‘Why stay inside the maze then?’ the boy asked innocently.

‘Because we’re trapped here,’ Sparhawk told him, trying to control his irritation.

‘That’s not exactly true, Sparhawk. We’ve never been really trapped. Kurik might be right about the danger involved in knocking down the walls, but he didn’t say a thing about the ceiling.’

They stared at him. Then they all began to laugh a bit foolishly.

‘We don’t know what’s up there, of course,’ Ulath noted.

‘We don’t know what’s around the next corner either, Sir Knight. And we’ll never know what’s above the ceiling until we have a look, will we?’

‘It could just be open sky,’ Kurik said.

‘Is that any worse than what we have down here, father? Once we get outside, Sparhawk might be able to use the rings to break through the outer wall of the temple. Otha may find mazes entertaining, but I think I’ve more or less had enough amusement out of this one. One of the first rules Platime ever taught me was that if you don’t like the game, don’t play.’

Sparhawk looked questioningly at Sephrenia.

She was also smiling ruefully. ‘I didn’t even think of it myself,’ she admitted.

‘Can we do it?’

‘I don’t see any reason why not – as long as we stand back a way so that we don’t get crushed by falling rubble. Let’s have a look at this ceiling.’

They raised their torches to look up at the barrel-vaulted ceiling. ‘Is that construction going to cause any kind of problem?’ Sparhawk asked Kurik.

‘Not really. The stones are laid in interlocking courses, so they’ll hold – eventually. There’s going to be a lot of rubble, though.’

‘That’s all right, Kurik,’ Talen said gaily. ‘The rubble will give us something to climb up on.’

‘It’s going to take a great deal of force to knock loose any of those stone blocks, though,’ Kurik said. ‘The weight of the whole corridor is holding the vault together.’

‘What would happen if a few of those blocks just weren’t there any more?’ Sephrenia asked him.

Kurik went to one of the upward-curving walls and probed at a crack between two stone blocks with his knife. ‘They used mortar,’ he said. ‘It’s fairly rotten, though. If you can dissolve a half-dozen of those blocks up there, a fairly sizeable piece of the ceiling will fall in.’

‘But the whole corridor won’t collapse?’

He shook his head. ‘No. After a few yards of it tumble in, the structure will be sound again.’

‘Can you really dissolve rocks?’ Tynian asked Sephrenia curiously.

She smiled. ‘No, dear one. But I can change them into sand – which amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?’ She intently studied the ceiling for several moments. ‘Ulath,’ she said then, ‘you’re the tallest. Lift me up. I have to touch the stones.’