Midmorning came and then midday, the sun directly overhead, pressing back the crimson shadows, replacing them with a bright red glare. Yet they paused not for a midday meal but ate as they moved ahead, for they did not want to camp in these canyons at night, hoping to reach the temple instead-wherever it might lie. At times they rode, at other times walked, giving the camels some respite, but always they pushed forward.

"I don't think we're on the right road at all," puffed Alos, during one of these strolls. "We'd better turn back, get out from these blasted canyons with their pressing walls."

"Why's that, old man?" asked Delon.

Alos fixed his white eye on the bard. "Surely we'd've reached it by now if this were the way. I think we've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Either that, or the temple isn't even in this place at all."

Ferret shook her head. "Look about you, Alos. The stone is crimson, as shown on Old Norn's card. And the 'alim said this is where we'd find it. As to the wrong turn, have faith in Dara Arin. Think on this, too: it is a great treasure we are after: a pure, translucent pale jade egg… the size of a melon. Surely we can sell it for an enormous sum, even if we have to carve it up. There's a buyer out there somewhere: a Dragon, a Mage, a collector, someone who will make all this worthwhile. We'll be set for life. No more hunger, no more wanting, no more having to-" Ferret glanced at Delon and abruptly stopped talking.

They walked in silence for a while, and at last Delon said, "Luv, as much as I cherish the good life-fine wines, delectable foods, pleasures for all the senses-we aren't after this thing for reward. It isn't a treasure we seek. Instead it's a token of power whose doom we hope to entirely set aside."

Ferret looked over at him, but what she was thinking did not appear in her eyes.

Ahead, Arin called for them to mount up again, and onward they rode through chasms of bloodred stone.

The midday sun passed beyond the rims above, though now and then as the canyons twisted and turned they could see it in the west. Midafternoon came, and then late day, and all about them scarlet shadows mustered once more as the angle of light shifted with the sinking of the sun. Finally there was a short twilight down in the canyons below and darkness fell in the land of red stone, and still there was no sign of a temple.

A narrow slash of glimmering stars emerged overhead with the onset of night, and Arin reined her camel to a halt, the others stopping as well. The Dylvana turned in her saddle and said to all: "The time has come for us to decide: shall we push on, or instead make camp? Have ye any preference?"

Egil said, "I think we need rest the camels. They've had little ease all day, nor aught to eat or drink since yester."

Aiko reached down and tapped her mount on its ribs. "Fear not for the camels, Egil One-Eye, for they can go long without either food or drink." She gestured ahead along the canyon. "Fear instead for us; with every step forward our danger has grown."

In the glint of starlight, Arin nodded, but Egil raised an eyebrow. "Your tiger?"

Aiko inclined her head.

"I think we should go back," said Alos. "This 'alim of yours has led us into a trap."

Aiko grunted yet did not gainsay his words, but Arin said, "I think not, Alos, for Aiko's tiger found no untoward peril in him."

"That's because the peril's out here," retorted Alos.

"That I do not deny," said Arin.

"Why don't we just set up camp in a place we can easily defend?" suggested Ferret, touching the bandoliers of daggers crisscrossing her breast.

From the bowels of the labyrinth there came a long, ghastly howl, the echoes slapping back and forth across the canyon walls.

The camels flinched at this sound, yet held their ground for it was distant still. But Alos groaned and cowered down in his saddle.

"Adon, but that was much louder than before," said Delon.

"We are closer to whatever it is," said Arin.

"We are closer to peril," said Aiko.

"Since it seems to come out only at night, I think Ferret has the right idea," said Egil. "We should make camp in an easily defended place."

"There is that narrow canyon a furlong or so back," suggested Arin.

They set up camp in a box canyon, more of a fissure than aught else, for it extended into the crimson rock less than a hundred feet.

"This is good," said Egil, surveying the site.

"Good?" muttered Alos. "This stone crack?"

"Aye," replied the Fjordlander. "They can only come at us from one direction."

"They?" quavered Alos.

"They. The foe. Whether one or many," replied Egil.

"Like the thing that howls," added Ferret.

"Eep!" squealed Alos, and he huddled down against the stone wall behind.

That night they stood ward in overlapping shifts: Aiko and Alos, Alos and Delon, Delon and Ferret, Ferret and Egil, Egil and Arin, Arin and Aiko. Again there came in the middle of the night another prolonged howl, seeming louder than before, jerking sleepers awake, weapons springing to hand, yet nought came at them from the darkness.

With a half moon above, just ere dawn Egil moaned and thrashed in his sleep, visited by a hideous dream.

They broke camp as the slash of sky lightened, and soon were on the trail again, the camels grunting in sullen ire, angered at having had nothing to eat but a meager amount of grain and nothing to drink at all, angered as well at having to bear riders and cargo, or so it seemed.

Once more the dark shadows turned scarlet as the day seeped down into the land of red stone. The trail twisted and wrenched through the labyrinthine maze, passages shattering off in directions without number, leftward, rightward, veering hindward as well. Choice after choice Arin made as the rarely glimpsed sun angled up in the sky, seen only when the chasms skewed easterly.

"Garlon, but I'd swear we're going in circles," grumped Alos. "That, or we're lost altogether."

"What makes you say that?" asked Ferret.

"This canyon, that rock, I vow we've passed it a thousand times."

"A thousand times?"

Alos growled. "Well, more than once, that's for certain."

Ferret shook her head. "I don't think so, Alos. I believe with all this red rock, everything looks the same."

Delon grunted in agreement. "Even the red is beginning to look normal to my eyes. -I wonder if it's possible to become used to Hel."

Midday came and went, and still they pressed onward, riding and walking, peril growing with each stride, Aiko now insisting on taking the lead every step of the way, though she paused at the junctions for Arin to make a choice.

Midafternoon came and then eve drew nigh, the crimson shadows mustering again deep in the chasms below.

Alos groaned. "Another night in this blasted maze, with night after night to come. Lost in your Hel, Delon. Trapped forever. We'll never find our way back out."

Before Delon could reply, Aiko rounded a turn and there before her in solid rock stood the opening of an arched tunnel, low and narrow and black. "Yojin sum!" she called. "Beware."

"This is carved, not natural," said Egil. "See: hammered drill rods and mattocks shaped this way."

As Aiko looked up at the steep canyon walls, a canyon dead-ended but for the tunnel, Arin said, 'The trail goes in."

Egil glanced from one to the other. "Then so do we."

"Can the camels squeeze through?" asked Ferret. "I mean, it's like an eye of a needle."

Delon looked at the camels and then at the opening before them. "I think so. But we'll have to lead them."

"Not yet," said Egil.

Aiko, her swords in hand, nodded and said, "Egil is right. I would not want to be trapped in there with camels blocking the retreat. I will go afoot and see where this leads."