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.
The Amnesian Hero's vision blurred, and it seemed to him that the hot sweat pouring off his body was melting flesh. His lungs ached and his muscles burned and his head spun, and still he hobbled after the woman. She rounded another corner, and he round himself struggling to remember whether this was her third turn or fourth, and whether one had been left and the rest right. He stumbled and almost allowed himself to. fall, confident she would be gone when he rounded the comer.
Just make the turn, he told himself, and she will be gone. Then it will be time to rest.
A second half-knot popped. One more, and he would lose the sandal-and this time he would not feel the thews slacken.
The Thrasson rounded the comer and knew by the sudden stillness that he had entered a blind. He stumbled out of the ash wind, coughing and choking and dizzy; there, a dozen paces ahead, stood his wine woman, staring into the hovering black square of a maze conjunction. She was facing away, hands clasped before her torso as though wringing them. The Amnesian Hero stopped where he stood and, without taking his eyes off the woman's back, found his scabbard and sheathed his sword.
Only then did he speak, and only in his softest, calmest rasp. 'Please, you have… nothing to fear… from me.'
The woman turned and, to the surprise of the Amnesian Hero, did not flee. Her mouth fell open and her hands rose to her cheeks. She stumbled a single step forward, staring at the Thrasson as though she were looking at a dead man, which he suspected was exactly what he resembled.
'Can it be?' she gasped. 'I have been searching for you for so long!'
The Thrasson's trembling legs chose that moment to buckle, and he dropped to his knees in the ash. He opened his mouth, but when he tried to speak, he found his heart had risen into his throat. He could not force the words out.
The woman slowly came forward, her hands reaching uncertainly toward him. 'I thought you would come back for me.'
The Amnesian Hero swallowed his heart down to where it belonged, then touched his fingers to his cheeks. 'So you know this face?' he asked. 'And this voice? You know who lam?'
The woman stopped, her emerald eyes now growing wary. 'Of course I know you! You stole me from my cruel father and carried me across the sea! Don't you remember?'
'I do not.' The Amnesian Hero forgot himself then and closed his eyes. 'My memory is lost. I awoke on a beach in Thrassos, and I recall nothing of the time before-not even my name.'
The Thrasson's only answer was a long silence. He cursed himself for a fool, and open flew his eyes.
The woman was still there. 'How could you forget me?'
Tears began to stream down her cheeks, and she turned away. Thinking she was about to flee, the Amnesian Hero raised one knee and started to rise. The woman buried her face in her hands.
'Don't!' she cried. It was more a plea than a command. 'How could you forget? We loved each other once!'
'And I love you still, I am sure. Help me remember!'
The Amnesian Hero braced his hands on his knee and pushed himself up. Then, as he started to step forward, his brick foot caught on something and snagged. The Thrasson stumbled and, in his weakened state, fell back to his knees. He looked down and saw that the second sandal's loose thews had gotten caught beneath his good foot.
Cursing himself for a buffoon, he started to rise again, this time bringing his good foot forward first. 'Beautiful lady, if you loved me and love me still, then truly I am the man most blessed by the gods,' he said. 'When we return to Arborea, the citizens of Thrassos will shower us with rose petals.'
When the Amnesian Hero raised his gaze, he found that he was speaking only to himself. The wine woman had vanished again. Pains Of The Heart
