When they saw the dead githyanki, the eldest, or at least the largest, raised a hand to stop the procession. He performed a cursory scan of the area, then sent a single sentry up the alley to keep watch. The rest, he led forward to the corpses.
As they approached, the Amnesian Hero saw no sign of shock or fear on the faces of the children, or even of distaste. The youngest, a soot-faced waif no taller than the Thrasson's sword, was smiling and strutting proudly along at the leader's side.
"See, Spider?" Only after he heard her voice could the Amnesian Hero tell that she was a girl. "I telled ya they ran down here. I heard a clank!"
"Aye, you did well, Sally." Spider ran a wary eye back up the alley, pausing to study each bricked-over window and vine-choked doorway. "But I'd like to know what happened to that tiefling and her blood. They might not like us scraggin' their kill."
Disgusted by the thought of children robbing the dead, the Amnesian Hero started to rise. Jayk caught his arm and shook her head. The Thrasson reluctantly remained were he was and continued to watch. When no one appeared to chase them off, Spider waved the other children to the corpses.
"Let's nick 'em! And be sure to check their teeth."
The leader and another boy used a githyanki sword to drag free the warrior in the razorvine, then the entire pack set to work stripping the bodies. They took the corpses' armor and weapons, then their boots, purses, and underclothes as well. They ripped rings from earlobes and fingers, they tore studs from noses, lips, and tongues, they knocked out teeth and cracked them for the fillings, they harvested the githyankis' coarse topknots for rope-making; young Sally even cut the tattoo of a snake from the leader's arm, claiming to her disgusted comrades that she could sell it for two coppers. By the time the urchins had packed their cart, taking care to secure the best treasures in secret pockets inside their rags, the bodies lay naked and even more mangled than before.
Stomach churning with both revulsion and pity, the Amnesian Hero watched the waifs until their cart wheeled around the comer.
"What place is this?" He whirled on Jayk, searching for some hint of emotion in the delicate features of her shadowed face. "Did I wander through a portal and fall into the Abyss?"
"Do not be so silly." Jayk slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and gave him a beguiling half-smile. "You would know it if you were in the Abyss. This is still Sigil."
"That is what I feared." The Amnesian Hero shook his head, then started to push open their door of vines. "I can wait in this place no longer. Take me to the Lady of Pain."
Jayk pulled him back to his knees. "Be patient. Those bodies, they are worth seven coppers. The children will report them, and our ride will come soon. While we wait, you can tell me about yourself, yes? Who you are, and why you wish to fight the Lady of Pain?"
"Who said I want to fight her?"
The tiefling shrugged. "It does not matter. You will lose anyway."
"I'm only trying to deliver a gift." The Thrasson gestured at the amphora. "Why should that offend her?"
"Who is to say it will?" Jayk asked. "Now, tell me about yourself. If I am prepared, things will go faster at the Mortuary."
"Mortuary?"
"Did you not say you wanted to see the Lady of Pain?"
"Of course, but-"
"Then I must know more about you."
The Amnesian Hero frowned. "You can take me to the Lady of Pain? If you're another of Sigil's tricksters-"
"I will show you how to find the Lady! But first, we make the preparations, yes? Tell me who you are."
The Amnesian Hero hesitated, then forced himself to lift his chin proudly. "I am the slayer of the Hydra of Thrassos, the tamer of the Hebron Crocodile, the bane of Abudrian Dragons, the savior of the Virgins of Marmara, the champion of the Dyrian Kings, the killer of the Chakedon Lion…"
Jayk grasped his forearm. "I am already impressed with your swordsmanship. Only your name, yes?"
The Thrasson's gaze dropped. "I don't know it."
Jayk's shadowy face rippled with confusion. "How can that be? Your mother, she could not speak?"
"Of course she could!" The Amnesian Hero flushed, then amended, "At least I assume she could. I can't remember."
Jayk's dark eyes widened. She stared at the Thrasson and said nothing.
"I awoke on the shore near Thrassos, on the first layer of Arborea. I recall nothing before that."
Jayk seemed unable to take her dark eyes off him. "You have no link to your past?"
The Amnesian Hero looked away. "Sometimes I glimpse the face of a woman I think I once knew, but she always disappears before I can speak with her." He did not add that he was usually drinking at the time. "But I am sure I am a man of renown. That much is obvious from my bearing."
"And your skill with a sword, yes?"
"Yes." The Thrasson smiled, wanning to the tiefling. "I must have lost my memory battling one of Poseidon's sea monsters. That would explain why I was found on the shore of an Arborean sea, and why he promised to restore my memories in return for delivering this."
He thumped the amphora.
Jayk's jaw dropped. "You want your memories back? But you arc halfway to the next stage!"
"Stage?"
"Of death! To remember is to go backward! You are like the zombie." She pronounced it zoombee. "He cannot recall the light at his back, yet he is afraid to face the dark truth ahead."
"Jayk, the light is still real for me. I am no zombie."
"You are, my dear. That is what I shall call you, yes?"
"No!"
"Zoombee! It sounds so nice, so… enticing."
Jayk's face drifted toward his, her dark lips parting ever so slightly. The Amnesian Hero had tasted the mouths of many Arborean women, of course, but he could feel something more powerful, far deeper and brutally primal, drawing his head toward hers. Men of renown were not expected to forgo the pleasures of the flesh – some of their greatest feats came from yielding to such temptations – but the Thrasson could not forget how the tiefling's pupils had a habit of narrowing to black diamonds, nor the fangs that he had seen folding down from the roof of her mouth.
"Later." He abruptly pulled back. "Perhaps when the light isn't so bright."
Jayk inclined her head, her eyelids lowered too far for the Thrasson to see whether her pupils were shaped like circles or diamonds.
"Whenever you are ready, Zoombee." She gave him a knowing smile. "I will be ready too."
The Amnesian Hero-Zoombee-swallowed nervously, then turned away. "You are beautiful, Jayk, but I do not think it is our destiny to… make kisses."
"But why not, Zoombee? Because I am tiefling?"
"You must not think that." The Thrasson looked back to Jayk and found her lips bowed into a coy grin. He felt himself flush, angry at being mocked. "Because you arc a murderess – and because I must think of other business. Remember the Lady of Pain?"
The tiefling's face drooped into an insincere sulk. "Soon, Zoombee. I think that is our ride coming now."
The Amnesian Hero looked through his viewing hole. He saw only the dead bounty hunters, but he did notice a foul odor building in the alley. At first, he thought the stink was coming from the githyanki corpses, hut as the fetor grew stronger, he realized that could not be so. Even in Sigil, seven bodies could not rot fast enough to emit such a stench so soon. The Thrasson rubbed his hand in the mordant dirt, then covered his mouth and nose to mask the awful reek.
Jayk yanked his hand away from his face. "It is better to grow accustomed to the smell now. If you retch later, someone will hear you, yes?"
A pattern of slow, rhythmic creaks began to echo off the tenement walls, underscored by the rising drone of an insect cloud. The Amnesian Hero did his best to breathe through his mouth and keep his nostrils closed, but the effort was doomed to failure. Every time he inhaled, he found himself fighting to hold his gorge down, and every time he exhaled, he begged Apollo to keep him from drawing another breath. His prayer went unanswered, for this is Sigil, and the gods have no power here. The Thrasson continued to breathe the rancid air. He began to feel hot and queasy; he grew sicker with every lungful, and soon his legs trembled with weakness.