"Because you are sick and confused, I forgive you that mistake." There were little tongues of fire flickering in the tanar'ri's dark pupils. "But I warn you, I will not abide such an insult again."

"I care… nothing for your warnings. I know better than to trust… a tanar'ri lord."

The Amnesian Hero clambered to his feet, deliberately exaggerating his clumsiness in an attempt to lure the fiend into attacking. The rase failed as miserably as the first, and the Thrasson found himself facing an extremely large tanar'ri lord in very cramped quarters. Given his condition, the mere fact that he was still alive suggested he had badly misjudged Karfhud's intentions.

"Now you are being sensible." The fiend stepped forward. He extended his wrist and, using his own claw, opened a vein. "Give me your hand."

The Amnesian Hero began to retreat. "What for?"

"My blood is my bond." Karfhud caught up with a single step. "I pledge not to steal your sword, to cause you no harm while you live, and to aid you any way I can."

Seeing that retreating would do him no good, the Thrasson stopped. "And in return?"

"I ask less than I pledge." Karfhud seemed unconcerned about the steady stream of dark, hissing blood spilling from his opened wrist. "Only that you cause me no harm while you live, and that when you die, your sword and all your possessions shall be mine."

As badly as he needed aid, the Amnesian Hero knew better than to trust a fiend – especially one of the tanar'ri, who believed less in the role of law than they did in the rule of evil.

"And if I refuse?"

The tanar'ri's wings rose behind him, filling the alley and making the fiend seem even larger than he was. "You do not want to refuse."

"If I have no choice but death, then I agree."

The Thrasson lowered his sword and extended his free hand. He had no misgivings, for it was no dishonor to exchange such an oath under threat of death-nor, in the eyes of his gods, was it binding.

The tanar'ri caught the proffered wrist in a movement as fast as lightning. The fiend wrinkled his muzzle into a gruesome parody of a smile, then held his bleeding wrist over the Amnesian Hero's hand. A single drop of black blood landed in the center of the Thrasson's palm.

There was a loud sizzle. The smell of acid and fire and melting flesh filled the air. The Thrasson's arm felt as though he had plunged it into boiling oil. He screamed and, thinking the fiend had betrayed him already, tried to raise his sword to attack. No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than the weapon slipped from his grasp and dropped to the ground. The Amnesian Hero stared at the glowing blade and tried to ignore his searing pain and the terrible, sinking feeling that he had just made a mistake worse than dying.

At last, the sizzling died away, and the sick acid stench faded from the Thrasson's nostrils. The burning agony drained from his arm, and Karfhud released his wrist. The Amnesian Hero turned his hand into the light and, tattooed onto his palm, he saw the ruby-eyed semblance of a slender, wicked-homed tanar'ri.

"That was before the blight." Karfhud sounded almost wistful. "But that was many centuries ago – and we have more immediate concerns, do we not? Gather up your sword, and let us be on our way."

Seeing nothing else to do, the Amnesian Hero did as the fiend instructed. "And where are we going?"

"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.