by Troy Denning
"Me?" Jayk scoffed. "It is you who clings to delusion like his mother's teat!"
With that, Jayk's head shot forward, the pupils of her dark eyes taking the shape of two elongated diamonds. The Amnesian Hero thought he glimpsed a pair of needlelike fangs folding down from the roof of the tiefling's mouth, but her mouth closed abruptly when her burly handlers jerked her back. Tessali stepped away and turned around, rubbing his neck as though he could still feel her hot breath upon his skin.
Jayk switched her gaze to the Thrasson, the pupils of her dark eyes slowly returning to the round. She gave him a provocative smile, then ran her tongue over her damson lips.
"Come to me. It will be a long time before you make kiss with a woman, no?"
"No." It seemed clear enough now that the test had been one of resolve. "There are women enough in Thrassos, and I will have my pick of them after my audience with the Lady of Pain."
Again, Jayk threw her head back and gave that bony laugh. "You have not solved the Third Riddle, no? The Lady of Pain, you will not find her here! This is the House of Bannies, do you understand? And you and I, we are their prisoners!"
The Amnesian Hero scowled. "Now it is you who are deluded. I have solved the First Riddle, and the second as well, and I have seen the Lady's vassals waiting with their gifts of pain…"
"The Stumbling Dead, yes, hoping for a bed of straw and a bowl of gruel, fighting against their next stage, the fools!" Jayk went limp, leaving her body to dangle by her outstretched arms. "I wish I were one of them, and you as well-but we are here, prisoners of the Bleak Cabal, to be locked away until we become as barmy as they, yes?"
The Amnesian Hero shook his head. "No! This is the Lady of Pain's palace!"
" 'Course it is!" growled Cwalno. The Mercykiller was approaching with Tyvold at his side and a dozen wide-eyed assistants at his back. "Do I look the sort to disobey orders? You heard Madame Mok say to take you to the Lady of Pain."
The Amnesian Hero eyed the Mercykiller warily and said nothing, and Cwalno tensed in his stance. Yet, so perfectly had the Thrasson played his role to that moment that even Tyvold-who has lured a thousand madmen cunning as fiends into the dark warrens beyond the iron door-failed to guess that his ward had long ago learned the lie. The elf only stepped forward, raising a gray canvas cloak that an assistant had fetched for him from the depths of his asylum.
"This is the Ceremonial Robe of Pain." Tyvold gave it a shake, unfurling a dozen straps, chains, and belts attached to the sleeves and waist. "Before you see Her Serenity, you must remove your armor and put on this instead."
Cwalno motioned to the other Mercykillers. They inched toward the Amnesian Hero, their knuckles growing white around the shafts of their glaives. The Thrasson's eyes widened. He swung his gaze toward the tiefling, who winked and gave him a crooked smile.
"Maybe you make kiss with me now, eh?"
The Amnesian Hero's hand dropped toward his sword.
The Mercykillers lowered their glaives, but Tyvold motioned them sharply back, then inched toward the Thrasson.
"What about the Third Riddle?" the elf asked. "Don't you want to hear it?"
The Amnesian Hero paused short of touching his sword. "I do, if you can tell it."
"And then you will change your armor for the Ceremonial Robe?"
"Of course." The Amnesian Hero glanced at the Mercykillers, almost sneering at the confidence in their stances. "If the riddle is a good one."
Tyvold screwed his face up in thought, and though the Amnesian Hero must have known that the elf did not have the Third Riddle, he was too cunning to give up his pretense even then. He waited a moment longer, then gripped the hilt of his sword.
"Do you know the Third Riddle or not?"
"Of course," Tyvold blurted. "I walk upon four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night!"
So common was the riddle, and so well known the solution, that the Amnesian Hero did not bother to answer. He simply drew his sword and, before the Mercykillers could stop him, pressed the tip to Cwalno's throat.
"I paid my gold to the Hall of Information, and I expect to see the Lady of Pain! Take me to her now!"
Showing no concern for their comrade's safety, Cwalno's companions stepped forward, slashing at the Thrasson's throat or trying to drive their hard steel through the soft bronze that covered his torso. Of course, the attacks failed. The Amnesian Hero's armor had been forged by the god Hephaestus himself. While he wore it, no weapon could harm him; the blades aimed at his neck dipped and broke upon his pauldrons, and those striking at his chest simply shattered against his breastplate.
The Amnesian Hero whirled on his attackers, slipping between the shafts of the closest pair's useless glaives. He tapped his sword against one man's armored midriff, then flipped his wrist and caught the other on the backswing. The star-forged blade cut through their armor as though it were cloth, leaving a deep gash in each warrior's flank. The two men screamed and dropped to their knees, blood spilling from the rents in their breastplates.
The Amnesian Hero was already past them and behind their comrades. The Thrasson lowered his blade and drew it lightly across the thighs of two more Mercykillers. Again, the star-bom steel cut through armor as easily as silk, and the Mercykillers hurled themselves to the floor, screaming more in terror than pain.
The Thrasson barely had time to lift his blade beforeCwalno and three more guards were upon him, hurling themselves forward in a wall of armored flesh. The Amnesian Hero did not resist the charge. Rather, he dropped to the floor and slid toward their feet, bringing his sword across the front of his body in a sharp arc that cut deep into the shins of two of his foes. He rolled onto his stomach and sprang up behind the last pair of attackers, denting the helmet of the closest with his sword pommel and dropping the fellow on the spot.
Cwalno turned, a belt axe in his grasp.
The Thrasson lopped off the offending hand, then sent the Mercykiller flying with a thrust-kick to the chest. Cwalno's wound was the most severe the Amnesian Hero had inflicted, but he refused to let that trouble him. The oaf had been instrumental in deceiving him. In the future, perhaps Cwalno would think better of helping Madame Mok ridicule those who came to her for help.
The Amnesian Hero took a moment to look the Mercykillers over. Although none were in danger of dying, they seemed too awed by the speed of their demise to cause him any further trouble. The Thrasson turned his attention to Tyvold, who was staring, gape-mouthed, at the mayhem on the floor.
"Now I have a riddle for you, elf:
"Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower…"
"You didn't say he was one of the Menacing!" Tyvold screeched, glaring down at Cwalno's groaning figure. The elf backed away, clutching the Ceremonial Robe of Pain as though it were a shield, and looked toward Tessali. "He's one for your wing, brother."
Tessali shot his brother an angry look, but quickly ordered, "Clear the area!"
The elves and their attendants began to cautiously retreat toward the iron doors that led deeper into the asylum's wings. Jayk's handlers also began to withdraw, dragging their squirming charge along.
"Wait!" the Amnesian Hero called. "All I want is my answer!"
Ignoring him, Tessali reached the iron door and yanked it open. "Fetch the netflingers and sleepcasters!" His voice echoed off the stones of a long, murky corridor. "And be quick! We've got an armed Menace out here, and he knows how to use his weapon!"
The hollow echoes of alarm cries began to spill through the doorway, drawing an angry curse from the Amnesian Hero. "By the bolt of Zeus, what's wrong with you people? Just tell me how to find the Lady of Pain, and I'll be gone!"
"I help you, yes?" called Jayk."You have only to take me with you!"
"Quiet!" One of the tiefling's guards slapped his palm over her mouth, then dragged her through the iron door.
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They were only halfway across the threshold when the Amnesian Hero noticed a certain narrowing in the pupils of Jayk's eyes. The man screamed and jerked his hand away. The appendage was bleeding profusely and already beginning to swell. He opened his mouth to say something, then his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell dead on the floor, his vacant gaze fixed on the gloom above.
Jayk whirled on her second captor, her mouth open to reveal the needlelike fangs that had folded down from the roof of her mouth. The guard wisely released his grip and hurled himself to the floor. The tiefling laughed, then blew him a kiss and, leaving Tessali to quiver behind his iron door, slunk across the floor to the Amnesian Hero.
"Come, you and I, we leave here together." Her pupils were still slender and diamondlike, and she had two runnels of dark blood dribbling down her chin. "Then I show you how to find the Lady of Pain, yes?"
The Amnesian Hero did not answer immediately. Instead, he cleaned and sheathed his sword, at the same time studying the carnage around him. Why would so many men elect to do battle with him rather than answer a simple question about the Lady of Pain? When he could think of no reasonable answer, he reluctantly looked back to Jayk and nodded.
"As you will; we have a bargain." He picked up his amphora, which his nervous chair-bearers had been wise enough to leave lying upon the floor, then turned toward the exit. "It appears I have need of a guide." Dustmen
How Jayk got that blood-bubbling slash across her thigh, I do not know. Nor can I relate how she and the Thrasson came to be panting for breath in a crooked dead-end alley, surrounded by black tangles of razorvine and cornered by seven armored githyanki. I can only say that as they fled the Gatehouse, the tiefling's body flared with a silver aura of delight, and the sight of a denizen's joy is more than I can bear. There is a flash behind my eyes, then a raw, scintillating light – a sparkling torment like an axe blade in my brain – and then I see nothing but bright-winking stars. It is my weakness, this bedazzled blindness. It is a false fire, a brilliant burning apparition that flashes and fades and leaves in its place a silhouette all the blacker for its passing, and so it was that I lost for a time the Amnesian Hero and his guide.
When my vision cleared, I found them in this cul-de-sac, gasping for air and searching the hard walls for escape routes that were nowhere to be found. Every barricaded door and bricked-over window hung hidden behind thick snarls of razorvine that even the Amnesian Hero knew better than to think of climbing. Beneath the glossy black leaves lay fluted stalks with ridges as sharp as swords, and so dense Were the coils that anyone scaling them would find himself hopelessly tangled. There was only one way out of the trap. The Thrasson lay the amphora on the ground, then drew his star-forged blade and faced the githyanki.
They had the look of elves gone bad. Their faces were slender and delicate, marked by sharp angles and warped features, with gritty yellow skin and eyes that gleamed like polished coal. They kept their gray lips raised in snaky, fang-toothed snarls, and their flat noses were so small they looked almost absent. All seven were armored in dark, baroque plate and tall cone-shaped helmets, and each carried a two-handed sword with a saw-toothed blade. Wherever they could find a lobe or a fold of skin to pierce hung chains of gold finery, a sure sign that they were both more vicious and more capable than the many bloodblades who would gladly have taken the jewelry from their dead bodies.
"We have no… quarrel with you." The Amnesian Hero was still winded by the long run from the Gatehouse. "Stand aside, and I won't hurt… any of you."
"Tessali said you two was barmy," sheered the tallest githyanki. "Come along quiet. You're worth more alive than dead."
The Amnesian Hero gnashed his teeth at the speaker's insolence, but held his temper and tried to think of a quiet way to dispose of his seven enemies. The sound of clashing steel would certainly draw the attention of the many search parties scouring the streets of the Hive for him and Jayk, and then there would be even more bloodletting.
The Amnesian Hero sighed heavily. "Very well. It seems we are captured." He flipped his sword around and laid the hilt over his free arm, then stepped forward. "I have no wish to fight."
The githyanki slipped back. "That's far enough, berk." He pointed at the ground. "Drop your sticker there."
"As you wish." The Amnesian Hero stopped and gently tossed his sword into the dirt. Though it grated on the Thrasson to treat his weapon so badly, he hoped the act would quell the githyanki's suspicions. If he could make a hostage of the leader, perhaps he could end the confrontation without shedding blood or creating a clamor. "We surrender."
"Surrender?" scoffed Jayk. She was standing behind the Amnesian Hero, and he could not see what she was doing. "Never!"
"Magic!" Three githyanki cried the word at once, then lunged for the tiefling together.
Cursing Jayk's impatience, the Amnesian Hero pivoted on his heel and slammed a spinning thrust kick into the first warrior's flank. The fellow's breastplate spared him any shattered ribs, but the blow sent him crashing into the next githyanki, who was knocked deep into a vicious snarl of razorvine. The third one charged past, his saw-toothed sword already arcing down at the tiefling. The Thrasson thrust a hand out and caught him by the collar, then yanked him off his feet.
The githyanki's helmet hit the ground first, striking with a deep, metallic toll. Two paces beyond the fellow's feet, Jayk was tossing a gob of rough wool into the air and uttering the dark-sounding syllables of a spell. Before the Amnesian Hero could turn to face his remaining foes, four huge swords slammed into his back. The blades shattered against his god-forged armor, but that did not prevent the impact from driving him off his feet. He landed face first and tasted mordant Sigil dirt.
The battle clamor grew abruptly distant and muffled. The Amnesian Hero feared, for only the briefest instant, that a foe's blade had actually rent Hephaestus's magic and struck his head. When he did not fall unconscious or feel his skull erupting into pain, however, he quickly realized that could not be so and sprang to his feet. He found himself facing four astonished githyanki holding four broken swords. They appeared to be shouting at each other, but the only sound in the alley was a faint, uneven drone no louder than a fly's buzzing-apparently a result of the spell Jayk had cast.
Resisting the temptation to glance at his sword, which still lay upon the ground behind his four enemies, the Amnesian Hero hurled himself forward. The leader shoved his fellows into the fray and retreated. The three githyanki flailed at the Thrasson, but their broken swords always shattered against a pauldron or glanced off a vambrace. The Thrasson slammed his elbow up under a chin, and one foe fell; he grabbed a throat and pinched off the carotid arteries, and another dropped; he trapped a wild swing, then popped a shoulder out of its socket. The last attacker fell to the ground, the scream that came from his gaping mouth silenced by Jayk's magic.
As fast as the Amnesian Hero disposed of his enemies, he was not quick enough to reach his sword; the githyanki leader had already snatched it off the ground. This time, the Thrasson did not rush to the attack, as even his god-made armor was no defense against that star-forged blade. Instead, he glanced in Jayk's direction and found her atop the warrior he had kicked earlier, clawing at his eyes and doing something bloody with a dagger. Not three paces from her, one githyanki was thrashing about in the razorvine, growing more tangled by the instant and bleeding from all the places not covered by his dark armor. Another fellow, the one whose helmet had made such a toll when the Thrasson jerked him to the ground, was shaking his head and slowly rising to his knees.
The Amnesian Hero took a flying leap at this githyanki, kicking him in the helmet with enough force to smash his face back to the ground. When the warrior's body fell instantly limp, the Thrasson snatched up his sword and whirled around, automatically bringing the weapon up to slap aside a slashing blade that was not there.
The githyanki leader, more cautious with his own safety than that of his underlings, had not leapt to the attack. He stood three p
aces away, frantically trying to rouse his fallen warriors by kicking them in the helmets. The Amnesian Hero raised his borrowed sword to column guard and advanced. The githyanki retreated a few paces, then stopped and sank into a battle stance. Though the star-forged sword in his hands was as light as a feather, the brute held it with both hands, a sure sign that he was more accustomed to fighting with force than finesse.
The Amnesian Hero stopped two paces from his foe, pretending not to notice that he was standing among the fallen githyanki. He smiled, then dipped his heavy sword in salute. The leader leapt forward, trying to catch his prey at a disadvantage. The Thrasson wrenched his heavy sword up into a high block, deliberately allowing his attacker time to dose. The gold-draped warrior sneered and threw his weight into a vicious downstroke.
The Amnesian Hero held his position until the blades clashed, then deftly danced aside as his star-forged sword sliced through the clumsy weapon he now held. The surprised leader lurched forward, stumbling over a fallen underling and landing on his knees. The Thrasson sprang on him instantly, bringing the pommel of his broken sword down on the unarmored base of the fellow's neck. The githyanki collapsed in a heap.
The Amnesian Hero retrieved his sword, then glimpsed Jayk out of the corner of his eye. He turned to find her stooping over a fallen githyanki, one foot atop his dislocated shoulder to keep him pinned to the ground while she pulled his head up by a topknot of coarse hair. Before the Thrasson could fully grasp the situation, she slipped her free hand around the warrior's neck and calmly drew a dagger across her victim's throat.
"Jayk!" the Amnesian Hero screamed. "What are you doing?"
The Thrasson's words were barely audible, of course. Jayk's spell had not yet lapsed, so all sounds in the alley remained muted. The tiefling stepped over to another of the unconscious githyanki and pulled his head up.
The Amnesian Hero rushed over and caught her dagger arm. Jayk whirled on him so quickly he thought she might be attacking, but she only tipped her head and gave him an innocent smile. A cold shudder ran down his spine. He pointed at the bloody blade and shook his head to indicate there was no need to slay their foes. The tiefling thrust her bottom lip out, then stuck her knife into her belt without cleaning off the blood.