Pages of Pain p-1

by Troy Denning

  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 blea
t. 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 di
scover 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