The Fire Rose

XVII

Their once-flawless blue skin was as desiccated as the half-breed’s severed hand. Their great manes of hair hung like limp strands of spider webbing. The immaculate robes were covered in dust and faded of color.

The eight had obviously been dead for many, many centuries, but their state of preservation was remarkable. Only as the pair moved closer to the bodies did such things as the lack of eyes and wrinkling of the lips show that there was little more than skin and bones left on their gargantuan bodies.

They were seated around the shining table, one at each end and three apiece on the long sides. For all practical purposes, they looked as if they had fallen asleep at different stages.

No … Not all of them. Golgren peered at a male seated at the far end, wearing a pendant over his robes that, ironically, bore a symbol of a griffon on it. His expression was the only one that did not look peaceful.

His expression looked enraged.

The mouth gave that effect, for even in death what remained of the lips still curled. One hand was also clenched tightly.

The High Ogre’s eyes-or rather the sockets of his eyes-peered past Golgren with such an intensity that the half-breed could not help but look back to see if Safrag or some other nemesis was approaching. But the way was dark and silent.

“They were slain,” Idaria reflected. “Only their leader had time to react. He was the most powerful of the eight.”

Just what had killed them was a question that interested Golgren. He recalled the vision he had seen of the eight being assailed by some shadow. However, in that vision, they had been on foot, not seated at a table. Had that been representative of their deaths at the table, or did it concern them at some earlier point in time?

He and Idaria circled around the mummified figures, studying each in turn. Golgren found nothing unusual-relatively speaking, since they were all High Ogres-about the other seven. Clearly they had been powerful beings, but each appeared fairly identical to the next. None wore signets or any other personal item that might have been an artifact of power, and so Golgren quickly lost interest in the seven.

Their leader was another story. His expression told more of a tale. He was the one sure indication that it had been through violence that the High Ogres had perished, not fatigue, hunger, or disease. Golgren leaned over the leader’s right shoulder, closely studying what remained of the leader’s face. He had been older than the rest, likely wiser. He had probably been the one who had led them to the hidden sanctum, which in some ways looked as if it were a memorial to the entire race-

Memorial? The Grand Khan straightened as he considered all that he had seen in the caves. Yes, there was much to the ancient domain that evoked a memorial, or a tomb.

“They are from the last of their kind,” he commented to the elf. “Perhaps the last, yes.”

“My people spoke of the last few before the ogres truly fell. But those tales say little good about the last ones.”

He glanced at her, his teeth just visible. “And did they speak of the Fire Rose, my Idaria? Do you know of it?”

Her face was all innocence … or at least she wore an exceptional mask. “No, my lord.”

The corpse shifted. Golgren stepped back warily, expecting the thing to rise as a f’hanos.

But the High Ogre merely tilted a little, perhaps stirred by the air of words. As the mummy stilled, its pendant dangled.

With little regard for the dead, the Grand Khan tugged the artifact free. The High Ogre slumped on the shining table, his head twisting to the side.

Holding the pendant up, the half-breed studied the design of it. He could sense nothing magical about the piece, but magic was not something inherent with him. Still, it was doubtful that anything worn by a High Ogre spellcaster would be simply decorative. All that he had learned insisted otherwise.

But if it had any magical purpose, it was lost on him. Nonetheless, Golgren took the pendant and, to Idaria’s surprise, placed it over her head to rest on her breast. She touched the pendant reverently, but did not question his act.

“There is more,” he declared evenly. “The dead would not be in the chamber if there was not.”

Yet the chamber did seem to be the very end of the trail. The walls were decorated with the fanciful designs associated with the ancestral race, but none of them, as far as Golgren could tell, gave any clue as to what had happened.

Or what they should do next.

He glanced at the corpse of the leader, and his eyes narrowed.

The body was once again seated as before. Golgren met Idaria’s gaze and knew that, like him, she had not seen any movement. Yet one moment, the High Ogre had been lying with his head on the table, and in the he next breath had resumed his previous pose.

Or nearly his previous pose.

One skeletal finger of the dead leader was pointing past the other corpses to the nearest wall.

Golgren stepped to the wall, carefully studying the images emblazoned there. No Fire Rose, or griffon, or other intriguing design was there, only an image of the sun over a landscape in flux.

He touched the sun.

The signet suddenly flared.

The wall melted.

A set of golden steps led down. From wherever the steps led wafted a heat that made the ogre leader begin to sweat. Despite the heat, Golgren wasted not a moment in descending.

The walls flanking the steps glowed a bright orange-red. The heat increased as the half-breed proceeded down, but never became so stifling that he had to turn around. Still, by the time he reached the bottom of the steps, Golgren, who had faced the incessant heat of the ogre lands throughout his life, was nearly gasping for breath.

As he focused through tearing eyes on the scene before him, the Grand Khan for a moment completely forgot the heat.

Ahead lay a chamber, in the center of which stood an imposing statue of gold-a statue with no face. It was identical to the figure that had led them through the earlier passages, identical in all ways, save its tremendous size. The statue stood at least a head taller than even an imposing Titan like Safrag.

Both hands were stretched out with their palms up, as if the giant contemplated what lay in each. In the left was held a sphere that, although it had false flames rising up from it, also depicted what appeared to be landscapes.

Once more, Golgren blinked away tears as the heat stirred his eyes. He recognized a few of the areas shown on the sphere from maps. It was some sort of representation of his world, of Krynn, but as a round ball, not the flat plate Golgren’s tribe had believed it to be.

He looked at what lay in the other palm … and realized that there was nothing in it. Golgren shook his head in disbelief; he was certain something had been there a moment before. The Grand Khan strode up closer to the statue.

As he did so, the heat surged. He was perspiring heavily. The moisture spilled into his eyes in such quantity that everything took on a murky appearance, as if he stared at the statue’s palm from deep within some body of water. No matter how hard Golgren blinked, his vision did not clear. Indeed, at times thing looked as though they were changing, even as he stared-

No, what he was seeing had changed. And the golden figure was slowly but surely bending down toward him, its empty hand closing on the half-breed. A fiery light erupted from the seemingly empty palm. Golgren covered his eyes-

I’m so hungry … have you brought me something?

The voice in his head startled Golgren as little else in his life had shocked him. He uncovered his eyes and looked around. But there was not only no sign of whoever had spoken, the great statue was also gone.

In its place-in place of the entire chamber into which he had just stepped-was what seemed to be the interior of a temple. A curved, stone path ran from where the half-breed stood to the other end of the room. Vast reliefs of the High Ogre race spread across the near walls of the temple and across the ceiling, but just as in the one area of the passages, those farther away from him were scorched beyond recognition.

Ahead lay what was surely an altar. As Golgren stepped toward it, he saw that it was built into the rock-or had actually even been carved from it. Much of the altar consisted of a long platform of gray marble stretching across the width of the chamber. Meticulously carved into the altar-and, especially, the main ledge-were a variety of symbols that the Grand Khan assumed derived from the language of the High Ogres. Mixed with them were the symbols of the gods, dark, neutral, and light. Above the main ledge, he could see an arch with black bars running perpendicular to one another, much like those of a gate or a prison door.

And within the arch, something glowed a faint red.

He immediately started for the altar. Yet barely had he moved than his foot caught on something.

Golgren gazed down at another High Ogre corpse … one far more skeletal than those above. The skeleton lay sprawled headfirst toward the altar, one extended arm just touching the base of the structure.

He knew the corpse for a High Ogre, but only barely. There were too many things wrong with it.

The skull looked as if it had been stretched long, and the jaws-set in a scream-appeared fused to the skull, not loose as they should have been. Yet even that was not as unsettling as the rest of the body. The arm that reached for the altar was twisted at an odd angle and actually split at the elbow, from where two forearms, both ending in hands, began.

Unlike the mummified figures in the other chamber, the robes of the skeleton were in tatters, revealing a rib cage that was also oddly fused, as if instead of a series of ribs the High Ogre had only one massive rib on each side of its body. Yet despite that solid appearance, something had cause the center to burst open; in Golgren’s mind that event was very likely what had finished off the macabre figure.

The horrific sight caused the Grand Khan to hesitate for only a moment. Whoever the other High Ogre had been in life, he had failed in his quest. Golgren, however, had no intention of doing so. Too much had led him to that moment. He was meant to succeed.

He stepped up to the altar. The glow within the small, barred alcove increased.

Golgren put a hand to the bars.

“Let the meredrake find the trail, take from the meredrake the prey. You should know that works so well.”

Golgren did not even look behind him. “Good Safrag, the vipers found your poison too much for their delicate stomachs?”

A tremendous force threw the Grand Khan to the side, sending him spilling into the skeleton. Golgren rolled over the ancient corpse and came up with one of its arm bones in his grip. In one fluid movement he flung the bone at the Titan.

It came within inches of the sorcerer’s handsome face, but flew off in another direction as if it had bounced off an invisible wall. The bone fell against the wall to Safrag’s right with a clatter that echoed loud and long.

“You will live only long enough to witness my triumph, the Titan triumph, mongrel.” The gargantuan spellcaster beamed toothily as he glided toward Golgren and the altar. “Would you like to know what is going on with your little realm? The foundation is cracking, oh Grand Khan. Garantha has been undermined by those you thought would give their blood to you! You are betrayed at every turn, mongrel, even by your adoring slave.”

Golgren’s eyes darted past Safrag, but there was indeed no sign of Idaria. Hadn’t she been following him closely, as ever?

The Titan reached the altar. He extended a taloned hand to the bars.

“Be so very careful, good Safrag,” Golgren mocked. “You may come away with too many hands or heads.”

The spellcaster paused. He looked down at the remains of the fallen High Ogre, and glanced at Golgren. “A wonderful point, mongrel. Come, elf. I have a task for you.”

At last, Golgren spotted Idaria, her face devoid of all emotion, entering the chamber at the far end. Golgren eyed her up and down, sensing no spell, no coercion. To his astonishment, she walked over to Safrag with what seemed utter willingness.

“I will open the way, elf. You’ll remove that within, won’t you?”

“Yes, Safrag,” she replied, not looking at Golgren.

No matter how much Golgren stared, Idaria kept her eyes only on the Titan or the bars.

Safrag gestured.

The bars exploded, but the pieces did not go flying at the elf or the sorcerer. Safrag’s spell made them freeze in the air and plunge harmlessly to the ground.

But the moment that the fragments fell, the original bars reformed.

The Titan chuckled. “Clever.”

Again, the bars exploded. A blue glow filled the broken area and the bars remained shattered.

“Reach in, my lovely elf.”

Standing on her toes, Idaria stretched her ivory hands into the glowing alcove.

The elf stiffened. Both Golgren and Safrag held their breath.

Idaria pulled forth the Fire Rose.

Dazzling red and gold light radiated from the artifact as it was brought from its long resting place, forcing the two males to shield their eyes and the elf to all but close hers. The Fire Rose was roughly a foot tall and composed of a crystal that mingled gold and red. The bottom was a thick, singular stalk with six sides that extended half way up its body. The upper half consisted of nearly a dozen projections jutted upward at various angles. The resemblance to a flower-if not necessarily a rose-was obvious.

From within the artifact could be seen the other reason for its name. Deep in its core, a turbulence was swelling, dying, and swelling again. The turbulence was darker and more vibrant than any other part of the crystalline structure, and it was the ultimate source of its glow … a glow like fire.

“The glory of the High Ogres!” Safrag breathed. “The culmination of their civilization.”

“And the death of it?” added Golgren in mockery.

The Titan ignored him, instead reaching out for the Fire Rose. Idaria remained still as Safrag’s hand touched it.

Golgren felt the signet flare. Some sense of impending danger made him look back at the entrance to the chamber.

A shadow stretched there.

And gargoyles formed from the shadow.

They flew furiously at the trio, but especially at Safrag, who turned toward them just as the first reached him. The sorcerer let out a growl, and the first gargoyle turned to white ash that scattered into the beaked faces of the others behind it.

Idaria grabbed for the artifact, but the wing of another gargoyle battered her, sending the slave tumbling to the altar’s base.

Golgren seized another gargoyle from behind, using its momentum to swing him around toward Safrag. He let the beast take the brunt of the Titan’s spell, which shriveled the gargoyle into something more mummified than the High Ogre dead.

Coming up on Safrag’s blind side, the Grand Khan ripped the Fire Rose away. Safrag was knocked to the side by more gargoyles.

The signet glowed as bright as the Fire Rose, and with the exact same colors. The crystalline artifact took on an odd feeling, as if it were melting.

No, not melting. It was slowly disappearing.

Golgren reacted instinctively, trying to grab it with the hand that was no longer there. Coming to his senses, he did the only other thing that he could, thrusting the artifact into the crook of his maimed arm. Yet that only seemed to slow the vanishing.

He swung his hand, using the force of the action to fling the signet away. The ring struck the altar and fell atop Idaria.

Meanwhile, the Fire Rose solidified again. And the gargoyles turned toward Golgren. Worse, Safrag, who had been too besieged to at first to react to Golgren, had regained his poise and was fixing his angry gaze on the half-breed.

Golgren held the Fire Rose between them. He felt the Titan’s spell strike-

The crystalline artifact grew blinding. The fiery glow enveloped both the half-breed and the three gargoyles nearest him.

The gargoyles writhed and fell to the floor. They rolled onto their stomachs, and as they did so, their wings shriveled, and their bodies twisted into something ugly and more reptilian.

Three ji-baraki rose in their place, immediately attacking the gargoyles nearest Golgren. The tall, sleek reptiles stood on two long legs and slashed with savage claws at the end of their paws. They snapped and bit with long rows of teeth designed to tear apart even the toughest hide. Two gargoyles fell under their attack before others began to swarm the trio.

The Fire Rose’s glow decreased to its original level. The Grand Khan’s brow wrinkled as he realized something. He had been thinking of the ferocity of the gargoyles and what beasts could possibly counter them … and the vicious ji-baraki had sprung to mind.

Sprung to mind and to existence, thanks, somehow, to the artifact.

He had no doubt it was capable of much more, but there was no time to consider just how he might summon its power. The reprieve the artifact had granted him was a temporary one. Only the incredible number of gargoyles standing between him and Safrag was saving the half-breed from annihilation.

The path to the steps was blocked by the sinister shadow from which the gargoyles continued to emerge. That made Golgren think of the signet. It still lay where it had fallen, near the fallen Idaria, the symbols glowing almost as bright as the Fire Rose.

As he reached for it, his eyes fixed on the elf. Clutching the ring, he grabbed for Idaria, pulling her to her feet.

“Away with you, you damned pests!” the Titan roared. There was a burst of blue light, and the gargoyles, stripped of their hard hides, suddenly lay dying at Safrag’s feet.

The three ji-baraki were faring little better. One had already fallen to the gargoyles, and the other two were caught amid the sorcerer’s attack.

Safrag’s golden orbs fixed once more on the half-breed.

Aware that he could not hope for another miracle from the artifact, the Grand Khan sought some other avenue of escape. He needed to be far from Safrag, far enough to gain time to recuperate and think-

The Fire Rose burned bright.

The floor ripped up as if some giant hand had seized it in sinewy paws. Stone and earth rose between Golgren and the Titan, who recovered from his astonishment just before the two lost sight of one another. Golgren could see the sorcerer beginning to cast a spell, but by that time, there was an incredible wall cutting off the two from one another.

The half-breed’s surroundings shifted and reshaped. The walls, floor, and ceiling grew as red as flame, churning as if suddenly molten. Golgren stared down, thinking that he and Idaria were about to sink down into that molten hell. Yet his footing remained solid despite everything else transforming.

No, not everything. Bursting out of the wall of molten earth and stone, the altar and the alcove were back, their presence restored. They looked exactly the same as before save that, once again, the bars were there. It was as if they wanted to keep the Fire Rose out rather than contain it.

The artifact continued to radiate a blinding, hot aura. Golgren forced himself to look at the blinding artifact, and realized that the signet touched the Fire Rose.

He released his hold on the ring.

It fell onto the shifting floor and sank. It was gone.

The Fire Rose’s light eased. The walls began to solidify, turning a fiery crystal reminiscent of the artifact. Only the altar and alcove continued to persist in their original form.

The new chamber stretched wider, growing into a room as vast as the field of the Jaka Hwunar, the great arena located in the capital. Yet there was no sandy floor where warriors fought to the death against beasts or each other, where enemies were executed by graphic means often involving limbs torn apart or beheadings. A polished floor with wicked striations mimicking flames ended on each side with tall, flanking columns carved to resemble great plumes of fire.

The altar stood at the far end, shadowed by the imprisoning alcove, a vast sunburst etched into the gold and crimson wall above it. The heat surrounding Golgren was thick, so much so that he had trouble breathing and was forced to lay Idaria down again.

In doing so, he discovered that the Fire Rose had not left him untouched. Caught up in the chaos, the half-breed had not wondered how he had managed to do so much in his own defense.

Golgren had two hands again.

With the one he had never lost, he reached into his tunic and sought the severed appendage.

It was still there.

With a mixture of muted pleasure and heightened suspicion, Golgren turned his new hand over. It was strong and lean, and when he flexed it, he could feel the muscles tighten. It was identical to the lost one save there were no scars from years of struggle. The skin was pristine, the hair smooth. Even his fingernails were perfect, more akin to those of some elf lord before the fall of Silvanost, than those of an ogre leader.

The Fire Rose had restored him. There was no other answer. Golgren studied his fingers, turned his wrist, and clapped his hands.

Idaria stirred. The elf coughed and opened her eyes. Recalling her conspiracy with Safrag, the Grand Khan hesitated, pulling back the hand he had been about to offer her-the new one.

She saw the hand and gasped. Quickly recovering from her shock, the elf reached up to tentatively touch the new appendage.

“It is real,” she breathed. “Did the Fire Rose give it life?” Before he could answer, the elf, studying his hand intently, suddenly shook her head. “No, it is new.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I wonder … How did it happen?”

He waved off her question, instead asking his own. “You served the Titan. Explain.”

She did not attempt to divert him. “He has my people. All those you gathered in the stockade for eventual release. He came upon me just as I was about to descend. Immediately, he told me the other Titans were going to use my people for their ends — unless I obeyed. He warned that you had no life, no future with which to still save my people. But he thought that I might be of some service in the future, so he promised that a few would join me in freedom if I followed his dictates.”

“And so you betrayed me, my Idaria?” When she did not reply, he nodded. “Fair enough.”

He extended the new hand to her again. The silver-haired slave paused but finally accepted it, with downcast eyes.

Golgren gripped her hand tight and brought her up. He nodded in satisfaction at the strength he felt in the hand. “Very good. Very good.”

The elf surprised him by responding, “Is it?”

He started to ask her just what she meant, when the Fire Rose ominously stirred to life once more. Golgren had done nothing that should have awakened its power.

“Above the altar!” the elf warned.

The sunburst was no longer merely a carving on the wall; it had become a living, blazing thing that was swelling toward the pair. As it did so, the chamber grew so hot that the two fell to their knees oppressed. Idaria clutched Golgren by his new hand while the Grand Khan fought to keep his head from swimming.

It was nigh impossible to see. Golgren’s vision was a hazy mass of shapes, worse even than during his flight with his mother’s body after the savage attack on his settlement by the Nerakans. He could no longer see anything but heat blurs. The altar and all its surroundings were enveloped by the sunburst.

But in the midst of the sunburst the half-breed thought he made out a figure. Struggling to stay conscious, he peered at the murky form. At first, Golgren thought it the golden figure, for it certainly bore a similar shape But this one moved more freely, as if extremely conscious of what it was doing. Indeed, for some reason, Golgren thought that it moved as if it were curious about its surroundings.

Oh, I’m so very sorry! an almost amused voice suddenly bellowed in the half-breed’s head. Is it a little too hot for you? I always forget how fragile all of you are.

As Golgren clutched at his pounding skull, the figure raised a hand. Suddenly the sunburst seemed to shrink into its palm, and the heat rapidly receded.

Slowly, Golgren and Idaria regained the ability to breathe without their lungs burning. The heat haze dissipated. They could see again. It was still very warm, but no more than any ogre-or even an elf-could tolerate.

As the Grand Khan and his slave recovered, it was to see a fantastic figure standing before them, a figure in no manner mortal. His semblance was part ogre, perhaps part elf, perhaps part human, and yet not at all like any of those. His face was long, angular, and white like the ash left by a great fire. The mane of hair framing his face was wild and unkempt, and its crimson color made it look truly afire. In fact, Golgren was not certain it wasn’t on fire, for it constantly moved like dancing flames even when the tall figure stood still.

And the eyes …

They were long and narrow. Where the eyes of the Titans were gold, the figure’s eyes were golden orange, fiery red, hot blue and even white-all the colors of flame, shifting as rapidly as any dancing fire. They were disconcerting to stare into, but Golgren could not help doing so.

It was Idaria who managed to break his gaze by tugging hard on his new hand.

He immediately returned his gaze to the strange figure, but did not look directly into its eyes. Golgren noted the orange-red robes that covered a shape thin to the point of emaciation, as if the astounding being had not eaten in years.

Indeed, its smile looked hungrier than that of any meredrake, so hungry that the half-breed wondered if the newcomer saw the pair as its next meal. The Grand Khan shifted into a more defensive posture. In the process, he accidentally looked again into the blazing eyes, and was once more caught by them.

As before, Idaria turned his face away. “Never meet his gaze, for there is little that can fascinate any mortal creature more than what he is.”

Golgren did not have to ask just whom-or what-she meant. An uneasiness filled the Grand Khan, for of all the gods that ogres paid cautious homage to, that was the one most dreaded. Even though he didn’t wear Takhsis’s mantle of evil, his unpredictable indifference was in many ways more deadly.

Sirrion.