Pages of Pain

The elf glanced at the armor, but his smug expression wavered only slightly. "Bronze does not make the sturdiest armor. In this district, there are any number of denizens who could crush if

"Not that armor, Tessali. You are the one who is fashioning explanations." The Thrasson kneeled beside the cracked amphora. "You can lead us nowhere but into more trouble."

"Tessali was trying to trick us." Jayk slipped to the elf's side. "Now I make kiss with him, yes?"

"No. Let him go." The Amnesian Hero picked up a piece of slashed barmy net "If Tessali can find his helpers, then we should go with him."

Tessali's jaw dropped, but he was quick to start up the wall. "I shall hold you to that, you know."

The Amnesian Hero did not even look up. "I am a man of my word, Tessali."

The Thrasson cut a length of rope from the barmy net and wrapped it around the amphora neck, then used the rest of the mesh to fashion a sling so he could cany the jar on his back. Even in the simplest maze, it was wise to keep both hands free.

By the time the Amnesian Hero finished, Tessali was sitting atop the stone wall, staring in gape-mouthed astonishment at whatever lay on the other side.

"What say you, elf?" The Amnesian Hero grinned at Jayk, who had recovered the spool of golden thread and was busy untangling the slack. "Will we be going back to a nice warm cell in your Gatehouse?"

Tessali's head slowly turned toward them. "Sign's gone! There's nothing there, not even the ground!"

"Then we would be wise to stay within the boundaries of the maze, would we not?" The Amnesian Hero slipped the amphora sling over his shoulder. "If you can't see anything, come down from there and stop wasting time."

The elf made no move to obey. "What have you done?" His eyes were wild with fear. "Your madness has doomed us all!"

"By the One Death, be quiet or I silence you myself!" Jayk's threat was an idle one, for her fangs had finally folded into the top other mouth. "Zoombee will get us out."

"Get us out?" Tessali screeched. "These are the Lady's mazes! Nobody can get us out!"

"Zoombee can." Jayk placed the spool in the hands of the Amnesian Hero. Save for a single strand leading into a dark comer, the golden thread was neatly coiled about its barrel. "Zoombee has a plan."

Ignoring Tessali, the Amnesian Hero turned his full attention to Jayk. "You anchored the other end outside?" He had little doubt that she had, but he thought it wise to be certain. "It is tied securely?"

"But of course, Zoombee." Jayk's reply was light-hearted and merry, as though being lost in the Lady's mazes was little more than an afternoon diversion. "I ran it down the seam between the wall and the hut, where nobody sees it, yes? Then I tie it twice around a stone in the bottom."

"You did well. We should be back in Sigil in no time." The Thrasson waved Tessali down from the wall. "Come along. We won't hurt you, and you can tell me about the Lady of Pain. I'd like to know more about her before I present Poseidon's gift again."

Tessali's wild-eyed fear gave way to gape-mouthed incredulity. "You're barmy as a dretch in Cania." He climbed down from the wall, shaking his head slowly. "And I must be an addle-cove for keeping your company."

Rewinding as he walked, the Amnesian Hero followed the thread into the dim comer. As he and his companions moved, the darkness seemed to thin ahead and swallow everything behind. It took only a few steps to reach the corner and discover that the wall no longer abutted the hut Instead, a long narrow passage had opened between the two. The golden thread ran straight down this corridor and disappeared into the silent gloom ahead.

"This can't be right," Tessali whispered. "There should be a busy street here."

"There should be a wall." Jayk was standing beside the hut, looking down a gloomy side passage that ran along what had once been the front of the building. Now it was simply a long wall of unmortared stone, similar to the one down which the golden thread ran. She kneeled and began scraping at a stone with her fingers. "This is where I tied the thread."

"That is the trick of mazes," the Amnesian Hero said. "You cannot trust what you remember. You must place your faith in the thread, no matter how strange its course may seem."

Tessali shook his head emphatically. "I climbed over only one wall before I found you, and it was no thicker than my foot is long. We must be going in the wrong direction."

"By that thinking, when you climbed the wall, you would have seen the street on the other side." The Amnesian Hero continued to rewind the thread. "Did you?"

"I saw nothing but… nothing."

"Then trust to the thread. This place makes no sense, and only the thread can lead us back to the world we know."

With that advice, the Amnesian Hero started down the passage, his frozen foot clumping bluntly on the rock-hard ground. He had forgotten all about it during his audience with the Lady of Pain, but now he recalled that he needed to find a healer before it thawed. He redoubled his pace, wrapping the thread around the spool so furiously that his wrist began to tire. They passed several more side passages before following the thread down one, then began a zigzagging course through the murky corridors. The Thrasson did not ask Jayk how long her spell would last; even if he had truly wanted to know, the knowledge was no use to him. Aside from walking faster, he could do little to speed their escape.

Hoping to keep his thoughts off his foot, the Thrasson waved Tessali to his side. "You may tell me about the Lady of Pain."

"What do you want to know?"

The elf had no trouble keeping pace with the Amnesian Hero. Even at his best, the Thrasson could not rewind the spool faster than his companions could walk. If his foot started to thaw, he would have to give up rewinding the thread and simply follow it to the exit, but he was loath to abandon one of the few possessions linking him to his past.

"I need to know everything about the Lady," said the Amnesian Hero. "Who is she?"

Tessali scowled. "What kind of question is that?"

"An honest one, but of course," said Jayk. "There are so many things Zoombee does not know. He has lost his memory."

Tessali arched one of his peaked eyebrows. "Truly? That is interesting." He rubbed his chin, then looked back to the Thrasson. "With a little work, we can discover what you're trying to forget."

"I am not trying to forget anything."

Tessali looked doubtful. "How would you know that without knowing what you've forgotten? In these cases, by far the most are caused by a simple lack of mental strength…"

"My mind is as strong as my arm." The Amnesian Hero glared down at the elf. "Just tell me how I can get the Lady of Pain to accept Poseidon's gift. I'll be fine."

Tessali rolled his eyes. "You see, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you'll just let me help you, you won't need to ask such addle-headed questions. You'll know why that can't be done."

The Amnesian Hero almost stopped to face the elf, then thought of his frozen foot and followed the thread around a dark corner. The hard-packed ground gave way to cobblestones, while the stones in the corridor walls were now held in place by generous amounts of mortar. The Thrasson might have been tempted to accept Tessali's offer of help, had he not suspected the elf would insist on a stay in the Gatehouse after they escaped the mazes.

"Just tell me about the Lady of Pain," commanded the Amnesian Hero. "Poseidon has promised to restore my memories after I deliver this amphora to her."

"He'll never be forced to keep that promise, which you would know, were it not for your unfortunate – and most likely curable-condition."

Tessali, the Amnesian Hero realized, was insidiously clever. Even as he dodged the questions about the Lady of Pain, the elf was deftly tiying to bait the Thrasson into accepting help.

"I should warn you, Tessali, that I regard the dodging of my questions the same as making trouble." Without slowing his pace, the Amnesian Hero cast a meaningful glance in Jayk's direction. "I suggest you start answering."

"Let me have him now, Zoombee." As she spoke, Jayk slipped up close behind Tessali and pushed her head over his shoulder. "Already, he has dodged many questions, yes?"

"No!" Tessali skipped forward, then gazed over his shoulder at the Amnesian Hero. "I was only suggesting how I might help you remember for yourself."

The Amnesian Hero motioned Jayk back to her place, then spoke to the elf. "For now, Tessali, I prefer that you tell me what I wish to know."

"Why don't you ask me, Zoombee?" Jayk's tone was hurt. "Any Dustman knows more about the Lady than this dagger-eared leatherhead."

The Amnesian Hero noticed a certain narrowing of the tiefling's pupils. Unless he did something to assuage her jealousy, the elf would soon fall to her venom.

"Asking Tessali doesn't mean I trust him, Jayk." The Thrasson felt a salty bead roll down his brow, then noticed that Tessali was also perspiring heavily. Only Jayk did not appear to be sweating, though her skin was so shadowy that if was difficult to be certain. "I have my reasons for wanting to hear what he says."

"Yes?"

The truth was that the Amnesian Hero thought Tessali's account more likely to be coherent and reliable, but he did not dare say that to Jayk. The Thrasson looked forward to the elf, who was walking half-backward, at once keeping a sharp watch on the tiefling and trying not to stumble over the passage's uneven floor.

"I want to see if Tessali can be trusted." The Thrasson was thinking fast. "I'm counting on you to tell me if he leaves anything out, or says anything untrue."

"That would be difficult to do." Tessali appeared even more anxious than the Amnesian Hero to move the conversation forward. "The Lady of Pain is an enigma even to the citizens of her city."

"That is not what Zoombee asked," warned Jayk.

An expression of relief flashed across Tessali's face. "Right you are." Now that he was confident the tiefling was not going to jump him from behind, he began to watch where he was walking. "To start with, nobody knows who the Lady of Pain is, but I can tell you she doesn't like the gods. They're always tiying to break into the city, and…"

Much of what Tessali says is mistaken, of course. Sigil's denizens understand me only slightly less than they comprehend the true nature of the multiverse, and that is little enough. Still, with only occasional prompting from Jayk, the elf tells what he knows, which I do not intend to share for fear of seeming deliberately misleading – whether or not I am – and soon the Thrasson understands me no better than those who abide in my crowded warrens.

All the while, they continue to walk, following that golden thread – a clever idea, that – deeper into the mazes. They pass a hundred dark passages, any one of which would lead them to the same place they are going, and round a hundred comers. Sometimes, they make a dozen turns in the same direction. They cannot understand how they fail to cross their own path, but never does that golden thread intersect itself, and always the confident Thrasson tells them they cannot trust their own senses – in that much, at least, he understands me better than any who call my twisting streets home.

Even now, I could peel the skin from his bones, make him repent for that beautiful prayer he spoke. Even now, I could deny the tiefling her One Death, bestow upon her an endless, aching immortality as miserable as my own. Even now, I could turn Tessali's gaze inward, show him the same darkness in his heart that he seeks so diligently in those of others. Even now, I could free Poseidon's net, pull back the hood of that black-cloaked helmsman and look into the eyes of the dark one who bought my bride's dark heart.

The time will come when I must. But now the walls have turned to iron around the Thrasson and his companions. The floors have changed to brick, the air has grown hot as forge smoke, and an orange glow has lit the dimness. Their throats have been filled with scorching ash, and each rasping breath has begun to scratch like crushed glass.

Off the main corridor opened a dozen dark passages, every one fresh with a damp, cool breeze, and still the thread did not turn. It ran straight down the lane between two scorching walls of orange-glowing iron. The Amnesian Hero stumbled forward at a trot, choking on each breath of blistering air and twining the golden thread around his own arm because that was the only way to take up line as fast as they were moving. The soft, squashing sound that came with every other step left no doubt that his foot was beginning to thaw, and he found himself wondering if he would be thirsty in the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze. He would have gladly given all the gold in his purse for that jug of wine he had smashed over the barbazu's head.

A tremendous rumble shook the corridor, crashing down from above with such force that the Amnesian Hero found himself lying facedown on the scorching bricks before he realized he had fallen. He pushed himself to his knees, then raised his eyes toward the heavens and saw a sheet of icy, pearl-colored marbles pouring out of the darkness. The balls struck with all the suddenness of an Abudrian Dragon's wing, slamming him back to the ground and drawing a pair of astonished outcries from his two companions.

The Thrasson bent an arm around to feel for the amphora. When he found it in one piece, he fought through the pounding hail and rose to his feet. The ice was falling at a steep angle, hammering at the walls ahead, turning to steam the instant it touched the hot iron and filling the air with a deafening, hissing roar. Even the pellets that struck the floor bounced once and melted before they came down again. A rusty, mordant-smelling fog was creeping upward, growing steadily redder and thicker.

The Amnesian Hero looked down to inspect his frozen foot Already, the orange fog was so thick he could not see his own ankle, but he did notice tendrils of silver steam rising from the vicinity of his toes.

"We must keep moving!" He started forward again, calling over his shoulder as he ran. "Are you still with me, Jayk?"

"But of course, Zoombee! Just keep shouting, so I do not lose you."

"Tessali?"

A slender hand grasped the Thrasson's shoulder.

"Stop!" Tessali jerked the Amnesian Hero to a halt. "We must… turn back!"

The Thrasson glanced over his shoulder and saw that the storm was much less severe behind them. "No."

He started forward again, only to feel the elf dragging on the amphora sling.

"This is madness!" Tessali jerked the Thrasson around. They could barely see each other through the battering white curtain. "You have… no idea where we're going. We've been walking for hours!"

"So it would seem, but time means nothing in a. maze." The Thrasson had to yell to make himself heard over the roar of the storm. "We must trust to the thread."

"Trust to the thread!" Tessali pointed at the massive tangle covering the Thrasson's left arm. "You have two leagues there. How much more thread could your spool hold?"

"As much as we need," the Amnesian Hero replied. "It has never run out."

Tessali shook his head. "That can't be. Don't you see? It's an illusion! One of the Lady's torments."

"Believe what you will. I have had this thread since long before I entered Sigil."

"You think you have, but it's a delusion." Although he too was yelling, Tessali's tone was patronizing and overly patient. "Please try to understand."

Jayk jerked the elf's hand away from the Thrasson. "No, you understand! You are in the land of barmies now, so you do what we say, not us as you say. Yes?"

To Tessali's credit, he managed to avoid flinching when he met the tiefling's diamond-eyed gaze. "I'm trying to help us all."

"You may turn back if you wish." As he spoke, the Amnesian Hero glanced at his feet. The orange fog was already waist-deep, but he still saw thick plumes of silver steam rising from his toes. "But trouble us no more. I haven't time to discuss the matter."

"Your foot, Zoombee?" Jayk shouldered past the elf, her shoulders hunched against the barrage of hailstones. "I can refreeze it."

The Amnesian Hero shook his head. "In this heat, I fear it would not be worth the trouble."

Tessali glanced at the silver steam rising from the Thrasson's toes. "I've noticed your limp. What's wrong?"

"I stepped in something called an ooze portal, and now my leg is turning to mud."

The elf furrowed his brow. "But if you escaped, you should be recovering-"

"Zoombee's foot was caught a very long time," Jayk said. "It had already changed when I froze the puddle."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Tessali dropped to all fours and disappeared into the orange fog, then began tugging at the Amnesian Hero's leg.

The Thrasson jerked his foot away. "What are you doing?"

Tessali raised his head. "I am a healer."

"You are a tangler of minds!" Jayk corrected. She looked to the Amnesian Hero. "Don't trust him, Zoombee. He'll steal your thoughts."

"If I were going to do that, Jayk, wouldn't I want to work on the other end?" Tessali's face betrayed the pain of exposing the flat of his back to the hail, but he made no move to stand and escape the barrage. He looked back at the Amnesian Hero. "I'm only trying to stop the ooze. That way, we can make our decision without worrying about your foot"

"You cannot convince me to turn back, if that is the price of your help." The Amnesian Hero moved to step around the elf. "I would rather turn to mud than lose my way in these mazes."

Tessali raised a hand to stop the Thrasson. "It is not the way of the Bleak Cabal to place conditions on its help. We'll trust to the thread. Just let me do what I can."

The Amnesian Hero nodded, more than a little relieved by the elf's generosity. He looked around for someplace to escape the storm. Finding none, he retreated down the corridor to where the hail was not so heavy, unwinding the golden thread as he went. He braced a hand on Jayk's shoulder, then Tessali squatted down and lifted the Thrasson's foot out of the orange fog. A thin veil of steam was rising from the thawing flesh-but not thickly enough to hide its slimy, claylike texture.

Tessali pulled his dagger from its sheath, drawing a suspicious glare from Jayk.

"I warn you, mindtangler, if you try any of your tricks-"

"You'll see that I regret it, I know." Tessali did not even look up as he spoke. "Jayk, I'm well aware that the Amnesian Hero is all that stands between you and my death. The last thing I'm going to do is cause him harm."

With that, Tessali began to probe the thawing flesh. To the relief of the Amnesian Hero, nowhere did the dagger tip sink more than a coin's thickness into the pearly ooze that covered his foot.

Tessali nodded in approval. "Good. It's thawing from the outside. There's no chance of the ooze working its way into your bones." He cleaned his dagger blade on the ground, then returned the weapon to its sheath. "I can't restore your foot to normal – that would require a better healer than I – but I can keep the ooze from consuming the rest of your body."

The Amnesian Hero narrowed his eyes. "You do not mean to cut it off…"

Tessali smiled and shook his head. "No, nothing like that." He felt around on the ground for a moment, then came up with the jagged corner of a broken brick. "This should do nicely."

"To do what?" Jayk demanded, ever suspicious.

"Turn his foot to stone-or brick, in this case," Tessali explained. "When a patient shows an unusual talent for escaping, we are occasionally forced to use such a spell to keep him restrained."

The Thrasson scowled. "I am not fond of being restrained."

"You won't be," Tessali assured him. "You, I'm not going to mortar to the floor."

"I still dislike this idea," the Amnesian Hero said. "Can't you do something else? If we run into trouble, a brick foot will slow me down."

"Not as much as turning into a puddle of ooze," Tessali countered. "I'm sony, but this is all I can do. Besides, you're already lame. The only difference you'll notice is that your foot seems heavier. And I'll change it back the instant we find someone to restore it."

The Amnesian Hero stared at his thawing flesh for several moments, then finally nodded. The elf pressed the stone into the slimy flesh, but jerked his hands away when a deep, rumbling bellow rolled over the passage.

The roar was not nearly so loud or sudden as the thunderclap that had preceded the hailstorm. Rather, it built more gradually, seeming to echo out of all the side corridors at once.

Jayk's big eyes darted from one side passage to another, then settled on Tessali. "You make this sound!"

Only the Amnesian Hero's firm grasp kept her from lunging at the elf. "Leave him alone. Tessali has nothing to do with it."

The bellow sounded again, a little louder than before, then died away. Jayk craned her neck to look back down the passage.

"Zoombee, if Tessali is not causing the sound, who is?"

"The monster of the labyrinth, of course." Continuing to hold his foot above the fog, the Amnesian Hero gestured for Tessali to continue. "I was starting to worry there wasn't one."

Tessali pushed the brick shard into the Thrasson's soft foot. "I'd think it wiser to worry because there is one."

"Despite what you claimed earlier, Tessali, you have not played many mazes, have you?" The Amnesian Hero did not wait for the elf to respond. "If there is a monster, he must be fed. And since he must be fed, there must be some way to put food into the maze. Is all this not true?"

"Of course."

The Amnesian Hero raised his left hand, which was all but hidden beneath the unruly tangle of golden filament. "I think the thread is leading us to that place now."

Tessali frowned, puzzled, then suddenly paled. "You mean we are the food!"

The Thrasson nodded and drew his sword. "I suggest you hurry, Tessali. In my experience, the monster seldom strays far from the food gate." Sign Of One

Again, the bellow rumbled through the labyrinth's thousand passages, overwhelming even the roar of the wall-pounding hail. As before, the sound came from all directions at once, left and right and front and back; the dark sky crackled with its fury, and the brick-paved ground trembled at its might. The Amnesian Hero bent forward, as though that would help his gaze pierce the fog's turbid density. He saw nothing but cascades of white hail vaporizing against orange-glowing iron.

"That one sounded louder," whispered Tessali. To prevent the group from becoming separated in the thick fog, both he and the tiefling were holding onto the Thrasson's amphora sling. "It's getting closer."

"Good." The scalding air had reduced the Amnesian Hero's voice to a croak; each time they rounded a comer, the iron walls seemed to glow more brightly with their orange heat. "We must be nearing the exit."

The Amnesian Hero continued to clump ahead, half-lifting, half-dragging his lame foot. Despite Tessali's assurances, the brick was proving more awkward to walk upon than had the frozen ooze. The Thrasson could never quite tell when the dead thing was resting on the ground, and, after hoisting its heavy bulk so many countless times, his entire leg was burning with fatigue. When they finally met the monster, he would need to kill it quickly; if the creature tried to carry off one of his companions, the Thrasson would be helpless to give chase.

The Amnesian Hero stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Perhaps I should go on alone to hunt the beast down and kill it. I'll leave a loop of thread so we can find each other again."

"No!" Tessali and Jayk spoke at the same time.

"At last we agree on something, Jayk." The scorching heat had reduced Tessali's voice to a raw rasp. "We all stand a better chance if we stay together."

"I will not part from you, Zoombee. Not for a minute."

"As you wish. But stay close. If the monster takes one of you, I won't be able to catch it." The Amnesian Hero scowled in Tessali's direction, then added, "This brick foot is somewhat less than nimble."

"I can cut it off any time you like," replied Tessali.

Refusing to dignify the elf's offer with a response, the Amnesian Hero clumped into the hail. As he moved, he slowly twirled his left wrist ahead of him, winding the thread onto his arm while leaving his other hand free for his sword. Already, the spool had grown so thick that he could not have scratched his ear. If they did not come upon the exit in the next league, his arm would become too bulky to move.

They followed the thread down a series of short, dogleg turns, then found themselves in a region of broad, black-paved passages. The iron walls seemed to loom higher than ever, and the hail fell harder. Through the orange-glowing fog, the Amnesian Hero occasionally saw a dark, window-like square set high on a wall's iron face, but the shapes were always too distant to investigate more carefully. Every now and then, what might have been a tongue of flame licked out of one of these portals. The Thrasson tried to stay in the middle of the avenue, preferring to let the black forms remain a mystery-if that was possible.

They advanced perhaps a thousand paces into this strange region before the Amnesian Hero felt a soft tug on his left arm. So gentle was the pull that he thought he had imagined it, then it happened again.

The Thrasson said nothing and continued forward, trying to convince himself that the sensation was a result of his own weariness. He had, after all, been twirling his arm for untold hours, gathering an ever-increasing burden. Sooner or later, the repetition was bound to take its toll. The tug came again. It was difficult to be certain in the hail and the fog, but this time it seemed to him the thread had bobbed.

The Amnesian Hero felt his heart drop into his stomach. He knew at once the monster had found their thread, but he did not say anything to his companions. From the start, Tessali had despaired of Finding a way out of the mazes, and even Jayk had fallen ominously silent over the last several hours. If he told them what had happened before he thought of a way to counter the misfortune, they would lose heart and surrender to despondency.

"Zoombee, what is happening to the thread?"

"What do you mean?" The Thrasson silently cursed Jayk's watchfulness.

"I see it, too!" Tessali added. "There. It's bobbing."

The Amnesian Hero clumped forward, trying to think fast. "The spool is getting difficult to wind." He raised his hand to display the massive tangle, then cringed as the thread snapped taut and gave a sharp twang. "And, every now and then, a hailstone bounces off the line."

"Zoombee, I don't like it when you lie to me," warned Jayk. "Something pulls on the thread, yes?"

Sensing it would be useless to try hiding the truth, the Amnesian Hero sighed and stopped walking. "Yes, but don't despair. We can still find the exit."

"How?" Jayk demanded.

"I, uh… we know the general direction…"

"We can worry about that later." Tessali, sounding surprisingly resilient in the face of their disaster, spoke with an air of authority. "If something's following that thread, I'm guessing it's the monster. Cut yourself loose, and we'll flee."

"Cut the golden thread? Never!" The Amnesian Hero was appalled at the elf's cowardice. "We'll set an ambush and deal with this monster properly. I will be the bait, of course. The beast will follow the thread straight into my arms."

"And then we attack it from behind!" concluded Jayk.

"If that should prove necessary." The Thrasson's throat, already tender from breathing the hot air, ached from so much talking. "After slaying the Hydra of Thrassos, I think I can kill a single labyrinth monster."

The Amnesian Hero clumped over to a wall and began to retreat, allowing the golden line to spiral off his arm as he moved. Jayk and Tessali walked at his sides, still holding onto the amphora sling and peering over their shoulders, as though they actually expected to see the monster coming. The fog remained thick as a blanket, and the hail continued to hiss and roar as it battered the labyrinth. As they passed beneath one of the windowlike shapes high on the wall, a tongue of yellow flame shot out to crackle above them, laving their heads with blistering heat and filling the air with an acrid, ashy smell.

They moved a little away from the wall. The thread continued to jerk at regular intervals, and again the monster's bellow rumbled through the labyrinth. The roar sounded even louder than before, but no one commented on it. Tessali's expression remained one of grim fear; Jayk's shadowy face seemed more angry than frightened. The Thrasson imagined that she was less afraid of dying than of remaining trapped in the mazes and never reaping her vengeance on Komosahl Trevant.

After a time, they reached the mouth of a side corridor. Although it looked to be as broad as the one in which they had been traveling, the Amnesian Hero thought it would do for their ambush. He sent his companions down the passage, having them count out each step until they could no longer see each other. It required only five paces before their figures were completely obscured by hail and fog.

"Stop!" He had to yell to make himself heard above the thundering hailstones, further abusing his scorched throat. "Wait there until I call. Do you understand?"

The reply came in the form of a barely discernible croak that the Amnesian Hero took to mean yes. He retreated five steps into the intersection and stopped to await his foe. The hail beat a brisk, broken cadence against what remained of his armor, but he doubted the monster would hear it over the roar of the storm. He pushed his sword into its scabbard and caught a few hailstones in his palm, then slipped them into his mouth to quench his thirst. The icy balls tasted like fish, but he let them melt and forced himself to swallow the foul water. If the fight happened to last more than a few moments, he did not want his breathing troubled by a dry throat

The thread continued to tug at his left arm. The monster was winding the line up, suggesting it was a creature of foresight Would the brute pause at the comer to check for an ambush? The Amnesian Hero caught another handful of hail and slipped it into his mouth, then drew his sword again. If he felt a sudden change in the tugging of the line, he would rush-or, rather, hobble-forward to attack. The Thrasson reminded himself to be careful; now that his torso armor had been crushed, his most vulnerable area would be open to a counterstrike. His first priority would be to destroy whatever weapon his foe would be carrying. The next attack would be a crippling blow to a leg, both to put the monster on an even footing with himself and to prevent it from carrying off one of his companions. The third strike would be the killing one.

The Amnesian Hero's planning came to an abrupt end as a tall, manlike silhouette appeared in the fog. Cowering against the battering hail, the figure looked distinctly unmonsterlike. It had a bulky head with a rather squarish crown, a slender hunch-shouldered build, and a pair of skinny, goatlike legs. The creature kept its gaze fixed firmly on the ground as it twined the golden thread around the shaft of a long lance, apparently oblivious to the possibility of ambush.

A monster of ploys and deception, the Amnesian Hero decided; they were the most dangerous kind. He leapt forward, landing brick-foot forward to present his armored flank to the beast, then struck the lance off midway down the shaft. The creature croaked out a hoarse cry of astonishment and suddenly rose into the air, safely lifting its knobby legs over the Thrasson's slashing sword.

A pair of stone-hard hooves slammed one after the other into the Amnesian Hero's shoulder pauldron, driving him back before he could reverse his blade for an upstroke. Unable to bring his brick foot around quickly enough to catch his balance, the Thrasson stumbled and fell on the scorching bricks.

He found himself looking at the underside of what appeared to be a rearing goat. "A bariaur?" he gasped.

The "monster" dropped its forehooves to the bricks, and the Thrasson saw that it was, indeed, a bariaur – and an ancient one at that. Chipped and colorless as they were, the fellow's horns had two full curls. His eyes were rheumy, and a gray, mossy beard covered everything from his cheeks to his chest. His woolly pelt had grown into such a bushy mat of snarls and tangles that the shabby saddlebags laid across his back were barely visible.

The Amnesian Hero brought his sword into a guarding position, but made no move to rise off the hot bricks. "I beg your forgiveness. In this fog, I mistook you for the monster of the labyrinth."

The bariaur's gaze went to the golden spool wound around the Thrasson's arm, then he sighed in disappointment. "It can't be." His voice was brittle with age. "I won't allow it."

"I apologize for my mistake." The Thrasson gathered himself up, moving slowly to avoid alarming the old bariaur. "But you have heard the roars? When I felt the tugging on my line-"

"Nol Be strong, you fool!"

The Amnesian Hero froze in a half-crouch. "Please. I mean you no harm…"

"No harm!" The words were something between a snort and a laugh. "He must go away!"

The bariaur lifted the butt of his broken lance. The Amnesian Hero raised his guard and started to pivot away, but there was no need. The old fellow closed his baggy eyelids and brought the shaft down between his horns, striking himself soundly on his own pate.

"He must go away!"

Confused, the Amnesian Hero thought it best to do nothing. The bariaur remained motionless a moment, then opened his rheumy eyes.

"Still there." The bariaur dosed his eyes and hit himself.

"What are you doing?"

The bariaur struck another blow against his brow, this time without opening his eyes.

"Stop! You'll hurt yourself."

The bariaur brought the shaft down once for each word, at the same time muttering, "He must go away. Must go away."

Realizing that speaking would only make matters worse, the Amnesian Hero shoved his sword into its scabbard and clumped forward to restrain the mad bariaur. After suffering an inadvertent blow as the club hit him on a backstroke, the Thrasson caught hold of the shaft and wrenched it from the old fellow's grasp.

"I'll hold this for you." The last thing the Amnesian Hero wanted was for the bariaur to knock himself senseless – at least until the old fellow led the way to where he had found his end of the golden thread. "Beating yourself will not make me vanish."

The bariaur slapped his hands over his ears and, without opening his eyes, spun toward the side corridor, where Jayk and Tessali were just emerging from the fog. Both had their daggers in hand.

"Don't harm him!" the Amnesian Hero warned.

The pair stopped two paces short of the bariaur, who continued to cover his ears and keep his eyes closed.

"What are you doing here?" asked the Thrasson. "I didn't call for you."

"We hear yelling." Jayk flicked a hand skyward. "With all this noise, we think it is you, yes?"

"It wasn't me; it was our monster." The Amnesian Hero gestured at the bariaur. "I think he's what you call barmy. The old fellow keeps beating himself and saying that I must go away."

Tessali raised an eyebrow, then turned his gaze upon the cowering bariaur. After a moment, the elf pursed his lips and nodded grimly.

The Thrasson retrieved the severed lance and displayed the golden thread wrapped around its shaft. "If you convince him to show us where he started collecting this, we can find the exit."

The elf held his finger to his lips, then sheathed his dagger. The three companions waited silently in the battering hail. At last the bariaur took his hands from his ears and looked up. When he saw Tessali and Jayk standing before him, the old fellow wailed in despair and dropped to his foreknees.

"Silverwind, you old fool!" he cried.

Silverwind began to slap himself between the horns again. The Amnesian Hero moved to restrain him, but Tessali motioned the Thrasson back.

"You were almost out, and now you've lost control again," Silverwind complained.

He ran his rheumy gaze over the unexpected company, then he pitched forward into the fog. There was a sharp crack, then the bariaur's head rose briefly into view and disappeared again. Another crack followed, then another, and the Thrasson realized Silverwind was butting his horns against the ground. So powerful were the blows that pieces of brick began to fly whenever the old fellow raised his head. Still, Tessali refused to let the Amnesian Hero intervene. Finally, after the flying brick shards had given way to powder, the old fellow stopped. He left his head beneath the fog and, despite the smell of singed fur beginning to fill the air around his forequarters, made no move to return to his feet.

Tessali squatted on his haunches and waited patiently. When Silverwind finally looked up, the elf touched his fingertips to his own chest. "I am Tessali." He gestured at Jayk, then the Thrasson. "My friends-"

"Do not presume!" hissed Jayk. "I am no friend of yours."

The elf accepted the interruption without changing expressions, then continued, "My… companions are Jayk the Snake, and the Amnesian Hero." He extended a hand to the bariaur. "Why don't you stand? Your fur is beginning to scorch."

Silverwind glanced toward his knees, then allowed the elf to help him up.

"You were saying that we must go away," Tessali said. "Why is that?"

"Because I don't want you here." Silverwind's reply was meek. "You're in my way."

"In the way of what?" Tessali asked.

Silverwind turned half away, regarding the elf out of the comer of his eye. "They're not here." He closed his baggy eyelids. "Be strong, Silverwind."

"You can keep your eyes closed as long as you like, Silverwind. We'll still be here when you open them."

Silverwind covered his ears again.

Realizing that this might take some time, the Thrasson began to twine the thread off his arm onto the head of the bariaur's spear. If he wanted to avoid cutting it, working the golden strand onto its proper spool was going to be a major task.

After a moment, Tessali reached up and gently pulled one of the bariaur's hands down. Silverwind gasped and recoiled from the touch, then stared at Tessali as though the elf were a pit fiend.

"You see?" said Tessali. "We're still here. You can't make us go away."

With astonishing quickness for a bariaur his age, Silverwind dropped his head and butted Tessali in the chest. The blow drove the elf straight to the ground, where he landed with a loud groan. The Amnesian Hero rushed to restrain the bariaur, but, with his brick foot, he was not nearly so quick as Jayk. Before the Thrasson had taken his second step, the tiefling was at Silverwind's side, pushing her dagger up toward the bariaur's throat.

"Jayk, no!"

The tiefling stopped, her arm half-extended above her head and the tip of her knife pressing against the ropy outline of the bariaur's jugular. Her fangs were folded down and her pupils were shaped like diamonds. Silverwind stood motionless as a statue, his astonished gaze fixed upon the top of her head.

"But he attacked us, Zoombee!" Jayk complained.

The Amnesian Hero knew better than to appeal to her compassion. He raised the lance head, displaying the spool of thread the bariaur had gathered.

"We don't know where Silverwind started this. If you advance him to the next stage, how will we find the exit? How will you avenge yourself on Trevant?"

Jayk rolled her dark eyes. "You don't need to sweet talk me, Zoombee. If you say don't cut him, I don't cut him."

"Then be good enough to step back." Tessali rose, rubbing his chest but otherwise looking little worse for wear. "I'm sure Silverwind realizes by now that he won't be rid of us by attacking."

Jayk ignored Tessali and did not step away until the Amnesian Hero nodded. Once the knife was pulled away from Silverwind's throat, the bariaur closed his eyes and shook his head sadly.

"You were so close. So close."

"So close to what?" asked Tessali. "Tell me, Silverwind."

The bariaur opened his eyes and glared at the elf. He looked past Tessali at Jayk, then he turned to stare at the Amnesian Hero. "Why did you have to imagine them, old fool? You were so near escape; you had the golden thread. You would have made the exit soon."

"Wonderful," Jayk growled. "A Signer."

"Signer?" the Amnesian Hero echoed.

"Sign of One." Tessali rubbed his chin, continuing to focus on Silverwind. "They consider themselves to be the center of the multiverse and claim to create everything in it through the power of their minds. Silverwind's isolation seems to have convinced him that he is the only real being in the maze – or even in the entire multiverse."

Silverwind snatched the head of his severed lance from the hands of the Amnesian Hero, then turned to walk away. Tessali shook his head sharply, then pointed at the bariaur's arm and cupped his hand as though grasping something. The Thrasson nodded and grabbed the old fellow's shoulders.

"Silverwind, you should know better," said Tessali. "You cannot walk away from the creations of your own mind, anymore than you can walk away from this hailstorm you imagined. If you want to be rid of us, you must treat with us first."

The bariaur's shoulders sagged. "I suppose I must." He turned to face them. "Very well. Tell me your names again."

The elf smiled. "You will be glad of your decision. Call me Tessali."

A fierce bellow rumbled through the labyrinth, so deep and loud that it shook the bricks under the Thrasson's feet. The orange fog swirled around the company's hips, as though stirred by a wind they could not feel, and, for an instant, it seemed that even the hailstones paused in their battering.

"I thought he was the monster," Jayk complained.

" I… I am." Silverwind's hands were shaking, his bushy brow raised in fear. "What you hear is my dark self."

"Then tell it to be…"

Jayk's command came to a sudden halt as a massive gray paw emerged from the hailstorm to cover her face. The Thrasson glimpsed the shaggy silhouette of a huge, bearlike figure in the fog behind the tiefling, then the creature pulled her away and disappeared into the storm.

"Jayk!"

The Amnesian Hero grabbed Silverwind's broken lance and hurled it after the vanished beast, then reached for his sword and clumped after the monster as fast as he could. Tessali's figure dashed past, and there was a horrid scream. The elf's gray silhouette rose high in the hazy air and came down, striking the ground with a muffled crunch. Only a step and a half later did the Thrasson glimpse the monster again.

The beast was much larger than a bear, with a high, pointy head, a flat face, and a circular maw lined all around by stubby, sharp-peaked teeth. Long mats of ice-gray fur dangled from its entire body, lending it an indistinct shape that made it even more difficult to distinguish from the driving hail. Jayk's legs, kicking wildly, protruded from a particularly large snarl of fur. That was all the Thrasson saw of her before the creature vanished into the hailstorm.

The Amnesian Hero heard Tessali groaning on the ground and barely managed to lift his brick foot in time to step over the fallen elf. The Thrasson noticed that the golden thread was not winding off his arm, but trailing down toward the ground; Silverwind's lance had not lodged in the monster. He had no way to follow the creature, and, judging by the speed with which it had disappeared, less than no chance of overtaking it.

A clatter of hooves sounded at the Amnesian Hero's side, then Silverwind streaked past at a full gallop. The old bariaur lowered his head and disappeared into the storm.

In the next instant, there was a dull thud, a deafening bellow, and a muffled crash. Silverwind cried out, then Jayk shrieked in anger. The Amnesian Hero clumped another step forward and saw the back side of the monster three paces ahead, rising out of the ground fog as though it were struggling to its hands and knees. The Thrasson saw no sign of either bariaur or tiefling until the beast roared and raised its arm.

Jayk was clinging to its wrist, her face buried deep in its tangled fur. The monster bellowed sharply, then snapped its hand toward the wall. When the hairy arm reached the end of its arc, the tiefling seemed to hang on the creature's wrist for just an instant before coming loose and slamming into the hot iron wall.

The Amnesian Hero reached the monster and brought his sword down on the hairy arm that had just flung off Jayk. So tough was the beast's flesh that even that star-forged blade of his barely sliced its sinews; had the blow not landed exactly in the joint, the limb would have been saved. As it was, the Thrasson's strike, well-placed as always, cleaved off the great arm at the shoulder.

No geysers of red blood sprayed from the wound. The creature did not bellow in anguish or collapse in shock. Instead, a substance like black sap oozed from the wound, and the monster twisted around to look at its attacker. The Thrasson raised his sword and saw a gray blur arcing at him out of the fog. He pivoted into the blow, shielding himself behind his shoulder.

The strike landed full on his pauldron, slamming the Amnesian Hero into the creature's hip with such force that, had he not taken the blow on god-forged bronze, he would surely have perished. The Thrasson merely groaned, then, finding himself pinned against the monster, swung at its exposed midsection.

Again, his star-forged blade bit deep, but not deep enough to slice the great creature in half. The beast slammed a boulder-sized fist into the Thrasson's shoulder pauldron, with no more effect than before.

The Amnesian Hero tried to clump forward to attack again, only to discover himself stuck to the monster's side. He attempted to jerk his sword back and found it caught fast in the beast's black-oozing belly wound.

The creature opened its hand, extending a long yellow talon at the end of each Finger. Had the Amnesian Hero not stared into the eyes of death a dozen times before – and sometimes more closely than this – he might have panicked or despaired. But he well knew that salvation often comes at that last instant, when the vicious attacker, sensing victory, grows reckless and moves in for the kill too quickly.

As the monster reached for him, the Thrasson switched his grip and shoved the hilt of his sword forward. The blade pivoted on the edge of the wound, driving the tip deep into the creature's belly.

The Amnesian Hero did not hear the monster's bellow in his ears; he felt it in his shuddering sword. He grasped the hilt with all his strength, then hunched down between his shoulder pauldrons and tried not to scream as the beast's claws closed around his abdomen.

With a sound like tearing sailcloth, the monster ripped the Thrasson away from its hip. The Amnesian Hero felt his sword slipping from his grasp and redoubled his efforts to keep hold of the hilt. For a moment, he seemed stuck, then, with a long, sticky slurp, the blade came free.

The Amnesian Hero found himself sailing backward through the hail and realized that whether he hit the wall or the ground, the amphora would break his fall. He flung his feet up over his head, turning a half-somersault in the air, then smashed face first into the hot iron wall. The searing pain came an instant before the aching agony, and both came before he fell headfirst to the ground.

As he landed in a crumpled heap, the Thrasson managed to twist onto his side and keep his full weight from landing on the amphora. Nevertheless, he heard the tiny rasp of the cracked neck's two halves grating against each other. He could not tell whether his skin hurt more from its brief contact with the scorching iron or his bones ached more from the impact, but there was no time to contemplate the matter.

The Amnesian Hero scrambled to his feet, then spun toward the center of the passage to see Silverwind trotting up to him. The bariaur held Tessali's groaning Figure in his arms. The elf's cloak was shredded and bloody. Though one knee was bent at an impossible angle and his eyes were glazed with pain, he remained conscious and alert.

"By my name, I am glad I imagined you!" Silverwind exclaimed, stopping at the Thrasson's side. "All the same, I wish it hadn't been at the other end of my golden thread."

"My golden thread." The Amnesian Hero stepped around the bariaur, peering through the hailstorm in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the monster of the labyrinth. "What happened to the beast?"

Silverwind grinned proudly. "I imagined it out of existence."

"I suspect it will be harder to destroy than that." The Thrasson glanced along the wall, looking for Jayk. "Did you see what became of the tiefling?"

"Zoombee, I am here."

The Amnesian Hero turned to see Jayk a short distance away, rising out of the fog and holding her temples with both fingers. Her pupils were round and her fangs folded out of sight. The tiefling's shadowy complexion made it difficult to look for injury, but aside from her furrowed brow, the Thrasson saw no outward sign of harm.

"Are you hurt, Jayk?" asked the Amnesian Hero.

"My head, she feels like a shattered egg."

"But can you run?" asked Silverwind.

"I had thought I was advancing to the One Death," Jayk answered. "But I am not so lucky. I can mn, as long as I can do it gently."

"Then I suggest we be on our way." The bariaur nodded toward the intersection. "I don't have much control over my dark self, I fear. It has a way of reasserting itself at the worst times." Ash Winds

Twining thread about his wrist as he hobbled along, the Amnesian Hero followed Silverwind back toward the intersection where they had met just a few minutes earlier. Despite the chance that the monster, wounded and furious, would be coming after them, the Thrasson had no intention of leaving a loose end of thread lying about the foggy maze; as one of his few connections to the past, the golden strand was far too precious for such carelessness.

After the tumult of battle, the roaring hail seemed almost quiet in his ears. The aching in his bones was already subsiding, but his seared, chest still burned where it had touched the hot iron walls. The air seemed more scorching than ever. No number of foul-tasting hailstones could quench his thirst, and his parched throat felt ready to swell shut. He uttered a silent prayer to Hermes, begging the god of journeys to help the old bariaur retrace his steps quickly; if they did not escape the labyrinth soon, the Thrasson would perish of thirst.

At the Amnesian Hero's side walked Jayk. She kept her fingers pressed to her temples, as though trying to keep her brain from shaking inside her skull, and she seemed somewhat dazed. The Thrasson would have liked to stop and let the tiefling gather her scrambled thoughts, but that was out of the question until they found a safe place to rest. At least she was in better shape than Tessali, whose groans periodically overwhelmed even the battering hail.

As the Amnesian Hero approached the intersection, the angle at which the golden thread descended into the fog grew steadily steeper. Soon, it pointed almost straight down, and the Thrasson realized he had to be standing almost on top of the other end.

"Silverwind, wait a moment." The Amnesian Hero stopped and bent to retrieve the lance around which the bariaur had twined his end of the thread. "I don't want to lose you in this storm."

"Until I have treated with you, I don't see how that is possible." Silverwind turned around to see what the Amnesian Hero was doing. "But we really must – oh!"

The bariaur squinted down the corridor, then pinched his wrinkled face into a mask of self-reproach. "No, you old fool! Don't lose control now!"

Without" rising, the Thrasson pivoted on his good foot. Through the curtain of hailstones, he saw a shaggy silhouette, barely perceptible, rising out of the fog. So efficient was the creature's camouflage that the Amnesian Hero could tell it was facing away 'from him only by the location of its missing arm.

"Zoombee, why is Silverwind leaving?" Jayk's voice was low and puzzled. The bariaur was fleeing. "You told him to wait. I'll make kiss with him, yes?"

"No! He's doing the right thing. I want you to go with him." The Thrasson pushed her toward the bariaur. "And don't bring your lips anywhere near him."

Jayk sighed, then groaned as she started after Silverwind.

Keeping his gaze fixed on the monster, the Amnesian Hero squatted on his heels and ran his hand over the fog-shrouded bricks. When he did not find the broken lance, he grabbed the thread and began to pull. The beast slowly turned toward him, holding its dismembered arm in its good hand. The creature pressed the base of the severed limb to its truncated shoulder and carefully held it there.

The Thrasson glanced behind him and saw Jayk following Silverwind into the hail. He gave the thread a rough jerk and felt it vibrate as the spool rolled across the bricks, but he did not find the lance itself.

The monster of the labyrinth took its hand away from its dismembered arm. Though the limb fell slack, it did not fall off.

"By Zeus, you are going to be difficult to kill." Even that quiet whisper hurt the Amnesian Hero's raw throat.

The beast gazed in Silverwind's direction and started shambling forward. The Amnesian Hero swept his hand over the bricks one last time and found nothing. He rose and clumped away, drawing his sword and keeping a careful watch over his shoulder.

The monster exhibited no particular hurry to catch up. Like the Amnesian Hero himself, it seemed to have concluded that this battle would be won by patience and providence, not ferocity or stealth. It would stalk its quarry at a distance, ready to spring when they finally grew distracted or collapsed from thirst.

The Amnesian Hero reached the intersection, where he found Silverwind waiting. The bariaur held Tessali's battered form in his arms, and Jayk was at his side.

"I don't see the monster." The bariaur sounded more relieved than was warranted.

The Amnesian Hero glanced back and saw that the beast had vanished into the storm. "The monster is there, be assured. You cannot imagine it away."

"Of course I can." Silverwind twisted around to scowl at the Thrasson, drawing a groan of agony from the elf in his arms.

Now that the Amnesian Hero was closer, he could see that the monster had opened a number of gashes in Tessali's side, in several places baring the elf's ribs.

"How does Tessali fare?"

"He needs my undivided attention, if he is not to fade away. I'll think on him when we find a sheltered place to stop."

"Let us go, then." The Amnesian Hero turned in the direction from which Silverwind had come, only to discover the bariaur facing the opposite way. "What are you doing? Show me to where you found the thread."

The bariaur shook his head. "I was following it in the opposite direction."

"That does not matter." As he spoke, the Thrasson pivoted on his brick foot, keeping a careful watch for the labyrinth monster. "The exit lies where you first found the string."

"That's ludicrous! Why would I imagine a golden thread leading away from the exit?"

The Amnesian Hero frowned, unsure of how to answer. Tessali seemed to have had the most success pretending to accept the mad bariaur's logic, but the Thrasson was not adept at such maneuvers.

"I cannot say why you would do such a thing. But when I appeared in the maze, I had the spool with me." The Amnesian Hero thought he saw a silhouette slipping through the hail behind Silverwind. He stepped around the bariaur and saw nothing, then displayed the tangle of thread wrapped around his hand. "The barrel is in my hand now, inside this tangle. If we had time, I would show it to you."

Jayk squinted at the Amnesian Hero, as though she were having trouble seeing him. "Perhaps you're hissh way…" The tiefling's words were slurred and slow. "Hissh way out."

Silverwind's eyes lit in sudden comprehension. "Yes, of course. You are my way out. Why didn't I see it before?"

"You must show me where you found the thread." The Amnesian Hero's voice was little more than a gravelly rasp. All this talking had left his throat as raw as a scuffed knee. "The exit is there, even if you did not notice it."

"How could I have, when I had not yet found you?" With that, Silverwind danced around and started up the passage at a trot. Though the pace seemed gentle enough for the bariaur, it was all Jayk and the Amnesian Hero could do to keep up. The Thrasson clumped along beside the bariaur's rear quarters, one hand holding his sword and the other trailing the golden thread. He did his best to maintain a watch, but whenever he turned to look over his shoulder, he fell a step behind. His throat felt like it was growing smaller with every scorching breath, while the leg lifting his brick foot began to throb with a dull, deep ache.

Jayk did better than the Amnesian Hero, running alongside the bariaur with a steady, fluid stride. She complained frequently about her throbbing head, and also about how the constant jarring aggravated her pain. After a while, the tiefling stopped pumping her arms for balance so she could keep her fingers pressed to her temples. Not long after that, she started to stumble.

Still, their guide ran on through the storm. How Silverwind navigated all the twists and turns so confidently, the Amnesian Hero could not comprehend. He could barely see from the bariaur's rear quarters to his curling horns, yet the old fellow rushed through the hail and the fog as though he could see a hundred paces ahead. He would suddenly turn down a broad corridor masked by a curtain of gray hail, then dart toward a solid wall of iron, only to round a hidden buttress and rush into a network of narrow, twisting passages. Never did the old bariaur lead them into a dead-end blind, nor, as far as the Amnesian Hero could tell, circle back upon a path they had already taken.

The golden line dangling from the Thrasson's wrist always remained taut, but no matter how convoluted their course became, or how many comers they rounded, it never seemed to snag or drag. The Amnesian Hero took this to mean that he was dragging the broken lance along behind him, though he realized there might be other explanations. The thread was obviously magic, for instance, and perhaps that prevented it from tangling.

At last, the inevitable happened: Jayk stumbled and disappeared into the fog. There was a groan and two slaps, then the tiefling began to wail. Silverwind halted and turned around, and the Amnesian Hero kneeled at her side.

"Jayk, quiet!" The Thrasson feared her cries would draw the monster of the labyrinth. "I'm here."

"Zoombee! The spots, there are too many of them in my eyes!"

The Amnesian Hero pulled the tiefling to her feet. Her dark eyes remained unfocused and glassy, even when he poked his fingertips at them.

"She's lost her sight," said Silverwind. "I can carry her. Put her on my back."

The Thrasson made no move to do as the bariaur requested. "Her headache has been getting worse."

"Of course – she banged her skull," said Silverwind. "But I can't do anything about it here. When we get to a quiet place, I'll take care of it."

Jayk clutched the Amnesian Hero's arm and nodded. "I am strong enough to hold his waist, Zoombee. I only panicked because I felt lost. As long as I know you will not leave me in this place, I will be fine."

"Never! I promise, Jayk."

The tiefling managed a weak smile. "Then I am not worried."

The Thrasson helped her onto Silverwind's back, and the small company resumed its flight. The Amnesian Hero clumped along at the bariaur's flank, keeping a wary watch over his shoulder and expecting their guide to duck into some sheltered hiding place at any moment. Silverwind merely continued to trot along, picking his way through the comers and intersections with never a doubt

After what seemed an eternity of running, the Amnesian Hero could take no more. His parched throat seemed in danger of bursting into flames with every breath, even his good leg was trembling with fatigue, and it was all he could do to drag his brick foot along behind him.

"Silverwind, stop!" The croaking words sounded more slaad than human. "I can't… keep this up."

The bariaur did not slow. "Only a little farther. I can almost picture the conjunction now."

The Thrasson tripped and fell. For a moment, he allowed himself to believe he was too tired to stand – then he felt a tug on the golden thread and thought of the monster of the labyrinth. If it was following, now would be the perfect time for it to attack. He drew a fiery breath into his aching lungs and, with a terrific growl, pushed himself to his feet

Silverwind stood a few paces ahead, waiting impatiently. The Amnesian Hero spun away from him, half-expecting to see the monster charging out of the storm.

There was nothing but hail.

Silverwind clopped to the Thrasson's side. Jayk sat slumped against the bariaur's back, eyes closed and winsome face entirely blank; only her arms, still locked about the bariaur's waist, suggested that she remained conscious. There could be no doubt about Tessali's wakefulness, however; the constant lament of pain that poured from his lips sent shivers down the Amnesian Hero's spine.

Silverwind shook his head in disappointment, at the same time eyeing the Thrasson. "Why do I always do this to myself? I almost have the conjunction in mind, and now I lose my concentration."

"Too… tired," the Amnesian Hero croaked. "Worried… about… the monster."

The bariaur peered into the hail, then snorted and shook his head. "Don't start imagining that again." Silverwind was speaking to himself, not the Thrasson. "The thing is out of mind."

"Stop… it!" The Amnesian Hero's patience was as exhausted as his body. "You are not imagining this! It's really happening to you – to us!"

Silverwind's bushy eyebrows came together. "Of course it's really happening. It's really happening because I'm really imagining it."

"No! Do you feel this?" The Amnesian Hero slapped the bariaur's leg with the flat of his blade. "I did it-not your imagination."

Silverwind's eyes grew watery. "It's happening to me again!" He dropped Tessali into the fog, drawing a howl of pain, then started beating himself about the head. "Why can't I control my own thoughts?"

"Because we are not your thoughts!"

The Amnesian Hero sheathed his sword, then reached down and helped Tessali stand. Silverwind continued to pummel himself.

Tessali leaned close to the Thrasson's ear. "Don't… confuse… issue." The elf winced with each rasping word. "You must… accept what… Silverwind says."

The Amnesian Hero's jaw dropped. "You believe we're phantoms of his imagination?"

The elf's eyes grew stem. "His delus-ah-theory… is as sensible… as anything. If it… gets us out, I will accept… anything."

The Amnesian Hero rolled his eyes and looked back down the corridor. When he saw no shaggy silhouette skulking through the hail, he shrugged and looked back to Silverwind – and saw Jayk's limp form slipping from the bariaur's back. The tiefling hit the ground with no sound but a dull thud.

"Jayk?"

There was no answer. The Amnesian Hero slipped Tessali onto Silverwind's back, then stooped over and, rather awkwardly, scooped Jayk up in the crook of his arm. The tiefling's breath came slow and shallow. There was no sign of fresh injury, but the murky hair on the back of her head felt sticky with old blood.

The Amnesian Hero stepped closer to the bariaur, who was still pummeling himself about the head. "As you wish, Silverwind."

The bariaur stopped hitting himself. "What?"

"Don't be difficult. You have regained control of your mind." The Thrasson shoved Jayk toward the bariaur. "Now tend to your thoughts. I fear Jayk is in danger of fading."

Silverwind sighed and reached toward Jayk. Instead of taking her into his arms, he thumbed open her eyelids. Even the Thrasson could see that she was in poor shape. Her pupils were mere pinpricks, one a square and the other a triangle. An astonished blat slipped the bariaur's lips, then he reached around the back of her head and began muttering to himself as he worked his fingers through her blood-matted hair.

"How does she fare?" The Amnesian Hero's voice was sounding increasingly rough. "What happened to her?"

Silverwind continued muttering and did not answer.

Tessali, who was peering over the bariaur's shoulder, whispered, "Cracked skull… If Silverwind cannot save her… I might… but need… quiet. Try… not-" The elf scowled, his gaze shifting past the Amnesian Hero's shoulder.

Before Tessali could say more, the Thrasson thrust Jayk into Silverwind's arms. Yanking his sword from its scabbard as he moved, he spun around and saw nothing but gray hail.

"Where is it, Tessali?"

"Behind you… now," gasped the elf. "But don't worry… I saw something flapping… It's a black… ribbon."

"A ribbon?" The Amnesian Hero craned his neck and glimpsed a black tatter flapping in the hail. "What is it doing there?"

"Working… out of the amphora," said Tessali. "There's a crack-"

"In the neck of the jar. I know." The Amnesian Hero stepped to Silverwind's side, then turned around to present the amphora to Tessali. "Push the cloth back. I fear what might happen if that ribbon gets loose."

"Why?" Tessali grunted in pain, then the Thrasson felt him pushing against the amphora. "This looks like… common flax."

"Whatever it is, it is-" The words caught in the Thrasson's aching throat. He had to pause to work up enough saliva to coat his parched gullet, then continued, "It is Poseidon's gift to the Lady of Pain. I doubt there is anything common about it."

"By my curled horns!" Without warning, Silverwind turned to leave. "How feeble my mind has grown!"

The Amnesian Hero glimpsed a shaggy figure ambling through the hail, pulling up the golden thread and wadding it into a great tangled ball.

"Cut the thread!" Tessali's command came as Silverwind began to gallop away.

"I'd sooner cut you!" The Amnesian Hero clumped after his companions, wondering why, after staying to battle the monster earlier, Silverwind had suddenly decided to abandon him.

"This thread is magical."

"Dead men have no use for magic!"

Already, Silverwind and his passengers were a silhouette in the hail. The Amnesian Hero looked back and saw the monster of the labyrinth following at a cautious distance. It was drawing the line up hand-over-hand, using both arms with equal ease. The Thrasson saw no hint of weakness, or even of lingering stiffness, in the limb that had been cut off. To his disappointment, the only sign of its earlier injury lay in its wariness; the creature was trailing him at the edge of visibility, discernible only because of the golden brightness of the thread ball in its hands.

As the Amnesian Hero turned to look forward again, he ran headlong into Silverwind's bulky saddlebags.

"This way."

The bariaur trotted around a salient of iron wall, leading the way into a section of narrow, zigzagging corridors with two branches at every turn. The Amnesian Hero's throat grew so dry that it seemed to stick shut between breaths. In the cramped passages, the hail echoed off the hot iron walls louder than ever, but it seemed that fewer of the icy balls could find their way down into the bottom of the tight confines. The storm waned to little more than a tempest. Visibility stretched to more than an arrow's flight, and the Thrasson saw that the walls were speckled both high and low with the same window-shaped squares he had noticed in the broader sections of the labyrinth.

Several times, gouts of flame spewed from one of dark openings to fill the narrow passage with roiling balls of fire. Silverwind seemed to have a sixth sense about these occurrences and never failed to stop or scurry ahead just in time to keep the company from being charred. Hoping to learn the old bariaur's secret, the Amnesian Hero often tried to peer into the depths of the black squares. He never saw anything except a barrier of inky blackness.

The monster of the labyrinth lagged far behind, lingering at the edge of visibility, often vanishing entirely as the Amnesian Hero and his companions rounded a comer. Whenever their pace slowed even slightly, however, the beast rushed them, bellowing its wall-shaking roar and driving the weary companions forward at a sprint The thing was trying to run them to ground, the Thrasson knew, and it was succeeding. His tongue felt so swollen he could hardly draw breath. He had long ago sweated away the last of his water; now his blood was growing thick and gummy, and his heart had to pump like a forge bellows to force it through his veins.

The Amnesian Hero waited until they rounded the next corner, then caught Silverwind by the tail.

The bariaur danced around, his eyes flashing with irritation. "What now?"

The Thrasson tried to answer, but his tongue was too swollen to shape the words – or to let pass the air that would give them voice. He managed only a gurgled rasp, then pointed at his sword and gestured back down the way they had come.

"No, that won't do." Silverwind shook his head resolutely. "Slaying the dark self is impossible. It only comes back stronger than before."

The Thrasson wanted to retort that they had no choice, but could force no more than an angry croak from his throat

Silverwind looked the Amnesian Hero up and down. "Well, I can't cany you, too. Not with the load I've already got." He hefted Jayk as though to illustrate, and the Thrasson saw that her complexion had faded to an alarming blue. "I suppose we'll have to hide."

The bariaur galloped a dozen paces down a branch corridor, then turned toward one of the windowlike squares on the wall. The Amnesian Hero half-expected Silverwind and his passengers to smash headlong into the inky blackness, but they simply passed through, as though they had stepped across the threshold of Rivergate's dark door. The Thrasson started to follow, then barely escaped being charred to cinder as a gout of flame shot from the square.

The Amnesian Hero first croaked in shock, then gurgled in anguish, despairing at how quickly death could come in the mazes.

In the next instant, Silverwind reappeared, still holding Tessali and Jayk. The bariaur and his passengers had not emerged from the black square so much as appeared beside it.

"Come along, Thrasson!" barked the bariaur. "If we let the dark self chase us through this conjunction, we'll be running for the next epoch."

Still in shock, the Amnesian Hero began to clump forward. He tried to ask about the gout of flame he had seen, but could not force the words from his throat.

"Cut… thread." Having ridden on Silverwind's back for the entire chase, Tessali had not yet lost his voice to thirst. "If beast follows… doomed."

Reluctantly, the Thrasson nodded and stopped beside another of the black squares. Intending to throw the thread through the conjunction and misdirect the monster, he wrapped a loop around the hilt of his dagger, then cut the golden filament with his star-forged sword.

The strand had hardly separated before the entire length of thread vanished, including the coil wrapped around his arm and the wooden spool in his hand. His stomach went hollow with loss, but he had no time to dwell on the feeling. A deafening bellow echoed through the labyrinth, followed by the distant, heavy thuds of the monster's pounding feet.

The Amnesian Hero rushed to Silverwind's side, then together they all leapt through the window of darkness.

There is a great roaring, and at first the Amnesian Hero thinks he is falling: the wind whips his hair, roars in his ears, nettles his scorched chest. Now the ash begins to scour his eyes; he sucks it in through his nose, he tastes it coating his swollen tongue, and he believes he has been incinerated by one of those flame gouts that spew from the black squares. Then his feet find purchase on something powdery but solid. He sees Silverwind standing before him, almost glowing in the strange, pearly light. Slowly the Thrasson's eyes begin to discern between the cloud of ash howling through the air and the river of ash swirling about his legs and the ramparts of ash flanking his shoulders, and he is delighted to realize he is still in the mazes.

The fool.

Yes, I am still watching. Even in the mazes, the Lady of Pain is always watching, as I am watching that scrap of black cloth that flutters from the Thrasson's cracked amphora. The ash wind has caught it, and soon the ash wind will pull it free, and what then?

Will it flutter through the mazes forever, always searching for what it can never find? Or will it rise up through that void in my chest where I once had a heart? I have not decided.

I have not decided.

I have not decided whether that strand of Poseidon's net caught me for good or ill, whether that one scrap of dream (I dare not call it memory) makes me weaker or stronger: better to know the source of the Pains, perhaps; better to know the reason for this emptiness in my chest, certainly – but what I know, I know only the half of.

And there lies the danger, does it not?

If ignorance is bliss and knowledge power, what has the King of Seas sent me? Half a truth, at best; half a memory, at worst; there is no help for it. I have seen what I have seen; a crack has opened, and I could not stop that black tatter from tearing free if I wanted to – and forgive me everyone everywhere – I do not want to!

"Do you want to mark our trail?" Silverwind grabbed the Amnesian Hero's arm and started to tug him down the passage, toward the dark mouth of a distant intersection. "Get away from that conjunction! Didn't you see how they torch up?"

The Thrasson, still unable to speak, scowled and peered over his shoulder. The conjunction appeared almost the same on this side as on the other: a black square, so flat and featureless it looked more like a painting than a doorway. Without any visible support, it hung motionless in the ash cloud, the only thing in the labyrinth that the howling wind seemed incapable of swaying. The iron-walled passages beyond the window remained cloaked beneath a veil of inky darkness; the monster of the labyrinth – or the Lady of Pain herself – could have been standing on the other side, and the Amnesian Hero would not have known it.

As the Thrasson studied the conjunction, the black ribbon flapping from the amphora's cracked neck finally came loose. He snatched at the scrap and missed, then tried again when the swirling ash wind changed direction and whipped the rag around his head. The tatter dodged his fingers as though it were alive, circling him two more times before it finally sailed past Silverwind. It floated about half the distance to the intersection and became caught in another whirlwind.

Hoping to catch the ribbon before it vanished altogether, the Amnesian Hero squeezed past his companions and went after it. He had no idea what to do even if he caught the scrap, but he knew miserly Poseidon would seize any excuse to withhold the promised payment. When the Thrasson returned to Arborea, he was determined that he would be able to report that the Lady of Pain had received the entire contents of the amphora.

As the Amnesian Hero clumped forward, he was relieved to see a black stripe flashing amidst the gray ash of the whirlwind. Then the stripe became a solid band, the band began to widen both up and down, and soon the entire swirling ash cloud had turned as black as shadow.

The whirlwind began to slow, shaping itself into the silhouette of a huge, barrel-chested giant. The Amnesian Hero's brick foot dropped like an anchor and brought him to a gape-mouthed stop. He felt as if the howling ash winds had stirred his thoughts into a muddle. He could not quite comprehend what had happened to the black tatter, or how he was going to recapture a shadow and feed it back into the amphora.

"Who wishes to pass this way?" So loud was the question that it shook tiny avalanches of ash off the passage walls.

"Aigggh!" cried Silverwind. "What has risen from the depths of your foul mind now, old fool?"

The giant took a single step forward, leaving his shadow behind and bringing himself belt-to-nose with the Amnesian Hero. The brute was as broad as the passage, with a pair of lice-ridden lion skins girding his loins and an iron club the size of a galley oar in his hand. His legs were big as trees, his skin as coarse as pumice stone, and his hairy belly so huge it bulged over the Thrasson's head like a billowing sail.

"Who wishes to travel the road of Periphetes?"

Coated as it was with ash, the Amnesian Hero's throat was much too dry to shape an answer-but he knew better than to think any answer would satisfy the giant. He had fought enough of the brutes to realize that Periphetes was about to demand a toll, and that the toll would be one they would not care to pay.

The Thrasson slammed the hilt of his sword into Periphetes's kneecap, then deftly leaned aside as the giant brought down a great palm to slap the irritation. Before the hand could rise again, the Amnesian Hero touched his blade to the middle knuckle, using just enough strength to inflict an admonishing prick and pin the great appendage in placemen of renown did not fell even the greediest of giants without first warning them to behave.

Periphetes lowered his head to peer over his enormous belly, showing a huge moon-shaped face with a grimy thatch of beard and a cavernous pug-nose. When the giant found his hand pinned to his own kneecap, he poised his great club over the Thrasson's head.

"Don't make me smash you, little man."

The Thrasson wagged a free finger at Periphetes, then gently pushed his sword forward. The star-forged blade sliced through the giant's thick hide until it drew blood, illustrating just how easily it could pierce hand and knee alike. The giant bellowed, but wisely refrained from bringing his club down.

"Stand… aside." Tessali's voice betrayed his pain, but somehow he found the strength to speak loudly enough to attract the giant's attention. "That sword… slices… steel."

"Is that so?"

Periphetes's face was too huge to conceal the flash of cunning that shot across it. His eyes darted from Tessali, who still sat astride Silverwind's back, to the Amnesian Hero and back again. When the giant's huge club began to move in the elf's direction, the Thrasson knew instantly that his adversary was hoping to make hostages of his three companions. He ducked between Periphetes's legs and rocked his sword across the back of the giant's hand. An index finger as thick as a lance shaft popped free and, trailing a cascade of dark blood, dropped into the ash.

Periphetes roared, and the club reversed direction.

The Amnesian Hero darted behind the giant's thigh, at the same time drawing his blade along inside his foe's huge knee. The star-forged steel sliced deep through tendon and sinew. Had the Thrasson not been crippled by a brick foot, he would have continued to dance around Periphetes, reducing the giant's leg to little more than a bloody post of bone. As it was, however, the Amnesian Hero had to settle for a single, vicious strike to the back of the knee.

The blade bit deep, then was nearly torn from the Thrasson's hands as Periphetes's leg jerked away. Knowing the giant would have to pivot backward to counterattack, the Thrasson ducked under the brute and assaulted the other leg with a vicious spinning slash. He heard the telltale pop of a separating tendon, then dived away before his foe's iron club could arc down to smash his skull.

The Amnesian Hero did not land upon the ground so much as he sank into a powdery bed of ash. His mouth filled with a sharp, metallic taste, then he found himself choking and sucking more dross into his swollen throat with each convulsion. Half-swimming and half-pushing, he raised himself out of the bitter stuff and spun toward Periphetes – or at least toward the place where he assumed the giant to be. So thickly did ash fill the air that no longer could the Thrasson see his foe.

Still choking for breath, the Amnesian Hero clumped out of the billowing ash cloud and found himself looking at Periphetes's flank. The giant was flve paces away, kneeling on his savaged legs, holding his club high and sneering at the Thrasson. There was no time to dodge. The Amnesian Hero flipped his sword into a high block and held it with both hands, trying to pivot aside on his brick foot.

The blow landed with a tremendous clang.

Any other weapon would have shattered, but the Thrasson's star-forged blade held true. He felt his arms buckle beneath the impact, then his knees started to go, and he saw the iron club sliding past on the edge of his sword.

He could not let himself fall. If he fell, he would not have the strength to rise again until he could breathe, and by the time he cleared his throat, Periphetes would be striking again. The Amnesian Hero threw all his weight against the great bludgeon, at the same time circling his sword out from under it.

The giant's club landed in the soft ash, raising another gray cloud. The Thrasson hurled himself into the billowing dross, bringing his sword down in the place where he imagined Periphetes's wrist to be lying.

The blade hit with a sharp jolt, then continued to slice downward until it sank into the soft ash. A thick, coppery smell filled the Thrasson's nostrils, and he glimpsed the red stump of a log-sized wrist rising through the grayness of the cloud.

A great, racking cough boiled out of the depths of the Amnesian Hero's lungs, forcing a plume of spewing ash from his swollen throat. Ignoring his body's demand to stop for air, he pounded through the gray cloud and found Periphetes kneeling in the ash. The giant was clutching the stump of his wrist to his chest, a position that left his armpit well-protected against a flank attack.

With a quick kill out of the question, the Amnesian Hero flipped his sword around to try for the next best thing. Periphetes, stunned by the loss of his hand, did not turn to look until the blade was already slipping between his massive ribs. The Thrasson pushed into the stroke with all his strength, driving the weapon hilt-deep and stirring it around to enlarge the wound.

A long, breathy groan slipped from Periphetes's mouth. Then, almost in resignation, the giant lowered his elbow and smashed his attacker away from his flank. As the Thrasson flew through the air, his sword came free, and a single gout of frothy red blood shot from the wound. The Amnesian Hero hit the ashen wall without much force, then picked himself up and scrambled away as his foe's anguished gasps began to ramble down the passage.

Once he was safely out of reach, the Amnesian Hero dropped to his knees. His vision began to darken. He used his hand to clean the ash from his mouth and throat, but even then he could hardly suck down any air. His breath came fast and shallow and wheezy. He began to suffer a dry cough that dislodged no dross and added greatly to his misery, racking his chest with spasms as anguishing as they were uncontrollable.

As terrible as his agony was, the Thrasson knew Periphetes was suffering worse. Dying of a punctured lung was both a slow and painful way to pass to the next stage, and, if the Amnesian Hero had possessed the strength, he would gladly have spared the giant such a miserable death.

Silverwind padded up beside the Amnesian Hero, still holding Jayk in his arms. The Thrasson was alarmed to see a tiny trickle of blood mnning from the tiefling's nose.

"Truly, you are my path out of the mazes," said the bariaur. "No matter what wickedness my mind contrives to block the way, you will defeat it."

"Well… done." Tessali cringed as the giant let out a particularly loud and anguished moan. "Though… a more… merciful… death…"

The Amnesian Hero replied with a long string of hacking coughs, then followed it with a strangled rasp nearly as pitiable as that of the giant.

Silverwind's bushy eyebrows rose in alarm. "What's wrong? Are you injured?"

The Thrasson shook his head, then clutched at his throat.

"Something is lodged?"

Again, the Amnesian Hero shook his head. He curled his hand as though holding a cup, then raised it to his lips and tipped his chin back.

"Of course, you are thirsty!" Silverwind was relieved. "I imagine I have something in my saddlebags to take care of that."

Tessali began to fumble with the straps, but the Amnesian Hero was in no mood to wait for the clumsy fingers of the wounded elf. He sheathed his sword, then tore the knots free with his own hands. Inside, he found a bulging waterskin. The Thrasson grabbed the bag and jerked the stopper from its mouth, then tipped his head back and began to pour. The fluid that gushed out, red and warm and thick, was not water.

Wine, sweet wine. Fever Vision

The wine, warm and bland to the ash-coated tongue of the Amnesian Hero, muddied the dross in his mouth. He spat the slurry out and drank again. This time he tasted the ambrosia instead of the ash; the drink was plum-sweet and rich with cinnamon, a honeyed nectar to soothe the rawness in his gullet. He drew a long rasping breath, and the darkness retreated from his vision. He soaked his parched throat with another gulp, then smiled as a certain exhilarating warmth filled his belly.

"Silverwind, that wine would do Dionysus himself proud." The Thrasson's voice remained gruff, and he still felt flushed, but he counted himself lucky to be speaking at all. "I cannot imagine how you came by it in these mazes."

"The same way I came by you, of course. I-"

A tremendous groan rumbled down the passage, drowning out the rest of the bariaur's reply. The Amnesian Hero turned to see Periphetes slumping forward; the giant's head smashed into the labyrinth wall, loosing an avalanche of powdery dross. A raucous snort jetted from his gaping nostrils and stirred the airborne ash into a boiling gray cloud. He toppled on his side and lay in a fetal curl, blocking the corridor so completely that the howling wind faded to stillness. His skin began to grow coarse and grainy. A dark pallor blossomed over his entire body, quickly deepening to a drab, lusteriess black. His anguished expression assumed the fixed, eternal character of a statue, and any hint that he had ever been alive vanished from his eyes.

"Good… riddance." So weak was Tessali's voice that the words sounded as though they might be the elf's last.

The Amnesian Hero turned back to his companions. The blood was flowing from Jayk's ears and nose more strongly now, and there was an alarming slackness in the way her limbs dangled over Silverwind's cradling arms. Tessali looked better only because he remained conscious; his face had paled from blood loss, and his eyes had that far-off look of someone mad with pain.

"Silverwind, the time has come to care for our wounded." The Amnesian Hero slung the wineskin over his shoulder, then lifted Tessali off the bariaur's back. Despite the lightness of the elf, the Thrasson flushed at the effort. "I trust this place is quiet enough to work your magic."

Silverwind nodded, then kneeled and laid Jayk on her cape. "Which one first?"

Tessali raised his hand and lifted a finger toward the tiefling. Though Jayk might well have considered the gesture an impediment to her progress toward the One Death, the Amnesian Hero approved of the elf's charity.

"You are noble for a Sigilite."

The Thrasson offered the wineskin to Tessali. Too weak to decline with even a modest shake of the head, the elf merely closed his eyes.

Already working on Jayk, Silverwind rolled the tiefling onto her stomach and ran his fingers lightly over the back of her head. He began mumbling to himself, at the same time tracing the star-shaped pattern of a skull fracture. After a time, he gmnted, apparently satisfied that he had found the extent of her injuries. Then, to the Thrasson's astonishment, the old bariaur leaned forward and started to dribble spittle onto his patient's bloody head.

Though the Amnesian Hero was beginning to fear he had trusted Jayk's care to a senile charlatan, he restrained the urge to push the old fellow away. Things worked differently here in the mazes, and, strange as Silverwind's behavior appeared, it did not seem dangerous. Besides, Tessali had opened his eyes again, and he showed no sign of surprise at the method of treatment.

Once Jayk's head had been thoroughly wetted, Silverwind placed his palm over the tiefling's wound and uttered what sounded like a magical incantation. The bariaur grimaced, as though suffering a terrible pain, but there were no shimmering glows, no wondrous tinkling, no smoking brimstone. The tiefling's blood continued to drip from her nose and ears, and, as far as the Thrasson could tell, that was all that happened.

"What's wrong?" The Amnesian Hero wiped his brow; he was sweating harder now than he had during the battle with Periphetes. "She looks as bad as before."

Silverwind opened his eyes, then grimaced at his patient's condition. "It's my fault," he sighed, shaking his head. "I should never have given them free will. They're always straying off in strange directions."

"What are you talking about? Who's always straying off?"

Silverwind scowled. "You, of course: my thoughts."

The Thrasson was ready to take the old bariaur by the throat and choke him sane. "Jayk is not straying. She is injured."

"But she doesn't want to come back," said Silverwind. "She is content to fade into oblivion."

"You can't let her!" the Amnesian Hero commanded. "Try something else; cast another spell!"

A sudden spark lit Silverwind's old eyes. "Right you are – I am! Why didn't I think of that before?" He leaned close to Jayk's ear, then began to yell, "Tiefling, I have anointed you with my water, the water of life; I have seen your injury, I have felt your pain, and I have thought them gone – and still you think yourself dead; who are you to deny my reality? You are alive; I command you to believe me!"

It was the most absurd nonsense the Amnesian Hero had ever heard, yet the blood immediately stopped running from Jayk's nose and ears. A single rasping gurgle spilled from her lips. Her torso began to expand and contract in the steady, deep rhythm of sleep-breathing, and the Thrasson found himself holding his own breath as he waited for her to groan or lift her head.

Jayk continued to breathe, but did nothing more.

Silverwind turned the tiefling onto her back. The murky pallor was returning to her complexion, while the blood runnels below her nostrils and ears had already dried into ash-crusted stripes. The bariaur thumbed open her eyes, displaying a pair of large, round pupils.

"My focus is returning." Silverwind smiled proudly. "I'll imagine my way out of here yet I"

"You're being hasty," said the Amnesian Hero. "Before we make another run for the exit, Jayk must be ready for a fight – and Tessali, too."

Silverwind's eyebrows came together. "That's impossible. Even I can't restore their full health in the flash of a thought! It will take meditation."

The Amnesian Hero groaned. "How long?"

"As long as necessary." The bariaur's answer was curt. "What does it matter? We have as long as we need-after all, time is only a concoction of my imagination."

"As is the monster of the labyrinth, which is surely looking for us by now." The Thrasson allowed his gaze to roam from Periphetes, blocking the way ahead, back along the passage to the entrance conjunction. There were no side corridors between the black square and the giant. "Sooner or later, the beast will find our conjunction. If we don't want to be trapped, we'll have to climb over Periphetes."

The Amnesian Hero hung the wineskin around his neck and started toward the boulder.

"No!" Silverwind danced forward to block the Thrasson's way. "Have you had too much wine, or are you the dumbest thought I've ever had?"

"You have split hooves," the Amnesian Hero retorted. "With a little help, you can make the climb."

"I know I can make the climb!" Silverwind retorted. "But to where? Don't you know anything about the mazes? If we try to climb out of this one, we'll fall into another – and it's not like going through a conjunction. There's no telling where we'll end up. Then how will I return to where I found the string?"

The Amnesian Hero scowled, recalling what Tessali had reported seeing-nothing-after he scaled the wall back at the entrance of their own labyrinth. The Thrasson was not convinced that clambering over a boulder was the same thing as climbing a wall, but the consequences of being wrong were more than he cared to risk. He would prefer a quick death at the monster's hands to spending eternity lost in the scorching passages of the Lady's mazes.

"What of moving the boulder?" the Thrasson asked. "Would that be the same as climbing over?"

Silverwind scowled at Periphetes's stony corpse. "I don't see that it matters. I can't imagine moving a boulder that size."

The Amnesian Hero glanced at the iron club that had fallen from Periphetes's severed hand. "But I can."

Silverwind thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Go ahead and try, but take that off first." The bariaur pointed at the Thrasson's amphora. "It won't do to shake that thing up. We don't want any more giants materializing here."

As the Amnesian Hero slipped the amphora's sling off his shoulders, Silverwind scowled and stooped over to peer at the Thrasson's flank.

"How long have you had this?"

"Had what?"

The Amnesian Hero raised his elbow and looked under his arm. He could barely see a short cut running down the side of his chest. The wound was sealed by scorched blood and seared flesh, but beads of white pus were seeping from the jagged seam between its puffy red lips. Though the Thrasson did not remember receiving the scratch, he felt sure he had suffered it during the battle with the monster of the labyrinth.

"No wonder you look so flushed!" Silverwind reached for the wineskin hanging around the Thrasson's neck. "I've been letting you drink wine, and you have a fever!"

The Amnesian Hero pushed the bariaur's hand away. "I'm still thirsty!"

"Too much wine is dangerous for you. You shouldn't drink any more until I imagine some water into existence."

"I'm thirsty now." The Thrasson turned away before the bariaur could reach for the wineskin again. "Do what you can for Jayk and Tessali. I'll see to finding us a safe place to hide."

The Amnesian Hero stepped over to Periphetes's iron dub. The weapon was half-again as long as Silverwind was tall. The diameter of a man's ankle at one end, it swelled along its length to the size of a bear's head at the other. So thickly scaled with rust was the weapon that the Thrasson feared it might break under the strain of what he had planned.

The Amnesian Hero squatted at the thick end and wrapped his arms around the club, then heaved it out of the ash and began dragging it toward the giant's legs. He had lifted heavier burdens – for instance, when he fetched the treasure chest of King Minaros from the lair of the Ragarian Thieves-but his footing had been more secure then, and the temperature much cooler than in these mazes. By the time he had dragged the unwieldy weapon to Periphetes's side, the Thrasson's sweaty body was coated with ash from all the times he had slipped and fallen.

The Amnesian Hero dropped the head of the club beside the giant's waist, then unstoppered the wine sack and washed the dross from his mouth. After quenching his thirst, he sealed the skin and dug a deep, pitlike tunnel under Periphetes's hip. By the time he finished, the sweat was pouring from his brow in runnels; he needed another drink.

After catching his breath, the Amnesian Hero shoved the thick end of the dub into the hole he had excavated. Then he went to the narrow end and hoisted the rod up. At first, as the head rocked into the pit, it rose easily. That changed, however, when the shaft reached the height of the Thrasson's waist and the other end made contact with the giant's belly.

Taking a deep breath, the Amnesian Hero squatted down and slipped his shoulders under the rod. He stood, using the strength of his thighs to raise the lever, and Periphetes's enormous body began to roll. The Thrasson drove forward, his feet slipping in the ash as though he were trying to push a wagon through a bog. The giant rolled a little farther, and the weight on the Amnesian Hero's shoulders seemed to double. His sweat poured from his brow in curtains; again his throat began to close, but the thought of giving up never crossed his mind. Men of renown did not falter; they succeeded or they died, but never did they give up.

There was a tremendous sucking sound. All at once Periphetes rolled onto his back, and the weight vanished from the Amnesian Hero's shoulder. A blast of howling wind filled the passage. The Thrasson looked over to see a cloud of ash boiling from beneath the giant's stone legs, still bent in the kneeling position as they rose into the air. Coughing and choking, he shoved the club off his shoulder and spun away from the billowing dross, and that was when he noticed the sword and the sandals.

Glowing with that yellow aura peculiar to enchanted gold, they lay pressed into the ash where Periphetes's huge belly had rested. The sword, both shorter and broader than the Amnesian Hero's own star-forged blade, had a golden hilt and a golden scabbard decorated by a single stripe of sapphires. The sandals had soles cut from the finest crocodile hide and legging straps woven from threads of pure gold.

Periphetes had no doubt stolen the magnificent booty from some unfortunate wayfarer. By right of victory, the spoils were the Amnesian Hero's, yet he hesitated to claim them. The giant had been created by Poseidon's magic – magic intended for the Lady of Pain. After hearing Tessali's account of the relationship between the Lady and the gods, the Thrasson feared the King of Seas had trapped the prizes with some disabling enchantment.

Still, the Amnesian Hero had no choice except to pick them up. He had promised to deliver the amphora to the Lady of Pain, and he did not think Poseidon likely to excuse him for leaving part of its contents to vanish beneath the ash. He quaffed another mouthful of wine, then stooped down and gingerly pinched the legging strap of one sandal between two fingers.

Nothing happened.

The Amnesian Hero plucked the sandal out of the ash. Nothing flashed or banged or gave off foul odors. He sighed in relief, guessing the shoe had to be worn to activate the enchantment. Being careful to avoid touching the sole, he fastened the legging strap to his sword belt. He retrieved the other sandal and tied it beside the fust.

The sword he grasped by the scabbard.

The magic glow blinked out of the gold and a strange prickling shot up his arm. He screamed and tried to drop the weapon and found he could not. A yellow fog was forming behind his eyes, filling his head as a cloud fills a mountain valley; the smell of ash was yielding to the fragrant tang of salt pine, the parched air was growing moist on his skin, and a voice was speaking to him over the ramble of distant waves.

"One of your fathers left those for you." The figure of a tall, handsome woman appears in the fog; her honey-brown tresses are bound by a princess's circlet, and her sad face stirs the Thrasson in a way that the face of no other woman ever has. "How I have prayed you would not find them;

Hera help me, now I must send you away!"

"To where?" the Thrasson gasps. The woman is all he can see, and it is more than he can do to tell whether she stands within his mind or without. "Who are you?"

Tears well in the woman's eyes. She spreads her palms and embraces the Amnesian Hero. "Is it possible? Can a son forget his mother?"

This cannot be; that woman is no memory of mine. What is she doing in the amphora Poseidon sends to me?

The Amnesian Hero stole her from me, that is what. Periphetes was to be mine, but the Thrasson stole him and killed him, that is what. The memory became his, that is what, and now it is forever lost to me, and might that memory be of the one who paid the bride's price for my heart?

Would I be lost then, or safe?

No bride can long stand fast against he who holds her heart; let him come softly in the night, and surely she will open herself to him, whoever he may be, to be ravished or sacked as he pleases. And afterward, what then? An eternity of drudgery and servitude, if he is wicked; oblivion, sure and quick, if not.

Better to know the beast now, to prepare my defenses before he comes pounding at my gates. There may be time to change what is done; there may be time, if I dare, to steal what has been bought, to shut what has been opened, to save what is lost.

And what of the Thrasson, standing there in his mother's embrace? His strength will tell. He knows what is right and what is wrong; he will choose his own punishment.

"Mother, who am I?" the Thrasson asks. The yellow fog that filled his mind earlier is now swirling about outside his head; it has lost its color and changed into a haze of windblown dross. The ash has coated his body, glued there by the sweat of his fever, and the air has grown parched with heat and acrid bitterness. "Tell me my name; I have been lost and cannot remember."

"I am not your mother, Zoombee." The voice was weak and raspy. "My head, she hurts too much for this."

Still clutching the sword he found beneath the massive stone corpse of Periphetes, the Thrasson pushed the woman back to arm's length. In place of the regal face of his mother, he saw the twilight visage of Jayk the Snake.

"What became of her?" The Amnesian Hero released the tiefling and pivoted in a circle, desperately searching for his mother's silhouette. He saw Silverwind kneeling over Tessali's crooked knee, but no sign of the woman who had told him about the sandals and sword. "Where did she go?"

"Who?" Jayk asked.

"My mother!" The Thrasson shook the golden sword at her. "She came to me when I touched this!"

"You are scaring me, Zoombee." Jayk backed away, her hands pressed to the sides of her head. Her legs were shaky, and she seemed in danger of falling. "I came to you. You awakened me with your scream."

"Forgive me. I don't mean to yell."

Still feeling flushed, the Amnesian Hero opened the wineskin and took a long drink. His hands were quivering, his heart pounding, his thoughts whirling. He knew the woman who had come to him; whether or not she had actually been standing there before him, he recognized the smell of her honey-brown hair, the warmth of her arms enfolding his body, the smack of her lips kissing his cheek. He remembered her.

"Perhaps she wasn't here in the passage," the Thrasson said, "but I did see my mother."

Jayk rolled her eyes up under her brow and, without taking her hands from her aching head, gave the Thrasson a skeptical look. "I thought you could not remember your past, Zoombee."

"It was a vision-or a memory." The Amnesian Hero thrust the golden sword into his belt, then pointed at the amphora, still lying near Silverwind and Tessali. "It came from there, along with the giant."

"How can that be?" demanded the tiefling. "Poseidon would not send your memories to the Lady of Pain. It must be intended for her, yes?"

"No! I remembered the woman. She was my mother."

From up the passage came the shaip crackle of Silverwind straightening Tessali's injured knee. The screech tfiat followed drowned out even the howling wind, prompting the Amnesian Hero to worry that it would reverberate through the conjunction. He clumped over to the bariaur's side.

"We should move on, if it is safe for Tessali."

"I'm feeling… better already." The elf sounded a little stronger, but his face remained pale with anguish. "And moving is safer than waiting here for the monster."

Silverwind gathered Tessali up. "I imagine this one will survive a short move."

The Amnesian Hero nodded, then stooped down to pick up the amphora.

"We need no more… giants," gasped Tessali. "Leave it!"

"That I cannot do. Poseidon charged me deliver this amphora to the Lady of Pain." The Thrasson lifted the jar and slipped the sling over his shoulders. Even that effort seemed to make him hotter and thirstier. "And, just as importantly, I think it has my lost memories."

"Pah! Those memories, they are the Lady's." Jayk tottered over to join them, reeling as though she might fall unconscious any moment "You only think they are yours."

The Amnesian Hero steadied her. "I know my own mother."

"Then you tell us about her, yes?"

"Of course." Still supporting the wobbly tiefling, the Thrasson led the way toward the archway beneath Periphetes's bent knees. "She is a beautiful princess, with olive skin and honey-brown hair."

"And?"

"And what? I only saw her for a moment."

"I fear Jayk… could be right." Tessali, still being carried in Silverwind's arms, was close behind the Amnesian Hero. "If this is truly your own memory, you should recall more. Her name, perhaps."

They reached Periphetes. The wind was squeezing under the giant's bent legs with a chugging roar, blasting ash into their faces and threatening to sweep them from their feet. The Thrasson scooped Jayk into his arms, then pinched his eyes shut against the stinging dross and ducked through the archway. Hard as he tried, he could not drag his mother's name from the depths of his mind. He recalled only what he had learned during his vision.

A few steps later, the gale diminished to a bluster. The Thrasson opened his eyes, blinked away a flood of sweat, and, through the billowing haze ahead, saw the dark mouth of a side passage. He still could not remember his mother's name.

"What of… the name?" asked Tessali.

"If I say I saw my mother, then I saw my mother!" The Amnesian Hero scowled over his shoulder. "And even if I am wrong, I am still bound to deliver this amphora to the Lady of Pain!"

Tessali could only shake his head. "It is no wonder… we are in the mazes."

"I would not wish anguish on anyone, elf, but I liked you better when you were too pained to speak."

Too hot and drained to continue carrying Jayk, the Amnesian Hero returned her to the ground and, still supporting her with an arm, clumped into the side passage. This corridor looked much the same as the one from which they had come, with high, powdery walls and a whirling ash haze that at times reduced visibility to an arm's length. Being careful to stay within Silverwind's sight, the Thrasson worked his way along the wall, taking first two right turns, then shifting to the opposite side of the passage and taking three lefts. At last, they stopped to rest in a short dead-end blind where, with no wind howling down the passage, the ash remained on the ground.

The Thrasson wiped the sweat off his face, only to find fresh runnels pouring down it before he finished. He took a long drink of wine – it tasted cooler than before – then offered the skin to his companions. "Does anyone want some before I go?"

"Go?" Jayk clutched his arm. "Where?"

The Amnesian Hero pointed up the short passage, to where a curtain of blowing ash marked the corridor from which they had just come. "Someone's got to keep watch."

"No wine… for me," said Tessali. "And you shouldn't…"

"I've told him so." Silverwind, already examining one of the elf's wounds, did not look up as he spoke. "But he is a stubborn one. No need to worry, though; I imagine that fever of his will knock him out soon."

"You imagine wrong, Silverwind." The Thrasson turned to clump toward the intersection. "When you finish with Tessali, I will be waiting."

"And I will be with him," said Jayk. "Maybe some wine will take the bite off this headache."

"It would be better to wait until I can imagine some water." Silverwind looked up from Tessali's wound. "With that head injury, I fear wine could undo you."

Jayk whirled on the bariaur. "Life is an illusion, but this pain is not!" She pursed her lips and spewed a plume of damp ash in the general direction of the bariaur's hooves. "I spit on your water!"

The Amnesian Hero passed the wineskin to the tiefling. "Jayk, it is good to have you with us again."

They went to the intersection together. The Thrasson slipped the amphora off his back and leaned it against the ash wall, then sat down amidst the eddies of dross swirling in from the main corridor. He felt more overheated than feverish, and it seemed to him that the weakness in his muscles resulted more from thirst than illness. Nevertheless, when he reached around to touch the scratch on his side, he was surprised to feel how sore it was, and how hot it seemed under his fingertips.

The tiefling settled in beside him, and they sat quietly for a time, passing the wine back and forth, washing the dross down with long sips of sweet ambrosia. When they had both drank their fill, Jayk pushed the stopper into the mouth of the wineskin. She placed the sack between them, then braced her elbows on her knees and held her head between her hands.

After a time, the tiefling said, "Tessali, maybe he is right." She picked up an ash clod and tossed it at the amphora. "You should throw that jar over the wall."

The Thrasson was glad he was not drinking at the moment, for he would have spewed a mouthful of good wine onto the ground. "Jayk, what's wrong with you? Better than anyone, you know why I can never do that."

The tiefling shot the amphora a black look. "You are so simple, Zoombee. Poseidon, he tricked you."

"Nevertheless, I promised to deliver the amphora to the Lady of Pain, not to cast it away in the mazes."

"What does your promise mean here?" Jayk thrust a hand skyward. "The Lady of Pain does not want the jar, and it is only trouble to us."

"It is more than that to me."

"Pah! That vision was meant for the Lady. Why would Poseidon put your memories in a gift to someone else?"

"I don't know-he promised to restore my memories after I delivered the amphora." The Thrasson found himself staring at the jar and, through an act of will, looked back to the main corridor. "Perhaps he wanted them to return to me when the Lady of Pain opened the jar. The gods enjoy spectacles like that, you know."

Jayk rolled her dark eyes, then winced at the pain it caused her. "If Poseidon wishes to impress someone, I think it is the Lady, not you."

Unable to argue with the tiefling's point, the Thrasson snatched the wineskin. "I can't explain why the vision came from the amphora, but I know it was my mother." He swallowed a mouthful of wine, then said, "Maybe what the amphora holds aren't memories, but spells that summon lost memories."

"Or maybe they are spells that make you think you remember what you don't, or maybe they are djinn tricksters, or maybe they are what could be but isn't," Jayk scoffed. "We don't know. You must throw that jar away before another giant gets loose. We have enough trouble."

"I would never think to hear you sound like Tessali." The Amnesian Hero raised his sweaty brow, unleashing a cascade of salty drips that had been gathering above his eyes. "You're scared!"

Jayk began to rub her forehead with the heels of her hands, but not quickly enough to hide the flash in her eyes. "Scared? Of what, Zoombee?"

"You tell me – I know you're not afraid of dying." The Amnesian Hero pointed at the amphora. "It's something in there."

The tiefling pulled her hands away from her face, and, a little too steadily, she locked gazes with the Thrasson.

"What is in the jar makes no difference to me; if you think it has your memories, why don't you open it?" She stood and stepped over to the amphora. "I will do it for you, yes?"

"No!" The Thrasson jumped to his feet. Jayk was scared; he knew that, though not as certainly as he knew she would pull the stopper just to prove him wrong. He grabbed her arms and drew her away. "You mustn't open it!"

"Why not, Zoombee?" Jayk's smirk was just broad enough to betray her relief. "I thought you wanted to know who you are."

"You know why you can't open it," the Thrasson growled. "No matter what the amphora contains, it's not mine to open."

"Too bad." Jayk thrust out her lip in an exaggerated pout, and that gesture was what betrayed her secret fear to the Amnesian Hero. "I know how important it is for you find out who you are."

"And why should that frighten you?" the Thrasson demanded. "Are you afraid that if I remember who I am, I'll forget about you?"

Jayk could not hide the force with which the question struck. Her pupils instantly took the shape of diamonds, and the tips of her fangs dropped into view. Her murky face grew even darker, though it was impossible to say whether in anger or sorrow, and she slumped to the ground.

"Jayk, you have nothing to worry about. I have promised to return you to Sigil." Had the Amnesian Hero not witnessed the deadly effects of her bite, he would have squatted down to embrace her. "By now, you must know I am a man of my word."

"Zoombee, I am not afraid of being forgotten; before we reach the One Death, we must forget all." The tiefling looked up; there were emerald tears welling in her eyes. "I am sad because you are going the wrong way!" Dream Girl

I thought him stronger than to sit ruby-faced with his salt-damp back to the ashen wall, wound fever burning in his eyes and a thief's craving smoldering in his soul. For an hour (or a day or a week or a minute, for all it matters to us or him) he has been sitting there, staring at those crocodile sandals and that golden sword, wondering: do I dare, and do I dare? He has walked the narrow streets and breathed the yellow fog; he has cracked the jar of memories and split the gates of Sigil and dared disturb the multiverse, and now he frets over a giant's booty?

Call him honorable, call him ethical if you like; it makes no difference to me. The Thrasson has taken himself to a place where there is only desire and action and consequence, and now he has gone off into the blinds to search for right and wrong and lost his way. There are no commandments or codes in the mazes; the madman who looks for guidance is more lost than the fool who does not; he imagines reasons to turn one w»y and not the other; he waits upon signs that have no meaning; he does not act for fear of offending deities that cannot see him and would not care if they could.

I call him a coward.

In the end, the Amnesian Hero will lace those sandals on his feet, and he will learn the name of his parent-but first he must agonize over his scruples. He must consider his honor and ask his gods for guidance, he must weigh the killing of the giant against his oath to deliver the amphora, and he must find sanction to claim the plunder. Until then, we are expected to wait while he deliberates, to watch through a mind clouded with fever and wine as he sits and thinks and argues-and I won't abide that kind of drivel.

So I will tell you now what will happen. The Thrasson will put the sandals on the ground, then he will bare one foot and set it upon a rugged sole. He will feel an uncomfortable sizzling in the arch of his foot. A pair of ashen arms will sprout beside his ankle; they will take up the legging thews and wrap them about his calves, and a wispy voice will come on the wind:

"I offer you this advice, my son: when you reach the palace of King Aegeus, do not tell him at once whose blood flows in your veins. Say instead that you bear greetings and news from his friend in Troezen, King Pittheus. When he sees the sandals you wear and the sword that hangs at your side, he will ask where you came by them; if King Aegeus strikes you as a good and honorable man, you may tell him how you found them. In that manner, he will discover for himself that you are his son and will not doubt your claim to his city. But if King Aegeus seems a jealous and selfish man, you must tell him they are a betrothal gift from a granddaughter of King Pittheus; he will think I bore him a daughter and bear you no malice, and then you will be free to return home without fear of treachery or harm."

Thus will the Thrasson discover the name of one father.

He will cry out in joy. He will shake so hard that when he sets his brick foot upon the second sandal, he will almost lose his balance-but you will have to wait to learn what happens then. Now, the Amnesian Hero still sits against the ashen wall, seeking consent to do what we all know he will surely do; Jayk rests warm against his flank, as idle and silent as a corpse; Tessali is limping up the passage, one swollen knee as red and round as a blood melon.

"Go ahead." The elf has hung his shredded cloak over his shoulders, though the monster did not leave enough of the garment to conceal the stitch lines striping his slender torso. "There's nothing stopping you…"

"Stopping me from what?" The Amnesian Hero's voice had finally returned to normal, and if his tongue sounded a little thick, he felt sure that it had more to do with his fever than with the wine he had drunk. He swung his gaze back toward the adjacent passage and stared into the swirling cloud of ash. "I am only keeping watch."

"Yes-on those." Tessali raised his arm and-wincing at the pain it caused him-pointed at the sandals in the Thrasson's lap. "You want to put them on and see what happens."

"How do you know that?" The Amnesian Hero sounded less contradictoly than irritated. "Can a man have no privacy even in his own thoughts?"

"Not when he wears them on his face for everyone to see. Besides, if you think it was your mother you saw…"

"I did see my mother."

"Of course." Tessali nodded as though he had never doubted it. "So it's only natural that you should want to see what happens if you wear the sandals. I don't see any reason you shouldn't"

"Except that the sandals are not mine to wear."

"How do you know that unless you try them on?"

The Amnesian Hero narrowed his eyes. "You seem anxious for me to wear them."

Tessali shrugged. "We will not solve this mystery until you do." The elf cast a wary glance at the amphora, which the Thrasson had tried to patch with a coating of wine-soaked ash. "And it would be better to know the truth before we start out again. Assuming the exit is close to where Silverwind found the thread-"

"It is."

The Thrasson's conviction did not seem to reassure Tessali. "Yes – well, in that case, the last thing we'll want is another surprise from your jar."

The Amnesian Hero smirked. "I know what you're thinking, elf."

"So, I'm not the only one who reads minds?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, the Amnesian Hero said, "Your plan won't work." He wiped a bead of fever sweat from his eyes, then looked at Tessali. "Even if I put the sandals on and remember nothing more of my mother, I would not be disappointed enough to throw the amphora over a wall – nor would I allow you to."

Tessali raised his arched eyebrows just enough to make the Amnesian Hero wonder if he had guessed wrong. "So, what are you afraid of?"

"Nothing!" Even as the Amnesian Hero snapped the word, he realized the very quickness of his answer had betrayed him. Addled as his thoughts were by fever and fatigue – and by wine as well – perhaps now was not the best time to match wits with Tessali. "But I have sworn an oath, and I do not take oaths lightly."

"I can see you don't." Tessali sighed, sounding more relieved than disappointed. "If there's no convincing you, I guess I'd better just have a look at Jayk."

"Perhaps we should let Silverwind do it." It was growing increasingly difficult to guess Tessali's game, and the Amnesian Hero did not want Jayk's condition to become part of the elf's manipulations. "He was the one who mended her skull."

"Sorry. The Imaginer of the Multiverse has worn himself out mending his creations." Tessali nodded toward the back of the passage, where Silverwind lay stretched out on his side. The old bariaur's eyes were closed, and his ribs were rising with the steady rhythm of someone deep in sleep. "Let's hope he's dreaming of us. I'd hate to vanish just because he fell asleep."

The Amnesian Hero would not let the elf's humor disarm him. "We can wait."

Tessali shook his head. "We don't want her to sleep too long. It's dangerous for people with head injuries."

With no further debate, the elf stepped around the Amnesian Hero and went to Jayk's side. As he squatted down beside her, he grimaced and dropped a hand to his ribs.

"I hope the monster does not find us soon. I won't be able to run," groaned Tessali. "Silverwind claims he healed the cracked ones, but they still feel broken to me."

"Good. I will know where to hit you if this is another ruse."

Tessali accepted the warning with a good-natured smile. "You are a peery one, aren't you?"

The elf turned back to Jayk, calling her name and gently jostling her shoulder. She did not stir. Tessali frowned and pulled her away from the Amnesian Hero's side, shaking her more violently.

The tiefling remained as limp as empty clothes.

"How long has she been asleep?" Tessali demanded.

"It may have been half an hour." The Amnesian Hero did not think Tessali was trying to manipulate him. As hard as the elf was shaking her, Jayk should have been awake. "What's wrong?"

"Abyss Sleep," said the elf. "On occasion, someone who's been hit on the head falls asleep so deeply that he is unable to awaken."

Tessali thumbed Jayk's eyes open and cursed, then shoved her at the Amnesian Hero. "Shake her, hard!"

The Thrasson sat the sandals and sword aside and obeyed.

Tessali astonished him by slapping the tiefling and yelling, "Jayk!" When she failed to respond, he slapped her again, then glanced up at the Amnesian Hero. "Shake her!"

The Thrasson, who had not realized he had stopped, renewed his efforts – then nearly lost his hold as Jayk lunged for Tessali's throat The astonished elf fell backward into the ash and scrambled away, his eyes round as coins. The sudden tension drained from the tiefling's body; she groaned once and grabbed her head.

"Ah, Zoombee! She hurts so much."

Jayk had barely uttered the words before her chin slumped to her chest. The Amnesian Hero began to shake her again.

"That's enough." Tessali crawled forward and carefully raised an eyelid. "We only needed to wake her briefly."

"Is she well?"

"She'll survive, but she won't be well until she spends some time in the Gatehouse. You know that"

The Amnesian Hero fell silent and leaned back against the ashen wall. Even through his fever-clouded, wine-hazed mind, he could see Tessali was right. Jayk's peculiar beliefs about her relationship to death made her a danger to herself and others – especially to others. And perhaps the Thrasson would have admitted that, had his own experience not proven the Bleak Cabal's penchant for caging people of perfectly sound mind. As it was, he thought the tiefling justified in charging that the only way those confined in the Gatehouse ever left was by becoming Bleakers themselves.

The Amnesian Hero pulled Jayk close and wrapped her in his arm. "I suppose you'll give us adjoining cells?"

Tessali was quick to shake his head. "You're well enough – or you will be, once I help you remember who you are."

The Amnesian Hero gave Tessali a wary gaze. "I have not asked your help, elf."

"There's nothing to fear. The hardest part will be figuring out how to administer to your loss. There are many ways to lose one's memory."

The Amnesian Hero could not prevent himself from being interested. "There are?"

Tessali nodded. "A blow to the head, an impairment of the emotions, an event too frightening to recall, drinking from the River Styx…" The elf paused and pointed to the flattened wineskin. "Or, more likely in your case, being too fond of wine."

"I am not too fond of wine." The Amnesian Hero looked toward the adjacent passage and stared into the blowing ash. "I was thirsty."

Tessali laid a hand across the Thrasson's forehead. "It's no wonder, as hot as you are." He reached into the pocket of his shredded cloak and extracted two holly leaves. They were both smeared with blood from his injuries. "I am not as skilled as Silverwind, but I can break your fever and mend your wound."

The Amnesian Hero continued to stare into the ash. The last time he had allowed Tessali to cast a spell on him, he had ended up with a brick foot. The elf had claimed it was the only. thing he could do to save his life, but it had since occurred to the Thrasson that it was also a good way to keep an escaped patient from fleeing again.

"It would be best to let me do what I can," said Tessali. "Healing wounds is tiring work, and Silverwind will have plenty to do before any of us are ready to run again. Whatever I can do to spare him may make the difference between going to where he found the thread or waiting here until the monster finds us."

Tessali's warning did not go unheeded. The Amnesian Hero was already surprised at how long it was taking the monster to find them; part of him feared the beast was in the adjacent passage at that moment, standing camouflaged amidst the swirling ash, watching and waiting until the Thrasson nodded off. Only the steady roar of the ashen gale reassured him this was not the case; a creature that large could not come down the corridor without causing a sudden change of pitch in the howling wind.

Reluctantly, the Amnesian Hero nodded. "Do what you can for me. But if this is one of your tricks-"

"Truly, you have no reason to worry. I will even keep watch while you sleep."

"Sleep?"

"Of course. We are all in need of rest, and, after your long run, you more than any of us." Tessali picked up the wineskin and shook it. There was little fluid left to slosh in the bottom of the bag. "Besides, given your fever and how much of this you have had, it is a wonder you have not passed out already."

"If it's going to make me sleep, you can put that holly back in your pocket. I am no fool. As soon as I close my eyes, you'll throw my amphora over the wall."

"And follow it over when you wake? You must think I'm barmy."

"I am no murderer," the Amnesian Hero bristled. "No matter how angry-"

Tessali waved the Thrasson silent. "I'm sorry. I know you would never do such a thing – any more than I would throw away what belongs to you – but I don't know why you're so distrustful of me." The elf paused a moment, then said, "Let us agree on this: if the amphora isn't here when you awake, I'll accept any punishment you mete out."

The Amnesian Hero asked, "Why are you so concerned with my health?"

"Pure self-preservation. You're as much my way out of the mazes as you are Silverwind's. If we run into that monster again – and I don't doubt we will – you're the only one who seems capable of slaying it."

"Have you forgotten the last time?" The Thrasson gestured at the elf's wounds. "I didn't do very well."

"We're alive, aren't we? And you felled that giant nicely," Tessali pointed out. "When the monster comes the next time, perhaps Jayk and I can be ready with some magic. We all stand a better chance of getting out of here if we work together."

"That is the truest thing I have ever heard you say." The Amnesian Hero paused, glancing at the sword and sandals lying by his side. "Now that you are in a more truthful mood, tell me why you want me to put the sandals on."

"I don't want you to; I think you must," the elf answered. "To me, it makes no difference whether you put the sandals on or throw them over the wall. But you won't be happy until you try them on, and it would be better for all of us if that wasn't distracting you right now."

The explanation seemed both practical enough and adequately lacking in principle to convince the Amnesian Hero that Tessali was being honest. "What you say is true enough, but you forget they may not be mine."

"Bar that!" said Tessali. "You are the one who felled Periphetes, not the Lady. That makes them yours by right of combat."

"Perhaps, but the issue is not clear." As much as the Amnesian Hero wanted to accept the elf's reasoning, he feared even more the possibility that doing so would be a breach of honor. "If my neighbor's bull breaks free and wanders onto my lands, I may certainly kill it to spare my cows. But then do I have the right to slaughter it and eat it?"

"Better that than to leave it rotting because he is away," countered Tessali. "And if you can give him some extra meat later because of what you ate from his bull, then he will be better off than had you dragged the beast back to rot on his land. Certainly, it would have been better for all had the bull stayed at home, but it did not and now it is your duty to do as well by your neighbor as you can."

The Amnesian Hero knitted his brow, trying in vain to clearly see the analogy through the haze in his head. "I fail to see what this bull has to do with my sandals."

"If you don't put the sandals on, you'll remain distracted and we'll all be killed," Tessali explained. "The Lady's bull will rot in the field."

"That's true." The Amnesian Hero began to unlace his own sandal. "I am doing good for her, am I not?"

What a pointless thing is the mortal mind; with its snaking walls and untold conjunctions and endless looping passages, it is a maze that builds itself – a maze where every path always leads wherever the captive wishes. Where is the challenge in that? Was there ever any doubt that the Thrasson would step into the sandal? I said he would, and even now his bare foot is settling upon the insole.

You recall what comes next: the ashen arms rising to lace the thews, the voice on the wind offering advice, the mention of King Aegeus, one of his two fathers. So you will not be surprised to see the joyful tears streaming down his flushed cheeks, or to hear him bellowing, "I am the son of Aegeus! I am the grandson of Pittheus! I am the son of…"

Here, it will occur to the Amnesian Hero that he does not know the name of his mother. He will look down and realize that he cannot remove the sandal from his brick foot, and a cry of despair will rise from his throat. Tessali will place the new sandal on the ground and suggest it still might work its magic. The Thrasson's legs will start to tremble so hard that he can hardly stand. He will support himself by grasping the Bleaker's shoulder-a poignant touch, that-and begin to lower his foot.

All that could have happened by now, had the Amnesian Hero not spent so long fretting over what is right and what is wrong. But he pondered and brooded and wasted a precious hour seeking to justify what he already knew he would do. And so he has not yet heard the voice on the wind or learned his father's name or realized that he still does not know his mother's; only now are the ashen arms rising to lace the sandal thews about his leg. We must wait for the woman to speak, and for the Thrasson to bellow his joy and realize what he does not know, and all the while there is a figure in the adjacent passage skulking through the gray, howling haze.

To be certain, matters would be different had the Amnesian Hero no fear of dishonor (I called him a coward, and every coward fears something), had he not squandered priceless time in pointless debate, had he acted without awaiting the permission of an eel-tongued elf. But it is the Thrasson's nature to act when he should ponder and ponder when he should act, and to deny him his quandary would have been violence to his character. Better to let him grapple with his honor, to let him reluctantly forsake his morals and slide unwittingly into the abyss of iniquity; better to leave him to his palter, no matter the consequence, than to let him come off a high-talking fraud:

And now the Thrasson has caught his story: his brick foot is quaking upon the crocodile sole, his hand is clamping the elf's shoulder, his eyes are waiting for the arms to rise from the ash. I hope you will not be disappointed by what follows next:

Nothing.

On trembling legs, the Amnesian Hero stood waiting for the second sandal to work its sorcery. In his mind, he could almost hear his mother's voice, whispering both her name and his in words too wind-garbled to comprehend. But no magic sizzled into his foot, no arms rose from the ash to lace the thews about his leg, no words of motherly advice came to him on the roaring wind. His brick foot remained stone-numb in its brick sandal. His stomach seemed heavy and cold, and his knees felt ready to buckle. The Thrasson twisted his foot against the insole, as though grinding the sandal into the dross might summon forth the ashen arms. Nothing happened, except that he grew even more despairing and frustrated.

"It's this damned brick foot!" The Amnesian Hero tried not to sound as though he were blaming the elf for the problem, though of course he was. He could not help himself. "The magic will not work through brick."

"I doubt it would have worked through ooze, either." Tessali kneeled at the feet of the Amnesian Hero. "But you have flesh above the ankle. Perhaps if I lace the thews…"

The elf crossed two laces over the Amnesian Hero's shin, wrapping the thews in a half square-knot so they would not slip, then ran them behind his calf. This time, as Tessali tied the half-knot, the Thrasson felt the thongs biting into his leg. He resisted the temptation to look down, knowing he would only be disappointed by the sight of the straps still glowing with their magic.

The elf crossed the laces once more and made a third half-knot before the Amnesian Hero noticed the slight rise in the pitch of the wind. Even as he turned to see what was coming down the adjacent passage, the Thrasson was unsheathing that star-forged blade of his. Tessali, rising too fast, nearly lost an ear as the sword flashed past his head.

"What is it?" the elf whispered.

"Trouble most untimely." The Thrasson saw nothing save ash whirling down the adjacent corridor, but the pop-pop, pop-pop-pop of shaggy mats of fur came loud to his ears. "Wake Jayk and Silverwind – and have no fear of drawing that." He pointed at the golden sword he had left lying beside the tiefling.

"We'll come back once I've roused them." Tessali scooped up the sword and Jayk-with an anguished groanthen limped toward the back of the blind. "Try to hold the fight until we return."

The Amnesian Hero did not say so, but he doubted he would have much choice in the matter. The monster of the labyrinth had already proven itself to be a cunning hunter. Certainly, it would see the advantage in attacking while its foes were lethargic and trapped in a dead-end blind. The company's best chance, whether for victory or flight, lay in stalling the beast until Tessali roused the others. The Thrasson stepped into the adjacent passage, then, staying close to the wall where he would prove more difficult to see, started forward to ambush the beast.

The wine and fever had taken a heavier toll on his body than he realized. Within a few clumping steps, he was dizzy and coated with sweat-moistened ash. His breath came ragged and hot, and his star-forged sword felt as heavy as the iron blades of the githyanki bounty hunters. In no condition for a long battle, he knew that his best tactic would be to lop off one of the creature's feet and flee back to his companions.

The Amnesian Hero dropped to his belly, then crawled to the center of the passage. He scooped out a shallow pit to lie in, then swept a coating of ash over his back. With any luck, the monster would not see him until he raised himself to attack, and by then it would be too late. The Thrasson closed his eyes against the stinging ash – this close to the ground it was so thick that it clung to his eyeballs like flour to wet grapes-and trusted his ears to tell him when the beast arrived.

It required only a moment for the flapping sounds to grow loud enough for him to tell the creature was creeping down one side of the passage. The Amnesian Hero reoriented himself slightly. Then, wishing he had some wine to wash a mounting cough from his throat, he raised himself to his knees and hefted his sword.

Instead of the hulking, half-visible silhouette of the shaggy monster, the Amnesian Hero found himself staring at the ghostly shape of a beautiful woman. So blurred by blowing ash and the flapping of her white gown was her statuesque figure that the Thrasson thought he was imagining her – which, as Silverwind would have hastened to point out, made her no less real-and he began to think he had fallen into a fever dream.

Then the wind lifted her silky jet hair away from her cheek, revealing smooth olive skin and a regal nose, and the Amnesian Hero knew that his fever had nothing to do with her appearance. It was the same woman he had seen in Rivergate and a hundred other inns, his wine woman; even in the Lady's mazes, she had come to him.

Her emerald eyes swung in the Thrasson's direction, and it was then that, if illusion she was, he lost control of his own imagination. A cry of surprise broke from her lips. Her gaze flickered briefly to the sword raised in his hand, then she turned and fled the way she had come.

"Hold!" The Amnesian Hero sprang-or rather lurched- to his feet. "I mean you no harm!"

The woman did not slow. The Thrasson clumped after her as best he could, rasping for breath and raining sweat into the ash. He had to run with blade in hand, for he had not a spare moment to sheathe his sword. Already, his quarry was a mere white blur in the howling gray ahead, and he hardly dared to blink for fear of losing her. More times than he could count, she had vanished in a mere instant of inattentiveness, and he knew she would be gone the instant he glanced at his scabbard. The woman turned down a side passage. The Amnesian Hero staggered after her, certain she would be gone when he rounded the comer.

She was there, a white blur standing in the center of the passage.

"Wait!"

The woman turned and darted down another corridor, which the Thrasson had not seen through the blowing ash. He felt something pop on his leg above the brick foot and recalled that Tessali had not finished lacing the magic sandals. The highest half-knot had come unfastened. He continued to run. She would vanish soon enough, and then he would worry about the sandal.

The Amnesian Hero's vision blurred, and it seemed to him that the hot sweat pouring off his body was melting flesh. His lungs ached and his muscles burned and his head spun, and still he hobbled after the woman. She rounded another corner, and he round himself struggling to remember whether this was her third turn or fourth, and whether one had been left and the rest right. He stumbled and almost allowed himself to. fall, confident she would be gone when he rounded the comer.

Just make the turn, he told himself, and she will be gone. Then it will be time to rest.

A second half-knot popped. One more, and he would lose the sandal-and this time he would not feel the thews slacken.

The Thrasson rounded the comer and knew by the sudden stillness that he had entered a blind. He stumbled out of the ash wind, coughing and choking and dizzy; there, a dozen paces ahead, stood his wine woman, staring into the hovering black square of a maze conjunction. She was facing away, hands clasped before her torso as though wringing them. The Amnesian Hero stopped where he stood and, without taking his eyes off the woman's back, found his scabbard and sheathed his sword.

Only then did he speak, and only in his softest, calmest rasp. "Please, you have… nothing to fear… from me."

The woman turned and, to the surprise of the Amnesian Hero, did not flee. Her mouth fell open and her hands rose to her cheeks. She stumbled a single step forward, staring at the Thrasson as though she were looking at a dead man, which he suspected was exactly what he resembled.

"Can it be?" she gasped. "I have been searching for you for so long!"

The Thrasson's trembling legs chose that moment to buckle, and he dropped to his knees in the ash. He opened his mouth, but when he tried to speak, he found his heart had risen into his throat. He could not force the words out.

The woman slowly came forward, her hands reaching uncertainly toward him. "I thought you would come back for me."

The Amnesian Hero swallowed his heart down to where it belonged, then touched his fingers to his cheeks. "So you know this face?" he asked. "And this voice? You know who lam?"

The woman stopped, her emerald eyes now growing wary. "Of course I know you! You stole me from my cruel father and carried me across the sea! Don't you remember?"

"I do not." The Amnesian Hero forgot himself then and closed his eyes. "My memory is lost. I awoke on a beach in Thrassos, and I recall nothing of the time before-not even my name."

The Thrasson's only answer was a long silence. He cursed himself for a fool, and open flew his eyes.

The woman was still there. "How could you forget me?"

Tears began to stream down her cheeks, and she turned away. Thinking she was about to flee, the Amnesian Hero raised one knee and started to rise. The woman buried her face in her hands.

"Don't!" she cried. It was more a plea than a command. "How could you forget? We loved each other once!"

"And I love you still, I am sure. Help me remember!"

The Amnesian Hero braced his hands on his knee and pushed himself up. Then, as he started to step forward, his brick foot caught on something and snagged. The Thrasson stumbled and, in his weakened state, fell back to his knees. He looked down and saw that the second sandal's loose thews had gotten caught beneath his good foot.

Cursing himself for a buffoon, he started to rise again, this time bringing his good foot forward first. "Beautiful lady, if you loved me and love me still, then truly I am the man most blessed by the gods," he said. "When we return to Arborea, the citizens of Thrassos will shower us with rose petals."

When the Amnesian Hero raised his gaze, he found that he was speaking only to himself. The wine woman had vanished again. Pains Of The Heart

Like pillars they stand, there among the ash-eddies – demented bariaur, bombastic elf, blood-loving tiefling – all peering into the roaring drabness of the adjacent passage, all searching for the absent Thrasson, all sure they will see the monster instead. They carry spells primed on their tongues and weapons ready in their hands, and they know better than to think they will survive without the Amnesian Hero. He is their way out, their strength, their confidence, and, though they know it not, their curse.

The Thrasson has nourished well his deep-rooted Pains, and some have grown round and heavy and rubbed off on his companions. The pods hang fat and firm on their bodies; already, some have ruptured upon Jayk and Tessali, and more are ready. They have stopped throbbing, and their skins are thin and tight and transparent. It will not take much to split them – a careless gesture or a callous word – so we must be watchful, vigilant even. As ripe as they are, the Pains might burst all at once, and that would not be something to miss.

You must not call me cruel-never cruel! The suffering of others brings me no joy-or remorse-1 do only what must be done. If, knowing the Pains they bear, you fear for the Amnesian Hero and his friends, do not despair. Think on this: it is only by trial that we learn resolve, by ordeal that we earn strength, by tribulation that we grow brave, by turmoil that we win wisdom. Yes, they will suffer torment unimaginable, they will endure anguish enough to crush a giant, they will bear grief to shatter a god – and yet, when the last blow is struck and the last word spoken, all will end well; they will be together, alive, triumphant, stronger than before – I promise you this.

But now the time has come to see the face beneath the black hood and look into the eyes that would rule me, to learn the name of the one who bought my heart. I lift one foot off the ground, then the other, and the Lady of Pain is there before them, standing among the ashen eddies, the hem of her gown floating just above the dross, the blades of her halo chiming in the wind.

Their spells melt like salt on their tongues; their weapon hands fall to their sides. Jayk, wisest of all, flees to the back of the blind. Silverwind steps forward, daring to think that he has imagined me. I flick my hand; he slams flank to ground, the breath shooting from his huge bariaur lungs in a single bleat. Tessali recovers from his shock and turns to flee, but a Pain picks that instant to burst; the elf remembers the amphora. He shoves the golden sword into his belt and turns to the vessel. I slash a fingernail through the air, and the hands that have offended me drop into the ash.

The elf does not scream. He is too stunned, or perhaps too frightened of affronting me further; he simply turns, both stumps trailing red, and runs after Jayk. I start to float toward the amphora, which takes me nearer gasping Silverwind. Though he has not recovered his wind, the old bariaur scrambles to his hooves and gallops away. A Pain bursts, spilling green ichor down his withers, and he does not break stride as he comes to the back of the blind. Instead, he springs into the air and disappears over the wall, his rear hooves clipping the crest as he passes out of sight, and only then does he realize what he has abandoned.

Jayk looks from the wall to me. Her murky complexion pales to peart, then she grabs Tessali by the elbow and drags him to the two plumes of ash that mark where Silverwind left the blind. She laces her fingers together to boost the elf, who, aside from a forlorn glance at the hands he leaves behind, hesitates not at all to step into her palms. The tiefling heaves him over the wall and scrambles after, and then I am alone with the amphora.

How long Lstare at the jar, I cannot say. In Sigil, mortals enter their little inns walking and come out crawling; the iron is poured hot into the mold and pulled out cold; the fingersmith is caught and judged and locked tight away, and still I stare. I have a churning coldness deep down inside. I feel myself quivering, and I ache with the weakness of mortals. The amphora can hold only ill for me, else the King of Seas would never have sent it, yet open it I must. Whether the net inside be twined from strands genuine or false, the truth remains of the void within my breast, and, no matter how unlikely, that a god might have what belongs in my chest is a threat to Sigil too great to allow.

I go to the amphora, but do not pull the stopper. That is what Poseidon would want. The memories would come swirling out all at once, overwhelming in number and power, and then would I be lost. Better to let them come singly, to sort and judge and to leam the extent of the Sea King's deceit in my own time.

I wipe the ashen patch from the jar's neck, then hold it on its side until a golden thread writhes from the crack. The strand is as yellow and fine as my wind-blown hair when I stood with Poseidon and my mother. Even now, I cannot say what magic this is, whether illusion or conjuration or healing, but it can be no happenstance the amphora looses golden filaments for me and black tatters for the Thrasson, and that is knowledge in itself.

I return the jar to its resting place, then step back. The strand writhes free and floats over to me. It circles my head once. My breath quickens, and a low, hissing wind gusts through the streets of the Lower Ward. The fiber circles twice, and an acrid drizzle falls in the Hive. Thus does the Lady of Pain betray her worry; we are one, Sigil and I.

A third time the strand circles, and from the emptiness in my chest rises a feathery effusion, an airy gush that flutters and ripples and grows ever more compelling. I feel my feet moving and my body spinning, and the lilt of a satyr's gay-hearted pipes tickles my ears. The smell of roast swine fills my nostrils. I find myself clasped in the brutish arms of a great bull-headed ogre, my golden hair flying about us as we whirl through a dance.

"Nay; marry not that foul one." His whispering voice is low and rumbling, his breath sweet with wine. "Come away with me, and I will spare you eternity in misery. "

We whirl past the high table where sits Poseidon, an entire swine and a cask of wine before him. Seated with him is my groom, the black-cloaked helmsman of the black-sailed dhow. Save for two yellow eyes burning in the stygian depths beneath his hood, his face remains shadowed from view. In the center of the table sits my heart, still pulsing inside green-tinted glass; next to it, the bride's price, still locked away in four ebony boxes.

"Have no fear," whispers my bull-headed dance partner. "I will steal your heart, that Set will have no power over you, and I will steal the Pains, and make them a betrothal gift to you."

Set slams his fist down, and a thunderclap peals through the hall. The dark god rises from his seat and leans far over the table, and by the light of a candle I have my first glimpse of my groom. He has the hideous face of a jackal, with a long pointed snout and enormous ears and a coward's spiteful eyes.

"Have done with your whispering, and your dancing, Baphomet!" His voice yowls like steel upon the whetstone. "I will not have you soiling my bride with your filthy bull's tongue."

The music stops at once, yet Baphomet whirls me around one last time. "Be ready," he whispers. "Tonight."

He releases me, and again I am in the maze, hovering before the amphora with the bitter ash burning my nostrils and the roaring wind chugging in my ears and a thousand questions whirling in my mind. Well has Poseidon twined his net, that one question answered raises two even greater. Again, I must take up the jar. Another fiber snakes from the crack; I step back and wait as it circles me once; my dread wells, and claps of thunder roll through the Clerk's Ward. The strand rounds me again, and the Market Ward shudders with my trepidation.

The golden filament circles a third time, and from the void in my chest trickles a chill swirling, a numbing current that runs and purls and grows ever more cold. A foul, swampy stink hangs thick in the air, and a stinging wind bites at my flesh. I am kneeling at the brink of a vast salt plain, staring into the inky shallows of a broad, torpid river. The black sky is booming and yowling with my father's bellowing and Set's yelping.

"Drink and be safe." Baphomet stands at my side, a black satchel slung over his shoulder. I have not seen what is inside, but the bottom hangs low with something round and heavy. "Drink, and none will have power over you."

But I do not drink. Though I carry the four ebony boxes in my own satchel, Baphomet has not returned my heart to me. Though he denies it still, I suspect that is what he carries in his black sack, and I know that this is the River Lethe-some call it by another term, but they who have drunk from it can never recall its true name. If I swallow those dark waters, I will not remember Set, or my father, and then only he who holds my stolen heart will have power over me.

"Thieves!" booms Poseidon. "Return what you have stolen!"

"Wife-stealer!" Set howls.

Baphomet's eyes widen, for he is no match for my father's fury. "Drink!"

While I recall my father's name, ever will Poseidon have the power to find me. Still, I refuse. Why should I trade one master for another? Better that they should kill each other upon the salt plain, and by their blood that I should be free.

Now does Baphomet mark my plan. "Scheming woman!"

With a circle of his wrist, he gathers my hair in his great hand and drags me forward. "You will drink!"

Quick is my hand to my dagger. Quicker still my dagger to my golden hair, and with a single slash the sharp blade cuts my bunched tresses. I fall back on my haunches. Baphomet screams and plunges headlong into the river, the dark waters dosing fast over his body.

With Poseidon's bellow thundering in my ears and Set's yowling grating down my back, I watch the inky currents many moments before Baphomet surfaces far down the river. He is choking and gagging and spewing black water from his bull's nostrils. His arms are pounding the surface. The black satchel no longer hangs from his shoulder, and when his eyes turn in my direction, there is only emptiness and confusion in his gaze.

I rise and run along the bank. At last I glimpse the dark sack, floating a hundred paces ahead and drifting faster than I can run.

From the black sky booms my father's voice. "There, Foul One, upon the shores of the Styx! Hurry, or she is lost!"

I turn to face the river, but instead of black waters, I am staring at the amphora. The wind is roaring out of the adjacent passage, stirring up eddies of gray ash, and my mouth is parched with despair. Where now, my heart: Carceri, Avalas, Malbolge? Must I pull another strand to leam the answer, then another to discover hence from there?

From that void beneath my breast rises a fierce, tumultuous boiling; it matters not whether I pull the strands one at a time or all at once, I will never know the answer until I have emptied the jar-and, now I realize, not even then! If I did jump after the satchel, I would have forgotten the reason I leapt! A ferocious storm rises in Sigil: hailstones fall as large as fists, pounding roofs into rubble and striking men dead where they stand; gales blast through the lanes, smashing sedan chairs into walls and walls into each other; chains of lightning dance from fountain to fountain, shattering catch basins and choking deep-dug wells with rubble. The ground itself trembles beneath my rage, and fissures run down the streets side-by-side, racing to see which one can topple the most buildings. Thus does rapacious Poseidon hope to bring Sigil low: by stirring me to such a state that I destroy the city myself, so that he might stroll among the ruins and make a slave of me with nary a fight.

Perhaps, had I been fool enough to pull the stopper, the plan would have worked. The memories would have rushed from the jar and seized me one after another. In the fervor of the moment, I might have believed that I had jumped into the River Lethe after my heart, that I had drunk of its dark waters to escape Set my betrothed and Poseidon my father.

But if I drank then, how can I call the river now by its true name? Lethe.

Thus is Poseidon's treachery defeated, and now does the ground in Sigil stop quaking; the lightning fades to crackling forks, the hail blanches to cold rain, the wind but moans. The city is safe again, and so it will remain as long as the King of Seas' vile tricks remain safe inside the amphora.

And who can make that so, if not the Lady of Pain?

I fill my palm with ash, then wet it with blood squeezed from Tessali's severed hands. The patching paste is brown and coppery smelling, and sure to attract the monster of the labyrinth. Karfhud

There had been no choice, really, except to enter the conjunction. The only place for the wine woman to go had been through the black square, and so the Amnesian Hero had tucked the wayward sandal into his belt and followed. Unlike the first time he had entered one of the strange portals, he had experienced no sensation of falling, heard no great roaring, felt no wind tearing at his hair or ash scouring his face. He had merely stepped into the darkness and stood there waiting – forever it seemed-to emerge on the other side.

That was when the Amnesian Hero recalled the gout of flame that had nearly incinerated him earlier, as Silverwind stepped from the iron maze into the ashen one. The fireball had erupted the instant the bariaur passed through the conjunction: large, bright, and too hot to miss. And later, on the other side, he had cautioned the Thrasson about standing too close to the black square, for fear that it would "torch up" and draw the monster's attention.

There had been no fireball when the wine woman disappeared.

The Amnesian Hero stood pondering in the darkness, his mind spinning with fever and his sweaty body trembling with weakness. The wine woman could have gone no other place; the conjunction had been the only route out of the blind – at least that he had noticed. He considered going back to see if he had missed something, then found himself wondering if he could return. Presumably, the black square hung directly behind him, but what if he was moving? There was no fluttering in his stomach, no air stirring against his skin, no sensations at all suggesting motion – yet he had been standing there in the gloom quite some time. He had to be moving. He could imagine no other reason for the delay.

Better, then, to continue waiting. He could only guess what might happen if he tried to step one way or another while passing through a conjunction-would he come out someplace different than he should? Stay lost in the darkness forever? Vanish into oblivion? All these possibilities seemed disastrous. Moreover, even if the wine woman had disappeared down a. side passage, she would be long gone by now. He could only hope that, just as this conjunction differed from the first in duration of crossing, it also differed in not expelling gouts of flame when someone stepped through.

Still, the Amnesian Hero saw no need to stand about in tomb-like darkness. He pulled that star-forged sword from its scabbard and held the blade aloft.

"Starlight cleave the night," he commanded.

A brilliant blue radiance burst from the tip, creating a small globe that bathed the area in an eerie sapphire light. After the long darkness, the sudden illumination hurt the Thrasson's eyes, and he was still trying to blink away his blindness when he perceived a woman-sized shape slipping from the brightened circle.

"Wait, I beg you!"

Eyes half shut, the Amnesian Hero started after the fleeing figure and found himself clumping down a narrow dirt lane. A row of windowless mud brick tenements bordered the street on each side, their open doorways as still and black as a conjunction square. The Thrasson cursed himself for a berk, wondering how long he had been standing about in the dark thinking himself caught between mazes. It was a wonder the wine woman had still been near when he lit his sword.

"Please… wait!" he gasped. "I'm too… sick to keep this… up."

The Amnesian Hero clumped past an intersection and saw, out of the corner of his eye, the woman's figure turning to flee. In the blue light, her gown looked more gray than white, and her shoulders seemed somewhat more hunched than he remembered, but there was no time to ponder the differences. The Thrasson lurched into the alley and lunged out to catch hold of her.

Her shoulder seemed soft and spongy, and the cloth covering it had the dusty, brittle feel of ancient linen. The gown was no longer belted at the waist, but hung like a sack, dingy and stained, down past her knees. In the sword's blue light, her hair looked colorless and drab; it was also stiff as straw, and so thin it barely concealed her red-blotched scalp.

"Lady? Is that… you?"

The woman's only reply was to lean forward and try to pull away. The Amnesian Hero squeezed her shoulder – then groaned in disgust as her flesh erupted beneath his grasp. A foul, too-sweet stench filled the air, and a warm, slimy fluid coated his fingertips. He pulled his arm away, still holding a handful of moldering cloth and some brownish stuff that had probably once been flesh.

The Amnesian Hero gawked at his hand. "I…" He could not think of the words to apologize. "Lady, please forgive my clumsiness! I meant no harm."

"What did you mean?" The woman's voice was haggard. She spun on the Thrasson, raising a lumpy, gnarled mass at the end of a scaly arm. She extended her index finger, all that remained on the hand, and pointed at her head. "To look on this? Is that what you meant?"

The Amnesian Hero stmggled not to retch. The woman's face was a sagging mass of folded flesh and festering boils, so grotesquely misshapen that it scarcely looked human. A pair of black marbles peered out from beneath a puffy brow, while her nose had vanished – nostrils and all – into an enormous dark nodule that had taken over the middle of her face. Only her mouth, an enormous gash rimmed by red, cracked lips, remotely resembled its original form.

"I… I beg your… pardon.* The Amnesian Hero suddenly felt very weak and braced his ichor-covered hand against a wall. Twice had he braved the Leper Cities of Acheron to rescue the Virgins of Maimara, and never had he set eyes on such a gruesome, pitiable visage. "I thought you were… I was looking for a young woman in white… Perhaps you saw her… come this way?"

"How do you know you haven't found her?" So deep and rumbling was this new voice that the Thrasson seemed to hear it in the pit of his stomach. "In this place, we all wish we were someone else."

Behind the woman appeared an enormous darkness, not creeping into the sapphire light so much as forcing back the radiance. The gloomy figure stood easily half again as tall as a man, with a torso so broad it filled most of the narrow lane. As the Amnesian Hero's eyes grew more accustomed to looking at what was essentially a darker shadow standing in the murk, he saw – or imagined he saw – two maroon eyes flashing somewhere beneath a set of wickedly curved horns. Behind the creature's broad shoulders, there seemed to be a pair of folded wings that rose a good six feet above its head and ended there in two bony hooks.

The newcomer leaned over the woman, bringing his head toward the glowing sword and highlighting the curved horns and maroon eyes the Amnesian Hero had noticed earlier. Even so, it was not until the dark visage actually entered the globe of light that the sapphire glow brightened its features. Hidden beneath sagging folds and black nodules similar to those covering the woman's face were the venom-dripping fangs and vaguely apelike muzzle of a great tanar'ri.

The Amnesian Hero grew suddenly as hot as steam. A distant ringing filled his ears, his vision blackened around the edges, and he felt too frail to stand. The fiend pushed his face closer, and the Thrasson had to pull back to keep from touching the brute's inflamed black lips.

"This girl you have lost, by what name is she called?" The fiend's breath reeked of cinders and rancid flesh. "Karfhud is a favorite of all the girls! Is that not so. Do-?"

The Amnesian Hero did not hear the woman's name, for the ringing in his ears had grown too loud. The darkness rushed in, sweltering and thick, then his legs went limp, and he felt himself fall.

Down he falls, down to the boundless, eternal dark, down to the black cold void where monsters hatch and slither, down to the stale hissing murk that churns like slow-boiling pitch inside us all. Were Jayk there to catch him, the fall would not feel so endless. But she is somewhere beneath a low, copper sky, lost upon a sandy path, beset by thorn brambles left and right, keeping watch on the hedge crest – with fear for me, with hope for the Thrasson – her cape hem hanging ragged where the old bariaur has torn away strips to swaddle Tessali's wrists.

And the elf: he stares, glassy-eyed and confused, at the emptiness at the ends of his wrists; his arms throb up to his shoulders, his bones ache to the core and out again – but not his hands. Those hurt not at all. He still feels them hanging from his wrists, still feels his fingers moving when he tries to make a fist, still feels his knuckles brushing the bariaur's chest as the old fellow works-but does not see them. For some reason he does not understand, they have turned invisible. He is like the ghosts who, by hiding in the shadows of things past, slip the Unbearable Moment.

He should know better.

The Bleak Cabal calls it the Grim Retreat, this taking of refuge in dark places. With every breath, Tessali draws that murk down into himself; with every breath, the gray light grows a little dimmer to his eyes. If he stays too long in the shadows, the darkness will fill him completely; he will lose himself to his blindness as surely as Jayk has – or as I might have, had I not seen the treachery of Poseidon's gift.

Before Silverwind has finished swaddling Tessali's stumps, the black bandages are soaked with blood. The weary bariaur can do nothing about it. He has already cast spells to ease the elf's pain and slow the bleeding, but he has no more healing magic until he has rested.

Tessali spreads his stumps, looks between them. "I can't see my hands." He frowns at the red drops falling from the ragged bandages; his eyes grow vacant, he looks back to Silverwind and asks, "Why can't I see my hands?"

"The Lady took them." Silverwind's reply is weary, impatient, even gruff. "It'll do you no good to confuse the issue now; I saw what I saw, and you can't change it. They're gone."

The elf shakes his head, frantic. "I feel them!"

"You imagine you feel them. But I imagine they're gone, and since I am the One, they are gone." Silverwind palms both stumps, rubs them hard enough to draw a gasp of pain. "You see?"

Tessali squints, leans forward and stares at Silverwind's palms covering his wrists where still he feels his own hands. Slowly, the elf struggles up through the darkness, back to the gray light; the glassy sheen vanishes from his eyes. His mouth gapes open.

"The Lady took my hands!" He jerks the stumps from Silverwind's grasp, crosses them over his breast. "What am I to do? Without hands, I cannot heal!"

Jayk kneels next to the elf, wraps a consolatory arm around his shoulder. Her head is pounding, but she knows when she has been called. "Do not fear, my friend. I can help you, yes?"

"You can?" Tessali looks more hopeful – even relieved – than wary. "How?"

Jayk smiles. Her pupils elongate into diamonds. She presses close to the elf. "We make kiss, yes?"

Tessali leaps to his feet, tears free of her embrace. "No!"

Jayk pouts, fangs dripping venom on her lower lip. "There is no need to be afraid; you are already dead. If you admit this, nothing will trouble you."

"I'm not ready to admit anything – especially that!"

Tessali eases from the tiefling, fixes his gaze on Silver-wind, who is looking down the thorn-walled corridor. The passage continues about thirty paces before rounding a sharp comer. Behind them, it joins a cross passage.

"Silverwind?"

The bariaur turns, but says nothing.

Tessali holds his stumps before Silverwind's face. "You're the One Creator. You can make me a new pair of hands."

Silverwind shakes his head. "No, I cannot."

"Of course you can." Tessali's expression has grown sly. "If you're truly the One Creator, you can make whatever you want"

The old bariaur gives him a reproachful sneer. "By that logic, I would create only what I want – which, since I had never intended to create you or your friends, would hardly be good for you." He pushes away Tessali's stumps. "Count yourself lucky I have limitations. It is better to lack hands than not to exist at all."

Again, the elf thrusts his stumps toward Silverwind. "You don't understand. Without my hands, I can't cast spells. I can't restrain the bannies, or protect myself from the Menaces. I'm nothing!"

"Then you are nothing." Silverwind shrugs. "If I had something to work with, perhaps I could restore what you have lost-but even I cannot create something from nothing."

Tessali's eyes 'grow wide. He glances up the hedge, sees the two divots where Silverwind's hooves scraped the top. "Jayk," he says, turning to the tiefling, "if you go back and fetch my hands, no one will ever try to lock you in the Gatehouse again. I'll see to that."

The tiefling narrows her eyes, suspicious. "How?"

"It doesn't matter," interrupts Silverwind. "You can't go back – not by climbing. There's no telling where you'll end up, but it won't be in the ash maze."

With that, the bariaur snorts and turns down the passage.

"Wait!" Tessali calls. "Where are you going?"

"If you are so determined to have your hands back, we'll have to go and look for them, won't we?"

"You know the way?"

"I'm as lost as you are." Silverwind continues toward the corner. "But now that the Thrasson is gone, what else is there to do?"

"We must wait here!" Jayk stamps her foot, brings the bariaur to a stop. "If we are gone when Zoombee jumps over the wall, what will he think? That we have left him, yes?"

"Jayk, come along." Tessali arches his brow. "The Amnesian Hero won't be jumping over the wall. He's dead."

"So are you." She glares at the elf's wrists. "And did I leave you behind? No!"

"You know that's different" Tessali has assumed his patient mind-healer's voice. "The Lady only maimed me. She kill – er, annihilated – the Amnesian Hero."

"How do you know? Did you see this?"

"What else could have happened?" The elf stretches a stump toward her, as if he still had a hand to extend. "The Amnesian Hero wouldn't want this; he sacrificed himself so we could escape."

Jayk folds her arms. "That is why we will wait. He deserves that from us, yes?"

"He would, if he were coming. But-"

"Tessali, the mazes do have their scavengers," Silverwind interrupts. "Do you want to find your hands or not?"

"Jayk, let's go." The elf cannot keep his head from pivoting down the passage. "There's no use waiting here."

"You only worry about your hands." Jayk looks away. "I wait for Zoombee."

"You may do as you wish, but you do understand that once we're gone, you'll be alone? We may never see each other again."

"I did not ask to see you the first time."

"As you wish, Jayk." After restoring a thousand madmen to their senses, Tessali knows a bluff when he sees one – or so he thinks. He turns and, with Silver-wind's help, climbs on the bariaur's back. "I will miss you."

Confident Jayk will follow once she sees he is serious, Tessali nods, and Silverwind turns and trots down the passage. When they round the corner, Jayk is still standing where they left her, arms folded across her chest and gaze locked atop the hedge.

It will be some time before she sees the Thrasson come leaping over the crest. At the moment, he is still falling through the sweltering darkness, his heart rising into his throat, his stomach light as air. There is a woman's voice, keen and high, ringing in his ears; she is trilling a single name over and over, the syllables tumbling and gurgling over each other like the lilting aria of a waterfall. The Amnesian Hero keeps trying to understand what she is singing, as though catching hold of her voice might spare him the crash at the end of his plunge, but it will take more than that to save him.

The Thrasson is still falling when he opens his eyes and finds himself lying in the dirt street. He does not remember hitting the ground, and his insides remain squeamish and unsettled, but either he has stopped moving or everyone is moving with him – he cannot decide. He is staring up at a ring of sagging, rumpled faces illuminated in the sapphire light of his star-forged sword, which the tanar'ri Karfhud has picked up and raised high aloft, like a fog-haloed moon in the darkness.

The Amnesian Hero could not pick out the woman he had seen first. The faces above him were all round festering masses of folded flesh and dark nodules. Some, those in the earliest stages of the disease, retained something of their original shapes; brows and cheeks and jawlines still manifested themselves beneath flakes of dead white skin. Other visages, unbearable to look upon, were mere ooze-glistening blobs that made the Thrasson feel guilty for his own good fortune.

A peal of deep laughter boomed from Karfhud's round muzzle. "Stranger, you are not so fortunate! The star that guided you here was a foul one indeed." The fiend turned to the others. "My friends, we have here a noble one. He truly feels for us!"

"Then leave him be, Karfhud." The rasping words slipped from the lips of a blob-face. "He means us no harm."

"Truly, I do not!" The Amnesian Hero propped himself on his elbow, at once surprised by the plumes of darkness that this small exertion sent shooting through his head and how well the fiend had read his thoughts. "And I will do… whatever I can… to aid you."

The blob shook his head. "You can do nothing, stranger."

"Do not be… hasty. I am a man of renown… the slayer of the Hydra of Thrassos… the tamer of the Hebron Crocodile… the bane of Abudrian Dragons…" The Amnesian Hero felt more feverish and parched with each declaration. For once he wished his listeners would interrupt, but the villagers had all the time in the multiverse to listen. "The champion of Ilyrian Kings… the killer of the Chalcedon Lion… the scourge of foes too numerous to name… and always have I done as I promised."

"Then you have never promised what cannot be done." The blob-face raised his chin and swiveled his head toward his fellows. "It'll be best to leave him where he lies."

The speaker stepped back and vanished into the darkness. The other villagers followed, squeezing past Karfhud and disappearing down the gloomy lane.

"Wait!" The Thrasson knew better than to think he could cure their disease, but Tessali or Silverwind might well be able to help. "I'm not alone…"

"You should save your strength," Karfhud rumbled. "Yelling will not change their minds."

"But there are…"

"Maze Blight cannot be cured," the fiend interrupted. "The magic of your healers is of no use."

The Amnesian Hero scowled. "Do you hear everything I think?"

Karfhud nodded. "I do. And you must not be angry with my companions."

The Thrasson raised his brow. It had not yet occurred to him that he was angry at being abandoned, but, of course, the fiend was right. Despite his obvious need of water and rest, the villagers had left him to die in the street

"They are doing you a kindness. Better to die of fever, quickly, than to linger here. It would take a century for someone of your health to rot away."

"All the same… I prefer to take my chances… In a century… I'll be dead… anyway."

The fiend's black lip twitched upward. "You will certainly wish you were."

Without awaiting a reply, Karfhud dropped his gaze to the Amnesian Hero's flank, where the infected scratch had grown so puffy and inflamed it was about to split. A chill tickled down the Thrasson's spine. He caught himself gawking at the sagging brow beneath the fiend's wicked horns, wondering if the tanar'ri meant to imply he had already contracted the Maze Blight Surely, the disease could not be so catching that one acquired it simply by walking into the village.

"Do you forget what happened when you grabbed Dorat's shoulder?" asked Karfhud, again intruding on the Thrasson's thoughts. "But truly, not one of us can say how he acquired the disease. There is a certain beast-"

The monster of the labyrinth! thought the Thrasson.

A little more of Karfhud's fangs seemed to show beneath his lips. He lowered the Thrasson's sword and began to inspect the glowing blade. The blue light reflected off his maroon eyes, filling the lane with brown flashes.

"A most wonderful weapon." The fiend scraped his thumb across the blade, grating off a cascade of tiny black flakes. "Star-forged, is it not?"

"You know your weapons." The Amnesian Hero had no doubt the fiend intended to steal it from him…

"On the contrary!" Karfhud kneeled, his enormous legs straddling the Thrasson's chest, and flipped the weapon around so that he was holding it by the naked blade. "I was hoping you would make me a gift of it-after you die, of course."

"I… I have no intention of… dying."

"No? More the pity for you, then." The fiend laid the hilt in the Amnesian Hero's hand, then stood. "Still – and I hope you do not find me rude for noting this – you don't look well. In case you happen to expire, would it be too much to ask the command words that activate the magic?"

Of course, even as he thought not to think it, the phrase flashed through the Thrasson's mind: Starlight cleave the night.

"One spell!" Karfhud growled. "For such a magnificent weapon, that hardly seems enough!"

"It is all… you will discover!"

Knowing what Karfhud would surely do next, the Amnesian Hero lashed out at the fiend's belly with a vicious backhand slash.

Karfhud, of course, had realized the Thrasson's intentions even as he formed them. The fiend was already out of reach when the blade flashed past

"Because you are sick and confused, I forgive you that mistake." There were little tongues of fire flickering in the tanar'ri's dark pupils. "But I warn you, I will not abide such an insult again."

"I care… nothing for your warnings. I know better than to trust… a tanar'ri lord."

The Amnesian Hero clambered to his feet, deliberately exaggerating his clumsiness in an attempt to lure the fiend into attacking. The rase failed as miserably as the first, and the Thrasson found himself facing an extremely large tanar'ri lord in very cramped quarters. Given his condition, the mere fact that he was still alive suggested he had badly misjudged Karfhud's intentions.

"Now you are being sensible." The fiend stepped forward. He extended his wrist and, using his own claw, opened a vein. "Give me your hand."

The Amnesian Hero began to retreat. "What for?"

"My blood is my bond." Karfhud caught up with a single step. "I pledge not to steal your sword, to cause you no harm while you live, and to aid you any way I can."

Seeing that retreating would do him no good, the Thrasson stopped. "And in return?"

"I ask less than I pledge." Karfhud seemed unconcerned about the steady stream of dark, hissing blood spilling from his opened wrist. "Only that you cause me no harm while you live, and that when you die, your sword and all your possessions shall be mine."

As badly as he needed aid, the Amnesian Hero knew better than to trust a fiend – especially one of the tanar'ri, who believed less in the role of law than they did in the rule of evil.

"And if I refuse?"

The tanar'ri's wings rose behind him, filling the alley and making the fiend seem even larger than he was. "You do not want to refuse."

"If I have no choice but death, then I agree."

The Thrasson lowered his sword and extended his free hand. He had no misgivings, for it was no dishonor to exchange such an oath under threat of death-nor, in the eyes of his gods, was it binding.

The tanar'ri caught the proffered wrist in a movement as fast as lightning. The fiend wrinkled his muzzle into a gruesome parody of a smile, then held his bleeding wrist over the Amnesian Hero's hand. A single drop of black blood landed in the center of the Thrasson's palm.

There was a loud sizzle. The smell of acid and fire and melting flesh filled the air. The Thrasson's arm felt as though he had plunged it into boiling oil. He screamed and, thinking the fiend had betrayed him already, tried to raise his sword to attack. No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than the weapon slipped from his grasp and dropped to the ground. The Amnesian Hero stared at the glowing blade and tried to ignore his searing pain and the terrible, sinking feeling that he had just made a mistake worse than dying.