Theseus was careful to keep his mind off Karfhud until the battle began, which happened soon enough. It started softly, with a low, sonorous growl that rumbled through the cave like an earthquake, making the bones dance, filling the passages with the eerie chatter of a thousand ribs knocking together. Next, the tanar'ri let loose with a deafening bellow – it sounded as terrified as it did angry – and the Thrasson knew the time had come to make his plans.
There were a couple of muffled thuds somewhere deep in the serpentine chamber, then the distant crackling of Karfhud's heavy feet stomping through the bone pile. Theseus did not consider, even for a moment, the possibility that the fiend intended to let him live after the battle. As little as the Thrasson knew about the maps, he was sure the tanar'ri would have liked it better if he did not know anything-and lords of the Abyss had a habit of getting exactly what they liked.
A sharp tearing sound rasped up the passage, followed by a tanar'ri curse and a loud, wet slap. The monster roared, leaving Theseus's ears ringing and making it nearly impossible to hear the bones crackling under the feet of the two enormous brutes. The Thrasson began to ease out of the fissure, praying he would not burst too many of the husks. He would not be much use lying on the ground writhing in pain. And, whatever Karfhud was planning for after the battle, the fiend was telling the truth about one thing, at least: if they did not destroy the monster together, they would perish together.
Karfhud's heavy steps splintered past the mouth of the passage, with Sheba's close behind. Theseus pushed a leg free of the fissure-and felt a pop. Something warm and sticky oozed down his thigh. He nearly bit his tongue in.two to keep from screaming, then his leg went dead and useless, a scalding wave of anguish seething down its length. His knee buckled, and he tumbled out of the fissure onto the dark, bone-strewn floor.
How many pods burst, or which ones, Theseus could not say. He simply fell into a boiling ocean of pain. For an instant-it could have been no longer than that, though it seemed an hour to him-he lay there trying not to scream, not to writhe or beat his feet against the floor, or to do anything that would draw the monster's attention. Half a dozen paces away, he could hear the battle raging: growling, pounding, tearing, snorting, popping, snapping, splintering, and muffled shattering. Karfhud growled, Sheba roared, he screeched, she wailed. The smell of sulfur and ash, tanar'ri gore and monster blood, filled the passage.
Theseus pushed himself to his feet. The effort sent rivers of molten slag boiling through his veins, but he forced himself to stumble toward the din. He did not ran; if he ran, he might fall. If he fell, more husks would spill their ichor, and then he would be done. As it was, every throbbing, raw nerve in his body was begging him to turn away from the maelstrom, to flee into the darkness; he kept them at bay only by concentrating on the pain he would feel if Sheba survived to catch him alone later.
Something wet and foul-smelling swept through the darkness, so close to Theseus's face that he felt the air stir across his' cheeks. Karfhud let out a low, deep groan, then countered with a terrific, wet-sounding blow. Sheba's sticky blood spattered the Thrasson's brow.
As Theseus started to pull his bright-shining sword, he heard Karfhud clatter a single step backward. The battle lapsed for just an instant Sheba stood wheezing in the darkness, no doubt trying to puzzle out the cause of the strange lull, and then the Thrasson understood Karfhud's plan.
"Why do you wait?" the tanar'ri yelled. "Strike!"
And Sheba did, launching such a furious assault that it sent the tanar'ri crashing to the floor in a thundering din of old crackling skeletons and fiendish bones breaking anew. Karfhud shrieked in pain, and the monster roared in glee.
Theseus leapt into the darkness, whispering a single word as he drew his sword: "Darkstar."
The star-forged blade came out of its scabbard black as ebony, then slashed through something the thickness of an olive tree. Sheba howled and crashed to the ground. Theseus, attacking blindly, struck again. This time, his steel bit deep into the monster's thick midsection. She hissed in pain and rolled across the jumble of skeletons. The Thrasson followed by sound, swinging blindly into the darkness and cleaving nothing but bones. Still, he did not light his weapon; wife the tip of his sword glowing bright as a moon, he would have drawn the monster's attention straight to himself, leaving Karfhud free to clean up the mess at his leisure.
Theseus, still chopping his way across the cavern floor, much preferred things as they were now-especially when he heard the clamor of rattling bones and snarling throats off to his left. He stumbled over and began hacking into the darkness, taking no care what he struck so long as the blow landed on something live. Three times, he felt that star-forged steel slice through something as big around as his waist, and three times he heard the monster roar. He heard Karfhud, too, but groaning, and that only softly. The Thrasson took no care; he continued to swing until, at last, a claw lashed out of the darkness to send him crashing to the cluttered floor.
Theseus felt the husks bursting one after the other, and now he could not stop himself from screaming. Still, he rolled to his feet, lost his legs and plunged through a vat of boiling, seething anguish. He began crawling back toward the battle.
It took Theseus a moment to realize he had no idea where he was going. His own screams were drowning out any cries he might have heard from Karfhud or the monster, and his nose was too full of his own blood to find them by scent. Slowly, he managed to thread the thought through his tormented mind that he needed to be silent, that if he kept screaming he would summon his enemies to him like scavengers to the battle dead. The Thrasson closed his mouth, and that was when he heard the awful stillness.
The chamber was quiet, but not quite silent. Somewhere ahead, there was Karfhud's groaning, low and steady. All around the fiend, there seemed to be a soft scrabble, as though the rats had already come out to gnaw at his fingers. There was a terrible, howling wheeze-it took Theseus a moment to identify it as his own labored breath.
"Star… light…" It seemed difficult to believe the frail voice struggling to issue the command belonged to Karfhud. "Cleave the… night."
The sapphire light glimmered to life on the tip of Theseus's sword, revealing a sight only slightly more gruesome than before the battle had begun. One of Sheba's black-veined legs lay at his feet, the toes still twitching, the ankle and the knees still working – the thing slowly inched its way toward the den. Scattered around the chamber, wherever they happened to have landed after the Thrasson's sword hacked them away, were other pieces of the monster: an ear, a wedge of torso, the matted hand from the arm that had been cleaved back in the swamp maze. Like the teg, they were all writhing back toward the central pillar.
A few paces away, Karfhud lay in a hollow of smashed bones, soaking in a pool of his own bubbling blood, his blighted face torn half off, and his black ribs shoving up through his chest in a dozen places. Though his maroon eyes had faded to mere orange embers, they looked no less hateful than ever, and they were fixed on Theseus's face.
"Coward."
Theseus shook his head. "Treacherous, perhaps."
The tanar'ri shook his head. "Can't… fool… me." The fiend raised a broken talon, beckoning the Thrasson closer. "Give me… a little blood."
Theseus stayed where he was.
"Last.;. request," Karfhud said. "I'll… tell…"
Theseus shook his head. Even in death, the tanar'ri was not likely to reveal the secret of his maps.
"Not… maps. You… will… never know… that-but what… of… friend? There is… secret…"
The Thrasson cursed. Tessali was probably dead by now, but Theseus could not leave here until he learned the truth.
"Of course… you can," Karfhud gasped. "Who is… to know? Your… fame… will not suffer…"
Theseus started toward the fiend. "My fame isn't what matters-Tessali is."
Had Karfhud not looked away and uttered a curse, Theseus might never have stopped to consider his own words. He had been a man of renown for so long that he had grown accustomed to considering his feats not in light of how they helped others, but merely in the glory they won him. He had lost sight of the quality that had made him a hero in the first place – his true concern for others – and focused his attention instead on the trappings of being a famous champion. Perhaps that was why he had lost his memories in the first place: he had lost himself.
"Don't… have much… time to waste… congratulating…" Karfhud gasped. "I… may not… last."
Theseus kneeled beside Karfhud's head, then he ran his own palm down the cutting edge of his sword. The blade opened a clean red gash. The Thrasson made a fist, but did not allow any of his blood to dribble on the tanar'ri's lips.
"Tell me."
Karfhud's only reply was a long, gurgling wheeze. The fiend licked his lips, but shook his head. "You… already peeled me… once."
Theseus swung his hand over the tanar'ri's lips and tightened his fist, squeezing a long red stream into Karfhud's mouth. He allowed the fiend to drink for several seconds, then pulled his hand away again.
"Now, tell me how to find Tessali."
Karfhud licked the blood off his cracked lips, then a raspy laugh rumbled up from deep in his chest, and the embers in his eyes went cold.
Theseus wasted no time trying to revive the fiend, for he knew well enough when he had been swindled. Instead, the Thrasson rolled the tanar'ri's heavy body onto its side and cut the fiend's battered back-satchel free. If there was a secret to entering the lair, Karfhud would certainly have marked it on his beloved maps. Theseus rifled through the parchments until he found the freshest one, then pulled it out and, as he unfurled the chart, found a clump of nappy white bariaur fur still clinging to one pink-tinged edge.
It is true, despite all I promised, that someone else is dead. It happened this way: while we were looking elsewhere, Karfhud jumped the bariaur from behind. Before Silverwind realized what was happening, all his legs and both his arms were broken, his skin was being peeled from his back, and he was already making plans for what he will imagine better the next time around.
I wish I could say the bariaur's multiverse ended quickly, but that is not how tanar'ri do things. They are masters of the slow death, with a thousand ways to prolong the torment, and each more agonizing than the last. Sometimes, the torture lasts even beyond death; the bariaur was spared that, at least, for the price of becoming a map.
A pity for Silverwind, of course, that he never found his way out of the mazes, but he was hardly a great loss to us: a boring, self-centered old fool, the likes of which you can find sleeping in any gutter in Sigil. And, really, what did you expect from a tanar'ri? Wisdom and goodwill? Consider yourself lucky the fiend settled for a bariaur's hide when he could have had prime, olive-skinned human.
The Thrasson, of course, was right about the map. It took him only a moment to find the pillar, a moment longer to see the three circles, no time at all to realize what he had to do. Already, he has hurled Sheba's writhing parts back into die adjoining passages; already, he has rounded the column twice; already, he has tossed aside the unfurled map and set himself to the task.
Staved ribs aching and bloody slashes throbbing, Theseus staggered the third time around the pillar and did not notice the peace gift in his path. He only saw the dark door opening before him, then heard his foot shattering the pottery, felt the broken shards crumbling beneath the palm of his borrowed foot, and looked down to see the black ribbons swirling round and round, rising up one after the other, circling his body once, twice, three times. He remembered, once before, standing in the mouth of a dark, fetor-filled cavern. His young wine woman had been there with him, pressing a ball of golden thread into his hands.
"I will hold the end, brave Theseus. After you have slain the minotaur, follow the string back to me."
"You may be certain I will, Princess." Theseus had kissed her long upon the lips. "And then will I carry you away from cruel Minos, across the sapphire sea to make you Ariadne, Queen of Athens."
Ariadne.
No sooner had the name come than the Thrasson felt the bursting of a husk; he looked down and saw black ichor oozing down his breast. His chest went hollow, and inside he felt a cold, bitter wind scraping across his raw ribs.
"No morel" he cried. "I have remembered too much already!"
But the memories continued to come; with each, another black pod ruptured and spilled its dark purulence over his body. He saw dearly what he had only glimpsed before: his callous betrayal of Ariadne, how his neglect caused his own father's death, how his own prideful blindness cost the lives of two wives, how his fury destroyed his innocent son. From the moment of his first victory, he had lost the very thing that had made him a hero.