"You were brought here at my insistence," the figure said. "I am the White Rose."

Her voice was gentle, loving, yet thick with a penetrating sadness that overwhelmed even Ganelon's broken heart. She moved toward him with an unhurried step. Even so simple an action as walking betrayed her grace and her station. She was clearly accustomed to setting the pace, not following another's lead. Ganelon wasn't even aware that he had bowed to the Rose until her hand, clad in a white silken glove, appeared before his down-turned eyes.

"M'lady," he said and kissed the proffered hand.

In the shadow of her hood, a slight smile flared and faded. "How gallant," the Rose said lightly. "I have obviously chosen well. Come, let us talk of adventure." She began to walk slowly to the crest of the hill.

"And of justice," the Beast noted. He'd taken up a deferential station, loping along two steps behind the Rose.

"Justice, as always," the Rose confirmed. She reached down and stroked the creature's fleshless pate. The Beast leaned into the touch like an affection-starved hound. The sight made Ganelon's skin crawl.

"You kept your word to the Cobbler, Ganelon," the Rose noted without preamble. "You did not tell that monstrous gypsy where she might find the Beast's lair. She would not have forced it from you, even with the tortures she had planned."

Ganelon did not ask how the Rose knew. The Beast seemed able to look into his heart, to know things that Ganelon hid even from himself, so there seemed no reason why she could not share that power. Instead, the youth merely noted, "I swore upon my love for Helain. There is nothing I value more highly."

The Beast chortled, but the Rose silenced him with a gesture. "It is not in the Beast's nature to understand the dark urges that plague all mankind," she explained, "only to punish those who give in to them. I, however, appreciate those dark desires all too well. You appeal to me because you have fought them and won."

"For now," the Beast added.

The White Rose nodded but once. "For now. Yet that is sufficient for me to make you my servant."

"I don't mean to be rude," Ganelon said, "but why should I serve you?"

"Because I can free Helain from this place," the Rose answered simply.

The trio topped the hill. Upon the slope of the facing rise lay a vast and complicated hedge maze. Their vantage allowed them a clear view of the figures within that leafy labyrinth. Even in the deepening shadows of late afternoon, their distant movements were easy enough to distinguish.

Some wandered aimlessly, sobbing dry tears of penitence. Others paced back and forth along the same small span. Still others crouched in corners, heads clamped between their hands, as they moaned or sang or shrieked their sorrow. This was the racket that Ganelon, in the bower's languor, had mistaken for laughter and bird song.

"They can find their way in and out of the maze," the White Rose noted, "where a sane man who entered there would never return. It is the power of madness, perhaps-or the whims of the gods."

The Beast sidled up to Ganelon. His overlong arms dragged in the dirt as he moved. "Take that as a warning," he hissed, "in case you thought to storm our midden and steal our maiden."

Ganelon's mind reeled. It was all too much. He struggled to put this strange new knowledge into some perspective, but the feel of something wet and warm on his neck distracted him. He reached up with trembling fingers, which came away red with blood. The wound from Inza's dagger. He felt the ear, found the lobe missing. There were new, thick stitches there, but they must have come undone.

He stumbled, but the Rose's strong hands steadied him before he fell. "The Vistani were cruel to you," she noted, "and you've only had a few days to rest."

"Days," Ganelon repeated dazedly.

The Rose took him by the arm and gently guided him down the hill toward the maze. "In a day or two more," she said, "you will be ready to undertake a journey on my behalf."

At a touch from the Rose, Ganelon's wound stopped bleeding. She spoke of trifles as they walked, refusing to let the conversation drift back to the journey she had mentioned. Her only reply to Ganelon's direct questions about the matter was, "It will be easier for you to comprehend once you see."

With an ape's ungraceful gait, the Beast careened ahead to the edge of the maze. The few lunatics on the hillside itself scattered at his approach; they ran howling for the safety of the labyrinth, though none moved quickly enough to get there before their tormentor. When Ganelon and the White Rose finally arrived, the Beast was squatting upon one unfortunate. He'd propped his muddy feet on another, a bald and blubbering Vistana whom Ganelon recognized instantly.

"Bratu," he said as he moved to help the man.

The Beast bared long yellow fangs pitted with decay. "Don't interfere," he snarled, "unless you're willing to take his spot."

"He'd be better off with the Vistani," said Ganelon, a look of disgust on his face.

The Beast leaned forward. "What makes you think so, hero?"

"They would care for him," Ganelon replied. "Inza said-"

"You're taking the word of that twisted piece of work?" the Beast exclaimed. He kicked Bratu away. The brawny man scrambled up to the thick hedge, which parted just wide enough to admit him. After he'd passed through, the rift closed again.

"Inza only wanted the goon back to finish him off," the Beast continued, "to silence him for good before he got beyond her reach."

Ganelon remembered the glee on Inza's face as she came toward him with the hot iron. "She's the one who pulled out his tongue."

"Inza would have killed poor Bratu if her mother hadn't yet been alive," the Rose noted. "As leader of their caravan, Magda could have exiled her, cast her into darkness. There is no Vistana alive who does not fear that."

"There is no creature alive that does not fear its mother's wrath," the Beast added without a trace of humor.

"And now Magda's dead," Ganelon said, recalling the rumors they'd heard at the mine. "That makes Inza the Wanderers' raunie. She can do what she wants."

"Bright boy!" The Beast got to his feet, and the madman he'd been perched upon crawled away along the hedge maze's border. The thicket eventually opened and swallowed him as it had Bratu.

"Actually," said the Beast as he came to Ganelon's side, "you and the gypsy make a fine pair. You're both worse Oathbreakers than anyone here. You just haven't been caught-yet."

The White Rose dismissed the loathsome crea ture with the wave of her gloved hand. "See to the cauldrons," she said. "It's getting dark."

The Beast loped off along the maze's perimeter. Every few steps, he lifted his gory necklace to his lips and spoke into one of the ears. Ganelon could scarcely imagine what it was that the Beast said. He was certain, though, that he never wanted to hear for himself.

Twilight had settled upon the hills, and the cries of the madmen wandering the maze had taken on a singsong quality. For all its discord, the sound had an underlying motif. It was a chant, Ganelon realized. The lunatics were passing the song between them. Each uttered a few words before letting it pass to the next.

The White Rose turned toward the hedge, and the wall of green opened wide to admit her. She took Ganelon by the arm. "Come," she said and led him toward the break.

He hesitated, the Rose's earlier comments about the maze still fresh in his mind. "No fear," she said. "You are safe from the labyrinth's magic so long as you stay with me." After a slight pause, she added, "Or perhaps you are already mad, and the maze will welcome you."

Ganelon sputtered a reply, but the Rose's gentle laughter drowned it out. "My apologies," she said lightly. "Too much time in the Beast's company has tainted my sense of humor. You may trust me when I say that you are safe in my company."