Plot summary
Lief, Barda, and Jasmine leave Dread Mountain in search of the next gem at the Maze of the Beast, travelling along the River Tor. During their travel, they encounter a pair of children drowning in a stream and rescue them, but a boy shoots one of the children dead and the other almost strangles Barda to death, revealing the children to be Ols, shapeshifters created by the Shadow Lord. Lief saves Barda by impaling the Ol through the heart, and Jasmine identifies the boy as Dain, the serving boy who aided Doom in The Shifting Sands . As Lief injured Dain when he attacked him for shooting the Ol, they offer to travel with him to the Resistance stronghold. Once there, Dain collapses before he can tell Lief, Barda or Jasmine the password to enter, though Lief is able to deduce it from a note left outside. Once they arrive they meet Jinks, a former acrobat who knows Barda and who stirs up trouble between the trio and Glock until Doom returns. Jasmine and Doom quickly argue over Doom's past, but Lief's casual observation that the Resistance uses Queen Bee Honey to heal from Ol attacks causes Doom to have them imprisoned to determine they are not Ols.
After three days pass, during which Ols would waver in a process dubbed "the Tremor", the trio have still not been released, so Dain frees them with the promise they will take him to Tora, where he believes his parents have sought refuge, only to learn they do not intend to visit Tora. Jasmine, Kree and Filli separate from the group to make them less recognizable, promising to meet them at the coast. Lief, Barda and Dain soon encounter Steven, a peddler and son of Queen Bee who travels with his brother Nevets within him, and purchase goods from him, including a fabric belt with which to conceal the Belt of Deltora from Dain. They also find the ruins of the town Where Waters Meet, destroyed by pirate attacks led by Finn, Nak and Milne.
At the River Tor, Lief, Barda and Dain board a passenger boat, and soon realize that Jasmine is also aboard in disguise as a wealthy young woman. Pirates attack the boat that night, capturing Dain, taking the concealed Belt of Deltora, and knocking Barda into the dangerous waters of the River Tor, but Jasmine fends them off, revealing her identity and altering an Ol that was also on the ship, prompting the pirates to flee. The steamer's captain kills the Ol and kicks Lief and Jasmine off the ship, having realized it was looking for her. Afterwards, Barda rejoins them, having survived his fall into the river, and finds the body of the pirate he was fighting with a map to the Maze of the Beast. They follow the map to a cave and find it ransacked, with another note addressed to Finn from Doom, instructing him where to find the gem. Barda believes their quest has failed, but is suddenly killed by another Barda - the Barda who had been with them had been another Ol.
The pirates then capture Lief, Barda and Jasmine, reuniting them with Dain, who the pirates have been divided over giving to the Grey Guards out of fear of retaliation from Doom, leading to one of their number, Milne, being imprisoned with them. Lief is able to retrieve the Belt of Deltora from Finn by bribing the polypan the pirates captured with toffee he purchased from Steven before Lief, Barda, Jasmine, and Milne are thrown into the Maze of the Beast to be fed to the slug-like Glus. The Glus attacks Milne, who flees into the Maze, and Lief, Barda and Jasmine explore the Maze slowly to avoid alerting the Glus. Eventually Lief finds the gem has not been removed from the Maze due to the Belt sensing it in a column, and Jasmine and Barda lead the Glus away to give Lief time to excavate the gem, revealed to be the amethyst, whose calming power helps Lief retrieve it and find an exit in the Maze leading to a blowhole. Lief accidentally begins to flood the Maze and escapes with Barda and Jasmine just in time; the Glus seals the Maze behind them to prevent it from flooding. Finn and Nak confront them after they escape the blowhole, but it blows and drags the two pirates back into its depths. Afterwards, the trio discuss the false map planted by an Ol, before preparing to find the last gem - the diamond - at the Valley of the Lost.
