Pages of Pain p-1 Page 8

  "Then leave," croaked Brill.

  Mateus whirled on the slaad. "At first glance, some of that meat seems human. You wouldn't want me to take a closer look, would you?"

  Brill squared his massive shoulders. "Imported. Scavenge it from the Blood War myself."

  "And I suppose you have the permits to prove that?"

  Brill's gulp was audible even. through the storeroom door. His beady eyes darted toward the tiny chamber. Mateus took the torch and began to lead the procession toward the storeroom.

  The Amnesian Hero hissed a quiet curse.

  "What is it?" Jayk whispered.

  "Brill betrayed us," the Thrasson whispered. "Get ready."

  He reached for his sword and felt Jayk's hand on his arm. "Brill did not turn stag. It is part of the bob."

  The tiefling pulled him through the darkness to the back comer of the room, guiding him into a hiding place between two large casks. In the next instant, the warped door flew open and Mateus, with one of the Mercykillers close behind, charged across the threshold.

  Their torch hissed and went out at once. The Amnesian Hero heard a brief purl of water, then two splashes and a pair of gurgling screams. A musky river smell filled the storeroom, but even that faded almost before the Thrasson had identified it.

  "What happened?" It was Tessali. "Light!"

  The sleepcaster uttered a brief incantation, then the tavern was flooded with a brilliant sapphire light that shone from the blade of her dagger. It was difficult to say whether Tessali or the Amnesian Hero was more surprised to find the rutterkin surrounding what remained of the elf's party.

  "Lut… toe… bite!"

  A rutterkin snatched the glowing dagger from the sleepcaster's hand, then tossed it into the storeroom. This time, the doorway filled briefly with swirling black currents, and again the purl and musky smell of a river suffused the air.

  "Time for you to leave, elf," croaked Brill.

  The Amnesian Hero peered over a cask and saw the murky outlines of the rutterkin stepping aside to let Tessali pass. The elf led his party back to the door, then managed to garner his courage and stop. His face was barely visible in the purple candlelight.

  "I know they came in here – a human and a tiefling. I'm not leaving until I know what happened to them."

  Brill's arm arced through the dim light, swinging toward the storeroom. "They went through that door, just like your guards." He croaked several times, chuckling. "Go ahead. Take a look."

  A wave of sibilant snickers rustled through the tavern.

  "Your humor is not appreciated." Despite his words, the elf turned a thoughtful eye toward the storeroom. "And you may be assured the Harmonium will return to inspect your licenses."

  "There is no reason for that." The voice, that of a human female, triggered one of those vague sensations of familiarity that sometimes troubled the Amnesian Hero. A chair scraped in a dark corner, then the woman continued, "I have been sitting here for several hours, and I can assure you that the ones you seek are not here."

  Tessali turned toward the voice, which seemed to be approaching the counter. "And who are you, milady?"

  "A woman alone and in distress."

  A tall, statuesque beauty clothed in a simple white gown walked into the dim light. With glistening olive skin, high cheeks, and proud emerald eyes, her face was as regal as it was stunning – and it was one the Amnesian Hero knew as well as he knew his own.

  "Perhaps you would be kind enough to escort me to a safer part of the city?" The woman glanced around the dark room as though surprised to find herself in such a place. "I seem to have lost my way."

  The Amnesian Hero slipped from his hiding place and crept forward, barely able to hold his tongue. Jayk grabbed his arm and pulled him back, then gently closed the storeroom door.

  "Zoombee, what has happened to you?" she hissed. "We're almost safe!"

  The Thrasson pressed his eye to the peephole. "It's her! The woman who appears-" He almost whispered 'when I drink wine,' but caught himself and said instead, "The one I know from before!"

  "Pah! That cannot be."

  In the main room, Tessali was rubbing his chin and studying the woman with a thoughtful air. "This is a bad district for a woman of your… appearances. How did you come to be here?"

  The woman shook her head, her expression dazed. "I cannot – I honestly don't know. I was at home, then this."

  "Yes, perhaps you should come with me." Tessali wrapped an arm around her shoulder, then glanced at Brill. "Is her account settled?"

  Even the slaad could not think quickly enough to make a profit from her unexpected appearance. He only shook his head, croaking, "Didn't know she was here."

  "Good." Tessali motioned for his remaining guard to open the door. "We'll be going."

  "No," gasped the Amnesian Hero.

  He tried to pull the door open, but found it blocked by Jayk.

  "Zoombee, don't be a fool!"

  "I can't let him take her!" the Thrasson whispered. "She knows who I am!"

  "What is she doing here? How did she find you?" Jayk demanded. "This woman, she must be a sleepcaster's trick."

  "Out of my way!"

  The Thrasson pushed Jayk away, then remembered the portal and fumbled around in the darkness until he found the wine. He returned to the door and jerked it open, but by then Tessali had already taken the woman and left. The Amnesian Hero raised the jug to his lips, then rushed across the threshold, leaving both the amphora and his tiefling guide behind. Dabus

  Dim has fallen over the city. It would be wrong to call it dusk; there are no rays of sunlight fanning up from the skyline, no silverlit clouds hanging low over the horizon, no deepening hues of blue spreading across the heavenly vault. There is only the waxing gray gloom, spilling from the alcoves and niches of the city's hundred-thousand hovels, spreading over the scum-coated cobblestones, rising like a ground fog to fill the avenues with a thickening ashen murk. In Sigil, we have no twilights before the dawns, no endings presaging fresh beginnings, no deaths begetting new births; we have only that eternal ashen instant that follows what was and precedes what will be, that wavering gray span that separates the dying and the death.

  Once the Amnesian Hero has dodged past the rutterkin tables and dashed by Brill's gloomy counter and burst from Rivergate's doors, it is into this gray eventide that he stumbles. Already has the street filled with the scuttling denizens of the night: bustling, dark-cloaked figures who melt into the shadows as suddenly as they emerge. Already has the throng swallowed Tessali and the white-gowned beauty, carried them into the ashen gloom and swept clean their trail. Already has the Thrasson lost his quarry and his good sense as well; he will go after the woman, search her out in winding lanes he has never walked.

  Still clutching the jug of Rivergate wine and watching for a flash of white dress in the dimness ahead, the Amnesian Hero raced down the street. When he found only skulking figures camouflaged in night-gray cloaks or armored in spiked plate, he turned and rushed in the opposite direction. The cobblestones rattled with the sound of claws on stone, and the air stank of acrid, lower-planar sweat. Sporadic screams of anguish rose and fell in the distant darkness; the clamor of clashing steel grew common, and the din of growling voices became a constant rumble. Twilight had fallen in the district of blood.

  Realizing that he was in danger of losing his way back to Rivergate, the Thrasson ceased his running. "Tessali!"

  Had the elf actually answered, the Amnesian Hero might have come to his senses and given some thought to his actions. What would he do? Try to explain that he was not "barmy," then demand the return of a woman whose name he could not recall? As it was, the Thrasson's voice merely vanished into the general roar. He found himself standing alone and ignored in a street bustling with brutish beings, his mind still clouded by Rivergate's powerful libation, not quite able to comprehend how he had again lost the one woman who could possibly tell him his name.

  The Amnesian Hero fixed a wary gaze on
the dark figures streaming past. Had he seen one of the ghastly brutes skulking the streets of Thrassos, he would have drawn his sword on the spot and driven it from the city. Now, he found himself in need of their aid and ready to ask it. Wondering how he had fallen so low, he took another swig from his jug and stepped into the path of an ember-eyed shadow.

  "If you would be kind enough to offer your indulgence…"

  "Out the way, bubber!" As the creature spoke, its lips were illuminated by a faint, fiery glow deep in its gullet. "I'll scorch ya!"

  It sidestepped the Thrasson, buffeting him with a murky wing that suddenly unfolded from its back. The Amnesian Hero accepted the indignity with atypical restraint, more interested in finding his white-gowned woman than teaching proper manners. He grabbed the next figure in line, a lanky slope-shouldered brute in scale armor, and dragged him to a stop.

  "A moment of your-"

  Something long and snaky lashed over the fellow's shoulder and pinged off the Amnesian Hero's bronze armor. The Thrasson glimpsed the form of a thick scaly tail arcing away, then felt the tip of a dagger pressed up beneath his jaw.

  "Le'go-n-step'way, berk." The voice was raspy, the breath foul. "Maybe I don' killya."

  The Amnesian Hero calmly released the brute's arm and grabbed his knife hand instead. With a quick twist against the joint, the Thrasson turned the dagger away and, in the same motion, forced his adversary to his knees. He found himself looking down at a gaunt, scaled face with sunken eyes, an arrow-shaped nose, and a row of tiny tusks rising from behind a pouting lower lip. The fellow was one of the barbazu, a race of minor fiends the Thrasson had encountered when Apollo sent him to deliver a message to the Lord of the Stinking Mire.

  "You have no cause for alarm." The Amnesian Hero twisted the barbazu's wrist until the dagger came free and clattered onto the cobblestones. "Nor do you have need of weapons."

  The crowd parted and continued to scurry past, giving wide berth to the confrontation. Any human that could drop a barbazu to his knees was not to be bothered – especially in this part of Sigil, where strength was the only law.

  The Amnesian Hero said, "I only want to ask about Tessali."

  "Who?" The fiend's tail appeared above his shoulder, but hovered there and did not strike; there would have been no purpose, as the bony end-barb had broken off the first time it hit the Thrasson's armor. "D'ya think I know every…"

  "An elf. He has a human with him, a beautiful woman."

  The barbazu's gaze flickered to the wine jug, which the Amnesian Hero still held in his free hand, then over the rest of the Thrasson's body.

  "The elf's armor red?" The fiend's speech was still raspy, but less urgent now.

  "I fear not." The Thrasson was disappointed; there could not be many elves in this squalid district, and it was just his luck the barbazu had seen the wrong one. "He was wearing a spangled cloak. The woman was in white."

  "Oh yeah, a tasty scrap." The barbazu glanced over his shoulder. "I seen 'em. Hangin' all over that elf, she was."

  "Where?" The Thrasson peered past the fiend into the deepening gloom. "How long ago?"

  "Five gold," the barbazu replied. "Worth 'at much jink, by the look o'er."

  "The question is a simple one." The Amnesian Hero wrenched his captive's wrist further and pivoted away, forcing the fiend facedown on the cobblestones. "Answer it, and I won't break your wrist. That should be payment enough."

  The barbazu bobbed his head. "Two alleys back, on the right." His voice grew spiteful. "Lookin' for a place to do him. Hope she does."

  The Amnesian Hero pivoted away from the barbazu, at the same time savagely twisting the fellow's wrist around. The brute had no.choice but to start rolling. The Thrasson could easily have broken his captive's arm, but he settled instead for smashing his wine jug over the fiend's thick skull.

  "You should be more cordial in what you wish for others." The Thrasson placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, then, wondering at the depth of his rage, cautiously backed away. "In the future, I suggest you curb your tongue."

  "Pike it, bubber." The barbazu gathered himself up and, just as cautiously as the Thrasson, backed away in the opposite direction. "You already got yours. That tasty morsel, she ain't never going back to no vinegar-swillin' sod like you." •

  With that, the fiend melted into the crowd and was gone. The Amnesian Hero turned toward the alley, convinced by his strong emotions that the woman had indeed been someone special to him. When he found her – and liberated her from Tessali's tender care – he would certainly find his past Unfortunately, he would still be honor-bound to deliver the amphora. No matter how badly Poseidon had understated the errand's difficulty, for a man of renown to renege on a promise to the Cleaver of Lands would be as unfitting as it would be foolish.

  The Thrasson reached the mouth of the second alley and paused to get his bearings. Although he remembered which way to turn, finding Rivergate again would be difficult. He could not tell the difference between any of the huts in the district. They were all windowless heaps of stone, unmortared and accessible only by tunnel-like entryways. After he rescued the mysterious woman, he would need to ask directions, which meant he would need to incapacitate his pursuers, at least temporarily.

  Hoping he would not be forced to kill anyone, the Amnesian Hero drew his sword and started down the murky passage. Like many of Sign's back lanes, this one appeared quiet and deserted; most people avoided such places as a matter of course, and those who did not preferred leaving or hiding to being noticed. The alley was littered with flat stones that had fallen from the tumbledown walls that formed its looming sides. The musty smell of clay hung heavy in the moist air. A few paces ahead, a large mud puddle glimmered faintly in the gray gloom.

  Thinking to pick up a trail of wet footprints on the far side, the Amnesian Hero dashed forward and leapt over the muck hole. Though his god-forged armor weighed little more than a leather jerkin, the puddle was a large one; his rear foot fell a little short, sinking into the slime with a long slurp. Before he could pull free, the mud compressed around his ankle and clamped it in place. He lost his balance and fell flat. The Thrasson cursed his clumsiness and tried to bring his leg forward.

  He found himself sliding back toward the puddle. Digging the fingertips of his free hand deep into the dirt, the Amnesian Hero pulled forward and tugged harder on his leg. He felt warm mud slithering up his calf. An unfamiliar pounding erupted in his ears; could he actually he frightened? The Thrasson craned his neck to look over his shoulder, found that he could see nothing, then peered beneath his arm and decided he had good reason to be alarmed. A snaky tendril of mud had engulfed his foot, and even now it was stretching out of the puddle, writhing like an eel and steadily working its mouth up his leg.

  The Amnesian Hero pushed his torso up, then swung his sword around to attack. To his horror, he could barely touch the strange creature. His leg seemed to be stretching toward the puddle, and, at least where it was not covered by bronze armor, his flesh was turning as gray as the muck itself. He could no longer see the difference between the tendril and his own knee; the mud had already claimed everything below that, and he had a dead, tingling feeling in his toes.

  The Thrasson thrust the tip of his sword, all that could reach, into the muck. The star-forged steel cut through the tendril easily enough, but the mud simply oozed back behind the blade. He rolled onto his side, then curled toward his feet and attacked the base of the appendage. The blow severed it cleanly, but his foot remained bound to the puddle by a curtain of mud dribbling from his shin. By the time he cut through this, the base of the tentacle had reattached itself.

  The Amnesian Hero could no longer feel his toes. His thigh had turned as gray as pearls, and his knee had become an amorphous mass of muck. He could not believe that a simple mud puddle would accomplish what the Hydra of Thrassos and the Acherian Giant had not.

  The Thrasson looked down the dark alley, straining to see his quarry. "Help! Tessali!"

&nb
sp; No answer.

  "Tessali, this is the Amnesian Hero! I won't harm you. Perhaps I will even surrender!"

  Nothing stirred in the darkness. The Thrasson felt himself sliding back toward the puddle, and that was when he realized he had seen no footprints in the dirt before him.

  The puddle had swallowed Tessali's party, too.

  The Amnesian Hero wedged his sword between the stones of the alley wall, anchoring himself in place. Any normal weapon would have snapped, but it would take a far greater strain to break – or even bend – his star-forged blade.

  The mud reached the hem of the Thrasson's loin tasset. He felt as though his ankle, all he could still sense of his foot, lay twice a leg's length from his hip. He might save himself by using his star-forged blade to cut off his own leg, but he refused to consider such a cowardly act. Who had ever heard of a one-legged man of renown? Better to suffer an ignoble death now.

  The Amnesian Hero turned his face groundward. "How have I offended you, 0 Great and Wicked Hades, that you treat me thus? I deserve a death more glorious than this!"

  "But Zoombee, I have told you-you are dead already."

  "Jayk?" The Amnesian Hero craned his neck around to see the tiefling carrying his amphora down the alley. "Truly, the gods are watching out for me."

  "You must not be so absurd, Zoombee!" Jayk scoffed. "I heard you when you called to Tessali."

  The Thrasson flushed. "You do realize I had no true intention of surrendering?"

  "But of course, Zoombee." Jayk smirked, then leaned the heavy amphora against a nearby wall. "Who would surrender when he can let an ooze portal suck him into a Paraelemental Plane?"

  One of the stones anchoring the Thrasson in place popped free. He resumed his steady slide toward the puddle. "Jayk, will you please free me from this mud?"

  "I will try, Zoombee." The tiefling reached under her cape. "It can be very difficult. Perhaps my magic works better if you help me with Trevant, yes?"

  The Thrasson felt his free foot brush the puddle's surface. He tried to lift it free, but he was too late; a long cord of mud rose with his toes.