"It's this damned brick foot!" The Amnesian Hero tried not to sound as though he were blaming the elf for the problem, though of course he was. He could not help himself. "The magic will not work through brick."
"I doubt it would have worked through ooze, either." Tessali kneeled at the feet of the Amnesian Hero. "But you have flesh above the ankle. Perhaps if I lace the thews…"
The elf crossed two laces over the Amnesian Hero's shin, wrapping the thews in a half square-knot so they would not slip, then ran them behind his calf. This time, as Tessali tied the half-knot, the Thrasson felt the thongs biting into his leg. He resisted the temptation to look down, knowing he would only be disappointed by the sight of the straps still glowing with their magic.
The elf crossed the laces once more and made a third half-knot before the Amnesian Hero noticed the slight rise in the pitch of the wind. Even as he turned to see what was coming down the adjacent passage, the Thrasson was unsheathing that star-forged blade of his. Tessali, rising too fast, nearly lost an ear as the sword flashed past his head.
"What is it?" the elf whispered.
"Trouble most untimely." The Thrasson saw nothing save ash whirling down the adjacent corridor, but the pop-pop, pop-pop-pop of shaggy mats of fur came loud to his ears. "Wake Jayk and Silverwind – and have no fear of drawing that." He pointed at the golden sword he had left lying beside the tiefling.
"We'll come back once I've roused them." Tessali scooped up the sword and Jayk-with an anguished groanthen limped toward the back of the blind. "Try to hold the fight until we return."
The Amnesian Hero did not say so, but he doubted he would have much choice in the matter. The monster of the labyrinth had already proven itself to be a cunning hunter. Certainly, it would see the advantage in attacking while its foes were lethargic and trapped in a dead-end blind. The company's best chance, whether for victory or flight, lay in stalling the beast until Tessali roused the others. The Thrasson stepped into the adjacent passage, then, staying close to the wall where he would prove more difficult to see, started forward to ambush the beast.
The wine and fever had taken a heavier toll on his body than he realized. Within a few clumping steps, he was dizzy and coated with sweat-moistened ash. His breath came ragged and hot, and his star-forged sword felt as heavy as the iron blades of the githyanki bounty hunters. In no condition for a long battle, he knew that his best tactic would be to lop off one of the creature's feet and flee back to his companions.
The Amnesian Hero dropped to his belly, then crawled to the center of the passage. He scooped out a shallow pit to lie in, then swept a coating of ash over his back. With any luck, the monster would not see him until he raised himself to attack, and by then it would be too late. The Thrasson closed his eyes against the stinging ash – this close to the ground it was so thick that it clung to his eyeballs like flour to wet grapes-and trusted his ears to tell him when the beast arrived.
It required only a moment for the flapping sounds to grow loud enough for him to tell the creature was creeping down one side of the passage. The Amnesian Hero reoriented himself slightly. Then, wishing he had some wine to wash a mounting cough from his throat, he raised himself to his knees and hefted his sword.
Instead of the hulking, half-visible silhouette of the shaggy monster, the Amnesian Hero found himself staring at the ghostly shape of a beautiful woman. So blurred by blowing ash and the flapping of her white gown was her statuesque figure that the Thrasson thought he was imagining her – which, as Silverwind would have hastened to point out, made her no less real-and he began to think he had fallen into a fever dream.
Then the wind lifted her silky jet hair away from her cheek, revealing smooth olive skin and a regal nose, and the Amnesian Hero knew that his fever had nothing to do with her appearance. It was the same woman he had seen in Rivergate and a hundred other inns, his wine woman; even in the Lady's mazes, she had come to him.
Her emerald eyes swung in the Thrasson's direction, and it was then that, if illusion she was, he lost control of his own imagination. A cry of surprise broke from her lips. Her gaze flickered briefly to the sword raised in his hand, then she turned and fled the way she had come.
"Hold!" The Amnesian Hero sprang-or rather lurched- to his feet. "I mean you no harm!"
The woman did not slow. The Thrasson clumped after her as best he could, rasping for breath and raining sweat into the ash. He had to run with blade in hand, for he had not a spare moment to sheathe his sword. Already, his quarry was a mere white blur in the howling gray ahead, and he hardly dared to blink for fear of losing her. More times than he could count, she had vanished in a mere instant of inattentiveness, and he knew she would be gone the instant he glanced at his scabbard. The woman turned down a side passage. The Amnesian Hero staggered after her, certain she would be gone when he rounded the comer.
She was there, a white blur standing in the center of the passage.
"Wait!"
The woman turned and darted down another corridor, which the Thrasson had not seen through the blowing ash. He felt something pop on his leg above the brick foot and recalled that Tessali had not finished lacing the magic sandals. The highest half-knot had come unfastened. He continued to run. She would vanish soon enough, and then he would worry about the sandal.
The Amnesian Hero's vision blurred, and it seemed to him that the hot sweat pouring off his body was melting flesh. His lungs ached and his muscles burned and his head spun, and still he hobbled after the woman. She rounded another corner, and he round himself struggling to remember whether this was her third turn or fourth, and whether one had been left and the rest right. He stumbled and almost allowed himself to. fall, confident she would be gone when he rounded the comer.
Just make the turn, he told himself, and she will be gone. Then it will be time to rest.
A second half-knot popped. One more, and he would lose the sandal-and this time he would not feel the thews slacken.
The Thrasson rounded the comer and knew by the sudden stillness that he had entered a blind. He stumbled out of the ash wind, coughing and choking and dizzy; there, a dozen paces ahead, stood his wine woman, staring into the hovering black square of a maze conjunction. She was facing away, hands clasped before her torso as though wringing them. The Amnesian Hero stopped where he stood and, without taking his eyes off the woman's back, found his scabbard and sheathed his sword.
Only then did he speak, and only in his softest, calmest rasp. "Please, you have… nothing to fear… from me."
The woman turned and, to the surprise of the Amnesian Hero, did not flee. Her mouth fell open and her hands rose to her cheeks. She stumbled a single step forward, staring at the Thrasson as though she were looking at a dead man, which he suspected was exactly what he resembled.
"Can it be?" she gasped. "I have been searching for you for so long!"
The Thrasson's trembling legs chose that moment to buckle, and he dropped to his knees in the ash. He opened his mouth, but when he tried to speak, he found his heart had risen into his throat. He could not force the words out.
The woman slowly came forward, her hands reaching uncertainly toward him. "I thought you would come back for me."
The Amnesian Hero swallowed his heart down to where it belonged, then touched his fingers to his cheeks. "So you know this face?" he asked. "And this voice? You know who lam?"