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from the audience to unload a large crate from the rear of her vehicle, and now stood to one side, petting a small dog cradled in her arms. As the crowd looked on, the two helpers manhandled the crate up some steps and onto the stage under the woman’s direction.
    Rachel scanned the crowd of onlookers for likely pickpockets, before she remembered that she didn’t have any money. Smiling, she returned her attention to the unfolding spectacle at hand.
    The wagon driver was young and slender and wore her dark brown hair in thick curls that tumbled heavily over her narrow shoulders. Her oval face and dark eyes suggested Dalamooran origins, yet her skin was lighter than that of most northern desert dwellers. She wore a vibrant, if somewhat garish, rainbow-coloured dress adorned with beads of glass.
    Once her hired help had finished positioning the box and stepped down, the woman placed her puppy on one of the wagon’s running boards, and then turned and raised her hands to settle the crowd.
    “Hello,” she called out in a cheerful voice. Her accent sounded Deepgate. “My name is Mina Greene and I have come to Sandport to bring you magic, horror, and wonder! If you are amazed by what you see here this morning, make sure to tell your families and your friends. And if what you see sickens or appalls you, then tell them anyway. Just be sure to tell someone.”
    A laugh from the crowd.
    “And please return after dusk, for what you are about to see is only a little glimpse of my circus. I’ve traveled to the ends of the world looking for monstrosities, and later tonight I’ll present them for your pleasure.” She sounded like a child reading from a script she’d prepared. “I’ve got ghosts and mazewights trapped in amber, and the corpses of unspeakable demons from the darkest depths of Hell, even the bones of gods and stone monsters from under the earth.”
    One of the onlookers yelled, “Yeah, we seen all that last year,” which triggered more laughter.
    Mina Greene frowned and stamped her foot. “Yes, the stitched-together things—the fakes. Jars of mermen and spider babies, the pickled oxen calves. You’ve seen it
all
here, haven’t you?” She seemed to realize that she’d lost her composure, and made an effort to control her temper. “But today I’m showing you the real thing. Not tricks or lies, but living, breathing demons…” She ended with a dancerlike flourish. “Behold the horrors of the Maze!”
    She lifted the lid from the crate, then reached inside and fiddled with an interior clasp or lock. The crate’s four side panels fell away like opening flower petals, revealing the fleshy thing inside.
    Rachel watched from the fringes, her face partially concealed by a silk scarf, as a gasp went up from the crowd. Several people backed away from the abomination on the stage. Then Rachel saw clearly what had caused the commotion, and she felt her stomach buck.
    “This monster was captured in Deepgate four nights ago,” Greene called. “The Spine Avulsior allowed me, a humble show-woman and entertainer, to display it here so that I might make you aware of the dangers of the Maze. Look at its limbs, see how it weeps and suffers. This is what happens to heretics and blasphemers.”
    Had the Spine
hired
her to preach their message for them? Rachel wondered if Mina Greene believed a word of the Avulsior’s lies, or if she’d just agreed to work with him in order to obtain this poor wretched creature.
    It looked vaguely like a child, but Rachel could not see precisely how its twisted arms and legs connected to its torso. She couldn’t even be sure it was human. Parts of it appeared to be fashioned from the same wood used to make the crate. It was like a knot of muscle and bone intermingled with white-pine joists. Watery, weeping eyes lolled madly in its hairless skull. Clearly it was distressed. A pitiful wail issued from its drooling mouth, and Rachel turned away in abhorrence and shock.
    How could the