The Black Talon

XIV

The High Ogres had left a great legacy, although that legacy was scattered and buried throughout much of Ansalon. Partly for that reason, few could claim to be knowledgeable about the High Ogres. Tyranos was one of the august few, a master of the history of a race long dead that still affected the living.

It was a legacy that extended far beyond the borders of Kern and Blode.

The hill where Tyranos worked lay in the northern reaches of what once had been Silvanost and was at that moment part of the imperial minotaur colony of Ambeon. In truth, Tyranos was not that far from the Titans sent by Dauroth to harass the empire, but the wards he had cast would keep his presence a secret from the gigantic spellcasters for the time being … or so he hoped. Tyranos knew he had been expending too much power lately, that the staff and artifacts he utilized were at their limit. His own magic ability was impressive, but the wizard knew better than to think that he could face down two or more Titans, especially those, the most powerful, in the inner circle.

But the thought of what might lie deep within that particular hill had obliged him to take chances.

Indeed, it was not really a hill, despite the many oaks and firs topping it and giving it the appearance of roundness and size. Once, in fact, it had been a burial mound, and although it was on formerly elf soil, the burial mound had been there for a long, long time, possibly predating the elven realm.

It had been there as long, perhaps, as the earliest days of the High Ogres’ supremacy.

After mentally double-checking his defensive wards for the tenth time, the imposing wizard pointed his staff toward a slight depression on the upward slope. Elves had taken little notice of the small, nondescript hill, so thoroughly had those who had created it worked to hide it from enemies. That hinted at a potential treasure trove of potent arcane magic.

Or it might be another fool’s quest.

“Sarath!”

At his command, a silver beam of light erupted from the crystal head of his staff, the shining beam burrowing its way into the hillside. With the silence Tyranos desired, tons of earth divided to each side, creating a corridor into the hillside that ended before a stone doorway. Upon the door was carved the profile of a woman so beautiful that, despite the haste with which he worked, the wizard paused to admire her.

But his admiration was only momentary, for he had much to do. The Titans, too, were constantly seeking such mounds-said to be scattered across not only Ansalon, but the rest of the world as well-and from his spying, the wizard believed that the Black Talon was on the trail of something significant. He could only hope that his find would be more significant, as time was growing short; he knew that better than anyone, even the Titans.

Dismissing the light, Tyranos approached the door. He could sense the latent forces that cemented its seal and marveled at their strength after so many centuries. With one hand, the wizard traced the runes carved around the image. He recognized a handful of them and could hazard a guess at about half a dozen more. Nodding, Tyranos began whispering-speaking the runes as he could best interpret them-his voice taking on a singing quality that lacked something in its skill, yet sounded so much more beautiful simply because of the rune language. The Titans thought that they spoke something akin to the old language, Tyranos reflected, but they did not understand how wrong they were. Even the elegant elves spoke with the squeals of pigs in comparison to the language of the High Ogres.

As Tyranos finished the last rune, the door sank inward with a low, scraping sound. A hiss of air escaped the tomb, emitting a scent that Tyranos identified as rosemary.

A shadow crept over the doorway. The day was nearly spent, and soon the entire hillside would be drenched in darkness. Aware that he might be inside for hours, Tyranos quickly stepped through the door. He was anxious for his long-planned exploration, anxious to collect the artifacts he believed were at his fingertips.

The scent of rosemary grew stronger. There was a headiness to the scent that had nothing to do with the rosemary, though, and Tyranos hesitated, cursing his impatience. He leaned against a rocky wall as fresh air from outside mixed with the stale atmosphere of the tomb. Another precious minute had passed before Tyranos dared to continue.

Illuminating the crystal atop his staff, the leonine wizard surveyed his surroundings. The walls were no longer raw stone; they were smooth and polished with intricate images of High Ogre life etched into them every five paces. The visions were so lifelike that Tyranos paused before one to study it better.

In it, a woman stood at the center of a group of other robed figures. In her hands she offered something to one of the group, but the object was too tiny for the wizard to identify. He leaned closer, at the same time cautiously putting two fingertips against the image to aid his balance-

And suddenly Tyranos himself stood among the small group of honored guests awaiting the woman’s favor for their accomplishments. A light breeze tousled his long-red-hair. He stood in the green and blue ornamented robe of his house.

No, not his house, but rather that of the one in whose place he stood. An awestruck Tyranos felt his body, the body he wore, step forward. The woman filled his gaze, her beauty beyond anything he could have dreamed. It did not matter if they were not of the same race; no goblin, elf, or kyrie could have failed to note her wondrous being. Her hair might have been gold, silver, or some other gleaming color, but that did not matter, nor did the fact that her features, although perfect, could be described a hundred ways and more without ever coming close.

His awe of her beauty was secondary to his amazement at what she was doing. The contents of her hands were revealed to him, and with one of his own, he reached for something lying in the very center of her right palm.

It was a signet.

Tyranos strained to identify the design on it, but his host’s fingers wrapped around the prize, drawing it into his fist.

The High Ogre female smiled at him then-and suddenly the wizard once more stood before the inert image on the wall.

“By the Kraken’s tentacles!” Tyranos angrily snapped. He started to reach toward the scene but hesitated. There was no point in seeking entrance back into that vision; the casters had created the scene to mark that moment and that moment only. If he reentered, Tyranos would only relive the exact same frustrating instant. He could look nowhere else, do nothing else.

But that brief glimpse into the past had done more than give him an extraordinary view of the High Ogres. It had told him clearly that whoever was interred in the tomb was probably buried with the very same signet he had beheld in the vision.

Despite the allure of the other images on the walls, Tyranos moved swiftly ahead, concerned only with his goal. A signet would aid him tremendously or, at the very least, equalize any advantage the Talon might gain should they locate a similar burial chamber, as he believed they might already have done.

Unseen but felt, energies swirled around the tomb, many of them utilized for shielding the place from mortal sight. Tyranos frowned. He sniffed the air but sensed nothing malicious.

The crystal continued to light the way, but its illumination had grown muted. The wizard could see barely a foot or two beyond the staff’s head. Worse, with each step, it was as if someone loaded heavy and still heavier iron weights on his shoulders. His mind started to cloud, the spells he had labored so long to memorize beginning to fade.

He knew that it was the tomb’s protective spells surreptitiously working on him. He had underestimated the High Ogres’ skills, blundering into their traps like a bull.

Then the wizard sensed that he was no longer alone.

Swinging the staff from one side to the next, Tyranos caught glimpses of golden-skinned warriors clad in flexible, blue-silver armor. But those glimpses were no more than fleeting looks, the figures vanishing whenever the light approached them. He swung the crystal toward where he had seen one, and very briefly the figure appeared again before vanishing once more. However, the wizard had seen just enough to know that they were converging on him with trouble in mind.

Another sweep of his staff revealed at least four guardians and in the right hand of each was grasped what Tyranos took to be short, squat maces, less than a foot in length. More details than that the wizard could not make out, save that each guardian bore a different rune across its armored hide.

Tyranos stood waiting, but the guardians had melted away and failed to materialize again. Then a terrible cold touched his shoulder, and the wizard screamed. Barely had he registered the cold than suddenly his lungs felt as though filled with water.

Choking, Tyranos dropped to his knees. In the process, his staff swung about wildly, revealing one of the armored figures raising his short mace in preparation for a strike.

The wizard threw himself forward, but if he expected to bowl over his foe, he was disappointed. Instead, Tyranos rolled unimpeded through the place where the guardian had stood-and vanished. The spellcaster grasped desperately for his staff, the most powerful magical item he had, the only one that might keep him alive.

“Fight like warriors!” he snarled at the unseen guardians as he shifted to a crouching position. “Show yourselves at least!”

They did not heed his demand, of course. Swearing an oath, Tyranos seized the staff like a club and shouted out another spell.

As the crystal slashed through the air, one of the guardians momentarily flickered into view. Tyranos uttered a different spell. The crystal’s light shifted from silver to utter white.

With a low moan, the guardian vanished in midswing.

Baring his teeth in satisfaction, the wizard steadied himself. The spell he had summoned should have been far stronger, but at least it had done some apparent damage.

His satisfaction was short-lived, though, as something touched him on his left arm, which sent him flying against one of the walls. The spellcaster dropped to the floor like a wet sack.

Fighting to keep his wits, Tyranos pushed himself up into a sitting position. The remaining three guardians were very near, he sensed, but his staff was out of reach, so he could only guess at their whereabouts. He understood that they were not ghosts, but rather elemental forces bound by the ancients into the semblances of mortals. However, that knowledge would do Tyranos little good if he failed to regain the staff.

The spellcaster lunged toward the lost weapon. He managed to cover half the distance when the cold hit him like a wall, stronger than before. Tyranos’s limbs stiffened as if numbed. He dropped forward, landing face first on the harsh stone.

Yet he was far from finished. With a roar of anger, Tyranos forced himself up on his frozen elbows and dragged himself toward his goal. His legs were so cold that they burned; then they really did begin to burn, hotter and hotter. As Tyranos neared the staff, the horrific heat coursed through his body, sending him into a new agony.

Eyes tearing, he stretched for his goal. A shaking hand grasped the artifact.

Tyranos spit out the words he needed then swung wildly.

A second guardian materialized in the brief blaze of white light he had summoned. Seen up close at last, its face was a parody of the beauty of the High Ogres, a mask of gold intricately shaped into facial features l acking a soul.

As the first had done, this one also emitted a chilling moan then faded away to nothing. Tyranos, ignoring the pain wracking his body, swerved around to where he judged one of his other attackers to be lurking.

Sure enough, the guardian was there but slightly farther away than Tyranos had anticipated. His magic light flashed, but not with the strength and reach necessary to eliminate that one.

“Yaaa!” A new wave of burning engulfed him. Still clutching the staff, the spellcaster rolled onto his back, writhing. He all but gasped out the required spell.

The crystal flared, eradicating a third guardian.

Instantly, the burning ceased. His breathing ragged, Tyranos used the staff to prop himself up to his feet.

There was another touch on his forearm.

A fear filled the wizard. He felt the walls closing in on him. No, not just the walls, but the entire mound, the entire hill. He realized he was being buried alive and that his bones would rot forever beside those of the tomb’s inhabitant.

A primal sound escaped Tyranos. Shivering, with tears running from his eyes, the wizard made a desperate stab with the staff, at the same time calling out the trusted spell.

He caught the last guardian square in the chest, his crystal light streaming toward and seemingly piercing the rune. The white light swallowed the inhuman figure-

And suddenly the walls felt as if they were receding. Tyranos still shivered but from exhaustion, not fear. He leaned on the staff, trying to catch his breath.

But the tomb’s builders did not intend for him to have any respite. From the darkness ahead slithered a murky form that vanished into and out of any patch of darkness available. Tyranos turned the staff’s light toward it, but it dived into a shadow and vanished without any further trace.

The wizard thrust into his pocket in search of a small vial. As he pulled it out, he heard a hiss close by his ear.

Something sought his throat, but he managed to twist out of the way of its grasp. Popping open the vial, Tyranos thrust it ahead of him, where he believed his attacker lurked.

There was a second, more virulent hiss, followed by a sucking sound from within the vial. The tiny container shook with such violence that the weary wizard could barely hold onto it.

The sucking sound grew louder, deafening. But the hiss did the opposite, shrinking, not only becoming fainter, but seeming to change its place of origin. It sounded as though it came from the same place as the other noise-from within the vial.

At last, the hiss ceased utterly. Daring to release his staff, Tyranos searched the floor until he located the stopper then quickly shoved it into the neck of the container.

Silence reigned in the tomb.

Retrieving his staff, the spellcaster used its silver light to closely inspect the vial. Shaking the vial, Tyranos noticed a tiny black blot within that swirled around almost angrily.

“You might be of some use in the future,” he murmured at the contents.

Replacing the vial in his pocket, Tyranos readied himself for whatever threat or guardian the tomb next hurled at him. Yet more than a minute passed and nothing happened; no further trap was sprung. Cautiously, the wizard decided to resume his journey.

And barely a moment later, he entered the burial chamber.

The swiftness with which he reached the center of the tomb made Tyranos frown, however. There should have been some long, byzantine trek through myriad passages-some of them false, some real-occasionally broken by the discovery of auxiliary rooms filled with unusual artifacts. To reach his destination so quickly did not speak highly of the tomb’s occupant.

Yet the buried one had been granted a signet, a rare and powerful gift among the High Ogres.

The chamber itself was perfectly round, with niches at waist level that hinted at possible treasures. However, it was the middle of the room that riveted Tyranos’s attention, for there, set upon a round platform of what looked like alabaster-a platform upon which were etched more depictions of High Ogre history-was a sarcophagus made of diamond. In the light of the staff, it glittered like a rainbow, its facets creating a startling light show with each movement of the hooded wizard.

Within, a stately form dressed in robes of silver and black-the ancient race’s colors of mourning during the epoch indicated in the vision-lay in repose. As Tyranos stepped up to the remarkable diamond coffin, he saw that the corpse was entirely intact and preserved, as though it had been buried only yesterday. The brilliant blue skin; the perfect, chiseled features; the finely woven garments … none were worn by time.

“Incredible,” he whispered. Tyranos circled the sarcophagus, inspecting every detail of the body. Unlike modern ogres, who were nine feet tall and muscular in the manner of a wrestler, the ancient one was only about as tall as the wizard himself. He was slimmer than Tyranos, with a build more like that of an acrobat. The body appeared to be that of someone who died when he was only in the middle of his third decade, but with the ancients, the look of youthfulness could be deceiving. It was very possible that the ogre had been far, far older at the time of his passing. It was said that the legendary forebears of the savages living in Kern and Blode had been granted life spans longer than those of elves.

The corpse’s expression was calm, serene. One hand lay at his side, the other rested over his heart.

And that hand was decorated with a ring.

The ring drew Tyranos closer and not only because of its eerie beauty. High Ogres had worn their signets in many ways, but the most obvious way was just as common today, in a ring. He could not see what was set into the deceased one’s piece-the ring had been turned inward toward the chest-but where else would the mourners have placed the most valuable of gifts?

That was assuming, of course, that someone else had not stolen the prize upon the deceased’s death.

The muscular wizard searched frantically for a way to open the coffin. He tried to shove at the top half then searched both ends for a gap that might have been sealed after the body was slid inside. His desperate hunt revealed nothing. It was as if the diamond shell were a living thing that had been planted and grown up around the body, but such a thing was not possible-

Tyranos blinked. Or was it?

He performed another, even more thorough examination with the same lack of results. The body lay like a pupa in a glistening chrysalis. There was no manner by which to open it.

No manner but one.

With all his might and with all the magic he could muster, the leonine mage struck the top of the sarcophagus with his staff. Raw energy crackled like lightning around both him and it. A sharp, keening sound echoed throughout the chamber.

Cracks shot across the diamond coffin. Huge pieces suddenly exploded into the air. Some of the shards flew at Tyranos, who managed to shield himself with his cloak.

He stumbled back as the keening sounds amplified. The wizard’s eyes bulged as the figure within the coffin reached up toward the sky with both hands and promptly disintegrated. The beautiful blue skin wrinkled and cracked before falling away. The long, dark hair turned gray, then white. The perfect face sank into itself, the ashy remnants spilling into the suddenly empty eye sockets, the gaping jaws, and the deep nostrils.

The transformation into skeleton was swiftly followed by the decay of the bones themselves. With no ligaments or anything else to hold them together, the bones collapsed, yellowed, then broke into pieces. The pieces dissolved into dust.

Even the garments were not left untouched. They, too, faded, then shriveled. Unlike the body, the robes did not completely vanish, but what little was left could scarcely be identified as the same wondrous clothing Tyranos had first seen.

Undeterred by the destruction he had wrought, Tyranos thrust one hand into the dust, groping around and seeking the ring. It, of all things, should have survived intact.

His fingers closed on a small, circular object. Shaking off bits of the dead ogre, the wizard raised the object up and in the light.

“By the Kraken,” he murmured.

Tyranos had found a signet.

“Yes … yes.”

He held it up to inspect it, focusing the full illumination of his staff upon the ring. The signet in its center was circular with a rune that looked like a double-bladed sword turned upside down at the center. Half a circle arced over the sword, and underneath both lay a symbol the spellcaster recognized from his studies as representing heat or fire.

Wanting to look closer still, Tyranos brought the staff’s head nearer.

The rune shimmered bright orange. What felt like an invisible hand briefly caressed the wizard’s countenance.

Then the rune lost its glow. Tyranos held the signet as close to the crystal as he dared, but there was no repeat of that shimmering, that strange sensation of an invisible hand.

Recalling some of his researches, the wizard uttered some runes he knew. None, however, caused any reaction in the ring.

Rather than frown in frustration, he suddenly chuckled. The High Ogres had, for most of their existence, been meticulous recorders of their magical craft. His brief glance at the wall niches had taken in scrolls, tomes, and other forms of documentation. Somewhere among them would be the key to using the signet. Tyranos had only to look hard.

But when he turned his gaze to the niches, there remained in each only a few rusty boxes and thick piles of dust that had moments before contained the secrets he desired more than anything.

Secrets that his impatience to reach the signet had evidently condemned to the dustbin of history. When the mortal remains of the dead ogre had been awoken and returned to their basic elements, so, too, had the protected works of his life.

Tyranos more than chuckled at that; he bellowed with laughter, bellowed at the foul jest played upon him by the ghosts of the past and his own greed. The High Ogres had planned for his ilk; so long as the tomb served its venerated purpose, the dead would forever have his life, his power, surrounding him. By shattering the sarcophagus-as any base robber would have done, thinking only of riches-Tyranos had dispersed the spell holding the coffin, the dead body, and the ancient magic together.

And so he had been rewarded for all his strenuous effort … with nothing.

The wizard ruefully raised the staff toward one of the nearest niches, shoving aside the piles of dust and overturning one ruined box. The rusting container clattered to the floor, revealing that it contained only more dust. Dust here, dust there.

Tyranos let out a snort and went through a few more niches. There was not one item of value to him …

Not one item save the signet he grasped in his hand.

He studied it closely again. It once held immense power. The spellcaster could sense that. Even after so many centuries, it must hold that power undiminished. Somehow, Tyranos would find out the key to unlocking that power. Somehow he would yet wield it.

There was only the small matter of time running out.

His thoughts abruptly turned to the ogre, the Grand Lord Golgren. The two of them were playing a dangerous game with Dauroth and his Black Talon. Tyranos’s blundering made it essential that he either steal the secrets of the Titans’ find from them or see to it that they ended up, like him, with nothing. Golgren need not know about his failure, of course.

He eyed the signet. It would take some risks, but it would be worth it.

His decision made, the tall wizard abandoned the burial chamber. There was nothing remaining for him there. Even the beautiful runes and depictions had fallen to ruin, the images little more than vague outlines; the magic that had enabled Tyranos to relive one glorious moment in the dead ogre’s life was gone. He grunted to think of that loss; the lost history of the High Ogres was precious, all but a mystery to the modern world. In the end, however, all that mattered was the plan. And Tyranos would endeavor to give the grand lord what he needed to gain the upper hand over Dauroth and the Black Talon.

The crystal barely lit his way, his overuse having drained it of some power. Soon it would revitalize itself, but for the time being, the spellcaster would have to rely upon his own talents only.

He stepped out onto the hillside, the shadows deep with scant light coming from above. Raising the staff, Tyranos resigned himself to using it one last time for the day.

But as he aimed its illumination, from somewhere among the trees he heard the flutter of heavy wings. Tyranos quickly turned to face the sound, the words of a spell forming on his lips.

A gray shape swooped down. It landed before him, a huge brute of a gargoyle more than half again the size of the one the wizard had presented to Golgren. The creature’s wingspan stretched nearly twice Tyranos’s height. Red eyes glared at him from under its thick brow, and the thing’s heavy jaw moved back and forth, its sharp teeth scraping together.

The gargoyle, a male, moved closer to Tyranos, moving as much on its knuckles as on its feet.

The lion-maned spellcaster lowered his staff. “Ah, it’s you.”