Pages of Pain p-1

by Troy Denning

  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.

  At last, the sizzling died away, and the sick acid stench faded from the Thrasson's nostrils. The burning agony drained from his arm, and Karfhud released his wrist. The Amnesian Hero turned his hand into the light and, tattooed onto his palm, he saw the ruby-eyed semblance of a slender, wicked-homed tanar'ri.

  "That was before the blight." Karfhud sounded almost wistful. "But that was many centuries ago – and we have more immediate concerns, do we not? Gather up your sword, and let us be on our way."

  Seeing nothing else to do, the Amnesian Hero did as the fiend instructed. "And where are we going?"

  "To collect our supplies, of course 1" Karfhud seemed genuinely surprised by the Thrasson's question. "And then we shall return you to your friendsl"

  "My friends?" The Thrasson did not relish the thought of returning to his companions in the company of a Maze-Blighted tanar'ri. "It might be better if I returned alone."

  "In your condition? You would never succeed!" Karfhud swept the Amnesian Hero up in a single arm. "And did I not swear to aid you any way I can?" Hands

  She stalks the mazes like a bloodblade on the prowl, shambling around comers, skulking along walls, squinting into the windblown ash. Faint as it is, the smell of wine and sour sweat and crusted blood grows more distinct with every step. She stops, sucks down a chest full of gritty air, turns her maw skyward; from her throat rumbles a low growl that rises to a deep rolling bellow and spreads like thunder across the dark sky. The winds grow still in the fury of the roar. Cascades of ash boil down the walls, the ground goes soft with trembling – and the echoes boom back to her bland and hollow, with no resonance of terror. She is alone in this maze; the prey has abandoned her to its spoor. Her matted fur bristles with cold ire, and her craving grows worse for its denial.

  We have the same dark hungers, you and I and the monster. We all ache to sate the same appetites we dare not name. It is the same emptiness inside us all; we stare into that same darkness, we fling our treasures into that same unfathomable pit, and, in the end, we all come to that same scant solace: the comfort of warm blood, the fellowship of a groaning voice, the intimacy of the death rattle. Do not damn the monster; until we look to ourselves, we do not dare.

  She is only searching, and no matter that she will never find what she seeks in Poseidon's amphora; it suits me that she thinks she might. She is kneeling before the jar now, her flat and shaggy fac
e pressed close to the neck, her cavernous nostrils flaring as she sniffs at the ashen patch. It smells of blood and fear and pain, which sate her appetites as well as anything, but also of something more, pride and hope and even, well-masked beneath the rest, treachery. The amphora is not likely to flail or shriek or dash away when she begins to play, but it may offer some new kind of fun-if not, she will return later for the prey. They cannot roam far.

  The monster tucks the amphora under her arm-the same one that was lopped off earlier-then steps into the billowing dross, and by the time the Amnesian Hero directs Karfhud into the blind, she has left the ashen maze and turned toward her lair.

  The Thrasson was sitting in the crook of the tanar'ri's elbow, with one arm wrapped around the fiend's spongy neck and the other pinned against the brute's enormous biceps. The fever had not broken, but the Amnesian Hero felt well enough now. Shortly after allowing his palm to be marked with Karfhud's blood, his dizziness had faded, the fog had evaporated from his mind, even his fatigue had vanished. Save for his unrelenting thirst and the throbbing of his infected scratch-and the uneasy suspicion that he owed his fitness to the fiend's mark-he had no complaints whatsoever. In fact, he was allowing himself to be carried only because his brick foot made it impossible to keep pace with the tanar'ri's ground-swallowing stride.

  Karfhud turned the comer and stopped in the mouth of the blind. The dead-end passage ahead looked like the place where the Thrasson had left his companions. The same ash eddies swirled about the entrance, it was the same thirty paces deep, and it had the same ash walls rising along its sides. The only difference was its emptiness; Jayk and Tessali and Silverwind were missing, and so was the amphora.

  "Put… put me down!" The Thrasson's gasping tone had less to do with thirst than with shock.

  Karfhud straightened his arm, allowing the Amnesian Hero to drop to the ground. "You're certain this is where you left them? In the mazes, many places can look the same."

  "I am no stranger to mazes!"

  Karfhud narrowed his eyes, hiding his maroon pupils between the folds of his sagging face, and made no reply. Tanar'ri lords were not known for their forbearance, but the Amnesian Hero was more worried about his missing companions than angering the fiend. He clumped over to the wall where he had left the amphora. In the powdery ground, he found the shallow basin where he had worked the bottom into the dross. In front of this depression, a pair of hollows had been pressed into the ash. The craters were the size of a man's chest, slightly elongated, and almost two paces apart. Something had kneeled there-something larger than Karfhud.

  "The monster was here," said the tanar'ri, voicing the Thrasson's conclusion even as he reached it. "And she took your amphora."

  "She?"

  Karfhud nodded. "The monster is female-is that not always the way? I wonder what your jar contained to interest her?"

  "So do I." For once, the Amnesian Hero had no answer for the tanar'ri to pluck from his mind.

  The ground was not churned up, as was to be expected after a fight, and, while the eddies had dusted the entire area with ash, the two depressions where the Amnesian Hero and Jayk had sat talking were completely filled, yet the basins where the amphora had rested and the monster's knees had pressed down were covered by only a light coating.

  "You are right, Thrasson." Karfhud gazed up and down the blind. "This battle site makes no sense."

  "Will you allow me the privacy of my own thoughts?"

  "Why do you need privacy – unless you're trying to hide something?" Karfhud hung his sagging face over the Thrasson, curling the swollen black lips of his muzzle just enough to bare the tips of his yellow fangs. "Certainly, you do not concern yourself with proprieties. The thought has not crossed a human mind that could offend tanar'ri sensibilities."

  "I doubt the tanar'ri have sensibilities," grumbled the Thrasson. "And I certainly have nothing to hide. You can read minds. You must know my opinion of you by now."

  The Amnesian Hero turned away to see if he could learn more about what had happened to his companions. Given how often eddies spun into the blind to coat everything with a fresh layer of ash, he knew better than to think he would find many hints on the ground. Instead, he walked along the wall in both directions, searching for anything to suggest there had been a battle: stray weapon marks, blood-soaked clods, indentations left by huried bodies.

  The Amnesian Hero found nothing, which, he decided, meant nothing. The battle could easily have been fought without leaving its mark on the wall. His companions might have escaped without a fight. Or, when they reached the mouth of the blind and found him missing, they might have fled before the monster arrived.

  "No, that cannot be what happened."

  Karfhud's intrusion startled the Amnesian Hero so badly he jumped. He landed with his sword half-drawn and spun on the fiend, angry enough that he felt flames licking in his eyes.

  Karfhud showed no sign that he noticed the Thrasson's fury. "Your friends were in a hurry, or they would have taken the amphora with them."

  "Not necessarily." The Amnesian Hero did not know why he bothered speaking, except that it made him feel a little less like a fiend in the making. "To them, the amphora was nothing but trouble."

  Although the Thrasson did not bother to elaborate, Karfhud nodded. "Ah, yes: the giant."

  The Amnesian Hero grated his teeth, but dropped to his hands and knees near the place he and Jayk had been sitting. Karfhud had given him an idea. He began to sweep his hands through the ash, searching for the wineskin he had left lying on the ground. Presumably, the skin would still be there if his companions had left in a hurry.

  The Thrasson brushed something cold and much too smooth to be Silverwind's wineskin. He lost contact with it, then spread his fingers and raked both hands deeply through the ash. This time, he caught the thing squarely. His pulse raced in his ears. He half-expected whatever it was to bite him and squirm away, but the object remained dead in his grasp. It had a strange texture, with a soft exterior wrapped over a hard, lumpy core. From one side protruded several long, flexible appendages…

  The Amnesian Hero's stomach went hollow and qualmish, then he found himself shouting in revulsion as he pulled a rather fine-boned hand from deep beneath the ash.

  "Foul Hades!" The Thrasson dangled the thing by its thumb. "There was a fight!"

  A sick, guilty feeling welled up inside him; while he was off chasing his wine woman, the monster had come and devoured his companions.

  "Do you have to be so maudlin? It is only a hand!"

  The tanar'ri snatched the thing from the Thrasson's grasp, then wiped the ash off the severed wrist and raised it to his muzzle. From the fiend's mouth snaked a long, pointed tongue coated in white fungus. The tip flickered over the stump several times and when Karfhud began to rub it back and forth over his taste buds, the Amnesian Hero forced himself not to look away. The cut was uncommonly clean; even his star-forged blade could not have cleaved the bone so smoothly.

  Several nauseating moments later, Karfhud lowered the hand and sighed, deeply satisfied. "Elf – a little old, but elf nonetheless."

  The Amnesian Hero nodded. "Tessali. One of our party."

  Karfhud dropped to all fours and snuffled along the ground, allowing the Thrasson his first good look at the enormous back-satchel the fiend had fetched after their exchange of oaths. Secured snugly by heavy leather straps buckled around the tanar'ri's powerful wing joints, the sack was fashioned of some smooth, lightly colored hide that might have once belonged to either a pig or a man. It was large enough that the Amnesian Hero could have stood inside with Tessali at his side, although they would have been covered only to their chests. The top was drawn closed by a sturdy cinch strap, but several open pockets had been sewn onto the side to hold odds and ends.

  "If you find my rucksack interesting, you would do well to remember that it is my rucksack." Karfhud pushed himself into a kneeling position and, before the Amnesian Hero could ask the reason for the threat, displayed T
essali's second hand. "This is not the doing of the monster."

  The Amnesian Hero had already reached the same conclusion. The cut was far too clean, and, cunning as the beast was, the Thrasson could not imagine why she would leave both hands behind. "Then who?"

  Karfhud shrugged, then lowered his face into the ash again. Still carrying Tessali's hands, he began to snuffle toward the back of the blind, raising a great cloud of gray dross each time he exhaled. The Amnesian Hero limped along behind, trying to puzzle out what had happened. Something-he could not even guess what-had come along and cut off Tessali's hands, then chased away the elf and the others. Sometime later – and not long ago, judging by the thin coating of dust in the knee depressions – something else, probably the monster, had come along and taken the amphora.

  Karfhud reached the back of the blind and started to sniff up the wall, then suddenly stopped and cocked his head, nearly hooking the Thrasson's cheek with a black horn. "You have a marilith in your party?"

  "Marilith?"

  "Female tanar'ri! Six arms, serpent's tail." Karfhud cupped his hands beneath his chest. "Three or four big-"

  "No! Not among my companions."

  Karfhud managed a real smile. "Well then, I think we know who cut off these." He displayed Tessali's hands, then reached around behind his wing, bent his arm in a direction it should not have bent, and slipped the appendages into one of his rucksack's exterior pockets. "I am fortunate indeed."

  "Fortunate?"

  Karfhud attempted a wink, momentarily hiding one maroon eye between the folds of his blighted face. "You cannot imagine the centuries that have passed since last I did the fray upon a female tanar'ri!"

  With that, the fiend grabbed the crest of the wall and pulled himself up. The Amnesian Hero looked back toward the mouth of the blind, torn between following Karfhud and going back to search for the amphora. His promise to Poseidon – and, in truth, his curiosity about his own past – obliged him to pursue the jar; his duty to his companions obligated him to go after them. He could not do both. Once he climbed over the wall, it would prove difficult to find his way back here, and every minute that passed before he started hunting the amphora slashed his chances of success.