"To collect our supplies, of course 1" Karfhud seemed genuinely surprised by the Thrasson's question. "And then we shall return you to your friendsl"
"My friends?" The Thrasson did not relish the thought of returning to his companions in the company of a Maze-Blighted tanar'ri. "It might be better if I returned alone."
"In your condition? You would never succeed!" Karfhud swept the Amnesian Hero up in a single arm. "And did I not swear to aid you any way I can?" Hands
She stalks the mazes like a bloodblade on the prowl, shambling around comers, skulking along walls, squinting into the windblown ash. Faint as it is, the smell of wine and sour sweat and crusted blood grows more distinct with every step. She stops, sucks down a chest full of gritty air, turns her maw skyward; from her throat rumbles a low growl that rises to a deep rolling bellow and spreads like thunder across the dark sky. The winds grow still in the fury of the roar. Cascades of ash boil down the walls, the ground goes soft with trembling – and the echoes boom back to her bland and hollow, with no resonance of terror. She is alone in this maze; the prey has abandoned her to its spoor. Her matted fur bristles with cold ire, and her craving grows worse for its denial.
We have the same dark hungers, you and I and the monster. We all ache to sate the same appetites we dare not name. It is the same emptiness inside us all; we stare into that same darkness, we fling our treasures into that same unfathomable pit, and, in the end, we all come to that same scant solace: the comfort of warm blood, the fellowship of a groaning voice, the intimacy of the death rattle. Do not damn the monster; until we look to ourselves, we do not dare.
She is only searching, and no matter that she will never find what she seeks in Poseidon's amphora; it suits me that she thinks she might. She is kneeling before the jar now, her flat and shaggy face pressed close to the neck, her cavernous nostrils flaring as she sniffs at the ashen patch. It smells of blood and fear and pain, which sate her appetites as well as anything, but also of something more, pride and hope and even, well-masked beneath the rest, treachery. The amphora is not likely to flail or shriek or dash away when she begins to play, but it may offer some new kind of fun-if not, she will return later for the prey. They cannot roam far.
The monster tucks the amphora under her arm-the same one that was lopped off earlier-then steps into the billowing dross, and by the time the Amnesian Hero directs Karfhud into the blind, she has left the ashen maze and turned toward her lair.
The Thrasson was sitting in the crook of the tanar'ri's elbow, with one arm wrapped around the fiend's spongy neck and the other pinned against the brute's enormous biceps. The fever had not broken, but the Amnesian Hero felt well enough now. Shortly after allowing his palm to be marked with Karfhud's blood, his dizziness had faded, the fog had evaporated from his mind, even his fatigue had vanished. Save for his unrelenting thirst and the throbbing of his infected scratch-and the uneasy suspicion that he owed his fitness to the fiend's mark-he had no complaints whatsoever. In fact, he was allowing himself to be carried only because his brick foot made it impossible to keep pace with the tanar'ri's ground-swallowing stride.
Karfhud turned the comer and stopped in the mouth of the blind. The dead-end passage ahead looked like the place where the Thrasson had left his companions. The same ash eddies swirled about the entrance, it was the same thirty paces deep, and it had the same ash walls rising along its sides. The only difference was its emptiness; Jayk and Tessali and Silverwind were missing, and so was the amphora.
"Put… put me down!" The Thrasson's gasping tone had less to do with thirst than with shock.
Karfhud straightened his arm, allowing the Amnesian Hero to drop to the ground. "You're certain this is where you left them? In the mazes, many places can look the same."
"I am no stranger to mazes!"
Karfhud narrowed his eyes, hiding his maroon pupils between the folds of his sagging face, and made no reply. Tanar'ri lords were not known for their forbearance, but the Amnesian Hero was more worried about his missing companions than angering the fiend. He clumped over to the wall where he had left the amphora. In the powdery ground, he found the shallow basin where he had worked the bottom into the dross. In front of this depression, a pair of hollows had been pressed into the ash. The craters were the size of a man's chest, slightly elongated, and almost two paces apart. Something had kneeled there-something larger than Karfhud.
"The monster was here," said the tanar'ri, voicing the Thrasson's conclusion even as he reached it. "And she took your amphora."
"She?"
Karfhud nodded. "The monster is female-is that not always the way? I wonder what your jar contained to interest her?"
"So do I." For once, the Amnesian Hero had no answer for the tanar'ri to pluck from his mind.
The ground was not churned up, as was to be expected after a fight, and, while the eddies had dusted the entire area with ash, the two depressions where the Amnesian Hero and Jayk had sat talking were completely filled, yet the basins where the amphora had rested and the monster's knees had pressed down were covered by only a light coating.
"You are right, Thrasson." Karfhud gazed up and down the blind. "This battle site makes no sense."
"Will you allow me the privacy of my own thoughts?"
"Why do you need privacy – unless you're trying to hide something?" Karfhud hung his sagging face over the Thrasson, curling the swollen black lips of his muzzle just enough to bare the tips of his yellow fangs. "Certainly, you do not concern yourself with proprieties. The thought has not crossed a human mind that could offend tanar'ri sensibilities."
"I doubt the tanar'ri have sensibilities," grumbled the Thrasson. "And I certainly have nothing to hide. You can read minds. You must know my opinion of you by now."
The Amnesian Hero turned away to see if he could learn more about what had happened to his companions. Given how often eddies spun into the blind to coat everything with a fresh layer of ash, he knew better than to think he would find many hints on the ground. Instead, he walked along the wall in both directions, searching for anything to suggest there had been a battle: stray weapon marks, blood-soaked clods, indentations left by huried bodies.
The Amnesian Hero found nothing, which, he decided, meant nothing. The battle could easily have been fought without leaving its mark on the wall. His companions might have escaped without a fight. Or, when they reached the mouth of the blind and found him missing, they might have fled before the monster arrived.
"No, that cannot be what happened."
Karfhud's intrusion startled the Amnesian Hero so badly he jumped. He landed with his sword half-drawn and spun on the fiend, angry enough that he felt flames licking in his eyes.
Karfhud showed no sign that he noticed the Thrasson's fury. "Your friends were in a hurry, or they would have taken the amphora with them."
"Not necessarily." The Amnesian Hero did not know why he bothered speaking, except that it made him feel a little less like a fiend in the making. "To them, the amphora was nothing but trouble."
Although the Thrasson did not bother to elaborate, Karfhud nodded. "Ah, yes: the giant."
The Amnesian Hero grated his teeth, but dropped to his hands and knees near the place he and Jayk had been sitting. Karfhud had given him an idea. He began to sweep his hands through the ash, searching for the wineskin he had left lying on the ground. Presumably, the skin would still be there if his companions had left in a hurry.
The Thrasson brushed something cold and much too smooth to be Silverwind's wineskin. He lost contact with it, then spread his fingers and raked both hands deeply through the ash. This time, he caught the thing squarely. His pulse raced in his ears. He half-expected whatever it was to bite him and squirm away, but the object remained dead in his grasp. It had a strange texture, with a soft exterior wrapped over a hard, lumpy core. From one side protruded several long, flexible appendages…