The Fire Rose

XIV

Golgren ran his fingers over the carving in the wall, seeking to determine its meaning. With no light by which to see the High Ogres’ work, the Grand Khan tried to identify the various markings from memory of what he had seen before.

Golgren glanced into the dark behind him, whispering, “You are well, my Idaria?”

“I am, my lord. Thank you for binding the wound.”

“We may have need of your precious blood again.” Continuing his inspection of the wall, the Grand Khan remarked, “A fascinating idea that an elf’s blood could be so poisonous. The Titans are daring indeed.” Golgren did not ask Idaria how she had found the dagger. That was the least of his interests.

He sensed her step closer to him. “What may be poison to one may also give life, depending on how it is ministered.”

In the dark, the slave’s outline was barely discernible. “It is true that those monstrosities were of the Titans?” He had suspected that the creatures served the sorcerers, but something in what Idaria had said made him think perhaps they also had a blood relationship. “Like Donnag.”

“Like Donnag, yes.” But something in her tone lingered in the air like a question.

“And can elf blood help guide us out?” he asked Idaria.

“It cannot,” Idaria replied solemnly. “When I dared cut myself, I did so only because of some knowledge I had involving the use of blood and the transformation of the creatures who do the bidding of the Titans. I took a chance that it would work.”

She offered no other explanation. The Grand Khan did not care. He was concerned about getting out of that place alive.

They could have returned down the passage through which he had first traveled, but Golgren knew that he would find only another dead end. Perhaps Idaria knew a way. “How is it you were able to come to the tunnels? Did you follow me through?”

Idaria was silent for a moment before replying, “I searched for more than two hours to find a way in at the precise location where you vanished, my lord.”

“Two hours? So very long? And the creatures. You recall when you first saw them?”

“Barely a minute before I dared take a chance and drew the blood.”

“A curious shuffling of time,” he remarked, thinking. “It is not. Perhaps … Ah!”

They both stepped back as a golden glow erupted from the area Golgren had just touched. The half-breed and the elf watched as the glow spread like fire throughout the entire life-sized relief.

In the growing light, Golgren glanced at his hand. There were no traces of blood upon it, as he had thought there would be. The Grand Khan had been certain that some remnant of the elf’s blood was responsible for the flaring light.

If not Idaria’s blood, what?

He gazed again upon the magically illuminated relief. And recognized there was something wrong with it.

It was not the symbols and markings and the Ogres that he had glimpsed during the struggle with the monstrosities. Instead it was one vast scene with eight robed High Ogres casting a spell on what appeared to be a burning flower turned upside down. The casters themselves appeared to be surrounded by bright coronas.

Framing all that was a specific setting: mountains, great buildings with sharp, jutting towers, a river, and odd animals that looked like crosses between various, more familiar species.

“Well?” asked a voice that made Golgren bare his teeth. “You wanted to enter, and so you can.”

The Grand Khan calmly turned to face Safrag.

“Dauroth did not understand that he entertained a viper in his midst,” Golgren remarked.

“How droll,” returned the Titan, striding like a god toward the two shorter figures. Safrag’s head barely missed scraping the passage’s ceiling. “We are in the vale, and thus I must be one of the legendary serpents.”

“We are in the dread valley?” murmured Idaria. “But that was still days away.”

“She is a curious slave.” Safrag kept his hands behind his back as he looked from her to Golgren. “Just as you are a curious master. Is it love? Lust? Common goals? Common betrayals?”

Sneering, Golgren returned, “And is the Titan leader so interested in the souls of others? In emotions? How caring is Safrag of others!”

“Merely curious about the workings of your confused mind, oh Grand Khan. Are you ogre or are you elf?” Before Golgren could reply again, Safrag cut him off with a wave of one hand.

A hand that flaunted the signet.

Golgren’s sneer became a veiled stare. Drawing the dagger, he took a step toward the sorcerer.

Flames surrounded him. The dagger became hot. He was forced to drop it and step back to the glowing panorama.

The dagger melted, becoming a puddle of metal and other bits.

“I shall make it clear in the very best Common, mongrel. There’s only one reason why you still live: I have not decided if you are still of need to me given that I am on the threshold of rediscovering the most powerful artifact since the Graygem!”

“I know nothing of the Graygem,” Golgren replied coldly and without fear. “And the Fire Rose will never bloom for you.”

“How poetic and pathetic.” Safrag gestured with the hand bearing the signet.

The rock behind Golgren rumbled. He looked at the wall and saw the relief had split in two, revealing a passage behind it.

“So close,” murmured Safrag. “After so many years of biding my time, serving the ignorant and the fearful.”

“Not to mention slaying your master.”

The Titan looked mildly offended. “Dauroth refused to hunt for the Fire Rose, even though all we sought could have been so easily gained from it! And, besides, another betrayed Dauroth. The rest know that.”

“And who betrayed the other?”

Safrag chuckled. “You still try to amuse.” He gestured, and the flames died away. “But you are not amusing enough. Enter, mongrel.”

Golgren stayed his ground.

The Titan was unimpressed. He extended his other hand toward Idaria.

The elf gasped. Vapors rose from her body, and her flesh started to desiccate.

The half-breed started not for her, but rather toward the new passage.

With another smile, Safrag ceased his assault on Idaria. She slipped to one knee, but the Titan immediately forced the silver-haired slave to a standing position and made her follow Golgren. He trailed after the two smaller beings.

A slight breeze caressed the Grand Khan’s face as he stepped through the cracked relief. The passage did not light up as it had when he had worn the signet. Safrag created a floating sphere of low, blue light that drifted a few feet before them, remaining constantly ahead as the trio walked.

There was also a faint golden aura around Idaria, Golgren noted, though that must have been the handiwork of the sorcerer. Curiously, no such spell covered the Grand Khan.

There was nothing inscribed on the tunnel walls, but all could sense it was no ordinary mountain passage. Safrag’s breathing grew more rapid and eager as they proceeded.

But barely had they gone more than a hundred yards when the trio came to another tunnel that branched off. Safrag ordered a pause.

Holding his fist forward so that the signet faced the two choices, the blue-skinned sorcerer commanded, “Show me the proper way!”

A plume of fire burst to life before them. A figure began to coalesce within, and faded away. The flames extinguished.

Safrag looked furious.

“Something is amiss?” Golgren innocently inquired.

“It was too quick,” the Titan murmured to himself. “I had no time to gather Ulgrod’s blood.” He focused on Idaria. “But perhaps …”

The elf tried to pull away, but she could not free herself of his control. Like a puppet on strings, she moved inexorably toward Safrag.

A curved dagger made of obsidian materialized in his other hand. There were stains upon it whose origins Golgren did not have to guess.

“There is a better way. A less … messy way,” he quietly declared.

The Titan glanced at him. “And that is?”

The Grand Khan stretched out his hand. “Return the signet to me.”

The towering figure roared with laughter. “You are amusing after all, mongrel! Return that powerful signet to you? And you have a reason why I should act so madly?”

“The signet will work for me. You and I both know that. There will be no need for blood, spells, questions …”

“And no risk to me?” Safrag bared his double rows of sharp teeth. “Wearing the signet made you safe from most Titan magic; you and I know that, oh Great Khan! Return it to you? I think not.”

“I wish to find the Fire Rose. You wish the same. The signet for some reason wishes it of me also.”

“Yes, it does seem to be bound to you.” Dismissing the insidious dagger, the spellcaster suddenly grinned like a hungry ji-baraki about to pounce on its victim from behind. “Perhaps you can lend me a hand after all.”

He gestured.

Golgren grabbed at his throat. He struggled to breathe as the chain around his neck twisted and turned.

A mound rose from his chest. It strained to be free, almost pulling the Grand Khan with it.

A grotesque missile burst away from him, slipping up over his throat and pulling with such force that it tore free of the chain, which went scattering across the passage floor.

Safrag seized the object as it came to him. He held it up, admiring the awful sight of Golgren’s mummified hand.

“Exquisite work. Almost as fresh as if it had been cut off yesterday, rather than-what is it, at least three years?”

“Give me that.” Golgren coldly whispered.

The Titan cocked his head. “It may be that I no longer need you, Grand Khan. You would do best not to test that supposition. Remain compliant and you live, at least for the moment. Oh, and I might let her live too, of course.”

Golgren did not glance at Idaria. He eyed the Titan for a moment more, before retreating a step.

“That’s better.” Safrag turned the mummified hand toward himself, and placed the ring on one of its curled fingers with deliberation. The sorcerer summoned the obsidian blade once more, which caused the elf to start. “Rest easy, slave. Your blood is not needed yet. There looks to be enough remaining on the blade for what I need. If not, I have the signet itself.”

He touched the dagger’s tip to the hand. As he did, Golgren’s gaze narrowed.

The hand clenched.

“Excellent.” Safrag released it. The hand did not drop to the ground, but rather it floated as if weighing nothing. It opened and clenched again, repeating the dread sight over and over until the Titan waved his palm over it.

The disembodied hand hovered silently. The wrinkled skin smoothed, and a sheen of freshness spread over the appendage. Indeed, it appeared to have been newly severed.

And as the hand changed, the signet began to glow-faintly, but it glowed.

“Not enough.” Safrag looked from Idaria to Golgren. “You will suit better. Come, mongrel.”

The Grand Khan’s feet thrust him forward despite all his resistance. His maimed arm rose up toward the towering spellcaster.

Safrag brought down the blade. Golgren remained emotionless as the Titan jabbed the half-breed’s forearm.

“There,” Safrag said mockingly. “That didn’t hurt too much, did it?”

With a curt gesture, he sent Golgren back, releasing him from the spell. Safrag took the newly blooded blade and touched it not to the signet, but rather to the severed hand.

The fingers stretched. The hand looked even more alive.

More important, the signet glowed very bright.

“Lead us,” commanded Safrag to the hand and the ring. “Show us.”

A great plume of fire erupted from the signet and whirled to gather behind the hand. As Golgren and the others watched, the fire formed a shape very familiar to the Grand Khan … the golden figure.

In an astounding change from what Golgren had witnessed before, it wore his hand as if it were its own. As the arm of the figure fused with the appendage, Golgren’s lost hand burned golden.

The gleaming figure strode forward, a blaze of flame trailing in the wake of each drifting step. It did not walk upon the ground, but rather floated a few inches above it. Indeed, it almost seemed to be gliding on the wind instead of walking.

In that manner it moved down the corridor. Golgren watched it dwindle from sight before glancing at Safrag.

“After you, oh great and glorious Grand Khan,” the gigantic spellcaster declared with a slight chuckle. “After you, of course.”

His countenance expressionless, the half-breed slowly followed after the shining figure. Idaria paced him, and Safrag, with a hungry smile, took up the rear.

Twice the gargoyles had passed the cave since that first time, and twice they had failed to notice it, or the two within.

Tyranos knew something of gargoyles, especially that some breeds could sense the use of magic. Certainly, Chasm could, and he was tied close enough to the foul creatures that they should have had the ability to note strangers in their midst too.

“The abilities granted to me by my patron differ from the magic of wizards,” the knight commented as he finished cooking a small lizard he had caught earlier. “They are more subtle, and thus beyond the senses of the creatures.”

With a growl, the wizard turned on him. “Will you stop doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Reading my thoughts!”

The Solamnian smiled kindly. “I can’t read thoughts.”

“Yet you just happen to know what I’m thinking?” Stefan touched the medallion. “My patron’s given me insight into the actions of others, into their movements and, thus, I suppose, what those actions mean. You were gazing at the cave mouth with your fist clenched, and the gargoyles passed but a few minutes ago. I made a guess from that.”

“You should play cards. Or is that above a cleric?”

The other chuckled. “For entertainment, no. For anything else-” Stefan suddenly stiffened. He set down their meal. Staring off, he quietly asked, “Are you fit enough to move?”

“I’ve been fit enough to move for the past day at least. Why?”

The knight rose. “We need to be elsewhere and quickly.”

Tyranos snorted. “Did your patron tell you that?”

Stefan did not reply, instead reaching for his sword. Belting the sheath, he looked to the wizard. “Be wary. They have the chance to smell us the moment we depart from the cave.”

“I may have a few tricks for that.”

With the Solamnian leading the way, the duo stepped up to the mouth of the cave. Stefan paused to touch the medallion. “Thank you, lord of just cause. May you continue to guide us in what we must do-”

“Whatever that is,” Tyranos added with some sarcasm.

Lowering the pendant, Stefan stepped out.

The wind immediately struck him like a slap across the face, but the knight did not flinch. The wizard joined him, brushing aside the golden brown hair that flew into his face as he surveyed the area for signs of the gargoyles.

“Looks to be clear. No sign of them, and certainly no stench.”

“As they could not sense us, we might not necessarily be able to sense them until it’s too late.”

The spellcaster had a clever retort ready, but thought better of saying anything. It was true that when he had smelled the gathering of the winged creatures, it had turned out to be part of a trap set by their mysterious master-the “king,” as the cleric had referred to him. Perhaps, as Stefan had warned, next time there would be no hint of any danger.

“So, which way?” he asked.

Stefan looked left, where the mountains stood most imposing. “That way.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

The knight gave him a grim smile and moved on. The wizard glanced around, shrugged, and followed.

The howling wind accompanied them each step of the way, more than once making them think something was coming. Tyranos kept his staff ready, although whether to do battle or whisk himself away from the scene, he did not say. Nor did he know himself.

Tyranos gripped the staff tighter.

They were on the hunt for Golgren, which was as much as the wizard knew. Stefan swore he knew little more than that. Kiri-Jolith evidently was as tight-lipped a god as any of the others.

“Blasted deity,” Tyranos muttered. “Blast all of them.”

“You’ve little love for much in the world, don’t you? Life has made you that bitter?”

“There’s little to love, cleric, and that’s all I’ll say about it. Find the ogre, and let’s be done!”

His sword drawn, Stefan kept his eyes on the rocky path ahead. “And how do you want to be done with it? The Fire Rose in your hands, and the world at your command?”

He received a derisive snort in return. “Wouldn’t be the worse thing for Krynn, me calling the shots, cleric! I’ve lived, and I’ve suffered! I’ve been tricked! I’ve been led around by the nose and condemned for it! I am not my mentor, damn him!” Tyranos spat. “Would I make the worst master of the world? I think not!”

“Others have said the same before.”

Tyranos suddenly walked past him, the tall wizard’s strides well matched to the knight’s trained ones. “If we’re going to go somewhere, let us go there and quit babbling.”

Stefan watched his companion from the back, smiling sadly. He picked up his own pace and regained the lead. Tyranos said nothing, but fell a step back, aware he did not truly know their path.

They wended their way deeper and deeper into the mountains, never pausing. They made good time, which Stefan attributed to his patron.

To that observation, Tyranos remarked, “It’s only good time if we actually get to where we’re going. Do you know where we are headed?”

“There will be a sign.”

“Of course! There’s always a sign! Perhaps even right around that upcoming turn-”

The spellcaster swore. For right there, visible to them on the rocky base of the nearest mountain, was an ancient symbol etched into the rock. Tyranos could not read it, but he knew the writing of the High Ogres. A sign it was, indeed.

Stefan said nothing, but merely stepped up to the marking and studied it closely.

“Aren’t you going to praise your patron?” grunted Tyranos with a fierce look. “He led you straight to it, just as you thought that he would.”

“But I know nothing of that particular sign,” the knight murmured. He almost put his hand to the markings, a pair of arched lines like wings, with what looked like a line of mountains standing under them. “We’ve farther to go. I don’t know what it is.”

Tyranos suddenly looked around at their surroundings, noting that there were many shadows lurking in the vicinity. “I do believe you’re right, Solamnian. Unfortunately …”

The beating of wings filled the air.

The gargoyles dropped from every direction.

Stefan slid into a battle stance, and his blade sliced cleanly through the paw of the first creature to near him. Tyranos planted his back to the knight and battered another gargoyle with the crystal head of his staff. Despite the crystal’s fragile appearance, the gargoyle’s bones cracked loudly. The injured creature went tumbling to the ground and crawled away.

The knight pulled free a dagger, which he waved in tandem with his sword. He slashed through the wings of another attacker, causing it to collide with another one close by. The Solamnian moved with a speed and accuracy so startling that the wizard watched him with fascination.

“By the Kraken! How can you move like that?”

“I am the vessel of my patron,” Stefan quietly responded, piercing another gargoyle through the chest before its claws could scrape away his face. “My gifts are from him.”

The wizard snorted. He muttered a word, and his staff grew three sharp talons of steel where the crystal and the base met. With those sharp talons, he put an end to another beast. Yet for all those he and the Solamnian had slain or injured, the numbers seeking to reach them appeared to be endless.

Through the mass of wings and gray bodies, Tyranos spotted a figure that was not a gargoyle. The gray and black, shadowy form stared back at him with its icy, white eyes. Eyes that hinted, at least to Tyranos, of amusement.

With a thundering roar, the wizard broke from Stefan. He thrust the staff forward.

“Tyranos! Come back!”

“Tivak!” called the wizard.

As they had previously, strands of silver energy shot forth from the crystal. The gargoyles in Tyranos’s way scattered. He had a clear path to the sinister figure.

“No!” called Stefan. His hand seized the wizard by the cowl and, despite Tyranos’s mighty size, he threw the spell-caster to the side.

A fiery light surrounded the Solamnian, a light that exploded into true hot flames. Stefan cried out.

Tyranos pushed himself to his feet. He looked quickly not at the knight, but to where he had last seen the icy-eyed figure. As with the last time the two had met, the gargoyle’s master had again vanished.

“May the Maelstrom take you!” the spellcaster swore at his absent foe. He turned his attention back to the Solamnian, certain the human was dead. But Stefan was still alive. Indeed, although clearly in pain, the cleric-down on both knees-looked almost untouched by the fiery blast, even though the ground all around him was scorched black.

With a groan, the Solamnian fell face down.

The gargoyles had retreated the moment before their master’s attack, but they swooped down again. Tyranos tightened his hold on the staff and opened his mouth. With a curl of his lip, he dove toward the knight’s still figure. He wrapped one thick arm under Stefan’s breastplate.

The gargoyles fell upon them. Tyranos beat back the first few before concentrating on the staff.

He and Stefan vanished.

The moment the pair disappeared, the winged furies settled down. The vast flock perched upon the rocks, or simply alighted on the ground. They sat silent, not even beating their wings.

At the very place where Stefan had taken the brunt of the spell cast against Tyranos, the ghostly figure materialized. As one, the gargoyles lowered their heads and emitted low hisses with a respectful tone.

The icy-eyed form ignored the gargoyles, instead reaching down and thrusting out a thin, bony hand as starkly white as the orbs that gazed at the scorched area. With its index finger, the figure drew a circle around the area, a circle that momentarily burst into flames and became a band of gold light.

A slight laugh escaped the hidden mouth. As the figure straightened, the gold band faded away.

The gargoyles’ lord looked to the right, the east.

To the Vale of Vipers.