Karfhud showed no sign that he noticed the Thrasson's fury. 'Your friends were in a hurry, or they would have taken the amphora with them.'
'Not necessarily.' The Amnesian Hero did not know why he bothered speaking, except that it made him feel a little less like a fiend in the making. 'To them, the amphora was nothing but trouble.'
Although the Thrasson did not bother to elaborate, Karfhud nodded. 'Ah, yes: the giant.'
The Amnesian Hero grated his teeth, but dropped to his hands and knees near the place he and Jayk had been sitting. Karfhud had given him an idea. He began to sweep his hands through the ash, searching for the wineskin he had left lying on the ground. Presumably, the skin would still be there if his companions had left in a hurry.
The Thrasson brushed something cold and much too smooth to be Silverwind's wineskin. He lost contact with it, then spread his fingers and raked both hands deeply through the ash. This time, he caught the thing squarely. His pulse raced in his ears. He half-expected whatever it was to bite him and squirm away, but the object remained dead in his grasp. It had a strange texture, with a soft exterior wrapped over a hard, lumpy core. From one side protruded several long, flexible appendages…
The Amnesian Hero's stomach went hollow and qualmish, then he found himself shouting in revulsion as he pulled a rather fine-boned hand from deep beneath the ash.
'Foul Hades!' The Thrasson dangled the thing by its thumb. 'There was a fight!'
A sick, guilty feeling welled up inside him; while he was off chasing his wine woman, the monster had come and devoured his companions.
'Do you have to be so maudlin? It is only a hand!'
The tanar'ri snatched the thing from the Thrasson's grasp, then wiped the ash off the severed wrist and raised it to his muzzle. From the fiend's mouth snaked a long, pointed tongue coated in white fungus. The tip flickered over the stump several times and when Karfhud began to rub it back and forth over his taste buds, the Amnesian Hero forced himself not to look away. The cut was uncommonly clean; even his star-forged blade could not have cleaved the bone so smoothly.
Several nauseating moments later, Karfhud lowered the hand and sighed, deeply satisfied. 'Elf – a little old, but elf nonetheless.'
The Amnesian Hero nodded. 'Tessali. One of our party.'
Karfhud dropped to all fours and snuffled along the ground, allowing the Thrasson his first good look at the enormous back-satchel the fiend had fetched after their exchange of oaths. Secured snugly by heavy leather straps buckled around the tanar'ri's powerful wing joints, the sack was fashioned of some smooth, lightly colored hide that might have once belonged to either a pig or a man. It was large enough that the Amnesian Hero could have stood inside with Tessali at his side, although they would have been covered only to their chests. The top was drawn closed by a sturdy cinch strap, but several open pockets had been sewn onto the side to hold odds and ends.
'If you find my rucksack interesting, you would do well to remember that it is my rucksack.' Karfhud pushed himself into a kneeling position and, before the Amnesian Hero could ask the reason for the threat, displayed Tessali's second hand. 'This is not the doing of the monster.'
The Amnesian Hero had already reached the same conclusion. The cut was far too clean, and, cunning as the beast was, the Thrasson could not imagine why she would leave both hands behind. 'Then who?'
Karfhud shrugged, then lowered his face into the ash again. Still carrying Tessali's hands, he began to snuffle toward the back of the blind, raising a great cloud of gray dross each time he exhaled. The Amnesian Hero limped along behind, trying to puzzle out what had happened. Something-he could not even guess what-had come along and cut off Tessali's hands, then chased away the elf and the others. Sometime later – and not long ago, judging by the thin coating of dust in the knee depressions – something else, probably the monster, had come along and taken the amphora.
Karfhud reached the back of the blind and started to sniff up the wall, then suddenly stopped and cocked his head, nearly hooking the Thrasson's cheek with a black horn. 'You have a marilith in your party?'
'Marilith?'
'Female tanar'ri! Six arms, serpent's tail.' Karfhud cupped his hands beneath his chest. 'Three or four big-'
'No! Not among my companions.'
Karfhud managed a real smile. 'Well then, I think we know who cut off these.' He displayed Tessali's hands, then reached around behind his wing, bent his arm in a direction it should not have bent, and slipped the appendages into one of his rucksack's exterior pockets. 'I am fortunate indeed.'
'Fortunate?'
Karfhud attempted a wink, momentarily hiding one maroon eye between the folds of his blighted face. 'You cannot imagine the centuries that have passed since last I did the fray upon a female tanar'ri!'
With that, the fiend grabbed the crest of the wall and pulled himself up. The Amnesian Hero looked back toward the mouth of the blind, torn between following Karfhud and going back to search for the amphora. His promise to Poseidon – and, in truth, his curiosity about his own past – obliged him to pursue the jar; his duty to his companions obligated him to go after them. He could not do both. Once he climbed over the wall, it would prove difficult to find his way back here, and every minute that passed before he started hunting the amphora slashed his chances of success.
'I may have misjudged you, Thrasson. I took you for the sort of fool who might regard the lives of his companions more highly than his own desires.' Karfhud, already sitting atop the wall, swung his legs to the other side. 'Make your decision soon. I won't wait for you.'
The fiend pushed off and, even before he dropped down the other side, vanished from sight. The Amnesian Hero snorted his frustration, then jumped up, caught hold of the crest of the wall, and pulled himself to the top. As much as he relished the thought of being free of Karfhud – though he suspected that could not truly be while the tanar'ri's heinous face remained tattooed on his palm – the Thrasson knew the fiend had judged him correctly. No man of renown could abandon his companions in a time of such dire need-even if it meant breaking his word to a god. He pulled his chest atop the wall, then swung his legs to the other side and pushed off.
It is not like passing through a conjunction.
The Thrasson's stomach does a flip. His body rotates, his feet drifting up over his head. He is falling, he thinks;
