. He looked round to see that the gash in the passageway's floor had healed itself up neatly, so that there was no longer any sign – not even so much as a hairline crack – that it had ever been there. I wish you could have been like that when I first got here, he thought bitterly in the direction of the bare, innocent-seeming stone. You could've saved me a lot of misery ...

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 140 Once again there came the alien voice booming inside his head. This time it had adopted the cadences of Zahda's speech. "Good!" it cried, and Lone Wolf had an image of the evil lord still seated on his golden throne, the twin crystals suspended overhead as he watched his victim's performance in a scrying basin like the one in the Elder Magi's Tower of Truth. "Good! You are providing fine sport for me, Sommlending stranger! Yet bravery and battle-skill on their own are not enough if you are to hope to survive my Maze. Now we must see if you have brains and nimbleness of wit to match your speed with the sword." The voice faded. As it did so, he noticed that his surroundings seemed abruptly clearer, as if the presence of the voice sent his senses just a little out of focus. If this were indeed the case, and if he could learn to detect the first signs of this loss of focus, he might in future have a few instants' warning of the voice's return. He shrugged. If there were to be much of a future for him. Suddenly the absence of Petra speared through him. The voice's mention of "nimbleness of wit" had been the spark that had ignited this sudden trail of pain, but it was more than simply the yearning to have her rapid, bright conversation in his ears, or the reassuring clasp of her hand around his. It was as if, up until now, he had still been able to conjure up the feel of her body against his, but that now the ability to generate that sensation was fading, as if somehow she were becoming more distant from him. She and he had only discovered their feelings for each other a few hours ago, and now he didn't even know whether or not she was still alive ... He succumbed to his grief for several long minutes, glad, as he wept, that the Nameless Woman had taught him to find release in weeping, to recognize that there was nothing shameful or unmanly in his tears. At last he was able to pull himself together. He felt cleansed, even though his body still stank, and he felt strengthened, even though he was aware of his underlying exhaustion. Again a sharp bend in the passageway. He watchfully rounded the corner and discovered himself in another of the vaulted rooms – it could even have been the same one, he mused, for the only thing different about it from the one in which he'd gained the sword was that, in place of the dark marble plinth, there was a life-size statue in bronze. He had the image of Zahda's minions beavering away industriously to effect the change while he, Lone Wolf, was unwittingly travelling around in a circle. If that had indeed been the case, though, they'd also cleaned the floor of his footstains. He eyed the statue with more than a little interest, for he recognized its subject. Years before, he had been in Barrakeesh, the capital of Vassagonia, seeking peace between that country and

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 141 Sommerlund and instead discovering a nettlebed of intrigue which had almost cost him his life. Not long before his arrival the ageing ruler of Vassagonia, the Zakhan Moudalla, had been assassinated. Lone Wolf had never met the man, but there had still been portraits and statues of him, with his prominent paunch ill hidden by his elaborately decorated jellabah, in various of the chambers and corridors of the imperial palace. But none of them had shown old Moudalla like this. The zakhan's arms were outstretched in a gesture of pleading and hopelessness, and the creases of his metal face depicted the depths of despair. Lone Wolf had never found any reason to regret the zakhan's passing – Moudalla had been cruel and disingenuous and treacherous – yet still the anguish portrayed by the sculptor affected him now, as the statue seemed to be beseeching him personally. But beseeching him for what? There was no way that Lone Wolf could tell, for statues do not speak. Keeping well clear of the sculpture, feeling a misplaced guilt as if he should be offering it some help, he crossed the chamber to an oval door in the far wall and shoved against it. The door didn't move, and there was neither handle nor lock. The pale-green material of which the door was made was unfamiliar to Lone Wolf – it was soft and warm to the touch, like the hide of a living animal, but just beneath the surface, as he prodded at it with his fingers, he found it rigid and unyielding. The door was set precisely flush with the wall, fitting its frame so exactly that there wasn't even a chink into which he might have wedged the tip of his sword. Thwarted, he turned back to look at the statue of the Zakhan Moudalla, convinced now that that pleading figure must hold the secret of getting the door open. But how? He circled the bronze zakhan again, scrutinizing it for any clues it might hold. He was just about to give up when he noticed his eyes slightly shifting their focus, and he prepared himself for another pronouncement by the weird voice: Listen to the zakhan, it said, And ponder what you hear; Give the correct answer, For fear he sheds a tear. Wincing at the doggerel, noting that his vision was still not quite true, Lone Wolf listened for what would come next. A riddle, he was fairly certain – hadn't Zahda said something about testing his brains rather than his brawn? He watched the bronze statues lips, expecting them to move, but instead the same voice that had spoken to before continued, but now sounding as if it came from deep within the metal figure: "My daughter has as many sisters as she has brothers, but each of her brothers has twice as many sisters

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 142 as brothers. So answer me this, Sommlending stranger: how many sons and daughters do I have?" Lone Wolf giggled. He was unable to help himself. Zahda must have for far too long surrounded himself with lackwit toadies. The riddle was a chestnut that Lone Wolf had first heard in childhood. Without thinking, he responded promptly: "Four sons, three daughters – that's the answer you want. But I can't believe you're the zakhan asking me this: what zakhan could ever keep a count of all his sons and daugh ... ?" Then he stopped. Suddenly the riddle seemed too easy. Maybe it wasn't just that Zahda was accustomed to dealing with simpletons: perhaps there was some hidden trap that Lone Wolf had been too cavalier to notice? He was still cursing himself for his dangerous cockiness when the oval door swung easily inward, revealing yet another passageway, indistinguishable from the others through which he'd been travelling. He approached the portal with his sword ready to lash out at anyone or anything who might appear. Nothing. Nobody. He stepped through into the passageway unscathed. He spun around as the oval door comfortably closed itself behind him – but too late to catch its edge. For better or for worse, he was now restricted to this new passageway – there was no way back. Yet there seemed little cause for any alarm as he scanned his eyes along it. As far as he could see there were just the same smooth walls and curved ceiling, with a river of grey-glowing mist running along it, giving him just enough light to see by. With a last look at the closed door, he crept along the passageway. After about a hundred and fifty yards he came to a place where the floor suddenly tilted downwards, like a ramp descending to a lower level. Squinting downwards, he could see that the ramp ended in a much darker area than he'd become accustomed to. There seemed no choice but to press on, but he became doubly wary. His feet made barely a sound as he stole downward, closely hugging the wall. In the distance, from somewhere beneath him, he could hear a faint, steady clicking noise. It sounded like some sort of clockwork mechanism, and he looked nervously about him, expecting some sort of trap. What he did see, on reaching the lower level, was that, for the first time since he had entered the Maze, the walls bore ornamentation. Well, not ornamentation, exactly: on closer examination the dirty-grey-white objects that he'd assumed to be trophies nailed to the wall proved to be the dried-out husks of cocoons, several feet long. He rubbed the fibrous paper of one between his fingers, and the material disintegrated as a fine dust. Wasps? he thought. Butterflies? Huge, whatever they are.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 143 The clicking noise continued. It was growing louder. Could this be another of Zahda's tests of my mental acuity? thought Lone Wolf, scowling uncertainly. If so, I hope it's as trivial as the last one ... The thing that rounded the corner of the passageway didn't look much like a test of mental acuity. Nor, for that matter, did it look trivial. It looked more like an extended woodlouse, with a long back divided into overlapping horny segments; over its entire body was a slithery-seeming sheen, like the coating of a slug. Its forequarters were raised, so that its head was nearly at a level with Lone Wolf's own. It possessed two long horns, again like a slugs, and black eyes in which he could see a disturbing degree of intelligence. It stopped when it saw Lone Wolf. He was knocked to his knees by a sudden blast of mental energy. Even as he dropped, he realized that this was not, as yet, an attack; he was being swamped by a spontaneous outpouring of grief from the creature, which was aghast at the damage that had been done to one of the cocoons it guarded. Lone Wolf detected traces of horror at what the worm clearly regarded as an act of desecration, as if it held the cocoons in some quasi-religious veneration. It could be only seconds before the creature's misery would be transformed into fury directed towards the desecrator. Staggering to his feet, his own mental shields raised to offer him a modicum of protection, Lone Wolf watched the transformation mirrored in the creature's alien features. There was sorrow in those dark eyes, but then it was as if a flame had been sparked into life ... Even though his mental shields withstood the new wave of emotion, he felt buffeted around within them. Purple froth trickled from the worm's lipless mouth as it gave vent to a disconcertingly human-sounding snarl. So much for Zahda's intelligence tests, thought Lone Wolf. I doubt if he meant me to engage this beast in philosophical debate. He must have lost his temper when I answered the zakhan's question so easily. I should have kept the contempt out of my voice. And this creature isn't intended as just another challenge of my fortitude: Zahda means this one to kill me ... The bloodlust threatened to invade his mind once again, but this time it was forestalled by a completely different incursion. A steely cold intelligence seemed to take possession of Lone Wolf's mind, an entity unswayed, at least in this moment, by emotions. There was something about it that he recognized, however, even as he recoiled from its alienness. It took him a second or two to work out what that taint of familiarity was, while the worm-like creature, its eyes now aflame, displayed two pairs of eager-seeming pincers and opened its mouth to reveal a neat circle of needle-like yellow teeth. Then he had it. The Nameless Woman's come into me, he realized. Without the Sommerswerd I cannot have Gwynian to counsel me,

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 144 but the Nameless Woman can reach me here despite the fact that Reason for Coming Back is so far from here. She will direct my arm, and guide my mind ... He pictured her flashing eyes, darker even than those of the worm, and the expressive twist of her mouth. He saw determination shape her features. Welcome, friend, he thought; the cold intelligence ignored him. The worm struck. Lone Wolf's own Kai reflexes were sufficient to enable him to dodge his head aside, away from the swiftly swooping pincer. The claws clacked angrily at empty air. He felt the wind of its passing against his throat. He ducked and turned, unwilling as yet to attack the creature. But it seemed he would have no choice. Even as he twisted away, the worm was swinging at him with the other pincer. The serrated claws caught the lapel of his cape, and tore a clutch of cloth away. That could as easily have been his throat. He punched at the beast's face, avoiding the mouth and its teeth, going for one of the eyes. His blow landed, and the worm let out a squeal, spraying him with froth. But its fury had transcended any pain that he might inflict. It advanced on its numerous clicking legs as he retreated. He held an arm up uselessly against it. As a pincer swiped at him again he jerked his arm back, then tried to grab the creature's limb behind the claws, where it might be weaker. It wasn't. Luckily, his grip slipped; he pulled his hand away just in time to avoid the snapping mouth. Dancing back a few more paces, he allowed the cold intelligence of the Nameless Woman to take over full control of his actions. His body went into an attacking crouch. The lustreless blade of his sword searched the air, seeming to flex as it arced to and fro in front of the creature's eyes. The sight halted the beast's advance for only a fraction of a second. Lone Wolf's sword plunged directly at a dark eye. At the last moment, just as it seemed inevitable that the point would strike and sink deep, a horny hood settled down over the organ. The sword-tip slid off, gashing the worm's face but doing no real damage. Lone Wolf's legs took him back a further couple of paces. His free hand chopped sideways, shattering two of the cocoons; the segments of the worm's body contorted as if a shock had passed through them, but the madness in its eyes remained under control, just. It darted towards him, catching him off balance. Deliberately, the Nameless Woman allowed his fall to continue, so that he rolled away, half under the worm's rearing body. Unable to get in a full blow, his sword nevertheless jabbed upwards at the creature's belly, hoping that it would be less well armoured than the rest of the body. No such luck. The blade jammed between two segments and the hilt was torn from Lone Wolf's grasp. Scrabbling backwards, defenceless; the worm turning its head to give him a terrifying stare

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 145 of unbridled hatred. Lone Wolf was back on his feet now, but with the sword gone he was defenceless. The worm made another dart at him, but clumsily, the protruding sword interfering with its bony legs. His balled fist landed a powerful blow in the centre of the worm's face, and his knuckles felt flesh yield. A largely futile gesture. The creature tried to trip him with two of its forelegs, but his own avoided them neatly. His hands tugged his pack from his back, and swung the heavy bundle as if it were a mace. The impact knocked the beast sideways, so that it crashed against the wall, pulverizing several more of the cocoons. The dust penetrated Lone Wolf's mouth as well as the beast's own, so that both of them coughed and spluttered for a few seconds. Lone Wolf's throat was the first to recover; another blow from the backpack had the creature reeling. But a pincer snagged one of the pack's straps, severing it cleanly, so that the burden heeled out of control, the remaining strap wriggling out of his fingers. Nothing left to defend with, let alone attack. His legs took him dancing further away, his hands running n a useless errand through his pockets, despairingly trying to find anything that might be used as a weapon. Throwing things – the souvenirs he'd picked up earlier. Anything. The onyx medallion bounced off the beast's face. The painted shell vanished inside its snapping mouth. The silver whistle was batted aside by a pincer. The beast kept on coming forwards at him. A last hopeless attempt: charge directly at the creature, as Lone Wolf had charged at the whip-wielder. As before, the beast was caught unprepared. It fell over on its side, legs waving pathetically. Its long back twisted, the segments seeming to climb over each other as the beast righted itself. One of its stray legs cracked against Lone Wolf's kneecap. He crumpled, landing face down on the slippery floor. Something jabbed him in the eye as his limbs floundered in the worm's gelatinous trace. The Nameless Woman was seeking to leave him now; he felt her sense of resignation; her abandonment was tearing at him. His hands found the thing on the floor that had bruised his eyeball. A whistle – useless bloody whistle. The bats – the bats that had flown at Petra and himself as they'd descended into Kazan-Oud. No time for subtlety, no time to tune his vocal cords, no time for anything but to try to get the whistle to his mouth as the worm raised itself over his curling, jerking body. The slime-coated metal cold and foul in his mouth. Blow! Blow! Blow! No sound! No sound! The thing's not working! The whistle's dud! Useless! Ready to die! Ready to die! Love you, Petra! Love you! Ready to die! Ready to die! Ready to ... A scream penetrated his wildly tumbling thoughts. He forced his eyelids open. The worm was still above him, but now it was standing up almost on its tail, shrieking in distress and anguish. It was holding its pincers to the sides of its head. Grey-green pus

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 146 was oozing from its closed eyes. Hope rekindled itself in Lone Wolf's breast. With new vigour he poured his breath into the little whistle, making his lungs ache. The metal became hot in his hand. With each fresh blast the worm screamed – too much like a woman's scream, but Lone Wolf had no reserves of mercy left to draw on. He blew again. The inaudible sound jolted through the creature's long body, straightening it ... The creature's head disappeared into the mist at the roof of the passageway. There was a crack, and blue arcs of lightning lit up the corridor for yards on either side. Awed, Lone Wolf let the whistle drop from his lips. Still vertical, the worm's segmented body performed a grotesque, disjointed dance. The screaming stopped with terrifying suddenness. The stench of charring meat filled the air. Lone Wolf pulled himself well clear of the twitching, lashing body of the dying creature. There was a final, deafening report and the long body collapsed in a jumble of smoking segments. A couple of the legs gave a last, feeble spasm, and then the worm was still. Lone Wolf remained motionless for several seconds, his breathing close to retching. He could hardly believe that he had survived. Then, slowly, he became aware of the fact that the light was ebbing. For a moment he thought that he was about to faint, but then he realized that the dimming of the light was no illusion – darkness was slowly falling on the passageway. Something made him glance up. The mist that had lit his way since he had been thrown into the Maze was dissipating, breaking up into discrete cloudlets that drifted a little away from the ceiling before themselves disintegrating. And beyond where the mist had been there was not, as he'd expected, a smooth stone roof but a long opening, running the length of the ceiling. There was darkness through the gap; but it wasn't so dark that he couldn't see the lip and railing of a metal walkway. So this was how Zahda had been able to observe his progress through the Maze! This was where the weird, commanding voice had come from! His observers must have satisfied themselves that his life was forfeit to the worm, for there was no sign of them. In the last vestiges of illumination Lone Wolf scrabbled around the floor, picking up as many of his trinkets as he could find. He slung his pack over one shoulder – that would have to do until he had time to repair the severed strap. Lastly, surprised at the degree of the remorse that he felt for having slain the creature, he put his foot on the worm's segmented belly and pulled the iron sword free. He stared at the opening above him. He had no rope. He also had no idea how long this state of affairs would last – already a

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 147 horde of Zahda's white-faced minions could be hurtling to repair the damage. Feeling obscurely like a despoiler of graves, he climbed up on the worm's corpse, staggering as the hard segments settled beneath his weight. He was just able to reach the lip of the opening. He raised the sword up above his head, and found it was just long enough to bridge the gap between the two sides. Praying that he wouldn't slash his hands or his belly to ribbons and that the untempered metal wouldn't break, he hung from the bending blade for a second and then hurled himself upwards, landing with his stomach on the blade's flat. In the instant, he flung himself sideways, tumbling onto the outer roof of the tunnel. Snatching up the weapon, he vaulted the railing onto the metal walkway, which quivered under the impact of his feet. Somewhere an alarm bell was splintering the air. Guards would surely be here soon. But he was out of the Maze. Alive.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 148

8 DEATH IS LIFE The articulated paw fell on her shoulder, ripping the flesh. She yelled in pain, kicking out behind her, gaining the satisfaction of feeling her heel sink deep into tender tissues. For a split second the grip on her shoulder faltered and she thought she might wriggle free of it; but then the pressure of the claws increased grimly, and she knew that she was caught. For now. She'd coped well enough for the past day or so – estimating time in the warren of tunnels was difficult – since Lone Wolf had vanished from her gaze behind the little iron hatch. She relaxed her body into a pose of submissiveness as the white-faced creature roughly pushed her against the wall. Its thorny fingers ran swiftly over and through her clothing, seeking weapons; two daggers swiftly joined her sword and axe on the floor, and the beast and its companions seemed satisfied. Petra smiled to herself. The cursory search had failed to reveal the garotte tucked under the collar of her cape, the thin blades she kept on the inside of the soles of her boots, the steely strength of her bootlaces, and the needle-like stilettos sewn into her belt, not to mention the razor-sharpness of the heavy belt-buckle itself. Viveka's lessons had not gone unlearnt. Petra felt the backpack being ripped from her shoulders, and heard as the creature, or one of its fellows, shuffled clumsily through it, adding various other items of combat to the heap on the floor. Again she smiled: from the lack of the noise of smashing glass it was clear the searcher had assumed that the clear liquid in the bottle was merely what it looked like – water. There were other items disguised in her backpack as well – sulphur and phosphorus sticks masquerading as food, the latter in a tin of oil – so that, assuming they returned the pack to her, she would still be well armed. She was spun around and again thrown against the wall. Her head struck the stone with a crack, and for a second or two her eyes lost their focus. When she could see clearly again she found there was a pallid mask only inches from her face. The creature jabbered some meaningless sounds at her. Its breath made her nose wrinkle; its small eyes were black pits of urgency. She grinned and shrugged. Her captors clearly wanted to interrogate her, but she lacked the ability to understand a word they uttered. Her grin fled when the creature slapped her across the face, its claws making shallow but painful cuts in the flesh of her cheek. Once again it barked meaninglessly at her. Angry now, she

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 149 brought up her knee with full force into the juncture of its legs with its body, trusting that its anatomy approximated to that of a man. Whether or not her trust was well placed she did not discover. A horny fist caught her full on the jaw, but the blackness came too quickly for her to know this. # Lone Wolf had the sensation that he was standing on top of an enormous honeycomb. All around him, beneath a spiderweb of tarnished metal walkways, he could see dimly lit chambers and linking tunnels. Whatever substance the illuminating mist might be made of, it was clearly transparent in one direction, so that he could catch glimpses of the contents of some of the nearer cells and passages of the honeycomb. From above the perils they held were more obvious. As he rattled his way briskly along the metal track he saw the mechanisms of jawed traps, the hidden levers that operated pitfalls in the floors, and bizarre creatures of all shapes and sizes. Some of these latter, he realized, were not necessarily hostile to human beings: from the way that they were pacing or buzzing or batting themselves against the walls of their prison, it was clear that what drove them was hunger. Zahda's minions must keep them perpetually on the verge of starvation, so that naturally they fell upon any living creature that should be so foolish as to come in their way. A scream stopped him briefly in his tracks. It had come from nearby – somewhere to his left. He glanced in that direction, tightening his grip on the sword's hilt, tensing his body instinctively. What he saw in both relaxed and revolted him. In one of the passages a great winged creature was crouching by the edge of a noxious-seeming pond. Dwarfed by the huge shape, a man in a grey leather jacket was lying on his back, beating uselessly at the creature's shining, faceted eyes. Ashy dust drifted from the creature's trembling, busy wings. Before Lone Wolf could turn his face away in disgust, the winged beast darted out a pink, shining proboscis and stabbed its prey in the eye. There's nothing I can do to help that poor wretch, thought Lone Wolf angrily as he resumed his rapid pace along the walkway, nothing at all. Nor to help any of the other poor wretches who must be suffering all through the Maze. Nothing, that is, except destroy the accursed monster whose perverted imagination despatched them here in the first place ... His bitter mood wasn't improved by the incongruous way that the lights from the passageways below shone up through the fine metal latticework in grey-yellow strips, so that it felt as if he were running through a landscape patterned with shallow streams. The dissonance of this with the oppressiveness of the great low-ceilinged

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 150 chamber around him and the abrasive clangour of the bell made him feel as if he were carrying a heavy burden on his shoulders. He had no clear idea of where he was running to. As yet he had seen none of the guards who must certainly be homing in on this area, but his instincts made him jig and jag across the pattern of intersecting walkways, turning right or left at random as he came to each junction. Once or twice he paused to peer around him, looking for signs of pursuit and trying – hopelessly – to find some way of establishing his bearings. His body was reacting to this sudden sprint after its exertions of the past few days: a clammy sweat was running down his forehead and from his groin down the inside of his thighs. Chance took him to the edge of the grid of walkways. One moment he was running along on the level, still taking frequent unpredictable turns, and the next he found himself almost falling flat on his face as his feet encountered a broad metal stairway, going downwards. With a curse and a wild flailing of his arms he recovered his balance, spared one last moment to check for signs of activity behind him – there were still none – and then he was plunging down the stairs towards a brightly lit archway in the huge chamber's black stone wall. Then he was running down a corridor, the flames of torches along the walls bright in his eyes and the echoes of his own running footsteps and his gasping, heaving breath loud in his ears. Instinct again took over when the corridor forked; he had aimed himself at the left-hand passage almost before the fork came into sight. Here the way narrowed a little, and the torches were spaced less frequently against the walls. Rivers of damp and hairy mould showed on the stones; thin trickles of water crossed the floor beneath him, so that every other footfall made a dreary slapping noise. As well as the smell of dampness there was a slightly sick scent in the air, as if somewhere nearby some large animal had died and its carcase were rotting. It took him only a few moments to realize that he was running towards the source of his stench. For a fleeting instant he wondered if his instincts might have misled him – then, shrugging as he ran, he dismissed the thought: they'd served him well too often before for him to start doubting them now. Then the torches stopped altogether, so that he found himself pressing on into an ever-deepening gloom; up ahead he could see a smudge of grey light that was barely brighter than darkness, and seemingly far colder. He sensed that the passageway had begun to slope downhill; as each foot fell there was a twinge of vertigo before it hit the floor, just the briefest moment later than his body had expected it to.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 151 He slowed his precipitous dash as the glum light ahead of him came closer. Although he'd been lucky so far in encountering nobody since escaping from the Maze, that state of affairs could hardly be expected to last for very much longer. Where there was light there might well be life: Zahda's pale-faced servants could surely not be too far away. He clung to the slithery wall as he crept the last twenty or thirty yards to the opening, controlling his breath by force of will. The stink of decay was worse now, much worse, and his stomach was reacting to it despite the calming effects of his Kai sensibilities. It was a slave-compound: he recognized it as such immediately. Although not quite on the same grand scale as the chamber that held the Maze, the one that he now looked out on was nevertheless enormous by any other standards. The opening in which he crouched was a couple of yards above floor-level. There were crumbling stone steps leading downwards in front of him; from the dust on them he judged that they were rarely used, if ever. The compound itself was made up of two or three score box-like cages of different sizes, some holding as many as thirty or forty prisoners while others were barely large enough for their single occupant. At the far side of the rectangular chamber a further flight of stone steps, much broader and cleaner, led up to a platform where there was a high arched doorway in the wall. Wide passages cut through between the groups of cages; for a second or two Lone Wolf wondered why so much space had been wasted for these, and then realized that the width was necessary to protect any patrolling overseers from being grabbed or spat on by the captives. Not that there seemed much chance of that. In other slave-compounds that Lone Wolf had come across in the course of his travels the most stifling characteristic had always seemed to be the frequent sound of whips brutally cutting across bare human flesh. Here it was the opposite. The air was heavy with silence. The slaves squatted or lay in exhausted resignation in their cages; for all Lone Wolf's eyes could tell him from here, some of the raggedly clad, scarecrow-thin, crook-backed men and women might even be dead. Had it not been for the occasional movement of a bony hand to lethargically banish a pestering insect, he might have been looking at a tableau, a depressed artist's miserable vision of the eternal gloom of the netherworld. As it was, he found it hard to shake off the sense that the unfortunates trapped here were, in a way, already dead. He stayed where he was for ten minutes or more, scanning the sorry scene keenly for any sign of Zahda's goons. There were empty troughs in the cages – the feeding hour might arrive any moment, bringing with it a wave of slavemasters. He wished that the slaves themselves, by some appearance of interest, would give

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 152 him a clue as to whether or not this might be the case, but their apathy seemed to be as deep and impregnable as the very walls of Kazan-Oud themselves. Wherever he could see their flesh through the tatters of their garments he saw bruises and welts; the overseers were evidently not gentle with their charges. He wondered what work it was that Zahda required these slaves to perform. Extending the Maze, perhaps? And yet surely it was as extensive already as it needed to be – few could ever hope to survive in it for more than the time it took to negotiate a half-dozen chambers, unless, like himself, they were smiled upon by Ishir enough that a means of escape would be opened up to them. Or was Zahda so fanatically obsessed by his creation that he must build it larger and unnecessarily larger, far beyond the point where the additions could possibly serve any purpose? Lone Wolf had met people like that: focused people, consumed by their own creation yet never knowing it. At last he could tolerate the waiting no longer. Although he could hear nothing from the tunnel behind him, pursuers might be only a couple of bends away. Trying to assume a casualness which he hardly felt, he pulled himself to his full height, patted down his stinking clothing in a vain effort at fastidiousness, and ventured down the worn steps. For a few seconds none of the slaves, lost in their own inner worlds of misery, noticed him. As soon as the first of them did, however, the effect was like the sudden appearance of a morsel of food in an ants' nest. Lone Wolf could detect no signs of the slaves passing the news of his arrival on from one to the next, yet within seconds he seemed to be the focus of every pair of eyes in the compound – dark, deep-red, despairing eyes they were, and set in wrinkled faces that seemed never to have known a smile. Some of the rickety figures were almost climbing over each other in their eagerness to watch him. He wondered if perhaps their owners might be telepathic, or something; but he hadn't felt any mental touch to indicate psychic activity. Further, as he returned those blank, expressionless gazes, he began to question if the slaves were indeed human – there was little enough of humanity left in their deadened faces. There was a hissing noise. For a split second Lone Wolf thought that there was a snake nearby, perhaps preparing to strike, and he spun on his heels, the iron sword probing the empty air. Then he recognized that it was the slaves who were making the sound. Poor, helpless trapped creatures as they were, they were hissing him derisively – mocking him because he was free and they were caged. They were like hens that had been crammed together

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 153 in the same crowded coop for so long that they had forgotten any other mode of existence, scorning it as inferior to their own. Lone Wolf had reason to be thankful for the foresight the creators of the compound had shown in leaving the gaps between the cages so wide. Pitifully thin the arms that reached out through the bars towards him might be, but the dirty nails at the ends of the grasping hands looked sharp and evil. He had no doubt that, had the slaves been free, he would have been rent limb from limb with no chance of saving himself as they poured over him in their hundreds. Even as he walked in safety along the centre of the path, he could feel their jealous malice stabbing at him. It was useless trying to tell them to keep quiet lest their hissing draw Zahda's pale bullies down on him: he had no clue what language the slaves might speak, and they showed no response at all to his hushing gestures. The experience of walking among the cages, he reflected, was much like that of running the gauntlet of the goons, as he'd had to do before they'd cast him into the Maze – only this was even more humiliating, even more painful ... The walk across the chamber could not have been more than forty or fifty yards and could not have taken him longer than a minute or so, yet the distance seemed interminable and it seemed to take him a time that was beyond calculating merely in hours. The hissing was ubiquitous, pressing in on him; it was impossible to ignore it. It seemed to resist his passage, like water. There were a few solitary cages grouped near the foot of the granite stairs. He guessed these must be reserved for particularly troublesome slaves – newcomers, perhaps, who had yet to have the spirit beaten out of them or drained from them by hard labour. He was wrong. He paused by the first of them and stared at the slumped form on the dirty straw inside. As if feeling his gaze, the man raised his head and opened his eyes. Lone Wolf started as he realized that under the layers of filth and dried blood the slave was wearing a uniform of red and gold – the uniform of the Vakeros. Here was a potential ally. And yet Lone Wolf's hopes crumbled as he gazed across the stinking cage: the man's eyes were milky and clouded, like shattered glass, and his face and hands were pocked with takadea, the jail-rot disease. Lone Wolf judged that he could not be more than a week from death. He must be in agony. It was a marvel that he wasn't screaming, but instead regarding Lone Wolf – who could be no more than a blur to him – with a resigned, tranquil expression on his face. Lone Wolf glanced around him. There was a chance. It was folly to delay his escape from this hissing place, yet he found it impossible to force himself away from the door of the Vakeros's cage. If he could maybe save the man ...

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 154 There was a big iron key hanging from a peg on the wall beyond the cage. Lone Wolf darted over. Sending up a brief prayer to Ishir that the key would fit the heavy padlock on the cage door, cursing the anxiety that made his hands shake, he fumbled with the two until the lock fell open. "Go!" croaked the prisoner as Lone Wolf tumbled into the cage. "Leave me alone, for the love of all that's good! Haven't you tormented me enough!" "Friend," snapped Lone Wolf. "I'm a friend. Now belt up while I see if I can do anything for you." Despite his words, the Vakeros still made a feeble attempt at protest as Lone Wolf almost tore the jacket from the thin shoulders. The pockmarks ran down as far as the base of the man's scrawny neck, but below that they were few and far between. Lone Wolf had heard of cases of takadea remitting even after this stage, but they were rare. As it was, there was only the slenderest of hopes that even his Magnakai powers of curing would be sufficient for the task. "Belt up, you fool!" He slapped the man's disfigured face as hard as he dared. The blow seemed in an odd way to reassure the man, for he stopped whimpering and scrabbling at Lone Wolf's arms. The skin of his back was like dry, ancient parchment under Lone Wolf's fingers; his shoulderblades and vertebrae were sharp beneath it. "That's better," said Lone Wolf, forcing calmness into his voice. "Pray with me, friend, and in a few minutes ..." I hope, he thought, I hope that this'll work. He drew his Kai will away from the parts of his own body where it had been working and drew it into his hands. His palms and fingers suddenly felt hot, as if he'd just plunged them into a bowl of steaming water. Too hot – the pain made him wince. If the Vakeros noticed the sudden jerk he gave no sign of it. Lone Wolf wrestled with the pain, and won; he herded yet more of his Kai power into his hands, watching the skin begin to puff and blister. All that he felt now was a distant throbbing, but he knew that later there would be a time of agony before he could repair the damage. But that wasn't relevant now: curing the man was the only thing that he must let his mind focus on. He willed the energy of his Kai sensibilities to increase even further its concentration in his hands, and then suddenly, as if he were breaching a dam, he allowed it to flood through the skin of his fingers and palms and into the suffering prisoner. The Vakeros stiffened in anguish. A half-shriek escaped from his lips. "Quiet, friend," said Lone Wolf grimly, bending over him. There's worse to come, he thought. The sudden expulsion of Kai

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 155 energy had sapped his strength and left a painful emptiness inside him, but he knew that he must drive himself past all such considerations if he were to complete the cure. There's worse to come, but I guess I'd better not tell you that or you'd tear out my throat to stop me ... Shifting his stance, he turned the man's head. He clapped his red, pus-sticky palms over the man's eyes. Luckily the Vakeros was still consumed by his previous spear of pain and made no attempt to stop him. For a few seconds longer Lone Wolf just held him like that, gasping from the effort. Then he summoned the remaining parts of his Kai energies to his hands once more. As soon as they had reached their height, he unloosed them through his hands directly into the sufferer's eyes. This time the Vakeros let out a full-blooded scream. His body shot back so powerfully that Lone Wolf was thrown across the cage to crash into the bars on the far side. The blow stunned him, and he collapsed into the straw. He was aware of a deep, tortured sobbing that seemed to fill the world; it took him a moment or two to realize that it was his own. Then the agony of his blistered, weeping hands struck him, and he too screamed. Sharp ends of straw pierced the raw skin where blisters had burst. Lone Wolf could see nothing but his own anguish, like a billowing cloud of reddened black in his mind. He fought to push back the cloud, and after an eternity succeeded. He had to muster the last vestiges of his curing powers. Now it was crucial that the physician healed himself. Through the waves of torment he felt the wispy Kai sensibilities respond reluctantly to his summons. For a terrified second or two he thought that their willpower might be greater than his own, however impossible and paradoxical that might be; then at last he felt a warmth in his hands – a gentle soothing warmth, this time, not at all like the searing heat that had been there before. The knives of agony withdrew. Slowly. Unwillingly. But at last they were gone. He stared at his open hands. The skin on them was pink and cleansed-looking, as if he'd just washed them thoroughly and perhaps for too long. A few last scarlet lines faded out of sight as he watched. Thanking the Gods Ishir and Kai for their benignity in giving him the means to effect his own salvation, he slowly lifted his head to look at the Vakeros. The Vakeros was likewise staring at his own hands. "You've cured me," he was saying in a soft, stupid voice. "The scars are going. I can see that the scars are going. You've cured me. What kind of magic is this? What magic, that succeeded where my own was powerless?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 156 "Not magic," said Lone Wolf. The noise of the other captives hissing, which must have been continuing all this while, suddenly flooded back into his consciousness. "But let's not talk about it now. Let's get out of here. Zahda's goons must come soon. No point in being captured before we've even escaped. Soon's you've got strength enough. Soon's I've got strength enough, come to that ..." There was a shout from somewhere behind him. # She was lying on cold – comfortingly cold – sand on a sun-swept beach, with the tang of salt air in her nostrils. Her body was deliciously naked, soaking in the moisture from the breeze that played with the fine, almost invisible hairs of her back. She let out a little sigh of contentment and snuggled her face further down into the sand. It was so restful here, basking in the ceaseless, even sound of the small waves combing the beach nearby. The day seemed to stretch out ahead of her forever, a timeless time that could know no bound. The hissing of the waters ... No. The hissing of waves was not like that. This was something else. Wind through the reeds, perhaps ... yet wind never sounded this way, either. Not wind. Not water. Soothing, but not wind or water ... Too soothing. Her mouth was hurting – her whole jaw. The beach had bitten her. Shocked, furious, she lifted her head to stare at the treacherous sand. Not sand. Straw. Filthy straw, at that. She shook her head impatiently, angry with her eyes for telling her that she was looking at straw when all her other senses told her that it was sand. Except that the noise that the waves were making wasn't really the sound of waves, either, and that meant that there were two things wrong with the scenario. And the beach had bitten her. She couldn't recall ever having heard of anyone having been bitten by a beach before. This was a first ... like the sand that looked like piss-saturated straw was a first, and the waves that sounded and an aeolian harp were a first, and ... She seemed to have put some clothes on without realizing she'd done so. That was yet another first. No one had ever told her about clothes that put themselves on you without so much as asking; indeed, if anyone had asked her if such a thing were possible, she'd have maybe laughed in their face.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 157 Her jaw ached. She fingered it gingerly and felt an overripe swelling where her chin should have been. Under her ear, on the right, the socket felt as if her jawbone had been wrenched out of it and then shoved back in again none too carefully. Nasty bite, this beach had. This beach with straw instead of sand. The sunlight was all weird as well, as if ... Realization of where she was rushed into her. With a little cry of revulsion she sprang away from the straw she'd been lying on. Standing, she batted at her clothes, punching away the clogs of straw and waste that clung to them. The effort was futile: she could get rid of the solid matter, but the stink of piss was soaked into the cloth. The hissing seemed to get louder. Her martial training took over. She checked herself swiftly for weapons and discovered that, while she'd been unconscious, her captors had discovered the blades in her boots. Her belt was gone, too, with its honed buckle; someone had replaced it with a length of string so that her breeches wouldn't constantly be falling down around her ankles, and this sign of apparent consideration surprised her. She was left with three serviceable garottes – her bootlaces and the better one concealed beneath her jacket collar – but they offered her only a partial consolation, for the garotte is a weapon suited only to a restricted, specialist range of uses. Aside from the garottes she had her hands: they were killing weapons, too. She flexed them to reassure herself. All this took her a few seconds. Then she was at the bars of her cage. The hissing, she could see now, was being created by hundreds of skinny, defeated-looking people in other cages around her own. What was most disturbing about this mindless hissing was the way that all the people producing it seemed to be looking at her – no, not at her, at something behind her and a little over to the left. She twisted round, expecting to see the worst – a monster out of nightmare looming over her, or something like that. Instead what she saw was another cage. It wasn't much larger than the one she was in, but it held three captives. All three of them had their backs to her; they were pressing their faces against the bars on the far side of their cage from her, clearly intent on something that was going on beyond. Cursing at them for being in the way of whatever it was that was the focus of everybody's attention, she scrambled around in the straw – oblivious now to its clamminess and its acid stink – to try and get a better view. Over the wash of the hissing she heard a man sobbing – a choked gasping noise that sounded as if it were coming from the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 158 flesh. Still she couldn't see what was going on. Then, after a pause, she heard someone speaking. She couldn't make out the words but, after a few disbelieving seconds, she realized that she knew the voice. "Lone Wolf!" she yelled, ignoring the way it made her jaw sing with pain. "Ach, no! For the love of Ishir, don't say they've caught you as well!" # Lone Wolf burst the padlock on Petra's cage with a single blow of his sword. The Vakeros, still marvelling over his restored hands and vision, barely noticed as the two Sommlending embraced each other briefly. However, the sight seemed to incense the other slaves in the compound, for they began to bang on their bars rhythmically. "Nice to know we've got an appreciative audience," murmured Petra sardonically in Lone Wolf's ear. "Zahda's louts must surely hear the rapturous applause," said Lone Wolf, following her lead. "We'd best get ourselves out of here." "Who's your friend?" "A Vakeros. He says his name's Kasin. He could be useful to us." "You thought Tavig could be useful to us." "Maybe he was. There was something he told me ..." "Your Kasin looks a bit familiar." "Does he?" Lone Wolf turned to glance at the Vakeros. "Can't say I've noticed." "He reminds me of someone." "We should be getting out of here," Lone Wolf repeated. It was unaccountably difficult to unwrap his arms from around Petra. "Come on. We can make time for the pleasantries later." As if in response to his words, there was the sound in the distance of a heavy metal object being dashed against stone. The main door to the compound, thought Lone Wolf. The goons are on their way. It's amazing that it's taken them so long ... The new sound had galvanized Kasin. The young Vakeros had come completely alert, and was darting his gaze all around him. "They're coming from that gate over there," he said tersely to Lone Wolf and Petra, gesturing to a broad gaping opening in one of the side-walls. "What's at the top of these stairs?" said Lone Wolf. "Don't know. Never been there," said Kasin. Petra shrugged.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 159 "Then they're our best bet," said Lone Wolf. "It's certain death if we stay here." From the portal that Kasin had indicated they could now hear the heavy tromp of marching feet. "We could get back into the cages," said Kasin. "Pretend nothing had happened." "With this lot around?" said Petra incredulously. She waved a hand at the audience of hissing, pounding slaves. Every eye was focused furiously on the trio of warriors. "Zahda's minions may be thick, but they're not completely brain-dead." "We're going," said Lone Wolf with finality. "Come on, I say." He started up the broad flight of stairs. A moment later the other two were beside him. There was a broad platform at the top. Once they were on it, Lone Wolf could see that, as well as the wide arched opening he'd seen from the far side of the compound, two other passages led off it. Without thinking about it, he dashed towards the one that looked the less used, catching Kasin by the arm to make sure he followed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Petra plucking something from under her collar, and grinned as he realized what it was: his two companions were distinctly short of weaponry; it was typical of Petra that she should be able to find something on her person that might help, even if it was only a garotte. They were in the murky light of a narrow corridor, their jostling footsteps setting up a clamour. They'd gone only a few yards along this passage when suddenly it became a set of steps leading downwards. Cursing – his instinct was telling him that they should be making their way upwards, not down – Lone Wolf looked back the way they'd come. The platform was still empty, but a renewed burst of commotion from the slave compound told him that their pursuers had finally reached there: it could only be seconds before the hostile slaves directed the pale-faced pursuers towards their quarry. There was no choice, then, but to follow the stairs down. There was a kink in the downward flight, and as Lone Wolf rounded it, with Petra and Kasin at his shoulder, he almost crashed straight into a bulky guard. Lone Wolf fell, twisting on his ankle; Petra, unable to stop, trod on his kidneys as she lurched over him. The guard, horrorstruck, was panicking; he dropped the axe he had been cradling in his arms, but in the enclosed space his stubby sword, a negligible weapon in the open, could spell lethal danger. Lone Wolf tried to curve his body upwards so that he could grab at it, but his arm was knocked sideways by an accidental blow from Kasin's knee. "Mine!" yelled Petra, and Lone Wolf could hear the pent-up frustration in her cry. She had thrown herself through the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 160 air to seize the guard around his thick neck, swinging her body around so that her full wright was dragging the man over backwards. Kasin punched the guard in the belly, but the blow his thin, etiolated arm could inflict was trivial. Petra had coiled up so that her knees were in the small of the guard's back. His eyes were popping in his pig-like face as she tightened her stranglehold. His hands were trying to prise her arms away from his throat; Kasin stamped on Lone Wolf's chest as he stepped forward to snatch the guard's dagger from his belt. Just as he had the weapon in his hand Lone Wolf writhed underfoot, so that it flew from his fingers to go clattering away further down the stone steps. Lone Wolf untangled his sword from his knotted clothing and struck out blindly at the back of the guard's knees, chopping through tendon and into the bone. A gush of blood drenched him as, overhead, the guard let out a garbled croak – as much of a scream as Petra's stranglehold would permit. Kasin's feet became mixed up in Lone Wolf's legs, and the Vakeros fell backwards. Petra freed one of her arms and, as her mount swayed, seized the sword from Lone Wolf's hand. She pulled the weapon round in front of the guard and then jerked the weight of her body forwards, so that he toppled to collapse on his belly, driving the blade deep into the guard's chest; she threw herself free only just in time to avoid being transfixed in turn as the point of the sword stabbed up between the guard's shoulderblades. Lone Wolf, who had been raising his head, found it walloped back against the stone as Petra's rump hammered straight into his face. The guard gave vent to a curiously animal-like exhalation as the life fled from him. The three of them lay in a confused heap for a few seconds, Lone Wolf and Kasin moaning softly. Petra was the first to rise, and she impatiently pulled Lone Wolf up beside her. Kasin grumpily started to follow suit, but paused, kneeling, to roll the guard's body over. "Your sword," he said, lugging the weapon free and passing it courteously to Lone Wolf. "And another," he added, pulling the short sword from the guard's belt. "From what I've seen, you could put this to better use than me," he said to Petra, holding it out to her. "There was an axe somewhere ..." "Here," said Lone Wolf. "I'll have it, then, if I may," said Kasin, reaching for it. "My weapon has always been the axe." Lone Wolf gave it to him. "Let's get going, for Ishir's sake," hissed Petra. She had cocked her head to listen for the din of chase, and had obviously heard something. "At least a couple of them have already reached the platform."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 161 Lone Wolf was looking in sick fascination at the upturned face of the dead guard. Long ago, it seemed, he had wondered if the pale-faced goons might be human beings transformed by Zahda's necromancy into something that wasn't even animal. Now the guard's face, with its pallor but also its pronounced snout, its sloping hairy forehead, and the tusks that protruded from between the curled-back lips, told him that it was not only human beings who could be transmuted to become the vile Lord's servants. He jerked his mind away from such thoughts. Later he would have time to mull these things over. Petra was right. Flight was their only option. The two men followed her as she pelted down the twisting stairway, her pale hair a spectral glimmer ahead of them in the muted light. Half a minute later the three of them were crashing through a reed-and-paper screen that had been set up to cover the opening of the stairway. Ripping the clinging laths from their garments, they stood gasping, staring at each other and at their surrounds. They'd come out into a large, brightly lit and sumptuously furnished hallway. There were lamps of m'lare studded all along the walls and great chandelier of the stuff hanging from the ceiling; here and there across the floor were standing-lamps, some taking the form of disturbingly humanoid creatures, cupping the globes of m'lare in their upturned, seemingly supplicatory paws. Gaily coloured oil paintings and bright tapestries hung against the pink marble walls. Upholstered armchairs and couches were scattered elegantly hither and thither, several of them gathered in a semicircle around an arched fireplace in one of the side-walls. Right in the centre of the space was a large and impossibly elaborate construction of polished silver marble, sculpted into the form of intertwined fishes and stylized waves piled up to make a pyramid of curls and scales from whose apex sprang a clear jet of water; the rivulets of water ran in improbable patterns back down over the convoluted sides of the pyramid to gather in a shallow moat at its base. Lone Wolf looked at the couches. His body felt as if it had been used as a punchbag. Each rasping breath felt as if it were something with spikes being dragged through his gullet. The softness of the woven upholstery looked infinitely appealing ... Through the bubbling song of the fountain he heard a scuffling noise, and he turned, raising his sword. One of Zahda's pale-faced creatures stepped out from behind the silver pyramid. Its evilly small eyes met Lone Wolf's through the shower of water-drops.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 162 "Watch out!" yelled Lone Wolf to the others, shoving Petra away from him so that she fell sprawling behind one of the armchairs. He leapt towards the fountain, his sword out ahead of him. Where had Kasin got to? Hopefully the man had had the sense to throw himself among the furniture, so that he would be shielded like Petra was. The goon was raising a grey metal crossbow. Loaded – Lone Wolf could see the V-ed string taut against the stubby metal bolt. No chance of that bolt missing its target at this range. He called on his weary Kai powers to give him speed of reflex, felt them sluggishly respond. The articulated claw was tightening on the trigger. Lone Wolf prayed to Ishir that she would give him the agility to deflect the spearing bolt with his blade. The restraining hooks were sliding back from the tensed string ... And Kasin had thrown himself in the way. The fool! Of course, the Vakeros hadn't known the speed of reaction that Lone Wolf could draw from his Kai sensibilities. Lone Wolf screamed in fury. Kasin's body, flying across Lone Wolf's line of sight, was suddenly battered as if by a mighty fist. The direction of its flight suddenly altered; now it was reeling back precipitately directly towards him, buckling down over itself. The bolt must have taken Kasin in the stomach, and all but punched right through him. Lone Wolf dropped into a crouch and let Kasin's staggering body tumble over his back. Then he was on his feet once more, moving with liquid speed towards the hapless goon, who, crossbow hanging loose, was wrestling in a leather pouch for another bolt. Lone Wolf's lips drew back from his teeth in a terrible snarl as his humble iron blade raced towards the creature's throat. The blade spitted the goon up through the soft flesh beneath the jaw, shredding the base of the tongue and coming to lodge at the back of the skull. To make sure that the creature was dead, Lone Wolf twisted the sword as he withdrew it, shaking the corpse away from him so that it crashed down on the paved floor beyond the fountain. He leapt past it, searching for further attackers. Only the paintings on the walls looked back at him. He turned, still ignoring the fallen goon at his feet, and saw Petra crouching over the splayed form of Kasin. There was a moat of blood where the Vakeros's stomach should have been. She had his head up on her thigh, and seemed to be whispering to him – words of comfort, no doubt, to travel alongside his soul as it made its way towards the next world ... But need Kasin die? Lone Wolf was fatigued, and his Kai sensibilities seemed almost resentful inside him, yet there was still a chance.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 163

knelt.

Leaving his sword unsheathed, he ran back to where Petra

"He's dying," she mouthed at him. "There's nothing you can do." "I can try. I've healed him before – some of that curing may still be left in him to help. And I healed you of worse than this, remember? Back in Ruanon? Let me at him! Let me try!" She shrugged. "OK." She got slowly to her feet, passing Kasin's head and shoulders tenderly into Lone Wolf's care. Once she was satisfied that the dying man was properly supported, she stood a little away from the two of them, facing the wreckage of the screen and the dark opening of the stairway, her legs set firmly apart and the pig-man's short sword drawn. "Be quick about it, Lone Wolf," she hissed. "More of the goons are likely to be here any second. They must have found the pig-man's body by now – maybe that'll slow them up a bit, give them something to think about. Just get on with it ..." "I'm trying. Shut up. Stop distracting me." Lone Wolf summoned his Kai powers to his hands, just as he had done such a short while ago in the fetid cage where the Vakeros had been incarcerated. He felt them answer his call, but he sensed that their own energies were as direly depleted as his own. If only the Sommerswerd were here! Its soul-stuff and his own might have combined to generate more of the Sun God's blessed healing power than he could hope to do on his own. But it was stupid to think about that now – the weapon was lost to him, possibly forever. He must concentrate, must focus his unaided abilities, must ... He placed his hands, palms downward, on the gory, seeping ruin of Kasin's stomach. The ripped-open flesh was hot and oily and slick. Feeling as if he were a dray horse hauling futilely on a cart that had become stuck in the mud, he tensed his body and dragged his protesting Kai faculties towards his hands, cursing and straining. He felt the veins standing out from his temples, pulsing angrily. It was no good. The demands of the past hour or so had drained him too much. His hands grew warm, but there was nothing of the blazing heat that had seared them earlier. In an act of half-hearted despair, he released the accumulated energies into Kasin's wound, knowing as he did so that the effort was little better than useless. A little better. There was a fluttering behind Kasin's paper-thin eyelids, and then they popped open. Cat-like eyes stared straight up at Lone Wolf, and suddenly he realized where it was

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 164 that Petra had seen a face like this before. "Paido!" he said before he could stop himself. The dying face smiled weakly. "No, not Paido," said Kasin in a faint, husky voice. "Paido is my brother." "I recall now," said Lone Wolf softly. "He told me about you. He even told me your name, but I was too ... busy when I met you to take it in. He said to me that you'd have plenty of tales to tell me about your exploits in Vassagonia." Kasin made a pitiful attempt at a laugh. "Too late for exploits now, I guess," he said at last. "Too late even to tell you tales about them. The darkness is calling me, and I can't refuse its call. Tell me, though, Sommlending, how did you come to meet my brother?" As swiftly as he could, aware both of Petra's impatient glares at him and of the fact that Kasin's life was seeping away from him just as the blood of his wound was seeping, Lone Wolf explained of how he and Petra had come to Dessi and been guided towards Kazan-Oud by Rimoah and Paido and the others of the Elder Magi. While he spoke, he saw Kasin's face grow colder; it was some while before he realized that this was not merely because the man was sinking into death. "What is it?" he said, breaking off from his tale. "What troubles you so deeply, my friend?" "You Sommlending," said Kasin with an effort. His words were hardly more than grunts; Lone Wolf had to strain to make them out. "You're so used to thinking always along a simple track. You can't see all the other country lanes that wind around behind other people's words and actions. You think you know the whole landscape when all you can see are the fields to either side of the road you're on." He coughed, and for a moment Lone Wolf thought he was going to bring up blood, but after struggling for breath Kasin continued. "The road Rimoah set you upon would not be an easy one even if it were not through a land that is populated by the wild beasts. He knew of the wild beasts. He should have told you of the wild beasts. Paido should have told you of the wild beasts, also. And the tracks the beasts have made, crossing and crossing your path. Beware of the wild beasts, Lone Wolf, beware of them. They thirst for you – thirst for you more than the other predators on your path, the ones you know about ..." Again he gulped for breath. Lone Wolf began to say something, but was stopped by Kasin feebly raising his hand. "No, Lone Wolf, let me finish, before I attend the call of the darkness. The path you're on takes you to the Lorestone you seek. At least Rimoah didn't deceive you about that. You're near enough to it now. There's a passage leads off from behind the tapestry of

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 165 the unicorn that'll take you to it – to it and the Dark Other, the Green, that Zahda has placed by it. You must destroy the Dark Other – the Doomstone, the Green Eye of Agarash the Damned, and the succour of Zahda – you must destroy it, I say, or it shall destroy you before you can lay your touch upon the Lorestone. But even if you do so, my friend, my last friend, the wild beasts may maim you – the wild beasts that you cannot see, cannot know of. The wild beasts Rimoah and my brother should have told you of." The trickle of words had almost dried up. Even with his ear next to Kasin's mouth, Lone Wolf could now hear them as little more than modulated sighs. "One more thing – one ... more ... thing. I ... I ..." Clearly Kasin was trying to muster his last reserves of life. "At the base of the steps that lead from the fortress of Kazan-Oud to the beach there is a stone jetty – you must have seen it when you came ashore to this accursed island. Zahda's goons seized me before I'd even reached the fortress walls, but they never thought to seek out the boat that had brought me here. Unless the rats of the shallows have discovered it and devoured it, it should still be where I left it. There's a crack –" He coughed again, and this time the cough brought with it a fistful of dark bilious blood. Lone Wolf pulled his head away swiftly, then leaned closer again. "There's a crack," came Kasin's bubbling gasp, "near the base of the steps. My boat is ..." He coughed for a last time, and the blood flowed freely. The eyelids trembled shut, concealing at last the tormented blue eyes. Kasin's head rocked sideways and out of Lone Wolf's grasp. Aghast, Lone Wolf looked down on the dead man. Did Rimoah and your brother, he thought through his grief, forget to tell you, too, about the paths where the wild beasts creep? Is that why you're dead now, brave Vakeros? Will their negligence claim my life as well, and Petra's? Did you think that? Is that why your face grew colder even than death was making it? Is that it, my friend? Is that it? "Lone Wolf," said Petra urgently, shattering his thoughts, "time we got lost. They're coming." Sure enough, as he looked up from his misery Lone Wolf could hear heavy steps pounding down the stairway nearby. Eyes blind with distress, he reached around him for his sword, some crazy idea passing through his head that he could stand here and slay however many hordes of goons might be thrown against him. "Get moving, you clown!" snarled Petra, grabbing his waving arm and pulling him so hard that the joint of his shoulder sang in protest. "D'you think that blasted Vakeros'd want you to die just so's you could go on blubbing over a bit longer?" He words maddened him. With a roar he leapt to his feet.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 166 "Good!" she said, as he raised his arm to strike her. She twisted away from him before he could move, and ran down the length of the hall towards a great tapestry that showed a prancing white unicorn ridden by a black-armoured knight whose helmet was a mask of grinning death. "Follow me, Lone Wolf! Leave your grief behind you – slough it off like a skin, you moron! Come on, will you! Come – on!" He followed, leaving his anguish and his rage behind him, just as she'd said. Yet again she'd provoked him into wrath in order to get his logical processes functioning again. It was a good trick, but not one that he much liked having performed on him. Petra was lifting the flap of the tapestry as he reached her. He shoved in behind her as they scrabbled along the wall, the heavy canvas pressing down on their shoulders. "Got you!" she said triumphantly just as he felt a breath of stagnant air against his cheek. A circular door had slid open, revealing a circle of blackness that was almost invisible in the gloom. The two of them fell through the opening in a tangle of limbs. As they were trying to disengage themselves there was a buzz and the door slid shut once more. Incandescence sprang into agonizing being. Lone Wolf shut his eyes against the pure white glare, but still it seemed to burn through his lids. He sensed Petra pulling herself away from him and crawling up to her hands and knees. As soon as his throbbing head would let him, he opened his eyes and saw her standing some yards away from him, her back towards him, her hands on her waist, staring down a long winding tube of polished steel. Crazy reflections of the walls made it seem as if there were a crowd of Petras retreating into the distance, many of them distorted into bizarre, parodic forms. There was an explosion of noise behind him. He turned, bringing himself up into a crouch, his sword finding its way into a defensive position. Zahda's creatures must know of this place – they were beating at the door as if to blast it right out of its moorings. "Best get going," cried Petra. "They don't seem to know of the button I found that opened that thing, but it can't be long before one of them hits it by accident." She began to run, but the floor was like a rink, and her feet shot out from under her. She landed with a whoomf! on her backside and shoulders and skidded crazily for several tens of yards along the polished surface. She stopped herself only by swinging her body sideways and rolling over to her front, so that she could press her legs and palms against the steel. "Ish – ir!" she swore. "What kind of loony dump is this?"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 167 More cautiously, Lone Wolf followed her, staying on his hands and knees. If the goons broke through behind them, he and Petra would find themselves engulfed by a tide of flailing limbs. In any other context the image would have brought a smile to his lips; here it was simply terrifying. He tried to crawl more quickly, but all he succeeded in doing was nearly losing his precarious balance. "We've got to get out of this!" he bellowed at Petra. "Or slide!" she shouted. "We could just slide!" "And find ourselves falling into some new hell?" barked Lone Wolf. He couldn't tolerate the prospect of staying as out of control as this. "What choice is there?" "There!" He pointed past her. The tube curved off to the right. On the outside of the curve there was a wing-shaped handle. He could just make out hairlines that betrayed there was a door there. "Could be just another tube," she said. "Could be the short route to the `new hell' you were worrying about." "Shut up, you bitch!" It was his terror speaking. To have lost all proper command over his movements ... "Shut up, and do as I tell you, for a change!" "Your chattel obeys, oh mighty master," she said bitterly, pulling her body into a kneeling position and then beginning clumsily to imitate Lone Wolf's crawl. Had he been within reach, he might have hit her. Where had all this fury come from. He refused to admit that it could be born from his fear ... The din behind them increased to a great crescendo. Only the benign will of Ishir could have kept the goons from discovering the button all this time – or maybe one of them had walloped it with such unknowing force that it had been smashed out of service. Petra used the wing-shaped protrusion to bring herself to her feet. She stood there uncertainly, her earlier fall making her more precarious in her balance than she would otherwise have been. From Lone Wolf's lowly position he could see all the other Petras looking equally uncertain. "Turn it!" he said. "For the love of Ishir, turn the thing! It's a lock – I can feel that it's a lock!" She tried to shift it clockwise, her efforts hampered by the tendency of her feet to slip out beneath her. Cursing through tight lips, she braced herself more firmly, and tried again. No change. The handle – and Lone Wolf hoped that it was indeed a handle, for he had been speaking more out of desperation than out of genuine confidence – refused to budge. Groaning histrionically, she heaved it in the opposite direction and it turned easily. The shell-shaped door opened inwards on well oiled hinges.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 168 She climbed in over the raised lintel and vanished from Lone Wolf's view. He stared at the opening in the wall. Wasn't the woman going to reach back and help him through? Was she just going to desert him like this? The mist of rage coming to his eyes, he made a couple of hesitant forward movements, conscious simultaneously of the racket from the end of the tunnel behind him and of the uncertainty of his grip on the slippery surface of the steel tube. Where was she? Had she deserted him? No minion of Zahda could behave more brutally to him! When he caught her he would ... He reached the lintel and looked over it at a large floor made of the same polished metal as the tunnel. At least it wasn't curved, and the walls would catch him if he slipped ... He eased himself over the obstruction, caterpillar-style, and slowly pulled himself to his feet on the inside, standing there shakily and looking at the bizarre clutter of objects and furnishings in the room. The walls were covered in shelves – although it was hard to identify the shelves as such, for they were almost completely hidden by the things that were heaped on them. Four or five low iron tables were placed higgledy-piggledy on the floor, laden down with all the implements associated in Lone Wolf's mind with alchemy; there were crucibles, retorts, flasks, aludels and all manner of twisting glass tubes. The hot smell was like the air around the public incinerator on the outskirts of Holmgard; it cut into Lone Wolf's throat, making him cough. Through moist eyes he saw that, on one of the tables, a flame was burning under a brass alembic; in the tangle of tubes above it, dun-coloured liquid bubbled and seethed. Staring balefully at the apparatus, he realized that the alchemist – presumably Zahda himself, for Lone Wolf had seen no one else in Kazan-Oud who fitted his preconceptions of what alchemists should look like – could not be far away. They would have to find some way out of here fairly quickly, before Zahda returned. Or did they? Might this not be the place to confront the evil lord, far from the aid of his goons? Lone Wolf contemplated the room glumly. With all this clutter, it was hardly an ideal fighting area – too many things for weapons to snag against, for feet to trip over. The shelves were littered with parchments and vellum-bound books that he assumed must be grimoires; in between them and serving as book-ends at the end of each shelf were big glass preserving jars containing pale, shrivelled organs floating in oily-looking fluid. Down at the far end of the room were heaps of clothing and weaponry, seemingly thrown there in no particular order. Also down at the far end of the room, picking through one of the heaps, was Petra.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 169 "Close the door." "Eh?" "Close the door behind you, dimwit. If those creatures ever succeed in finding a way into the tube, you don't want the door still to be hanging open, do you, like a welcome flag saying `Come and get me'?" Angrily, Lone Wolf shoved the door closed with his back. He stood there, leaning against it, glowering at Petra's deceptively slender form, turned away from him as she bent over the piles of equipment. "Have you come to hate me, Lone Wolf?" she said, seemingly off-handedly. He said nothing. "It certainly feels like it," she continued after allowing a few moments to pass. She straightened up and turned to look at him coldly. "Out there in the corridor, I began to feel it, emanating out from you like great waves of heat, directed at me. It wasn't just anger or irritation or anything like that: if it wasn't stark loathing it was something very close to it. It was the sort of feeling I'd expect you to have for Zahda, not for me. You're still radiating it. The only consolation I have is that it's not the sort of contemptuous revulsion you might have for a Giak or some other creeping, anonymous creature – at least I'm important enough in your mind to deserve your hatred." "I ... I don't know what you're talking about. Woman, I ..." "Don't deny it so stupidly, Lone Wolf. It makes you look like a fish plucked from the water, all stupid, with your mouth and your eyes popping. You've always been a lousy liar – it's always been one of your more attractive features, that you've been as obvious as a little boy when you've been telling whoppers, and shown a little boy's confounded amazement when you've realized that everyone around you knows it. But not now, it isn't. Attractive. You're making it worse." "But I love you," blurted Lone Wolf. He knew that this time he was speaking the truth. At the same time, he knew that so had Petra been when she'd told him that he'd been hating her, as well. The two emotions were all mixed up inside him. "That's the worst of it," she said. "I'm not sure that you do." She gazed at him, absent-mindedly scratching the hair behind her ear. "I wonder if I was the only one whose mind the Elder Magi played their tricks with. The trouble is, it seems that whatever they did to me has lasted longer than it has with you. You're breaking down the walls of the edifice of imitation love they erected inside you, but you're jumbling up what you feel for me, in your discovery that it was all a fake, with hatred. At least, that's the way it seems to me. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the way

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 170 you've been acting – for those waves of hatred you've begun directing towards me." "I ..." "No," she said firmly, holding up her hand at him. Her eyes were suddenly full of wrath. But, Lone Wolf realized, it's a wrath that doesn't deny the love that's also there. "No," she repeated, "don't start coming out with a string of shoddy protests. I'd rather you did me the honour of thinking about what I've said before you reply. Have a look inside yourself. I'm not making idle chit-chat, Lone Wolf, not indulging in social debate, expecting some kind of courteous, flattering response. I want you to think about what it is you actually feel towards me, and then tell me honestly what that is. I'd rather that than ... than pretence!" Lone Wolf stayed silent for a minute or more. When he did speak, it was slowly and deliberately. "I think you said it yourself, a long while ago. Does it make any difference if the emotions we have spring directly from ourselves, you said, or have been instigated by the Elder Magi? In the case of love, you were right, I think – because love's a constructive emotion, unless people twist it to make it something else ... to use it for betrayal, or something. And maybe you're right, too, when you say that the hatred for you that's been showing itself is in part because the unspeaking bit of me has come to realize the falsity of the love for you that the Elder Magi have implanted in me." He drew a deep breath. He wasn't accustomed to making long speeches, nor to thinking this deeply about the emotions that drove him. "But hate's not the same kind of thing as love: you can't simply take the two of them as if they were mirror images of each other, as if they were directly comparable opposites. Hate's destructive, not constructive, and maybe for that reason it's also much more superficial – or, at least, to me it is. Wherever the hatred came from, it's transitory – I know that, and, however much it might dominate my thinking for a short while, all the time I know that it'll soon fade away. It can eat away at the love I have, doing its best to destroy it, but it'll never completely succeed, and whenever it lets up the love will swiftly rebuild itself, reconstitute itself so that it's twice as strong as it was before. That's the important thing, the thing we've got to hang on to. And it makes no difference what the origin of the `love' emotion was – it stays genuine, and it stays there." He sucked in a deep breath and sat down, head hanging, with his back against the wall. He felt exhausted. He couldn't recall ever having been so open with anyone before – it made him feel naked to the public view. A wry smile twisted the corners of his mouth. If ever Petra needed any proof that the live inside him was genuine, then surely this was it: that he was prepared to expose the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 171 vulnerable core of himself to her. But maybe she wouldn't read his words that way. "Thanks," she said at last. Very quietly. He dared to look up at her. "Thanks," she repeated with a watery smile. "You've given me a gift, and I thank you for it. I'll thank you louder and longer once we've got out of this place." He sensed the profundity beneath her flipness. "In the mean time, while you've been talking, I've noticed an interesting trinket mixed in with all this garbage over here." She turned away and stooped, and he saw her pick something up. "Here," she said. "Your lost property, I think." The Sommerswerd! Before he knew it he was beside her, taking the heavy weapon from her hands. Nervously, he pulled the blade partly from its sheath, and saw the metal begin to pulse with its golden light. In response, the Kai energies within him waxed and surged, like a mob cheering the return of a long-wandering hero. Lone Wolf knew that he was grinning like an idiot. He felt all the petty hatred of the past half hour suddenly leaching out of him – the love that his soul-stuff held was reconstructing itself, just as he'd told Petra it would, only far more rapidly and comprehensively than he could have anticipated. He fastened the belt around his waist and felt the reassuring weight of the Sommerswerd at his hip – completing him. Still grinning, he grabbed Petra to him and hugged her ferociously. "A man of transient humours," she said drily in his ear. Then they both laughed. Soon they were rooting through the rest of the heap, discovering other treasures. Although there was no sign of the remainder of their confiscated weaponry – aside from Petra's boots and the garottes that served as their laces, presumably unrecognized as the weapons they were – they found other daggers and axes, some even finer than the ones they had lost. Lone Wolf's backpack was there, and its contents seemed complete: he added to it a coil of new rope and a jar of laumspur. Each time one of them made some new discovery it was held aloft and appraised, as if they were children unwrapping gifts. Then Petra's merriment faded. "You've noticed one thing about this place," she said. "I've noticed lots of things about it," said Lone Wolf, struggling to maintain his good cheer. "One thing in particular. There's only one way out of it – back into the tube." Even this realization was not enough to diminish his euphoria. "We've survived it before," he said. The memory of the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 172 two of them slipping and sliding like first-time skaters now made him smile: the terror he'd felt seemed to be a long way distant. "That's not necessarily a favourable omen," she said nervously. "It could simply mean that we'll be pushing our luck. But" – with a shrug – "I guess there's no sense in worrying about it." She punched him softly on the shoulder. "Nothing's too big for the two of us, eh?" Lone Wolf looked at her, his head cocked to one side. "Wait a minute," he said. "I can at least try to better our chances." He moved away and found himself somewhere comfortable to sit among the piles of clothing and equipment. "There's a chance that Gwynian and the Nameless Woman may hold something of what the future could hold for us ..." He pulled the Sommerswerd fully from its sheath and looked at his reflection in the bright metal. Breathing deeply, he placed the flat of his free hand on the blade, gripping the hilt tightly with the other. He drew a deep breath, and egged his own soul-stuff toward the soul-stuff of the weapon. No urging was necessary. The two auras seemed to rush towards each other, intertwining intimately and dancing together as they swirled and mingled. A warmth that had nothing to do with physical heat spread through him: once again he had that odd feeling of having been made complete. And then he was somewhere else entirely. The field was different. The air was filled with the smell of singeing, and there were large brown-black blotches all over the grass, as if a giant with burning boots had been stumbling around here aimlessly. The trees, too, showed black scorch-marks, although already fresh yellow-green buds were forming on the skeletal twigs and branches. The sky, clouded with grey, seemed to have been dirtied. On a boulder directly in front of him Lone Wolf could see Gwynian and the Nameless Woman, the two of them leaning together as if for mutual support; it was impossible to tell if new lines had been added to Gwynian's ancient face, but certainly there were creases under the woman's eyes as she looked up in weary welcome. You've been a long time gone, Lone Wolf, she said, the crystal stream of her thought for once muddied, but I cannot say that we have been left lonely. Would that we had been, with the kind of visitor we've had. She pulled her mouth at him in chagrin. I trust he was no friend of yours. "Zahda!" said Lone Wolf, horrified. "Don't tell me that swine's somehow managed to come here!" Yes, that was his name. We repelled him from this place – more accurately, the place itself repelled him – before his presence had sullied it beyond cleansing, but you can still smell his smirch in the air and see it in the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 173 sky. It'll be a time before it's gone. And he has sickened us to our hearts with his being. Gwynian moaned in agreement. Looking at the ancient, Lone Wolf thanked Ishir that the blow the entity's essence had received had not been mortal. Even so, there was death in the wrinkles of his fragile-seeming face. "How did he get here? What was he trying to do?" He reached here through the Sommerswerd. That and the Green Eye of Agarash. He told us as much when we tried to talk with him. He towered taller than the sky, and he laughed, and he said that the Green Eye of Agarash had guided him here. He seemed to have no idea that the implement he held in his hands at the time – the Sommerswerd – could have been the key that permitted his invasion. That you are here now, Lone Wolf, would suggest that he has discarded the sword as being merely a lifeless weapon. Perhaps even now he is trying to regain admission to our world through the medium of the Eye. His attempts are doomed, of course, for Agarash was long dead before the power of Kai brought the possibility of this place into existence; but it may not be long before he recalls that during his one successful incursion he was grasping the Kai blade – and then ... She shrugged. It's up to you, Lone Wolf, to ensure that he's never able to repeat that circumstance. Next time, if there were a next time, he might not be content with merely spoiling this place by his presence but seek instead to destroy. And in that even I am not certain that myself and Gwynian could successfully resist him ... "What did he want here, though?" Lone Wolf repeated. Again she shrugged. Who knows? I don't think that he did. I think that he was merely exploring this place, trampling into it like a destructive man whose notion of exploration of new territory is to exploit it, to despoil it, to take everything from it – heedlessly to wreck it, not caring about the damage done. I don't think that he was aware of the power that could be here for him to seize, if ever he repossessed the Sommerswerd. Better, indeed, that he obliterated this world than that he should be allowed realization of the power it could give him. Lone Wolf, who had come here looking for, if not reassurance, then at least advice, felt as if someone had just dumped an impossibly heavy burden on his shoulders. "And it's my task to ensure that such a contingency never comes to pass?" he said leadenly. A ghost of a smile came to the Nameless Woman's lips, lighting up her face. Yes, Lone Wolf, of course it is – although you will have Gwynian and I to help you, as always ... to guide your footsteps along the path that is likely to be best for you. "But what of the wild beasts?" said Lone Wolf, suddenly remembering what Kasin had said to him. There was no need to repeat it for the Nameless Woman's benefit, for of course she would already have gleaned the requisite knowledge from his mind.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 174 The `wild beasts', she said, frowning. Yes. Of course. The `wild beasts'. It was wrong of Rimoah not to have told you about them, but by the same count perhaps it was wrong of Kasin to have done so, for there's nothing you can do with the information: the knowledge cannot serve you as a warning of any sort. You are born of a culture that has based itself on the belief that there is no other roadway but the one you travel. Kasin told you as much. You couldn't be expected suddenly to change the whole basis of your thinking, Lone Wolf. We'll try to give you warning should the `wild beasts' extend their forays towards the beaten track you follow. More than that we can't promise you for now. Lone Wolf gave her a glare of frustration. Would it always be like this, with everybody else seeming to know much more about what was going on than he did? There was Banedon for one – and Qinefer for another. The Elder Magi, and the Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, and Allani and Jenara in Vassagonia, and ... Too many of them, knowing too much. He thanked Ishir that Petra was, like himself, a straightforward Sommlending, abjuring fancies for the reality of the single road. The Nameless Woman smiled at him again, benignly. You came here to ask us something, Lone Wolf, she said. You had something on your mind. "Yes – yes. I seek your guidance. This room Petra and I are in – what is it? What awaits us at the far end of the steel tunnel? Are we anywhere near the Lorestone? Does Zahda know where we are? Are we even yet playing parts in his game, as I was when I was snared in the coils of the Maze? Why has he let us run for so long, when surely he could have attempted to seize us before? Are we –?" She raised a hand to stem the flow of questions. So many things you ask, Lone Wolf, as always! I cannot answer all of them – you would be here for a longer time than your lifespan were I to do so. But I can inform you of some things. The room you're in is Zahda's private laboratory, as surely you must already have guessed. Your property was there, because he proposes to use it – not just yours, but the property of other questers, too – in his necromantic attempts to enslave you. Surely you must be aware that all of your possessions, not just the Sommerswerd, are imbued with a part of your own soul, and it is that part that Zahda can most easily ensorcell into his command; once the fraction is his, then the remainder can easily be induced to join it. Your property is the most valuable to him of all that he has seized recently, for he knows that you are not merely some ordinary interloper, come to Kazan-Oud for riches or for glory. More than that he does not know – your quest is still a mystery to him, for he himself has no understanding of the true nature of the crystal he has twinned with Agarash's Green Eye. It is fortunate for you that he has not: through his ignorance you should be able to make yourself a way, so that the prize will be yours.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 175 The tube you so detest is not slippery and treacherous by chance. Zahda's minions detest it as much as you do, which is why he made it that way. He has no wish for them to invade his personal retreat. Even had your pursuers succeeded in bursting down the doorway from the Hall of the Silver Fountain, they would not have come through it once they'd realized where they were. At its far end you will find yourselves at the rear of the throne in Zahda's judgement all, with the Lorestone almost within your grasp. The ignoble lord himself is there at present – or so my instincts tell me – and it is there that you must duel with him, and gain the Lorestone, if gain it you will. There is no peril before you reach that hall, save one: the heat of the furnace at Kazan-Oud's evil heart, near which the tube passes. In the laboratory you will find some lockets fashioned from the Dead Silver metal, and you must each take one of these to shield you from the metal walls – as otherwise you will fry, Lone Wolf. "But you still haven't told me ... I need to know: why has Zahda let us run free for so long? Why wasn't I seized as soon as I climbed from the Maze? Couldn't he simply have killed me, when he had me? Why has he preserved our lives?" He knows that you are something special, something beyond the usual. I told you that. But you underestimate Zahda, I think: he is by no means as unintelligent as you seem to imagine. And nor is he content to remain in ignorance, even though he has no reason to believe that the knowledge of your purpose would gain him anything. He wants to find out why you're here, Lone Wolf. That's why he's let you run so long: he knows what you imagine you're running from – what he wants to find out is what it is you're running to. That's why you still have your illusory freedom. Yet what hasn't crossed Zahda's mind – because of his ignorance of the true nature of the Lorestone – is the size of the gamble that he's been taking. While you may have underestimated him, he most certainly has underestimated you, and the Kai force that you contain within yourself. Most of all, he has – like everyone else except Rimoah and the rest of the Elder Magi, and including yourself – underestimated the importance of Petra, and the fact that she is here with you. It is through her that you will gain the wisdom Nyxator placed within the Lorestone, if indeed you do gain it ... And that is enough. I have told you as much as you need to know. Return to the laboratory and to Petra now, Lone Wolf – her eyes are becoming anxious for you. The colours of the field and the sky were fading fast, as if someone were sliding a sheet of progressively dirtier glass in front of him. He reached out with his hands, as if he could grab the scene and hold it back, but of course there was nothing to seize. He was in the steel laboratory. He was looking up into Petra's eyes – they were anxious, as the Nameless Woman had warned them they would be. #

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 176 At Petra's instigation, the two of them merely slid the remaining length of the steel tunnel – after all, she pointed out, had not the Nameless Woman said that they were safe until they reached the judgement hall? Lone Wolf suspected that she would have urged the action on him anyway, so that she could enjoy the thrill of the ride. Despite his earlier terrors, even he become lost in exhilaration as the tube snaked gradually downwards over a distance of two or more miles. Sometimes, on the outer sides of its curves, he found himself almost completely upside down, sliding headfirst along close to the roof at a speed that he wouldn't have believed possible. He found himself echoing Petra's wild yells of elation, all thoughts of their grim destination wiped away in the joy of the moment. As foretold, there was a section of the tube where the heat grew intense – hot enough, Lone Wolf suspected, to have peeled the skin from their flesh had they not been protected by the amulets of the Dead Silver metal – and by the speed of their transit through the hot zone. Even so, it was the one part of their pell-mell ride that made him fearful, and he was glad when they had returned to a cooler region. The tube disgorged them suddenly into a small, circular anteroom, shaped like the upper half of a sphere and with smooth walls of cast iron. They landed in a pile of cushions, and Lone Wolf realized that Zahda must himself travel from his laboratory in exactly the same way as they had done. As he picked himself up, he frowned over this: the thought of the evil ruler enjoying the same childish elation that he and Petra had just shared was disturbing. It somehow humanized Zahda in his mind, which was something that Lone Wolf had no wish to do: far better that the man remain nothing more than a symbol of pure Evil, a symbol that had to be destroyed without compunction ... Petra was climbing a short spiral stairway on the far side of the anteroom, and Lone Wolf moved swiftly to follow her. At the top of it they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, peering into the darkness on the far side of a narrow portal. He put his arm around her waist as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and felt the comforting warmth of her body. Soon, if the Nameless Woman were to be believed, they would likely be free of this hellish fortress, and then he would be able to embrace Petra without thought that danger might be preparing to interrupt them ... There was a wall of metal about ten yards away, a solid block of what Lone Wolf remembered was gold: the back of Zahda's throne. He angled his neck to peer upwards, and saw its ornamented top with, floating above it, the two crystals – the one of dark, light-swallowing green, the other like the water of a mountain spring; an occasional desultory discharge of lightning crackled between the two. Beyond them, in the distance, he could

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 177 just make out the tip of the metal spike that reared from the pit in the judgement hall's centre. It was wreathed in cold, silent flame. "Zahda will be nearby," he whispered to Petra. "It's lucky he doesn't seem to have heard us falling out of the tube. But we must be cautious now." She drew her sword in acknowledgement. A dagger arrived in her other hand from nowhere. "I'll go first," she hissed, and before he could stop her she was slipping sideways through the aperture and dropping down to the floor of the hall. He followed her swiftly, and they stood together in the great draughty room, listening for any sound other than their own muted breathing. Lone Wolf's hand moved to the hilt of the Sommerswerd, but he stayed himself from drawing the weapon, not wishing its flood of light to betray their position to any unseen watcher. After a few moments, Lone Wolf crept forwards to the massive rear of the golden throne. Once there, he beckoned Petra to join him. "You stay here," he instructed her urgently. "If I get into trouble, I'll need you." Despite the inappropriateness of the moment, he kissed her fleetingly on the lips. "With luck ... if Ishir smiles ... it won't come to that. Whatever you do, beware the dark crystal – the Green Eye of Agarash." The words Tavig had passed to him via Gwynian suddenly came into his mind, and he realized that he had just echoed them: Beware the Green, Northlander. Beware the Green. For the Green is death. She seemed reluctant to let him go, but she did. He glanced back at her as he sneaked around the corner of the throne, calling forth his Kai abilities to help shield him: they could not confer true invisibility on him, but they could at least make it difficult for any observer to look directly at him, which was the next best thing. Still the judgement hall seemed empty of life. Advancing along the side of the throne, he peered around the banks of benches, but they appeared to be vacant. Zahda must summon his minions here only for grand occasions, like the mock-trial of an intruder; there could be few other purposes for which he might want them as witnesses, for they seemed to have no personalities or wills of their own – to be nothing more than his acquiescent cat's-paws. What was much more puzzling was where Zahda himself might be. The Nameless Woman had said that he was experimenting still with the Lorestone, yet there was no sign of him. At the front of the throne, to one side, a set of almost ladder-steep steps led up to the throne. Squinting up from under the grandiosely huge seat, Lone Wolf reckoned that if he climbed up onto one of the throne's ornate arms he would just be able to reach the Lorestone. He eyed the Green Eye warily, Tavig's words

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 178 now figuring very large in his mind. Others must have come here before him, seeking to purloin or at least to destroy the crystals that gave Zahda his power. Clearly all of them had failed, and presumably been destroyed themselves. Yet none of them, thought Lone Wolf edgily, were armed with the Sommerswerd, or with the wisdom of the God Kai. And none of them – recalling what the Nameless Woman had said – were accompanied by Petra. I wish I'd been able to find out exactly where she's supposed to fit in, so that I could have forewarned her. He began the ascent. Zahda's continued absence was beginning to worry him even more than had the lord been present. Lone Wolf had always preferred a foe whom he could see, against whom he could battle in a straightforward way, to the threat of one attacking at any moment. His heart was in his mouth as he took each new step upwards. The cold shadows his hands cast on the golden rungs did little to ease his state of mind. But still he pushed himself upwards. The seat of the throne was as large as a table-top. Lone Wolf could envision a whole family of stalwart Sommlending peasants sitting around its edges, with steaming food on wooden platters in front of them. The incongruously domestic image in the midst of this overblown grandeur relaxed his apprehension a little, and he found a small smile on his lips. It faded as he looked upwards. The crystals seemed to have become aware of his presence: unless it was merely his imagination, the Lorestone's clarity had warmed a little, as if in welcome, while the darkness of the Green Eye of Agarash had become, paradoxically, an angrier hue. Crossing the throne to the arm that jutted out from beneath the Lorestone's position, he prepared to clamber onto it. Agony. He'd been stabbed in the back. Stabbed by a lance of fire. He screamed before he could stop himself. He was burning. His heart was aflame. He staggered backwards, falling. As his head whipped through the air he saw that the Green Eye of Agarash was now surrounded by flickers of spiteful blue-green lightning; a black discharge was surging towards the Lorestone. Then his skull smashed against the solid gold of the throne's seat, and he was tumbling over the edge, and ... "Greetings, stranger," said a voice. For a second, disorientated, Lone Wolf thought that it was a dream-delusion, but as he scrambled away from the base of the throne, limbs and head aching, he saw that at last the Lord Zahda had chosen to make his appearance. He was standing near the edge of the pit of icy flame, looking at Lone Wolf in seeming calmness, as if this were an encounter that he had been long expecting, and by no means an unwelcome one.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 179 Somehow, Lone Wolf found his feet. His Kai sensibilities raged within him, soothing his new pains. Still shaking, he drew the Sommerswerd from its sheath, and the golden radiance reached out into the hall. The colourless flames twined around the great spike seemed to recoil in revulsion from the life-giving light. "You draw your weapon, stranger," said Zahda, apparently perplexed. "But surely you would have little need to do so, if only you knew what thoughts have been running through my mind since last we were face-to-face." Lone Wolf lowered his brows, bewildered. "There is no real necessity for us to be enemies, Lone Wolf," Zahda continued. "In many ways our purposes are not so dissimilar. We could become collaborators, colleagues – hmm? You seek the wisdom contained in the Green Eye of Agarash, do you not? And yet the great stone will not impart that wisdom to you; indeed, it will repel all of your attempts to approach it, slaying you if need be. I, on the other hand – I am no stranger to the stone: it obeys my bidding, and gives to me its power." Lone Wolf made a mask of his face. So long as Zahda continued to have exactly the wrong idea of his motivations, Lone Wolf would have the advantage. With a studied gesture of his left hand, he bade the lord continue. "Conversely," said Zahda, "the pale crystal, which until these past hours I had assumed to be little more than an attractive rock with some curious properties, seems to be amicable towards you, and to contain wisdom and power that it will forever deny my unaided efforts. So" – the painfully thin figure spread its arms – "you will surely see for yourself what good sense the idea of cooperation between us makes, no? If the two of us are as one, then we can draw might from both of the crystals, and meld the two strands of knowledge and wisdom they possess in a way that this world of Magnamund has never seen before. We could rule all that we surveyed. We could destroy or banish our foes – the foes of both of us. Do you not dream of sealing the fate of the Darklords forever? That is something that, together, we could achieve. I have no love for them, even though you – and even the Elder Magi – may find that hard to conceive. I would even be prepared to allow our joint reign to be a beneficent, congenial one – the attraction of Evil is a trifling temptation to me." He waved a bony hand, and Lone Wolf suddenly realized something that almost smote the breath clear from him. Zahda was being absolutely sincere! The man meant it when he said that he would have little difficulty in renouncing Evil – although whether that would be true in the actuality was a different matter. Lone Wolf's thoughts began racing. Was it the case that Zahda himself was not in fact innately evil – that it was the fortress of Kazan-Oud itself

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 180 that held the Evil, and that Zahda, imprisoned within it just as much as any of the other creatures the fortress held, had become corrupted as much by his confinement and by the edifice's intrinsic Evil as by any inherent vileness of his own soul? Could any mortal being claim with confidence that, after decades or centuries of incarceration here, he or she would not likewise descend into a form of madness that could express itself only through sadistic games? Noting the way that Zahda's hand shook, and the impression Lone Wolf had gained during the mock-trial that the lord of Kazan-Oud was drunk beyond any normal binger's imaginings, he wondered if Zahda might be using alcohol not for pleasure but to shield himself from his own pain. Was there a core of Goodness in the man, however much it might be concealed beneath hard carapaces of Evil? This alliance that Zahda proposed – on the face of it so bizarre and improbable – was it really just a craziness or was it in fact something that might speed the defeat of the forces of Darkness, as the lord had claimed? Lone Wolf swithered. It was the truth of Zahda's sincerity that swayed him. Even so, he said stubbornly: "What makes you think that I can trust you? You have no great reputation for truth, if the evidence of my trial is anything to go by." "For that little drama I must beg your forgiveness, my friend," said Zahda, smiling ruefully. "It was a diversion, no more, as surely you must understand – an amusement in which, as I now regret, I had too little consideration for the butt of my jest. It was a humour. This place" – he shuddered, and looked around the vast hall as if struck by a sudden chill – "this place gets to you. It can twist you. Before I came here I was a wit, a comic, a lord who led his troops by laughter. But the grim stone walls heard my laughter, and warped the echoes of it that they sent back to my ears." Laughter, thought Lone Wolf. The Nameless Woman told me of how the intruder laughed ... And then he saw the truth. Zahda was telling him no lies, yet at the same time he was being used to tell the greatest lie of all. Just as the transmuted goons were Zahda's cat's-paws, so was Zahda himself the cat's-paw of Kazan-Oud. Lone Wolf's heart bled for the man. The fortress and the Doomstone – the Green Eye of Agarash – they were perfectly matched to each other, operating in exact synchrony. The truth that Zahda spoke was the truth so far as Zahda knew it. Had Lone Wolf been unable to see this, had he indeed followed his impulse to agree to the proposed partnership, the fortress and the stone would soon have sucked from him the strengths that Kai had given to him, would have drained also the wisdom of Nyxator's Lorestone, and then would have destroyed him, either by killing him or, perhaps worse, turning him into a shell of a human being, a sadistic puppet, as Zahda had become.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 181 As he looked up to meet the lord's eyes, Lone Wolf saw that Zahda had read all of this in his face – saw, too, that the greater truth had begun to seep into Zahda's own mind. "I'm sorry," said the skeletal man quietly. "I would have wished it otherwise." He smiled sadly. "And so," said Lone Wolf, realizing as he spoke that there was not a scintilla of falsehood in his words, "am I. Deeply sorry." He advanced towards the lord. Even the light of the Sommerswerd was strangely subdued, as if the weapon itself had no relish for the task it was being called to perform. From his sleeve Zahda tugged a rod of the Dead Silver metal; other metals were inlaid into it in spirals along its length. At its tip was a dull blue gem which looked to Lone Wolf like a sapphire. Around the jewel were seven long barbed claws. "Your sword is barely a match for this," said Zahda, the same wistful smile on his lips. "It bears all the focused power of the Eye." He raised the rod until, at arm's-length, it was pointing directly towards Lone Wolf's head. "Move!" hissed Zahda suddenly. Without knowing quite why he did so, Lone Wolf obeyed. He threw himself to one side, still holding the Sommerswerd aloft. There was a crack like that of a whip, and a bolt of malicious blue fire momentarily lit up the whole of the judgement hall. Behind where Lone Wolf had been standing, a large area of terraced benches erupted into a cloud of smoke and splinters. "That is the power I have," said Zahda as the echoes died away. "And yet ... yet it is not my power to command. Always before I have thought that it was, but ..." As he came up to his feet, Lone Wolf could see that the lord was almost fighting with the Dead Silver rod, as if it, not himself, were now in control of the muscles of his arms. And Zahda was losing the fight. The rod swung itself twice around Zahda's head, and then it was dragging the thin man behind it as it streaked across the floor of the judgement hall directly towards Lone Wolf's face. "Die! – Die, Sommlending, DIE!" shrieked a terrible, ancient voice through Zahda's lips. Lone Wolf shuffled away, too startled by what was happening to offer the Sommerswerd in defence of himself. The rod and the skeletal figure of Zahda hurtled past him, then stopped, turned with impossible speed, and darted towards him again. "Kill me," said Zahda's own voice weakly. "Kill me, if you can find it in your heart to show me any mercy."

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 182 Lone Wolf put up the Sommerswerd and beat away the Dead Silver rod. The jar of the impact seemed far greater than it ought to have been: his elbow felt as if it had nearly been wrenched apart. He gave a curse of pain as he spun around to follow Zahda's careering trajectory. Still the lord was wrestling with the weapon, both of his hands wrapped around it, seemingly trying to force it away from himself. Uselessly. The rod whirled him around until again it was pointing straight at Lone Wolf. Zahda screamed, whether in warning or in agony it was impossible to tell. Lone Wolf scuttled forward in a complicated, pirouetting manoeuvre, trying not so much to counter the thrust of the rod as to redirect it. As it speared towards him he twisted away sideways in a longer curve, so that it followed his course. He was at the lip of the pit from which the flames of ice soared. His Kai sensibilities, too aware of the chasm a fraction of an inch behind his heels, were screaming at him to move. Yet he overrode them, grimly maintaining his position. Once more the rod reeled around, forcing Zahda's flapping, bat-wing body to follow suit. "Let me die!" cried the lord. "Take my life, Sommlending!" Lone Wolf waited until he could almost feel the cruel spikes of the rod's tip on his face and then he leapt away to one side. Teetering on the brink of the pit, he was only half-aware of what happened next. The rod of Dead Silver came to an abrupt halt between the floor and the towering side of the metal spike. Hanging over the cold flames, Zahda gave a final howl – of terror or of triumph – and with a visibly colossal effort pried his fingers away from the metal. One hand was free. Fingers clawed, it reached imploringly towards the roof. The other ... the other ... The rod still held the other hand fast to it. Stretching, Lone Wolf struck Zahda diagonally across the chest, the thread-sharp blade of the Sommerswerd ripping through flesh and bone alike. Blood spouted from Zahda's mouth, from his eyes, from the cavern of his chest. In death his fingers opened, escaping from the grip of the Dead Silver rod. With a last, bubbling wail of anguish he plummeted like a broken bird towards the heart of the abyss, an eternity below. The rod, lifeless now, dropped after him. #

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 183 Petra was by his side. He was kneeling down, weeping, his head on his knees. She put her arm around his shoulders. "You won," she said. "You prevailed. Why this?" He looked up at her. She was a streaked blur of running colours. "I've killed an innocent man," he said. # Some while later. She has dragged him away from the edge of the pit and propped him up against the front of the benches. Through dull eyes he watches her as she strides confidently towards the rearing throne. He tries to call her back, tries to tell her that what she is about to do is horribly wrong, but something has knotted his tongue and the words refuse to be spoken. He has been pinned into this position by a force he cannot comprehend. He would fight against it if he could, but his will to do so seems to have chained back a long way from his conscious mind. She is mounting the steep steps by the throne's side, and then she is up on the table-top seat. She seems to know exactly what she's doing, as if it's something that she's done many times before. At last words come to him. "Leave it, Petra! For the love of Ishir, don't go near it!" She turns, and smiles at him. "The Elder Magi brought me here for a purpose," she calls, her voice clear, unperturbed. "Only now has it been revealed to me what that purpose is." "No! Aw – no! Leave it!" The words are absorbed into a desperate, incoherent sobbing noise. She ignores him, turns her back on him, approaches the Green Eye of Agarash. The crackling dark corona around the crystal flares deeply as she approaches it, her arms outstretched as she balances on the rigid arm of the throne, a tight-rope walker whose stumble would mean death. As she reaches the rear of her throne she turns once more to speak to Lone Wolf. "I know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it," she says, still in that flawless voice, "which is more than either of us has been able to do before in all the time since we came to Dessi. Even though the pathway I'm following now is one that other minds have determined for me, at least I know where it leads." She draws her sword. It is not the Sommerswerd. It is a plain, ordinary sword. The steel of its blade is of rather a low

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 184 grade. It is a mortal's sword, not the sword of one who has been chosen to walk with the Gods. He tries to scream at her to stop. The Green Eye of Agarash waits intently. "It leads," she continues calmly, "to the place that Qinefer discovered. She knew of this terminus long before she told you that she must depart for it. Kasin called it the landscape where the wild beasts run. Alyss would call it an afterlife, or say it is another cell of the infinite polycosmos. Qinefer knew it as the outside of the labyrinth. I know she told you, back in the Imperial Palace in Barrakeesh, that that was where she was heading, and that you dismissed her words as chimeras. Well, she found the outside of the labyrinth, Lone Wolf: she's there now – just as Kasin is in the landscape where the wild beasts run. Alyss sometimes passes through that cell of the polycosmos. They're all of them the same place, Lone Wolf – all the World <> – and I'm not frightened to be going there, now that I know it's the end of the path I'm on." Now, suddenly, he is permitted to speak, but the words aren't his own. "Beware the Green, Petra!" he screams. "Beware the Green. For the Green is death!" Then his mouth is once more stifled. "The Green is also life, Lone Wolf," she whispers, so softly that the words seem to take long minutes to cross the hall to reach him, so that it is as if he were hearing not the words themselves but their echoes. "Everything is life. Even death is life." Then, as he helplessly watches her, she raises the drab, poor-grade, lousy little sword high above her head; it is in her hands, and it takes to itself some of her qualities, and so it seems to glow as brightly and purely as ever the Sommerswerd could; and her shoulders tense one final time for the last blow she shall ever strike while yet she adheres to the pathway the Elder Magi have predetermined for her. The sword flares. At the last instant, the Green Eye of Agarash realizes that the puny, unbeatified mortal – not the one that the Gods have elected as their own – is to destroy it. As the sword cleaves the stone in two, the stone erupts in a spray of fiery maleficence, and destroys the mortal.

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 185

9 A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING There were bits of it that he remembered later, and much that he forgot. He remembered how, as Petra's body appeared to explode into a thousand liquid pieces, the force that held him immobile suddenly vanished, so that he was able to leap to his feet, a howl of misery tearing itself from his raw throat as he ran uselessly towards the inanely vast golden throne. And he remembered, too, climbing up the almost sheer steps to the seat, telling himself the whole while that he was trying to save Petra even as he knew that it was impossible, that there was no Petra left to save, that what he was really doing was saving the wisdom of the Lorestone from the incandescence that was still erupting from its dark companion. Some of the burns he later found scarring his body must have been inflicted around this time, but he was never able to recall the pain. What remained with him was the flood of knowledge and energy that came into him as he closed his hands around the Lorestone and it gave up its light to him. Next he was back on the floor. The tall iron spike was rocking and splitting as the ice-cold furnace beneath it exploded in a silent fury. He must, somehow, have worked his way back up the steel tube, even though its polished sides and the uphill gradient must have made his passage almost impossible; he had a few clear pictures, afterwards, of himself in the Hall of the Silver Fountain, where Zahda's goons, a beheaded force, were milling around in blind confusion as the walls cracked and the entire place was shaken and thrashed by a long series of low detonations. His recollections of the next few hours remained something of a jumble: jets of flaming gas erupting from splits in the floor as he made his way over and around obstacles in the tunnels of Kazan-Oud; the invasion by the creatures of the Maze of the upper levels, where they inflicted great carnage on the panicking goons; his feet being licked by flames as he pounded up a rubble-strewn stairway; the screams of the goons (and the people, for some of them must have been people, tunnel-runners incarcerated in Kazan-Oud and slaves from the compound) as fire roared through the crumbling fortress; a sudden emergence into daylight, and the smack of salt air against his face. Then came a period of blankness. The next he knew he was frantically rowing a small wicker coracle away from the erupting island. His backpack was gone – presumably stolen from him

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 186 somewhere along the line – but instinct must have made him hang on to the red crystal key, because it was tight in his palm against the shaft of the oar. His body was covered in stinging burns; one of them, down his right side, was a raging sea of agony that even his Kai sensibilities were incapable as yet of calming. The rags of his clothing were a mess of blood, and for a few terrified moments he thought it was own. The sky was a wrathful red, as if it were on fire; Kazan-Oud seemed to be screaming its death cries as a new series of even greater explosions shattered the air. Looking back at it, Lone Wolf saw huge faces sculpted from black, flame-specked cloud rising skyward to cover the Sun: first the grotesque visage of Agarash the Damned snarled monstrously at him; then, as it dissipated, there formed the mask of Vashna, seeming to devour half the sky; Zagarna, with his horned snout and his loathsome eyes, shouldered aside the wispy, disintegrating features of Vashna, only to be ousted in turn by Haakon, whom Lone Wolf had slain in the Tomb of the Majhan. The last of these gargantuan cloud-faces was one that Lone Wolf could neither recognize nor name: an insectile face that seemed to eye him with uncanny, speculative intelligence. And then he was at the rippling green magical barrier, the red crystal raised in his hand. But the crystal was barely necessary, for the aethereal skin was fading even as he approached it. Beyond was a great flotilla of boats – fishing vessels and trading barges put out from Herdos to watch the spectacle of Kazan-Oud's dying and, hopefully, to greet the return of the hero who had brought about the fortress's destruction. Eager hands dragged him aboard a caravel despite his shouts of protest and yells of anguish as rough hands scraped his raw burns. The cheering of the folk of Herdos almost drowned out the death-agonies of Kazan-Oud; it seemed to him as if the whole world were dissolving into an ocean of thunder. He lay in a broken heap against a bulwark. Ardan, ignoring his state of collapse, was pompously delivering a formal message. "We are forever in your debt, Lone Wolf. You have achieved what we feared to be impossible, and you live to tell the tale. Your bravery is an inspiration to us all." Not listening to Ardan's fruity voice, not listening to the renewed bursts of cheering, lost on an island of solitude, Lone Wolf pulled from the pocket of his tattered and scorched tunic something sharp-edged that had been paining against his hip. He turned it over in his blackened palms, wondering what it could be: then he realized that it was the soul of Petra, captured in a translucent crystal called a Lorestone. Maybe that wasn't exactly what it was – Lone Wolf's mind was hazy on the matter – but that was the way it announced itself to him. Petra's new body was cold

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 187 and unyielding against the seared flesh of his hands; not warm; not yielding. Ardan was mouthing gibberish again. Lone Wolf wished that he'd just shut up, stop interfering with the conversation he was holding with the cold, hard Petra. "My lord," the man was saying, "you stand upon the threshold of greatness. You purpose and your destiny are known to the Elder Magi, for we have awaited your coming for many thousands of years. Our survival and the survival of all we cherish rest on the success of your Magnakai quest. The time has come, Lone Wolf, for you to learn our wisdom, for we are of the same blood, you and I, and our fate is bound together. We, the Elder Magi, shall prepare you for your new quest, for the Lorestone you must find next exists in the land that was once our home, in the temple that was once our most sacred place of worship, in the chamber where our master first appeared to us." Lone Wolf looked up at him. "Go away, little man," he said clearly. "Go away." The darkness fell. # A bright new image, one that stayed in his memory for the rest of his days: He was standing in the Tower of Truth, observed by the assembly of the Elder Magi. Also in the arena with him was Rimoah, standing next to the scrying pillar; the metal surface was black and empty. The watchers were so silent that their silence was noisy; their fear of the wrath of Lone Wolf was palpable in the gloomy air. "We understand the pain that you must feel ..." Rimoah was saying. "You do not understand my pain," said Lone Wolf. "You insult me by saying that you do. And you insult Petra." "Let me say, then, that we sympathize ..." "You cannot." "She died in glory. She died to save Magnamund. She died to save you. Before you left for Kazan-Oud we asked you if either of you would willingly die for the other, and you both replied that of course you would. But, once you had thought it over more rationally, Lone Wolf, you realized that you yourself did not have the freedom to give your life away in any such heroic sacrifice. But Petra did. She knew that – she recognized it. In so doing, she gave us her permission to set her on a path that would lead to her physical annihilation. Without that permission, your quest into the fortress would have been futile, doomed before it started; for the

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 188 Green would never have permitted any mortal to take away from it its companion – its polar opposite, but all the same its companion – the Lorestone of Herdos. Only once the Doomstone had been destroyed could the Lorestone be taken; and the cost of that destruction was a human life. We had to have someone you trusted alongside you. One of the pair of you would have to die, and clearly, as she was the expendable one, it would have to be Petra. We knew that. Your Kai Gestalts almost certainly knew that, for they warned you, did they not, to beware the Green? And you, too, knew it, in your heart of hearts, but you would not listen to your knowledge. "And the single human life was a small price to pay for the greater good. Petra recognized that: she would have given her own life gladly, had she but known that that would be the cost." "But she didn't know. You gave her no option. You led her here, all the way from Sommerlund, and you deluded her into thinking that she came of her own volition. You deceived her into thinking that she was in love with me; just as you deceived me into thinking that I loved her." "And don't you still?" asked Rimoah quietly. Lone Wolf was silent. At the last, he recalled, Petra had been given the knowledge of the consequences of her own actions, and the freedom to back away from performing them. Yet she had indeed chosen death. Or had she? Had it perhaps only seemed to be that way? Had it been yet another of the Elder Magi's charades, this time staged purely for Lone Wolf's benefit? Something to pacify him, keep him under control? "You never gave us a title for the play, the unfinished play, that we mounted for Petra and yourself," said Rimoah. "That was no play," growled Lone Wolf. "I decline to title it as a play, because it was no play. It was something else, dressed up in the guise of a play – so many things have been shown to me in false guises. In truth, that was the avenue leading up to the gateway of a labyrinth, into which you thrust Petra and me with just the same ruthlessness as Zahda showed when later he thrust me into his physical Maze. I know which of the two mazes I would prefer to re-enter, were I condemned I to choose. His was more ... more honest." "An honesty of the simple type!" snapped Rimoah impatiently. Lone Wolf was startled by the sudden animosity in the old man's voice. "The type of honesty that can be assessed by those who walk the single path. As yet, Lone Wolf, you are incapable of judging the more complex honesties that are viewable from the greater landscape – and it is impertinent of you to pretend that you are qualified to issue any moral judgement whatsoever while you are still confined, still willingly confined, to your single path!"

Labyrinth (The Secret of Kazan-Oud // 189 "You have a cold mind," said Lone Wolf, after a long time. "A mind that is not like yours," amended Rimoah, his quiet temper restored. "Surely your Kai lore must have at least begun to make you aware that there are so many other modes of thinking than the one you're accustomed to?" "Banedon doesn't have your coldness of mind!" said Lone Wolf. "Yet he has absorbed your magic into himself. It hasn't changed him into ... into a monster!" "Hasn't it?" "No! I know Banedon like a brother! I would have seen if ..." "Would you?" Lone Wolf felt as if the world were melting under him. Petra was dead – or gone to the other place she'd babbled of. That was something he could accept. But that Banedon, the Banedon he knew and loved, that Banedon too should be dead – albeit still alive – that was something which Lone Wolf could neither accept nor credit. "Ardan offered me your magic," he said, "but I do not wish to take it." "That's what you say now," said Rimoah mildly. "You may change your decision, later." "No! I have no wish to become like you! You with your talk of `greater landscapes' and `complex honesties' – all you do is cloud the eternal moral certainties. There was no `honesty' in deluding Petra to her death – no complex Good that you exercised." Alone on the single path of truth, Lone Wolf screamed at Rimoah, at the gathered sages of the Elder Magi, at a Universe that was suddenly empty and echoing and colder than it had ever been before. "You killed her, you scum! You killed her!"