With astonishing quickness for a bariaur his age, Silverwind dropped his head and butted Tessali in the chest. The blow drove the elf straight to the ground, where he landed with a loud groan. The Amnesian Hero rushed to restrain the bariaur, but, with his brick foot, he was not nearly so quick as Jayk. Before the Thrasson had taken his second step, the tiefling was at Silverwind's side, pushing her dagger up toward the bariaur's throat.
"Jayk, no!"
The tiefling stopped, her arm half-extended above her head and the tip of her knife pressing against the ropy outline of the bariaur's jugular. Her fangs were folded down and her pupils were shaped like diamonds. Silverwind stood motionless as a statue, his astonished gaze fixed upon the top of her head.
"But he attacked us, Zoombee!" Jayk complained.
The Amnesian Hero knew better than to appeal to her compassion. He raised the lance head, displaying the spool of thread the bariaur had gathered.
"We don't know where Silverwind started this. If you advance him to the next stage, how will we find the exit? How will you avenge yourself on Trevant?"
Jayk rolled her dark eyes. "You don't need to sweet talk me, Zoombee. If you say don't cut him, I don't cut him."
"Then be good enough to step back." Tessali rose, rubbing his chest but otherwise looking little worse for wear. "I'm sure Silverwind realizes by now that he won't be rid of us by attacking."
Jayk ignored Tessali and did not step away until the Amnesian Hero nodded. Once the knife was pulled away from Silverwind's throat, the bariaur closed his eyes and shook his head sadly.
"You were so close. So close."
"So close to what?" asked Tessali. "Tell me, Silverwind."
The bariaur opened his eyes and glared at the elf. He looked past Tessali at Jayk, then he turned to stare at the Amnesian Hero. "Why did you have to imagine them, old fool? You were so near escape; you had the golden thread. You would have made the exit soon."
"Wonderful," Jayk growled. "A Signer."
"Signer?" the Amnesian Hero echoed.
"Sign of One." Tessali rubbed his chin, continuing to focus on Silverwind. "They consider themselves to be the center of the multiverse and claim to create everything in it through the power of their minds. Silverwind's isolation seems to have convinced him that he is the only real being in the maze – or even in the entire multiverse."
Silverwind snatched the head of his severed lance from the hands of the Amnesian Hero, then turned to walk away. Tessali shook his head sharply, then pointed at the bariaur's arm and cupped his hand as though grasping something. The Thrasson nodded and grabbed the old fellow's shoulders.
"Silverwind, you should know better," said Tessali. "You cannot walk away from the creations of your own mind, anymore than you can walk away from this hailstorm you imagined. If you want to be rid of us, you must treat with us first."
The bariaur's shoulders sagged. "I suppose I must." He turned to face them. "Very well. Tell me your names again."
The elf smiled. "You will be glad of your decision. Call me Tessali."
A fierce bellow rumbled through the labyrinth, so deep and loud that it shook the bricks under the Thrasson's feet. The orange fog swirled around the company's hips, as though stirred by a wind they could not feel, and, for an instant, it seemed that even the hailstones paused in their battering.
"I thought he was the monster," Jayk complained.
" I… I am." Silverwind's hands were shaking, his bushy brow raised in fear. "What you hear is my dark self."
"Then tell it to be…"
Jayk's command came to a sudden halt as a massive gray paw emerged from the hailstorm to cover her face. The Thrasson glimpsed the shaggy silhouette of a huge, bearlike figure in the fog behind the tiefling, then the creature pulled her away and disappeared into the storm.
"Jayk!"
The Amnesian Hero grabbed Silverwind's broken lance and hurled it after the vanished beast, then reached for his sword and clumped after the monster as fast as he could. Tessali's figure dashed past, and there was a horrid scream. The elf's gray silhouette rose high in the hazy air and came down, striking the ground with a muffled crunch. Only a step and a half later did the Thrasson glimpse the monster again.
The beast was much larger than a bear, with a high, pointy head, a flat face, and a circular maw lined all around by stubby, sharp-peaked teeth. Long mats of ice-gray fur dangled from its entire body, lending it an indistinct shape that made it even more difficult to distinguish from the driving hail. Jayk's legs, kicking wildly, protruded from a particularly large snarl of fur. That was all the Thrasson saw of her before the creature vanished into the hailstorm.
The Amnesian Hero heard Tessali groaning on the ground and barely managed to lift his brick foot in time to step over the fallen elf. The Thrasson noticed that the golden thread was not winding off his arm, but trailing down toward the ground; Silverwind's lance had not lodged in the monster. He had no way to follow the creature, and, judging by the speed with which it had disappeared, less than no chance of overtaking it.
A clatter of hooves sounded at the Amnesian Hero's side, then Silverwind streaked past at a full gallop. The old bariaur lowered his head and disappeared into the storm.
In the next instant, there was a dull thud, a deafening bellow, and a muffled crash. Silverwind cried out, then Jayk shrieked in anger. The Amnesian Hero clumped another step forward and saw the back side of the monster three paces ahead, rising out of the ground fog as though it were struggling to its hands and knees. The Thrasson saw no sign of either bariaur or tiefling until the beast roared and raised its arm.
Jayk was clinging to its wrist, her face buried deep in its tangled fur. The monster bellowed sharply, then snapped its hand toward the wall. When the hairy arm reached the end of its arc, the tiefling seemed to hang on the creature's wrist for just an instant before coming loose and slamming into the hot iron wall.
The Amnesian Hero reached the monster and brought his sword down on the hairy arm that had just flung off Jayk. So tough was the beast's flesh that even that star-forged blade of his barely sliced its sinews; had the blow not landed exactly in the joint, the limb would have been saved. As it was, the Thrasson's strike, well-placed as always, cleaved off the great arm at the shoulder.
No geysers of red blood sprayed from the wound. The creature did not bellow in anguish or collapse in shock. Instead, a substance like black sap oozed from the wound, and the monster twisted around to look at its attacker. The Thrasson raised his sword and saw a gray blur arcing at him out of the fog. He pivoted into the blow, shielding himself behind his shoulder.
The strike landed full on his pauldron, slamming the Amnesian Hero into the creature's hip with such force that, had he not taken the blow on god-forged bronze, he would surely have perished. The Thrasson merely groaned, then, finding himself pinned against the monster, swung at its exposed midsection.
Again, his star-forged blade bit deep, but not deep enough to slice the great creature in half. The beast slammed a boulder-sized fist into the Thrasson's shoulder pauldron, with no more effect than before.
The Amnesian Hero tried to clump forward to attack again, only to discover himself stuck to the monster's side. He attempted to jerk his sword back and found it caught fast in the beast's black-oozing belly wound.
The creature opened its hand, extending a long yellow talon at the end of each Finger. Had the Amnesian Hero not stared into the eyes of death a dozen times before – and sometimes more closely than this – he might have panicked or despaired. But he well knew that salvation often comes at that last instant, when the vicious attacker, sensing victory, grows reckless and moves in for the kill too quickly.