Tessali's warning did not go unheeded. The Amnesian Hero was already surprised at how long it was taking the monster to find them; part of him feared the beast was in the adjacent passage at that moment, standing camouflaged amidst the swirling ash, watching and waiting until the Thrasson nodded off. Only the steady roar of the ashen gale reassured him this was not the case; a creature that large could not come down the corridor without causing a sudden change of pitch in the howling wind.
Reluctantly, the Amnesian Hero nodded. "Do what you can for me. But if this is one of your tricks-"
"Truly, you have no reason to worry. I will even keep watch while you sleep."
"Sleep?"
"Of course. We are all in need of rest, and, after your long run, you more than any of us." Tessali picked up the wineskin and shook it. There was little fluid left to slosh in the bottom of the bag. "Besides, given your fever and how much of this you have had, it is a wonder you have not passed out already."
"If it's going to make me sleep, you can put that holly back in your pocket. I am no fool. As soon as I close my eyes, you'll throw my amphora over the wall."
"And follow it over when you wake? You must think I'm barmy."
"I am no murderer," the Amnesian Hero bristled. "No matter how angry-"
Tessali waved the Thrasson silent. "I'm sorry. I know you would never do such a thing – any more than I would throw away what belongs to you – but I don't know why you're so distrustful of me." The elf paused a moment, then said, "Let us agree on this: if the amphora isn't here when you awake, I'll accept any punishment you mete out."
The Amnesian Hero asked, "Why are you so concerned with my health?"
"Pure self-preservation. You're as much my way out of the mazes as you are Silverwind's. If we run into that monster again – and I don't doubt we will – you're the only one who seems capable of slaying it."
"Have you forgotten the last time?" The Thrasson gestured at the elf's wounds. "I didn't do very well."
"We're alive, aren't we? And you felled that giant nicely," Tessali pointed out. "When the monster comes the next time, perhaps Jayk and I can be ready with some magic. We all stand a better chance of getting out of here if we work together."
"That is the truest thing I have ever heard you say." The Amnesian Hero paused, glancing at the sword and sandals lying by his side. "Now that you are in a more truthful mood, tell me why you want me to put the sandals on."
"I don't want you to; I think you must," the elf answered. "To me, it makes no difference whether you put the sandals on or throw them over the wall. But you won't be happy until you try them on, and it would be better for all of us if that wasn't distracting you right now."
The explanation seemed both practical enough and adequately lacking in principle to convince the Amnesian Hero that Tessali was being honest. "What you say is true enough, but you forget they may not be mine."
"Bar that!" said Tessali. "You are the one who felled Periphetes, not the Lady. That makes them yours by right of combat."
"Perhaps, but the issue is not clear." As much as the Amnesian Hero wanted to accept the elf's reasoning, he feared even more the possibility that doing so would be a breach of honor. "If my neighbor's bull breaks free and wanders onto my lands, I may certainly kill it to spare my cows. But then do I have the right to slaughter it and eat it?"
"Better that than to leave it rotting because he is away," countered Tessali. "And if you can give him some extra meat later because of what you ate from his bull, then he will be better off than had you dragged the beast back to rot on his land. Certainly, it would have been better for all had the bull stayed at home, but it did not and now it is your duty to do as well by your neighbor as you can."
The Amnesian Hero knitted his brow, trying in vain to clearly see the analogy through the haze in his head. "I fail to see what this bull has to do with my sandals."
"If you don't put the sandals on, you'll remain distracted and we'll all be killed," Tessali explained. "The Lady's bull will rot in the field."
"That's true." The Amnesian Hero began to unlace his own sandal. "I am doing good for her, am I not?"
What a pointless thing is the mortal mind; with its snaking walls and untold conjunctions and endless looping passages, it is a maze that builds itself – a maze where every path always leads wherever the captive wishes. Where is the challenge in that? Was there ever any doubt that the Thrasson would step into the sandal? I said he would, and even now his bare foot is settling upon the insole.
You recall what comes next: the ashen arms rising to lace the thews, the voice on the wind offering advice, the mention of King Aegeus, one of his two fathers. So you will not be surprised to see the joyful tears streaming down his flushed cheeks, or to hear him bellowing, "I am the son of Aegeus! I am the grandson of Pittheus! I am the son of…"
Here, it will occur to the Amnesian Hero that he does not know the name of his mother. He will look down and realize that he cannot remove the sandal from his brick foot, and a cry of despair will rise from his throat. Tessali will place the new sandal on the ground and suggest it still might work its magic. The Thrasson's legs will start to tremble so hard that he can hardly stand. He will support himself by grasping the Bleaker's shoulder-a poignant touch, that-and begin to lower his foot.
All that could have happened by now, had the Amnesian Hero not spent so long fretting over what is right and what is wrong. But he pondered and brooded and wasted a precious hour seeking to justify what he already knew he would do. And so he has not yet heard the voice on the wind or learned his father's name or realized that he still does not know his mother's; only now are the ashen arms rising to lace the sandal thews about his leg. We must wait for the woman to speak, and for the Thrasson to bellow his joy and realize what he does not know, and all the while there is a figure in the adjacent passage skulking through the gray, howling haze.
To be certain, matters would be different had the Amnesian Hero no fear of dishonor (I called him a coward, and every coward fears something), had he not squandered priceless time in pointless debate, had he acted without awaiting the permission of an eel-tongued elf. But it is the Thrasson's nature to act when he should ponder and ponder when he should act, and to deny him his quandary would have been violence to his character. Better to let him grapple with his honor, to let him reluctantly forsake his morals and slide unwittingly into the abyss of iniquity; better to leave him to his palter, no matter the consequence, than to let him come off a high-talking fraud:
And now the Thrasson has caught his story: his brick foot is quaking upon the crocodile sole, his hand is clamping the elf's shoulder, his eyes are waiting for the arms to rise from the ash. I hope you will not be disappointed by what follows next:
Nothing.
On trembling legs, the Amnesian Hero stood waiting for the second sandal to work its sorcery. In his mind, he could almost hear his mother's voice, whispering both her name and his in words too wind-garbled to comprehend. But no magic sizzled into his foot, no arms rose from the ash to lace the thews about his leg, no words of motherly advice came to him on the roaring wind. His brick foot remained stone-numb in its brick sandal. His stomach seemed heavy and cold, and his knees felt ready to buckle. The Thrasson twisted his foot against the insole, as though grinding the sandal into the dross might summon forth the ashen arms. Nothing happened, except that he grew even more despairing and frustrated.
"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.