As they followed the corridor, they noticed that it was getting hotter and that a strange roaring sound was coming from somewhere ahead, and when they turned the corner they saw what it was. Beginning about thirty feet ahead, blue flames were issuing from holes in the walls along a twenty foot stretch of corridor, meeting in the middle and completely blocking their passage. They got within ten feet of it, but the intense heat prevented them from getting any closer.

      "Terrific," said Shaun. "Anyone got any ideas?"

      "Yes," said Matthew. "Try the other way. We did agree to go that way first, remember?"

      Returning to the entrance room, they went through the door to the right and along the corridor. Turning the corner, they saw that it turned one hundred and eighty degrees so that it headed back towards the entrance room, except that it came to a dead end. An opening halfway along it on the right led to a parallel corridor, but standing in front of it were a dozen empty suits of steel armour, carrying swords and shields. As the questers cautiously approached they stirred and came to life, advancing menacingly and brandishing their swords, clanking and clattering as they came. The travelers backed away in alarm, but as soon as they got back to the corner the animated suits of armour stopped and froze in place. Evidently, their purpose was only to guard that stretch of corridor and prevent anyone from passing, not to hunt them down wherever they went. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.

      Fire one way, and animated suits of armour the other," said Shaun in exasperation. "Now what do we do?"

      "We have to get past them somehow," said Diana. "There must be a way."

      "I suppose fighting the suits of armour is out of the question," said Matthew.

      "Using swords it is," said Shaun. "If we had clubs or warhammers we might be able to smash them to pieces, but I doubt that swords would do much good." He looked at Lirenna. "I'm afraid you might need to use another of your scroll spells."

      "Only when we're sure there's no other way," she replied. "Remember that each of them can only be used once."

      "I'm sure that fighting isn't the answer," said Thomas thoughtfully. "I've got a feeling that solving this maze will depend on brainpower, not violence."

      "All right," said Shaun. "What do you suggest?"

      "Let's go back to the fire," said Thomas. "I've got an idea."

      They returned to the fiery stretch of corridor and Thomas, getting as close as the heat would let him, squinted into the flames as if trying to see something. "What is it?" asked Diana curiously."

      "Try to see all the way through the flames to the corridor beyond," said Thomas. "Can you see that lever in the wall?"

     They all stared, but it was hard to look straight into the bright flames without hurting their eyes. Lirenna's sensitive demi shayen eyes soon grew sore and she had to look away, but the others, one after another, soon agreed that they could see the lever. "What about it?" asked Diana.

      "I was just wondering what would happen if we pulled it," said the wizard.

      "Well, there's only one way to find out," laughed Shaun. "Go and pull it. Of course, you've got to get through the flames first."

      "No I haven't," said Thomas, smiling. He pulled out his spellbook and quickly checked his spells to see whether they’d changed since the last time he'd looked. None of them had. Then he reached into his pocket, producing the pair of linked wooden rings he'd carved back in the Overgreen Forest, and cast his Invisible Servant spell. Soon, the barely visible, shimmering form of the mindless magical creation formed before him, awaiting his instructions.

      Thomas commanded it to go through the flames as fast as possible and pull the lever, which it did. Almost immediately the flames died away, leaving the corridor clear and empty. "It worked!" said Thomas in surprise. "I was afraid that the lever would be a red herring." In actual fact, he'd been more afraid that the fire would destroy the servant before it could reach the lever. He had told it to go as fast as it could so that it would suffer the least possible harm from the flames, and had still half expected it to fail.

      "Well done, Tom," said Shaun, clapping him on the shoulder. "Let's go."

      The area where the flames had been was still blisteringly hot so they hurried across as fast as they could. They didn't want to wait until it cooled down in case the flames returned. Amazingly, the emerald walls, floor and ceiling showed no sign of having been affected by the heat. The magic permeating it appeared to make it virtually indestructible.

      Looking back one last time, hardly able to believe they'd made it, they continued on, the magical invisible servant floating next to Thomas's shoulder as he went. He could have dismissed it, but it was possible that he'd find another use for it before the spell's duration expired in just over an hour's time, and once gone he could not summon it again without using up all the remaining magic force in his body.

      The corridor branched and divided again and again as they walked, and they had to pass many other barriers and traps set for them by the Oracle as they went. Many times, they would get past a particularly difficult obstacle only to find that the corridor came to a dead end just around the next corner, making them all frustrated and irritable. Only Diana's calming influence prevented them from snapping at each other and saying things that could not easily have been forgotten. She kept them cool, calm and collected, even when they'd all risked their lives jumping over a wide pool of acid only to find that the corridor then looped back to where they'd just come from.

      The situation was not helped by the illusions, some of which Jerry was able to detect but some of which he couldn't. They spent a long time trying to get past an invisible barrier in a corridor before realising that it was a dead end with an illusion of the corridor continuing on further, complete with an interesting looking door at the end. Another time, the corridor they were following appeared to come to a dead end and they turned back. It was only when they had traced every other corridor to a dead end that they realised that the end wall was an illusion. From that point on, they trusted no wall until they touched it with their hands and felt that it was solid.

     Looking back on it later, Thomas realised that, without her, they might have just given up in frustration and left the building. Whether they would have gone back in when they'd had a chance to calm down, he honestly couldn’t have said. He secretly wondered whether, having taken the first step backwards, they might have just kept on going. Returning to their boat and sailing back to Greenwing Island with the intention of passing the mission on to someone older and more adventurous. Someone better suited to this sort of thing. They would then have disbanded, each of them going their own way, back to their homes, all thought of adventure forgotten. It was Diana who somehow managed to keep their morale up long enough to carry on, long after they would otherwise have thrown in the towel.

      "Whoever designed this place gets my prize for the most twisted mind ever," said Shaun irritably after they'd just run in terror from a giant illusory spider. "When we get to the Oracle itself, there's one or two things I'm going to say to it." He waved his sword to show them what he meant.

      "I don't think you'll have long to wait," said Lirenna. "I think we're getting close to the centre."

      "I think you're right," said Diana, excitedly. "The straight stretches between corners are much shorter than they were."

      "Let's hope the Oracle really is in the middle," said Jerry. "Based on what we've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's near the outside, perhaps just past those animated suits of armour. It may not even be in this building at all."

      "Look, just shut up, will you?" shouted Shaun. "Keep your opinions to yourself!"

      "Shaun!" scolded Diana angrily. "You will apologise at once!"

      Shaun rubbed his eyes with his hand. "I'm sorry," he said to the tiny nome. "It's just this place. It's getting to me. You know?"

      "Yeah," said Jerry. "Don't worry about it. It's getting to all of us."

      Jerry's suggestion continued to disturb them all, but it turned out to be unfounded. A few minutes later they spotted a magnificent archway in the right hand wall of the corridor ahead of them, carved with minutely elaborate geometric shapes and mathematical symbols surrounding the central design of a pair of dragons facing each other. The dragons were unlike any others they'd ever seen or heard of, having no legs but with wings that arched high over their heads, ribbed and webbed like those of a bat. The two dragons were so close to each other that they were almost touching, nose to nose and wingtip to wingtip, and the space formed between their heads and their wings was filled by the single word, also carved out of the living emerald of the wall. ‘Welcome.'

      Inside the arch was an open doorway leading into a rectangular room whose ceiling arched overhead, rising to a peak high above the ground. It was also elaborately decorated, and was shot through with streaks of different shades of green in bizarre and strangely beautiful patterns. Near the opposite end of the room was a broad shaft of brilliant green light, rising from a set of circular patterns on the floor and going up to the ceiling where it gave the impression of continuing through it and all the way up to the heavens. The shaft was six feet wide, and in the middle of it was a circular dais of which sat a beautiful and ornately decorated emerald throne. Sitting on the throne, reading a large, heavy, leather bound book bearing the same pair of dragons that graced the arched doorway, was an ancient and wise looking humanoid figure.

      Later on, they would argue heatedly about the sex and race of the figure they had seen. Shaun and Matthew both said that they'd seen an old, battle scarred warrior, whose sagging and wrinkled skin concealed muscles that were still strong and hard and who looked as though he could still break a man with his bare hands. Diana, however, said that the figure was an ancient female cleric of Caroli, a woman grown old before her time by the channeling of so much holy power through her body. The three wizards, on the other hand, all swore that the figure was an ancient wizard, although whereas Thomas insisted that it was a human male, Jerry insisted equally vehemently that it was an old nome and Lirenna maintained that it was an ancient female demi shae. Evidently, what they all saw was a much older and wiser version of themselves. Themselves as they would one day be, perhaps.

      As they entered, their hearts thumping with excitement, the figure closed the book and laid it aside, where it vanished. "Welcome, seekers after knowledge," it said, in a voice that they variously described as firm and strong, weak and shaky, and musical and melodious. "I am the Emerald Oracle. You have each earned the right to ask one question and one question only. Think carefully and choose your words well, for once you have asked, you may never ask again."

      Diana stepped forward, started to speak, but found that her mouth had gone dry. She took a swig from her water bottle and tried again. "This is the question that we have come so far to ask," she said nervously. "Where is the Sceptre of..."

      "No!" shouted Thomas, running forward and grabbing her arm. "Think, woman! If you ask ‘where is the Sceptre of Samnos', it'll just answer something like ‘in the Maze of Samnos', and that'll get us nowhere. We've got to think of a question that will make it give us its exact geographical location."

      Diana's look of anger at being interrupted faded and she nodded. "You're right," she said. "How shall we word it?"

     The six of them gathered round to discuss the matter, while the Oracle looked on with infinite patience. After a few minutes they came to a decision and Diana stepped forward again.