'I have passed from the outermost portal
To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;
What care though the service be mortal?
O our Lady of Torture, what care?
All thine the last wine that I pour is,
The last in the chalice we drain.'
This riddle was even simpler than the last, divided as it was into two-line sections, and the Amnesian Hero was almost disappointed in the answer.
'Often have I been warned to abandon hope before entering some dank place. Many times has someone assured me I would find only anguish inside, or warned me the place's terrible occupant would pour my lifeblood upon the stones. Yet, it is always I that return to the light, and it is always my sword that is smeared with steaming black gore.' The Thrasson glanced past the acrobat and saw that they had nearly reached the looming bars of the portcullis. 'You must do better than that to frighten the Amnesian Hero.'
The acrobat smiled grimly and opened his mouth to speak again-then the shaft of Cwalno's glaive caught him in the head and sent him flying.
'That's enough blather, addle-cove!' The Mercykiller rolled his eyes and turned to the Amnesian Hero. 'Pay him no attention. They do that to every poor sod we bring down here. It means nothing.'
Quietly seething at his guard for interrupting the third riddle, the Amnesian Hero watched the acrobat gather himself up. 'Everything means something.'
'Not down here it don't.'
The Amnesian Hero looked forward and saw that they had reached the jaws of the great gate tower. He expected the Mercykillers to stop at the threshold and send him into the bleak place alone, but they did not hesitate to escort him inside. The Thrasson found himself in a circular courtyard surrounded by high, gloomy walls. An enormous mosaic of gray-shaded basalt covered the floor, so large that the Thrasson could determine only that the pattern represented some twisted conglomeration of bones. A handful of brightly-cloaked attendants and despairing supplicants stood scattered along the curving walls, their voices filling the area with a gentle murmur of sobbing and softly uttered words of comfort.
Halfway across the circle, the huge portcullis divided the courtyard in two. The bars looked more enormous than ever, descending from a vaulted half-ceiling high overhead to rest inside a set of immense lock wells. The Thrasson could not imagine the creature the gate was meant to keep out, but it seemed clear enough that the present occupants never raised the portcullis. The lock wells were so full of rust and corrosion that a halo of orange crust covered the floor around the base of each bar.
The Amnesian Hero's procession passed through the gate without having to tighten its formation. The back half of the courtyard, covered as it was by a second half-ceiling, was even gloomier than the front. The square eyes of dozens of candle-lit windows peered out from the depths of the citadel, barely illuminating dozens of brown stains that trailed down the walls from a leaky roof. The steady drone of solemn voices, frequently punctuated by an echoing scream from some place deeper in the building, filled the air with a grating hum.
As the eyes of the Amnesian Hero adjusted to the dim light, he saw that this area was far more crowded than the front half of the courtyard. To his left, a long line of petitioners waited before an iron door, patiently allowing a colorfully dressed attendant to sprinkle powder over their filthy heads. In the back of the enclave, a spangle-cloaked dwarf kneeled before another iron door. He was wailing madly and, despite the efforts of two escorts to restrain him, beating himself fiercely about the head. A short distance away, another pair of burly attendants had the arms of a lithe, black-caped woman stretched taut between them. She seemed to be glaring at a gentle-looking elf who stood a safe distance away, addressing her in a voice of honey and holding his palms spread open. Behind him, a third iron door led deeper into the palace.
Cwalno led the Amnesian Hero's procession past this group, then stopped. Fifteen paces ahead, before yet another iron door, stood a second elf who bore a brotherly resemblance to the first one. Along with a small group of brightly cloaked attendants, he was studying a dazed man with the tip of a tongue showing at the comer of his mouth.
Cwalno turned to the Amnesian Hero. 'I'll arrange an audience with the Lady of Pain. You wait here.'
After the Amnesian Hero nodded his assent, Cwalno marched over to the second elf's group and shouldered past the brightly cloaked attendants. The Thrasson watched until the Mercykiller began to whisper into the elf's ear, then turned his gaze upon the black-caped woman being restrained near his sedan chair.
It is a ploy, of course. While he watches the woman, the Amnesian Hero is listening to every word Cwalno says. The Mercykiller does not realize this; only I know that the Thrasson is a Hunter, gifted by the gods with those ugly little ears that can hear the spider in the comer sighing.
'Madame Mok's sent a special barmy for you, Tyvold.' The Mercykiller points at the sedan chair, but the Amnesian Hero, cunning as always, pretends not to notice. He continues to stare at the black-caped woman, as though he finds her more interesting than any discussion about his fate. 'Sod claims he can't remember his own name.'
Tyvold sneers and does not look toward the Amnesian Hero. 'Did he wait in the Salvation Line?'
'What do you think? I'm going to camp down here twenty days?'
Tyvold shrugs. 'That is your choice, of course.' He turns away from Cwalno. 'This isn't the Prison, you know. Mercykillers have to wait like everyone else.'
'That so?' Cwalno demands. 'And maybe Factol Lhar wants to show me permits for those Bleak Cabal soup houses springing up all over the city? If every letter ain't just right, you can be sure he won't have to wait in line at our place.'
Tyvold's kindly features stiffen into a mask of anger. He knows it is a sign of inner deficiency for a high-up in the Bleak Cabal to show irritation-it suggests that he himself is nearing readiness for the Grim Retreat-but the elf cannot help it. The Mercykillers, with their blind devotion to 'justice' and 'order,' are the worst of the Deluded. Not only do they think the multiverse has meaning, they are convinced it is their duty to impose that meaning on everyone else.
