She embraced Burel and kissed him one last time, then stepped back as they mounted, the camels hronking and grumbling as they stood, their long legs awkwardly levering them and their burdens upward.

When they were erect and ready to go, Mayam called out, "Each and every one of you are welcome to return as you will. Fare you well."

And amid growls of camels and cries of good-bye, the small caravan set off down the deep slot in the towering crimson stone.

CHAPTER 5 7

As they set about cleaning up the camel dung, Burel said, "I have always known that the demon and I would meet someday, for it was written. What I did not know is that Lady Aiko would be there as well." The big man smiled over at the Ryodoan, receiving a smile in return.

Ferret cocked an eyebrow. "It was written?"

Basking in Aiko's grin, Burel swung his gaze to Ferret and nodded.

"What do you mean, 'it was written'?"

"Something my mother told me before she died," replied Burel.

"Oh," said Aiko, her voice all but unheard, her smile fading.

"What is it, my Lady?" asked Burel, turning his attention again to her.

Aiko sighed. "I was hoping your mother yet lived."

"No. She died of fever when I was but ten or so."

Aiko looked down at the red stone. "My own died giving birth to me."

Burel dropped the bag he was carrying and stepped to the Ryodoan and embraced her. "I at least have my memories," he rumbled, "whereas you have none."

His arms around her, Aiko looked up at Burel as if studying his face. At long last she said, "I've never told anyone this, Burel: I never knew my mother, but even so, I miss her."

He looked at her and wanly smiled. "As do I, Aiko. As do I."

Aiko's heart suddenly leapt, for it was the first time he had addressed her in the familiar.

"My mother is dead, too," said Ferret. "And my father. Murdered both."

She gazed back at the campsite where the others readied for the day's travel. "I wonder if any of us have parents alive."

They walked and rode all that day, pausing to take up old camel droppings they had left behind on the way in, as well as taking up any new; too, they cleaned up their own excrement old and new as well, leaving nothing behind to point to the temple in the maze. At sunset as they made camp they heard the demon horn howl, and Alos jumped and spat oaths. It sounded at midnight as well, startling the old man awake once more. "I've heard that cursed thing twice a night for the last, um, twenty, thirty days. Is it to plague me the rest of my life?" In spite of his ire, he fell instantly asleep again.

As they fared for the second day through the twisting rock canyons carved deep in the scarlet maze, the talk did turn to parents, and only Arin of them all had a dam and sire who yet lived, though not upon Mithgar but Adonar instead. All the others had died of illness or in battle or of natural causes, or had been murdered, or, in the case of Aiko, her father had died broken and disgraced, denied even the honor of committing seppuku when his daughter had been unmasked.

Upon learning this, when next they led the camels, Burel slipped an arm about Aiko and they walked along in silence.

"Well then," said Delon, after a while, striding alongside Ferai, "we'll just have to become our own family, though I'll consider you, my sweet, as but a remote tenth cousin."

Ferret looked up at him. 'Tenth cousin? But why?"

"I would not have you be close kin, for then I couldn't do this." And he paused and took her face in his hands and kissed her long and gently.

Their camels, disturbed at being stopped, emitted loud hronks.

Alos, following, broke out in a cackle.

Ferai, her heart pounding, her face reddening, drew back from the bard. But he threw his arms wide and broke out in song.

Together they tugged on their camels, the beasts growling in dismay for now, of all things, they were being asked to move again, when they had just barely gotten stopped.

And down the canyon they continued, Delon singing a heartfelt refrain shared by two other men deeply enamored, each of them oblivious to the fears of those they loved: Dara Arin, who dreaded what the oncoming decades would do to her mortal lover and how he might react; fierce Aiko, who could but barely acknowledge that she had room for love in her warrior heart; and untrusting Ferai, who'd been raped as a child.

That night, as a distant demon howl echoed through the scarlet maze, they made camp on the Island in the Sky. While they waited for the water to boil above the charcoal fire, Ferret glanced across at Burel and said, "Tell me more about these things which you say are, um, written. Just exactly what do you mean by that?"

Burel did not look up from the fire. "I will ask you this, Ferai: do you believe that you can choose your paths in life?"

Ferret poked her riding stick at the charcoal, nudging a lump to where it would catch fire. "Yes, Burel, I am totally free to do anything I so choose."

Burel shifted his ice-blue eyes away from the glow and toward her. She shivered as if from a sudden chill, but she did not look away. For a moment his gaze held hers, then he looked to the eastern night sky and pointed at the full moon shining aglance o'er the crimson maze. "If you so desired, could you step to the moon?"

Her own gaze followed his, and for a long while she did not answer. But at last she said, "Perhaps. But it would take long training in the ways of Magekind." She glanced at Burel's sword, then added, "Or in the ways of Dwarven crafting to make a ship that can sail the skies above."

Burel grunted, then said, "But you cannot step there now merely by wishing it so."

Ferret grinned and shook her head. "Alas, I cannot."

"Then there are limits to your totally free choices, eh? You cannot step to the moon, cannot fly, cannot change into a fish, cannot do countless things. They are beyond your means. That is, merely oft what you may desire is not a choice at all."

"True, Burel. Nevertheless, my will is entirely free. Of all those things within my power, I can pick and choose which to do."

The big man shook his head. "I think not, Ferai. I think all is predestined, and this notion of free choice, of free will, is but an illusion."

"How so?"

Burel took up a pebble. "Consider this stone. If I were to place it so that it would roll down a slope and strike another stone of like size lying on the surface, would it not cause that second stone to roll downslope as well?"

Ferret nodded but remained silent.

Burel continued. "And if I knew precisely where the first stone would strike the second, would I then not know exactly how both stones would react, the angle and speed at which the first would bound, as well as the direction and pace of the second?"

Again Ferret nodded.

"Then consider this: if those above Elwydd and Adon created all, and know all, and set all in motion, would they not know, know, our destinies? Are we not merely like pebbles impelled by the many collisions in our lives? Collisions which the highest of all already know the outcomes, and the outcomes of those outcomes, and so on forever?

"You may believe you have choices, Ferai, yet the collisions in your life are already set and your path is immutably determined… just as is mine, just as is all that was, that is, and that will ever be. We are merely moving through an endless story already told."

"Ha!" crowed Ferret. "If it is an endless story, then how can it already be told?"

Burel merely shrugged.

Ferret shook her head. "If you think the path is already set, then why strive to do anything, why make any choices whatsoever?"