The blob shook his head. "You can do nothing, stranger."
"Do not be… hasty. I am a man of renown… the slayer of the Hydra of Thrassos… the tamer of the Hebron Crocodile… the bane of Abudrian Dragons…" The Amnesian Hero felt more feverish and parched with each declaration. For once he wished his listeners would interrupt, but the villagers had all the time in the multiverse to listen. "The champion of Ilyrian Kings… the killer of the Chalcedon Lion… the scourge of foes too numerous to name… and always have I done as I promised."
"Then you have never promised what cannot be done." The blob-face raised his chin and swiveled his head toward his fellows. "It'll be best to leave him where he lies."
The speaker stepped back and vanished into the darkness. The other villagers followed, squeezing past Karfhud and disappearing down the gloomy lane.
"Wait!" The Thrasson knew better than to think he could cure their disease, but Tessali or Silverwind might well be able to help. "I'm not alone…"
"You should save your strength," Karfhud rumbled. "Yelling will not change their minds."
"But there are…"
"Maze Blight cannot be cured," the fiend interrupted. "The magic of your healers is of no use."
The Amnesian Hero scowled. "Do you hear everything I think?"
Karfhud nodded. "I do. And you must not be angry with my companions."
The Thrasson raised his brow. It had not yet occurred to him that he was angry at being abandoned, but, of course, the fiend was right. Despite his obvious need of water and rest, the villagers had left him to die in the street
"They are doing you a kindness. Better to die of fever, quickly, than to linger here. It would take a century for someone of your health to rot away."
"All the same… I prefer to take my chances… In a century… I'll be dead… anyway."
The fiend's black lip twitched upward. "You will certainly wish you were."
Without awaiting a reply, Karfhud dropped his gaze to the Amnesian Hero's flank, where the infected scratch had grown so puffy and inflamed it was about to split. A chill tickled down the Thrasson's spine. He caught himself gawking at the sagging brow beneath the fiend's wicked horns, wondering if the tanar'ri meant to imply he had already contracted the Maze Blight Surely, the disease could not be so catching that one acquired it simply by walking into the village.
"Do you forget what happened when you grabbed Dorat's shoulder?" asked Karfhud, again intruding on the Thrasson's thoughts. "But truly, not one of us can say how he acquired the disease. There is a certain beast-"
The monster of the labyrinth! thought the Thrasson.
A little more of Karfhud's fangs seemed to show beneath his lips. He lowered the Thrasson's sword and began to inspect the glowing blade. The blue light reflected off his maroon eyes, filling the lane with brown flashes.
"A most wonderful weapon." The fiend scraped his thumb across the blade, grating off a cascade of tiny black flakes. "Star-forged, is it not?"
"You know your weapons." The Amnesian Hero had no doubt the fiend intended to steal it from him…
"On the contrary!" Karfhud kneeled, his enormous legs straddling the Thrasson's chest, and flipped the weapon around so that he was holding it by the naked blade. "I was hoping you would make me a gift of it-after you die, of course."
"I… I have no intention of… dying."
"No? More the pity for you, then." The fiend laid the hilt in the Amnesian Hero's hand, then stood. "Still – and I hope you do not find me rude for noting this – you don't look well. In case you happen to expire, would it be too much to ask the command words that activate the magic?"
Of course, even as he thought not to think it, the phrase flashed through the Thrasson's mind: Starlight cleave the night.
"One spell!" Karfhud growled. "For such a magnificent weapon, that hardly seems enough!"
"It is all… you will discover!"
Knowing what Karfhud would surely do next, the Amnesian Hero lashed out at the fiend's belly with a vicious backhand slash.
Karfhud, of course, had realized the Thrasson's intentions even as he formed them. The fiend was already out of reach when the blade flashed past
"Because you are sick and confused, I forgive you that mistake." There were little tongues of fire flickering in the tanar'ri's dark pupils. "But I warn you, I will not abide such an insult again."
"I care… nothing for your warnings. I know better than to trust… a tanar'ri lord."
The Amnesian Hero clambered to his feet, deliberately exaggerating his clumsiness in an attempt to lure the fiend into attacking. The rase failed as miserably as the first, and the Thrasson found himself facing an extremely large tanar'ri lord in very cramped quarters. Given his condition, the mere fact that he was still alive suggested he had badly misjudged Karfhud's intentions.
"Now you are being sensible." The fiend stepped forward. He extended his wrist and, using his own claw, opened a vein. "Give me your hand."
The Amnesian Hero began to retreat. "What for?"
"My blood is my bond." Karfhud caught up with a single step. "I pledge not to steal your sword, to cause you no harm while you live, and to aid you any way I can."
Seeing that retreating would do him no good, the Thrasson stopped. "And in return?"
"I ask less than I pledge." Karfhud seemed unconcerned about the steady stream of dark, hissing blood spilling from his opened wrist. "Only that you cause me no harm while you live, and that when you die, your sword and all your possessions shall be mine."
As badly as he needed aid, the Amnesian Hero knew better than to trust a fiend – especially one of the tanar'ri, who believed less in the role of law than they did in the rule of evil.
"And if I refuse?"
The tanar'ri's wings rose behind him, filling the alley and making the fiend seem even larger than he was. "You do not want to refuse."
"If I have no choice but death, then I agree."
The Thrasson lowered his sword and extended his free hand. He had no misgivings, for it was no dishonor to exchange such an oath under threat of death-nor, in the eyes of his gods, was it binding.
The tanar'ri caught the proffered wrist in a movement as fast as lightning. The fiend wrinkled his muzzle into a gruesome parody of a smile, then held his bleeding wrist over the Amnesian Hero's hand. A single drop of black blood landed in the center of the Thrasson's palm.
There was a loud sizzle. The smell of acid and fire and melting flesh filled the air. The Thrasson's arm felt as though he had plunged it into boiling oil. He screamed and, thinking the fiend had betrayed him already, tried to raise his sword to attack. No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than the weapon slipped from his grasp and dropped to the ground. The Amnesian Hero stared at the glowing blade and tried to ignore his searing pain and the terrible, sinking feeling that he had just made a mistake worse than dying.
At last, the sizzling died away, and the sick acid stench faded from the Thrasson's nostrils. The burning agony drained from his arm, and Karfhud released his wrist. The Amnesian Hero turned his hand into the light and, tattooed onto his palm, he saw the ruby-eyed semblance of a slender, wicked-homed tanar'ri.
"That was before the blight." Karfhud sounded almost wistful. "But that was many centuries ago – and we have more immediate concerns, do we not? Gather up your sword, and let us be on our way."
Seeing nothing else to do, the Amnesian Hero did as the fiend instructed. "And where are we going?"