Ferret looked at Arin. The Dylvana merely turned up her hands. Then Arin said, "This maze, this labyrinth, what is it?"

"A great area of entangled canyons," replied the scholar. "Cut by rivers long past, say some; land fractured by wrathful gods shaking the world, say others; a realm broken by great stones from the sky, claim others still. As to which of these are true, or if it is something else altogether, I cannot say."

Arin nodded. "These canyons, this labyrinth, how extensive are they?"

"Your measure is the mile?"

"That or the league, three miles to each."

The sage consulted a scale on the map, then took the measure of the blank area within the irregular bound. "I make it some hundred or so miles east and west, and"-he took another measure-"nearly half again as much north and south-one hundred fifty miles in all."

"And this temple, where does it lie?"

The sage shrugged. "It is hidden."

Arin blew out her breath and then, judging by the width across the faded bounds and then measuring how far to the east of Aban the blank area lay, Arin said, "Some thirty-five leagues to the marge. Is the route to the labyrinth direct?"

The sage nodded. "Yes. But I would not advise-"

Ferret blurted, "But Dara, that's a vast area to search. A hundred and fifty miles by a hundred. That makes it, um, let me see… um-"

"Fifteen thousand square miles," supplied the sage, "or thereabout."

"Elwydd's grace!" declared Ferret, which brought a start from the scholar, and he glanced at her and then away. But she did not notice the effect her oath had had upon the sage, and she turned to Arin and said, "I cannot even imagine what fifteen thousand square miles is, much less how long it would take to search it out, given that it is a maze. We'll be a lifetime at it!"

Aiko shook her head. "Dara Arin has a way with mazes."

"Mayhap," murmured Arin. "Mayhap not."

"As I started to say," interjected the sage, "I would advise against going to the maze. It is a horrid place. Nothing but fractured stone. And barren. No plants. No water. No wildlife."

Aiko stared impassively at the scholar, then asked, "If that is true, then how do these priestesses of Ilsitt survive?"

The sage looked toward the beaded curtain, then leaned forward and whispered, "It is said that Ilsitt yet has believers within Sarain. Perhaps they bear supplies to the maze, perhaps to the temple itself."

"Then there may be a trail, Dara," said Aiko.

"You are bound to do this thing?" asked the sage.

"Aye," replied Arin.

The 'alim sat long moments in silence, looking at the map and then at the sketch before Ferret. Finally he said, 'Then here is an entry." He tapped at a place on the map along the faded boundary. "The Island in the Sky. It is the point of a plateau projecting into the maze."

"But that's somewhat north; aren't there any places closer where we may enter?" asked Ferret.

"Indeed there are," said the sage, "but I would think this a better place."

Arin looked steadily at the scholar, but he would not meet her gaze. The Dylvana then glanced at Aiko, and the Ryodoan canted her head and shrugged.

Arin sighed, then said, "Well and good, sage. Is there aught else thou wouldst advise?"

"Three things." He turned and addressed Ferai. "Call not upon Ilsitt by any of her names, be they Elwydd, Shailene, Megami, or aught else, for unfriendly ears may overhear. In fact, I would not call upon any gods if I were you, any of you." He paused and glanced at each of them, and added, "Too, veil your faces ere you leave this city, else someone inland less liberal than I may haul you before an imam and demand that you be stoned as harlots."

Aiko growled and narrowed her eyes, but Arin nodded. "And the third thing…?"

For only the second time the scholar looked directly at her, and in this instance held her gaze as he said, "Not all paths are what they seem. Search well; choose wisely." Then he looked away.

Arin waited, but he said nothing more, and finally she turned to Ferret. "Wouldst thou, Ferai, trace the significant part of the map onto our own vellum? Show Aban and this 'Island in the Sky' and the route 'tween, as well as direction and scale. Sketch, too, the bounds of the labyrinth so that we may know where they lie."

Ferret glanced at the scholar, and he passed her an inkpot and quill.

"Inland?" moaned Alos. "Not by boat? Not by the Brise?”

Arin nodded.

"But we just got her restocked and all," whined the oldster, appealing to Egil.

The younger man shrugged and studied the map. "The Brise'll wait for us at the docks, Alos."

"But how are we going to get there?" whined the oldster. Then he straightened up and stuck out his jaw. "I'm not walking, I'll have you know."

Aiko fixed Alos with an exasperated stare, but Arin said, "Given what we heard about the bleakness of the land, I deem we need camels for the journey."

"Camels!" moaned Alos. "Great, tall camels? I was thinking more along the lines of a low ass."

"Indeed," said Aiko, dryly, and Ferret broke out in loud guffaws.

Three days later in the dawn they set forth upon camels, the beasts eructing belligerent hronks, complaining and grumbling as the riders prodded them forward across the sunbaked land and away from the river greenery. Alos, too, moaned and whined and fussed, almost as loudly as the beast he rode. Arin, Aiko, and Ferai wore silken scarves across their faces, heeding the sage's advice, although Aiko was furious at having to do so because of the reason stated-that she might be taken as a harlot by stupid hidebound men. But Delon told her to think of it as a disguise, and she remembered former days ere she fell from grace, days when she had ridden into combat with her face masked. These thoughts mollified her somewhat… though not entirely.

Riding six camels and towing six-animals protesting, Alos complaining, and Aiko grinding her teeth, and Delon singing a gay song of the road-out away from Aban they fared, heading easterly into the sunrise, aiming for a place the sage had named "the Island in the Sky."

"My god," hissed Delon, "but it looks like a vision of Hel!"

In the setting sun, they stood upon an outjutting point of a high plateau, its face falling sheer a thousand feet or more down into an endless tangle of high-walled canyons, fissures beyond count twisting and turning this way and that through bloodred stone for as far as the eye could see. Whether cut by ancient rivers, or torn asunder by wrenching land, or cracked apart by rocks falling from beyond the sky, none could say, yet it was a riven land, a fractured land, a land ripped, split, ruptured, with huge, deep, tortuous, jagged chasms zigzagging, crisscrossing, dead-ending, curling, twisting back on themselves, the great entanglement shattering out to the horizon and beyond-fifteen thousand square miles in all.

Aiko stared long down into the fractured land, her left hand pressed tightly against her chest, there where a hidden tiger glared, and at last she said, "In there lies death."

And from far dark shadows of the canyonland maze, faintly echoing and slapping across the bloodred stone, there sounded a distant ghastly howl, as if some dreadful and deadly thing prowled deep in the labyrinth afar.