"How long have you had this?"
"Had what?"
The Amnesian Hero raised his elbow and looked under his arm. He could barely see a short cut running down the side of his chest. The wound was sealed by scorched blood and seared flesh, but beads of white pus were seeping from the jagged seam between its puffy red lips. Though the Thrasson did not remember receiving the scratch, he felt sure he had suffered it during the battle with the monster of the labyrinth.
"No wonder you look so flushed!" Silverwind reached for the wineskin hanging around the Thrasson's neck. "I've been letting you drink wine, and you have a fever!"
The Amnesian Hero pushed the bariaur's hand away. "I'm still thirsty!"
"Too much wine is dangerous for you. You shouldn't drink any more until I imagine some water into existence."
"I'm thirsty now." The Thrasson turned away before the bariaur could reach for the wineskin again. "Do what you can for Jayk and Tessali. I'll see to finding us a safe place to hide."
The Amnesian Hero stepped over to Periphetes's iron dub. The weapon was half-again as long as Silverwind was tall. The diameter of a man's ankle at one end, it swelled along its length to the size of a bear's head at the other. So thickly scaled with rust was the weapon that the Thrasson feared it might break under the strain of what he had planned.
The Amnesian Hero squatted at the thick end and wrapped his arms around the club, then heaved it out of the ash and began dragging it toward the giant's legs. He had lifted heavier burdens – for instance, when he fetched the treasure chest of King Minaros from the lair of the Ragarian Thieves-but his footing had been more secure then, and the temperature much cooler than in these mazes. By the time he had dragged the unwieldy weapon to Periphetes's side, the Thrasson's sweaty body was coated with ash from all the times he had slipped and fallen.
The Amnesian Hero dropped the head of the club beside the giant's waist, then unstoppered the wine sack and washed the dross from his mouth. After quenching his thirst, he sealed the skin and dug a deep, pitlike tunnel under Periphetes's hip. By the time he finished, the sweat was pouring from his brow in runnels; he needed another drink.
After catching his breath, the Amnesian Hero shoved the thick end of the dub into the hole he had excavated. Then he went to the narrow end and hoisted the rod up. At first, as the head rocked into the pit, it rose easily. That changed, however, when the shaft reached the height of the Thrasson's waist and the other end made contact with the giant's belly.
Taking a deep breath, the Amnesian Hero squatted down and slipped his shoulders under the rod. He stood, using the strength of his thighs to raise the lever, and Periphetes's enormous body began to roll. The Thrasson drove forward, his feet slipping in the ash as though he were trying to push a wagon through a bog. The giant rolled a little farther, and the weight on the Amnesian Hero's shoulders seemed to double. His sweat poured from his brow in curtains; again his throat began to close, but the thought of giving up never crossed his mind. Men of renown did not falter; they succeeded or they died, but never did they give up.
There was a tremendous sucking sound. All at once Periphetes rolled onto his back, and the weight vanished from the Amnesian Hero's shoulder. A blast of howling wind filled the passage. The Thrasson looked over to see a cloud of ash boiling from beneath the giant's stone legs, still bent in the kneeling position as they rose into the air. Coughing and choking, he shoved the club off his shoulder and spun away from the billowing dross, and that was when he noticed the sword and the sandals.
Glowing with that yellow aura peculiar to enchanted gold, they lay pressed into the ash where Periphetes's huge belly had rested. The sword, both shorter and broader than the Amnesian Hero's own star-forged blade, had a golden hilt and a golden scabbard decorated by a single stripe of sapphires. The sandals had soles cut from the finest crocodile hide and legging straps woven from threads of pure gold.
Periphetes had no doubt stolen the magnificent booty from some unfortunate wayfarer. By right of victory, the spoils were the Amnesian Hero's, yet he hesitated to claim them. The giant had been created by Poseidon's magic – magic intended for the Lady of Pain. After hearing Tessali's account of the relationship between the Lady and the gods, the Thrasson feared the King of Seas had trapped the prizes with some disabling enchantment.
Still, the Amnesian Hero had no choice except to pick them up. He had promised to deliver the amphora to the Lady of Pain, and he did not think Poseidon likely to excuse him for leaving part of its contents to vanish beneath the ash. He quaffed another mouthful of wine, then stooped down and gingerly pinched the legging strap of one sandal between two fingers.
Nothing happened.
The Amnesian Hero plucked the sandal out of the ash. Nothing flashed or banged or gave off foul odors. He sighed in relief, guessing the shoe had to be worn to activate the enchantment. Being careful to avoid touching the sole, he fastened the legging strap to his sword belt. He retrieved the other sandal and tied it beside the fust.
The sword he grasped by the scabbard.
The magic glow blinked out of the gold and a strange prickling shot up his arm. He screamed and tried to drop the weapon and found he could not. A yellow fog was forming behind his eyes, filling his head as a cloud fills a mountain valley; the smell of ash was yielding to the fragrant tang of salt pine, the parched air was growing moist on his skin, and a voice was speaking to him over the ramble of distant waves.
"One of your fathers left those for you." The figure of a tall, handsome woman appears in the fog; her honey-brown tresses are bound by a princess's circlet, and her sad face stirs the Thrasson in a way that the face of no other woman ever has. "How I have prayed you would not find them;
Hera help me, now I must send you away!"
"To where?" the Thrasson gasps. The woman is all he can see, and it is more than he can do to tell whether she stands within his mind or without. "Who are you?"
Tears well in the woman's eyes. She spreads her palms and embraces the Amnesian Hero. "Is it possible? Can a son forget his mother?"
This cannot be; that woman is no memory of mine. What is she doing in the amphora Poseidon sends to me?
The Amnesian Hero stole her from me, that is what. Periphetes was to be mine, but the Thrasson stole him and killed him, that is what. The memory became his, that is what, and now it is forever lost to me, and might that memory be of the one who paid the bride's price for my heart?
Would I be lost then, or safe?
No bride can long stand fast against he who holds her heart; let him come softly in the night, and surely she will open herself to him, whoever he may be, to be ravished or sacked as he pleases. And afterward, what then? An eternity of drudgery and servitude, if he is wicked; oblivion, sure and quick, if not.
Better to know the beast now, to prepare my defenses before he comes pounding at my gates. There may be time to change what is done; there may be time, if I dare, to steal what has been bought, to shut what has been opened, to save what is lost.
And what of the Thrasson, standing there in his mother's embrace? His strength will tell. He knows what is right and what is wrong; he will choose his own punishment.
"Mother, who am I?" the Thrasson asks. The yellow fog that filled his mind earlier is now swirling about outside his head; it has lost its color and changed into a haze of windblown dross. The ash has coated his body, glued there by the sweat of his fever, and the air has grown parched with heat and acrid bitterness. "Tell me my name; I have been lost and cannot remember."
"I am not your mother, Zoombee." The voice was weak and raspy. "My head, she hurts too much for this."
Still clutching the sword he found beneath the massive stone corpse of Periphetes, the Thrasson pushed the woman back to arm's length. In place of the regal face of his mother, he saw the twilight visage of Jayk the Snake.