Tessali, lying on the ground very still, said nothing.
"I won't… have it!" The Thrasson turned his tattooed palm toward the fiend. "I… will… die first."
For once, Jayk did not inform the Amnesian Hero that he was already dead. Instead, she leaned forward and placed her lips upon the Thrasson's throat, then whispered, "We die together, Zoombee."
"That won't be necessary." Karfhud released his terrified captive, then pulled his back-satchel over and removed the elf's blackened hand from a side pocket. "We can make do with this."
"A hand?" gasped Silverwind.
"It seems to be all we have." Karfhud tossed the appendage to the bariaur. "I suppose you have a spell of enlargement?" Name
In the Thrasson's sleep, two disembodied hands-charred hands, with long black talons and black flakes peeling off to expose the mottled pink flesh beneath-brush along his naked body. They are cold against his skin, and scaly, and they leave a trail of moldering reek wherever they touch: his cheeks, his neck and shoulders, his armpits, down to his stomach, over his hips and back again to that area of dark tangles and darker cravings, along his thighs, past his knees to his feet, even to his toes; wherever they roam, he feels his flesh rising up in welts, swelling into thumb-shaped lumps that sprout tiny hooked spines and start to pulse. The blisters grow large as melons. They turn emerald and gold and ruby and jet, and ooze ichor, and throb like hearts, and so heavily do they weigh upon the Amnesian Hero that he cannot me. He cannot sit upright to look at his pod-palled body; he cannot lift so much as his finger to flick the fetid husks away.
It is the beauty of dreams to reveal what is true without betraying what is real-or so I have heard. In truth, unless this endless watching is a nightmare, I cannot say. It has been so long since I dared to sleep that I have forgotten what it is to dream, or even to rest. Always must I be on guard, lest some god think to storm my ramparts; always must I survey those who come and those who go, lest one is the spy who leaves open the gate. To slumber is to surrender, for then my enemies will surely come and prevail.
And it is the same for the Thrasson. As he slept away the wine and the pain. Ruin has come stealing along, to hold his head in her lap and tickle her soft touch over his body high and low; she has folded him gently in her arms and hugged him close, and it is her hands that he dreams of even now, each caress drawing forth another of the heaving pods that have been slowly ripening since first he entered Sigil.
In his dream, the disembodied black hands sprout a pair of ivory arms from their severed wrists; the arms begin to grow, slowly stretching up to connect with the shoulders and torso of a naked woman. This is all the Thrasson can see, for he remains pinned beneath the heavy, throbbing husks-but it is enough. The woman has the full figure of a goddess and the smooth skin of a statue, and her humming voice is as sweet as a trilling flute.
Slowly, it returns to him: the terrible shock of Karfhud lopping away his brick foot, the horrid searing of Silverwind melting the huge blackened hand onto his ankle, the dark sick tide rising up to swallow him, the shadowy fingers digging into his shoulders as Jayk struggles to hold him down.
"J-Jayk." He tries to crane his neck back to see her face, but the bloated throbbing husks hold him down. Still, through the lingering haze of wine and pain, it seems to him something is wrong with the color of her skin. "Jayk? It's me-Zoombee."
"Zombie? You mustn't say such things." The voice is female and familiar, but it does not belong to the tiefling. "You're far from dead, my love."
His wine woman!
She lays her palms upon the Thrasson's cheeks; her hands still feel scaly and charred. Her lap shifts beneath his head. She leans down, bringing her face close to his, her bosom flattening the bloated pods that cover his chest. The Amnesian Hero sees a visage classic and narrow, an aquiline nose, a cold, callous gaze – a halo of many-styled blades.
He dreams the woman is me.
An emerald husk, squeezed too tightly between their close-pressed bodies, bursts; green ichor oozes down his flank, oily and full of bitter stink. Wherever the stuff touches, he bristles with a chill nettling; cold needles of agony pierce his skin, then drive deeper with agonizing languor. So slowly do they sink that he suffers before he suffers. His dread deepens faster than the anguish itself.
The Thrasson tries to push the woman away, but he cannot raise his arms. He screams, frightened by his immobility. All of the green pods burst, and the ichor paints him emerald head to foot; he burns with that slow, terrible scalding and shrieks and wails, anguished more by what he fears than by what he feels. The Amnesian Hero has succumbed to the first Pain.
"Sssshhhh! You mustn't draw the others to us! I have waited too long for this." The voice remains that of his wine woman. She smothers his cries with a kiss, then whispers a trio of soft syllables: "Theseus."
The word plucks a harp string inside the Thrasson's breast, sets his whole being to thrumming. Suddenly, he stops dreaming. Theseus was somebody's name, he remembers.
It was his name.
His eyes snapped open, and the Thrasson found himself lying on the hard brick pavement, looking up not at the Lady of Pain's face, but at that of his wine woman. She was beautiful as ever, with olive skin and emerald eyes and high, proud cheeks.
"Theseus?" he croaked. "I am Theseus?"
"You remember!"
The wine woman gave him a moon-bright smile and hugged him close to her breast, and that was when the Thrasson – no, Theseus-that was when Theseus remembered the throbbing husks of ichor dinging to his breast.
"No, wait…"
A trio of yellow pods burst, filling the air with the stench of spoiled meat. A pasty yellow ichor spread down the Thrasson's breast Belts of crushing agony tightened around his chest; the pain began to sink, dropping through his sternum and slipping down between his ribs, settling deep into his torso. A blanket of grim wet pain fell over his lungs, and Theseus found himself fighting to draw every anguished breath. He felt cold fingers around his heart, not squeezing so much as holding, thwarting the swell of each beat so that his entire chest cramped with every pulse.
As the pain deepened, the reek of the yellow ichor grew stronger and more bitter, until the smell grew so overwhelming that Theseus could not prevent himself from gagging. The convulsion caused more yellow pods to burst; more golden ichor spilled over his body, and crushing bands of agony began to tighten around his stomach, his legs, even his throat. The rancid rotten-meat stench grew overwhelming, and he knew he could not keep himself from retching.
The wine woman barely had time to push Theseus's head off her lap. She jumped up and glared down at him, her mouth twisted into an expression of distaste.
"Is the scent of my bosom so sickening to you, Theseus?" Her emerald eyes" betrayed no hint that she smelled the stench of the awful ichor that covered his body, nor that she saw the bloated pods clinging to it. "Has our love grown so repulsive to you?"
Theseus shook his head, and a painful ringing echoed through his skull. "No. Our love is well – I am sure."
"Then prove it." The woman raised her chin. "Tell me."
Now that the green and yellow pods had burst, Theseus was not so heavily burdened. He managed to raise his head so that he could look his wine woman directly in the face. "I love you."
Tears welled in her eyes. "You're lying! How can you declare your love without even knowing my name?" She began to back away, her lips trembling. "I thought you would remember if I told you your name-but you've forgotten me!"
"No!" Theseus stretched a hand toward her, causing the last yellow husk to burst. His arm went limp and dropped to the ground, feeling as though Karfhud had stomped on his elbow. "Can't you see? I'm in pain!"