After the Amnesian Hero nodded his assent, Cwalno marched over to the second elf's group and shouldered past the brightly cloaked attendants. The Thrasson watched until the Mercykiller began to whisper into the elf's ear, then turned his gaze upon the black-caped woman being restrained near his sedan chair.
It is a ploy, of course. While he watches the woman, the Amnesian Hero is listening to every word Cwalno says. The Mercykiller does not realize this; only I know that the Thrasson is a Hunter, gifted by the gods with those ugly little ears that can hear the spider in the comer sighing.
"Madame Mok's sent a special barmy for you, Tyvold." The Mercykiller points at the sedan chair, but the Amnesian Hero, cunning as always, pretends not to notice. He continues to stare at the black-caped woman, as though he finds her more interesting than any discussion about his fate. "Sod claims he can't remember his own name."
Tyvold sneers and does not look toward the Amnesian Hero. "Did he wait in the Salvation Line?"
"What do you think? I'm going to camp down here twenty days?"
Tyvold shrugs. "That is your choice, of course." He turns away from Cwalno. "This isn't the Prison, you know. Mercykillers have to wait like everyone else."
"That so?" Cwalno demands. "And maybe Factol Lhar wants to show me permits for those Bleak Cabal soup houses springing up all over the city? If every letter ain't just right, you can be sure he won't have to wait in line at our place."
Tyvold's kindly features stiffen into a mask of anger. He knows it is a sign of inner deficiency for a high-up in the Bleak Cabal to show irritation-it suggests that he himself is nearing readiness for the Grim Retreat-but the elf cannot help it. The Mercykillers, with their blind devotion to "justice" and "order," are the worst of the Deluded. Not only do they think the multiverse has meaning, they are convinced it is their duty to impose that meaning on everyone else.
Of course, the fact is that nothing has meaning, especially the multiverse. But try telling that to a Mercykiller, and you'll spend the next ten years on the Racks of Enlightenment with a self-renewing charge of Mockery. By the time you come out, you'll be as mad as Cwalno and his kind. Better not to argue. Quarreling implies meaning, and, as Factor of the Redeemable Wing of the Gatehouse's Asylum, Tyvold has seen enough madmen to know what comes of allowing meaning to creep into one's mind. The elf waves the barmy before him into the care of two assistants, then turns to the Mercykiller.
"Very well, Cwalno. Describe your ward's condition. By itself, a simple memory lapse hardly entitles him to a cell in the Asylum."
"Don't you worry. He's barmy enough. To start with, he's looking for the Lady of Pain. Says he's got a gift for her from Poseidon."
"Truly? That is interesting." For the first time, the Factor of the Redeemable looks in the newcomer's direction. "Do continue."
There can be no doubt that the Amnesian Hero finds it difficult to hide his rage as Cwalno, hardly able to stifle his laughter, describes how Madame Mok tricked the Thrasson into seeking the Lady of Pain at the Gatehouse. Even when the Mercykiller snickers out an account of how she convinced him to hire a sedan chair and a full escort for the journey, the Amnesian Hero shows no sign of the fury so surely eating at his stomach. He is too clever for that. Instead, as Cwalno chuckles at how his captive suggested the wretches outside have come to offer their suffering to the Lady of Pain, the Thrasson betrays no hint that he is listening with his ugly little ears. He rests his chin on his hand and continues to stare at the black-caped woman, and so complete is his control that his cheeks do not even flush with anger.
From what the Amnesian Hero could see of her shadowy face, the woman's features were slender and winsome, not quite sharp enough to be those of an elf. She had left her black hair hanging loose and long over her shoulders, like a rippling black penumbra that might have flowed from the Abyss itself. With huge dark eyes and a button nose over a cupid's bow mouth, she was possessed of a dusky beauty that seemed to mock cuteness more than celebrate it.
When the woman's gaze swung toward the Amnesian Hero, the darkness that masked her face seemed to move with her head. Whatever was casting the shadow, the Thrasson realized, it was not anything in Sigil. The woman was probably a tiefling, a child borne to a human and – well, to something else; even in Arborea, the Amnesian Hero had learned better than to ask. Although no two tieflings were alike, they were all quick to anger and rather touchy about their heritage.
"What do you look at, pretty boy? You want to make kiss with me?" The woman puckered her lips and made smacking sounds. "Last chance before they lock us up, yes?"
The tiefling's keeper stepped closer to her. "Jayk, that's enough. Isn't this what landed you here in the first place?"
Jayk shrugged indifferently, but kept her huge eyes fixed on the Amnesian Hero. "What matter if I make kiss with him, Tessali? He is dead already, yes?"
"Were I you," said the Thrasson, "I would not be so certain."
The Amnesian Hero sprang from his sedan chair and landed light as a cinder on the gray floor, then started toward the tiefling. His Mercykiller escorts moved to block his way, but he pushed past them with hardly a glance. In the performance of any great feat, the champion always had to face some trial of character or intellect, and there was much about Jayk's manner to suggest she embodied such a test.
"I have fought the Hydra of Thrassos and wrestled the Hebron Crocodile and harried the Abudrian Dragons and battled many more foes too numerous to name, and always have I been the one who departs the bloody fray standing and alive."
"Or so thought you." Jayk gave him a coy smile, then ran her dark gaze down his armored body. "Pity for a man like you to think he is alive." She turned to Tessali and asked, "A sad, sad delusion, is it not?"
The Amnesian Hero frowned, but continued toward the tiefling. Arborea was a place of passion and vigor, where life was an eternal celebration and death its inevitable but loathsome end. He had never met someone who called living a sad delusion, and he could not decide whether she belonged to some strange faction of death worshipers or was only suffering from some plane-touched dementia.
The tiefling's keeper, Tessali, grasped the Thrasson's arm. "You mustn't get too near. She's one of the-"
The Amnesian Hero shook free of the elf's hand. "If life is a delusion, then it is not a sad one." He continued to stare at Jayk. "And, if you will be kind enough to repeat the Third Riddle of the Gatehouse, I hope to remain deluded even after I have seen the Lady of Pain."
Jayk threw back her head and laughed, a bony, fiendish rattle that drew a chill up the Thrasson's spine. He did not flinch or back away.
"The Third Riddle of the Gatehouse?" Jayk cackled. "The dead go in and the dead go out, and still they are as barmy as you! Now we make kiss, yes?"
The Amnesian Hero realized instantly the tiefling's riddle, lacking the poetic form of the first two, was not the one he sought. Still, he hesitated before replying, trying to decide whether the test was to show his courage by kissing Jayk, or demonstrate his resolve by resisting the temptation.
Taking advantage of the pause, Tessali slipped between the Amnesian Hero and the tiefling. "Stay back! She's one of the Menacing Mad."
"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.