After a time, the tiefling said, "Tessali, maybe he is right." She picked up an ash clod and tossed it at the amphora. "You should throw that jar over the wall."
The Thrasson was glad he was not drinking at the moment, for he would have spewed a mouthful of good wine onto the ground. "Jayk, what's wrong with you? Better than anyone, you know why I can never do that."
The tiefling shot the amphora a black look. "You are so simple, Zoombee. Poseidon, he tricked you."
"Nevertheless, I promised to deliver the amphora to the Lady of Pain, not to cast it away in the mazes."
"What does your promise mean here?" Jayk thrust a hand skyward. "The Lady of Pain does not want the jar, and it is only trouble to us."
"It is more than that to me."
"Pah! That vision was meant for the Lady. Why would Poseidon put your memories in a gift to someone else?"
"I don't know-he promised to restore my memories after I delivered the amphora." The Thrasson found himself staring at the jar and, through an act of will, looked back to the main corridor. "Perhaps he wanted them to return to me when the Lady of Pain opened the jar. The gods enjoy spectacles like that, you know."
Jayk rolled her dark eyes, then winced at the pain it caused her. "If Poseidon wishes to impress someone, I think it is the Lady, not you."
Unable to argue with the tiefling's point, the Thrasson snatched the wineskin. "I can't explain why the vision came from the amphora, but I know it was my mother." He swallowed a mouthful of wine, then said, "Maybe what the amphora holds aren't memories, but spells that summon lost memories."
"Or maybe they are spells that make you think you remember what you don't, or maybe they are djinn tricksters, or maybe they are what could be but isn't," Jayk scoffed. "We don't know. You must throw that jar away before another giant gets loose. We have enough trouble."
"I would never think to hear you sound like Tessali." The Amnesian Hero raised his sweaty brow, unleashing a cascade of salty drips that had been gathering above his eyes. "You're scared!"
Jayk began to rub her forehead with the heels of her hands, but not quickly enough to hide the flash in her eyes. "Scared? Of what, Zoombee?"
"You tell me – I know you're not afraid of dying." The Amnesian Hero pointed at the amphora. "It's something in there."
The tiefling pulled her hands away from her face, and, a little too steadily, she locked gazes with the Thrasson.
"What is in the jar makes no difference to me; if you think it has your memories, why don't you open it?" She stood and stepped over to the amphora. "I will do it for you, yes?"
"No!" The Thrasson jumped to his feet. Jayk was scared; he knew that, though not as certainly as he knew she would pull the stopper just to prove him wrong. He grabbed her arms and drew her away. "You mustn't open it!"
"Why not, Zoombee?" Jayk's smirk was just broad enough to betray her relief. "I thought you wanted to know who you are."
"You know why you can't open it," the Thrasson growled. "No matter what the amphora contains, it's not mine to open."
"Too bad." Jayk thrust out her lip in an exaggerated pout, and that gesture was what betrayed her secret fear to the Amnesian Hero. "I know how important it is for you find out who you are."
"And why should that frighten you?" the Thrasson demanded. "Are you afraid that if I remember who I am, I'll forget about you?"
Jayk could not hide the force with which the question struck. Her pupils instantly took the shape of diamonds, and the tips of her fangs dropped into view. Her murky face grew even darker, though it was impossible to say whether in anger or sorrow, and she slumped to the ground.
"Jayk, you have nothing to worry about. I have promised to return you to Sigil." Had the Amnesian Hero not witnessed the deadly effects of her bite, he would have squatted down to embrace her. "By now, you must know I am a man of my word."
"Zoombee, I am not afraid of being forgotten; before we reach the One Death, we must forget all." The tiefling looked up; there were emerald tears welling in her eyes. "I am sad because you are going the wrong way!" Dream Girl
I thought him stronger than to sit ruby-faced with his salt-damp back to the ashen wall, wound fever burning in his eyes and a thief's craving smoldering in his soul. For an hour (or a day or a week or a minute, for all it matters to us or him) he has been sitting there, staring at those crocodile sandals and that golden sword, wondering: do I dare, and do I dare? He has walked the narrow streets and breathed the yellow fog; he has cracked the jar of memories and split the gates of Sigil and dared disturb the multiverse, and now he frets over a giant's booty?
Call him honorable, call him ethical if you like; it makes no difference to me. The Thrasson has taken himself to a place where there is only desire and action and consequence, and now he has gone off into the blinds to search for right and wrong and lost his way. There are no commandments or codes in the mazes; the madman who looks for guidance is more lost than the fool who does not; he imagines reasons to turn one w»y and not the other; he waits upon signs that have no meaning; he does not act for fear of offending deities that cannot see him and would not care if they could.
I call him a coward.
In the end, the Amnesian Hero will lace those sandals on his feet, and he will learn the name of his parent-but first he must agonize over his scruples. He must consider his honor and ask his gods for guidance, he must weigh the killing of the giant against his oath to deliver the amphora, and he must find sanction to claim the plunder. Until then, we are expected to wait while he deliberates, to watch through a mind clouded with fever and wine as he sits and thinks and argues-and I won't abide that kind of drivel.
So I will tell you now what will happen. The Thrasson will put the sandals on the ground, then he will bare one foot and set it upon a rugged sole. He will feel an uncomfortable sizzling in the arch of his foot. A pair of ashen arms will sprout beside his ankle; they will take up the legging thews and wrap them about his calves, and a wispy voice will come on the wind:
"I offer you this advice, my son: when you reach the palace of King Aegeus, do not tell him at once whose blood flows in your veins. Say instead that you bear greetings and news from his friend in Troezen, King Pittheus. When he sees the sandals you wear and the sword that hangs at your side, he will ask where you came by them; if King Aegeus strikes you as a good and honorable man, you may tell him how you found them. In that manner, he will discover for himself that you are his son and will not doubt your claim to his city. But if King Aegeus seems a jealous and selfish man, you must tell him they are a betrothal gift from a granddaughter of King Pittheus; he will think I bore him a daughter and bear you no malice, and then you will be free to return home without fear of treachery or harm."
Thus will the Thrasson discover the name of one father.
He will cry out in joy. He will shake so hard that when he sets his brick foot upon the second sandal, he will almost lose his balance-but you will have to wait to learn what happens then. Now, the Amnesian Hero still sits against the ashen wall, seeking consent to do what we all know he will surely do; Jayk rests warm against his flank, as idle and silent as a corpse; Tessali is limping up the passage, one swollen knee as red and round as a blood melon.
"Go ahead." The elf has hung his shredded cloak over his shoulders, though the monster did not leave enough of the garment to conceal the stitch lines striping his slender torso. "There's nothing stopping you…"
"Stopping me from what?" The Amnesian Hero's voice had finally returned to normal, and if his tongue sounded a little thick, he felt sure that it had more to do with his fever than with the wine he had drunk. He swung his gaze back toward the adjacent passage and stared into the swirling cloud of ash. "I am only keeping watch."