The Fire Rose

XXIII

A silence hung over Garantha the morning after the attack on Khleeg and his warriors. The populace was used to violent changes in leadership, for it was a part of ogre tradition. Yet the new Grand Khan had not announced himself and, in fact, had been seen by very few.

If his face was unknown, his name had already become widespread: Atolgus. Whispered from one ogre to the next, stories blossomed around the name that had little to do with fact, yet were hardly as fantastic as the truth. Atolgus had been a warrior raised by mountain spirits, was the unknown son of Zharang, was even the half-brother of Golgren, and so on and so on.

Atolgus’s warriors had already secured all military elements of the capital and brought any suspected sympathizers of his half-breed predecessor to the cells beneath the Jaka Hwunar, so that they could be properly and publicly executed if deemed fit. The cells were packed to overflowing, with so many in each that no one could sit, much less lie down. More so than the Dragon That Is Zharang, Golgren had proved to have far more warriors willing to die rather than to swear oaths to another. That, though, did not seem to matter to the new Grand Khan. If the Jaka Hwunar had to be filled with a fresh sea of blood, it would be.

No one questioned how the coup could have been so quickly organized and undertaken. Such things were beyond most ogres. If a warlord managed to seize power, that was all that mattered.

And no one other than a few officers either imprisoned, already dead, or, as with Wargroch, willing collaborators, knew that much of it had been done with the aid of powerful magic.

Titan magic.

At the second hour past dawn, trumpeters blew a summoning call from the walls of the palace. Generations of habit brought the populace out in throngs to the open areas. The assumption was that the new Grand Khan would be presenting himself. There would be a great display at the arena some time later-for that was the normal way of such things-but the presentation of the new Grand Khan would be the opportunity to mark Atolgus as lord of the palace and thus of all else. Only Golgren had done some ceremonies differently from the past. But he had been Golgren.

At the third hour, with the streets filled with tall, hairy bodies already sweating from the heat, a procession of armored guards emerged from the palace. Holding swords and axes high, they marched toward the people. At the end of the procession, two helmed officers strode along bearing long wooden poles upon which fluttered the standard of the new ruler.

That was of interest to the onlookers. Heads craned as ogres by the hundreds sought their first glimpse of the new emblem of the next regime. Already, they could see that the field was a deep blue, a contrast to the plainer brown one that had surrounded the severed hand and bloody dagger of the half-breed. The chosen symbol was unclear at first though, due to the angle at which the wind twisted both standards.

At an opportune moment, the wind shifted abruptly-almost magically-and the standard of the warlord Atolgus unveiled itself.

It was black, and from a distance could have been mistaken for yet another hand, albeit one bent at a crooked angle. But as it was carried closer, all semblance of a hand faded. It was, instead, a set of avian claws.

Talons.

Behind that standard emerged the warlord himself. Many ogres in the crowd roared or barked their obedience to the new leader. Atolgus was indeed impressive to behold. Even compared to before-when Wargroch, who followed a step behind him, had met with him-Atolgus was a little taller, a little more commanding.

A little less ogre.

His eyes bore a golden tint visible even from yards away. Whenever Atolgus turned those eyes on someone in the crowd, the individual felt compelled to fall to their knees in homage. None of the ogres questioned the overwhelming sensation.

The young warrior raised his hands, a sword in one and the other formed into a fist. The warriors on duty at the walls shouted out his name: Atolgus! Atolgus!

He made a sweeping motion with his fist.

The crowd stilled.

“The past is dead!” Atolgus shouted in perfect Common. “Des rida f’han vos!”

His warriors cheered. The crowd picked up the cheer, some within the throng slower to do so than others.

Atolgus demanded silence again. He slashed with the sword and cried, “The day of the severed hand is over!”

He did not repeat the words in the Ogre tongue, but most understood immediately. “Severed hand” referred to only one thing, one person.

Again, Atolgus’s warriors cheered lustily. Wargroch pumped his fist in the air as he shouted out his warlord’s name.

The throng also joined in, and if there were more who were hesitant than before, they were still drowned out by those aware that survival meant life, whereas loyalty meant joining those awaiting their fates in the arena.

In an act that confused the crowd, Atolgus turned to look back at the palace as if waiting for someone else to walk through its doors.

He went down on one knee, his sword held forward in presentation as if to be handed from a servant to a master.

Black flames erupted on the open marble path, flames with no discernible source. They rose high, twice and three times the height of the tallest ogre there.

As quickly as they had arisen, the flames died down, vanishing as if they had never been.

In their wake, three towering Titans appeared, surveying the crowd. Morgada stood at the fore, with Kulgrath and Draug just behind her. She smiled at the assembled ogres and bent down just enough to take the proffered sword from Atolgus. Lowering his arms, he remained in a subservient pose before the sorcerers.

Wargroch knelt to the Titans too. As he did, the warriors in the column performed an about-face so that they, like the rest, faced the trio of Titans. As one, all the guards imitated Atolgus and Wargroch.

At that point, everyone in the crowd knelt. Even those standing so far back that they could not truly see the Titans knelt, for anyone that could make all those in front show their deference had to be very, very powerful, indeed.

Morgada peered around. When it was clear only the Titans were standing, she spoke. Her voice projected throughout all Garantha, ensuring that no one could later claim not to have heard her momentous words.

“The Golden Age is coming!” the female Titan sang. Although she did so in the wondrous speech created by the late Dauroth, even the lowliest ogre understood her as if born to that tongue. So had been the dictates of Safrag for the historic occasion. “The Golden Age is upon us!”

And behind her, the aged palace of the Grand Khans, and the High Ogre rulers preceding them, shook. Huge, crimson flames exploded throughout the great edifice, causing even the bravest ogres to suddenly leap up in preparation to flee before the massive conflagration that threatened to spread. In mere moments, one of the greatest surviving monuments to the ogres’ vanished past was consumed. And yet the fires rose higher. They stretched to the skies, doubling in size, but still not spreading beyond the original length and breadth of the lost palace.

Atolgus did not so much as flinch in fear for his life, nor did Wargroch, nor any of the guards. Indeed, they looked more eager than anything else. The ogres thinking of fleeing fought down their fear, and they and the rest of the crowd watched in amazement as the flames finally died away to reveal something new standing where the palace had been rooted.

It stood like a giant, with sharp, glittering angles and five magnificent towers topped by arched roofs. It was as wide and as deep as the old palace, but twice the height. In the light of the glaring sun, it was at times nearly blinding, for instead of marble, it was made of a sleek substance that shone more than a thousand polished breastplates. Its greenish blue hue was like no color ever seen by the ogres, and more than one among the hushed crowd let escape a sound of awe.

There were six great columns at the front, each carved to resemble the same handsome Titan. Each took a different pose: a warrior with a sword, a teacher with a staff, another holding a lush basket of fruit, and more. But each with the same face, one soon to be recognized by all assembled.

Two great bronze doors marked the entrance, doors bearing the talon symbol. They were immense doors, surely needing three or four muscular guards to open each, yet they swung open by themselves.

And through them glided the leader of the Titans. His visage was quickly recognizable as the one on each of the column figures. He smiled benevolently at the vast crowd, at Morgada, at Atolgus and Wargroch. With one hand he greeted the thronged ogres, and in the other, the sorcerer held up the Fire Rose.

“The Golden Age is upon us!” he sang in the Titan language. Once again, even the most ignorant ogre understood perfectly-understood and envied the ability to speak such a perfect tongue. The Common that Golgren had insisted all learn was rough and unworthy compared to that beautiful language.

“The Golden Age is upon us!” Safrag repeated. “Not the Age of the High Ogres, though, for that is past! The dead shall remain dead; the living shall live anew!”

Atolgus let out a barking cheer. Wargroch and the others followed with their own cries of exultation. Within moments, all in attendance, whether they truly desired to or not, joined the cheering.

But with a voice that thundered even louder than Morgada’s had, and which seemed to reverberate in the head of each ogre in Garantha, the sorcerer cut off the cheers. Holding the Fire Rose high and letting its radiance shine over everything, the blue-skinned sorcerer declared, “The Age of the High Ogres is dead, and in its place shall rise that of the ogre race transformed … the Age of the Titans!”

And as the Fire Rose burned bright, each ogre understood that the Titan leader promised them the very same power that he and the other three Titans present wielded, and that, one day, each would stand as tall and mighty as they.

The world would tremble before a race of sorcerers such as had not existed even at the height of their ancestors’ glorious civilization.

The cheers grew stronger, echoing far beyond the walls of the capital.

Safrag smiled at his children.

The block stood facing in the direction of Garantha, although Golgren had not known that when Safrag had sealed him into the crypt. The Titan had positioned the block as a last jest, even if he would be the only one to appreciate it.

But another came to view the sorcerer’s creation, to view the body sealed within. The newcomer slowly stepped around the crystalline block, observing the still form from every angle.

He took the crooked piece of dried wood he had been using for a temporary staff and struck the block soundly on the side, near the shoulder of the figure frozen within.

A vein shot up from the place where the wood had hit. Another ran to the side, and a third whipped around to the front. As the watcher stepped back, the veins multiplied, spreading all over. Within moments, the entire block was scarred and veined.

He raised the staff and hit the first exact spot again.

The block shattered. The Grand Khan Golgren’s body dropped limply to the rough ground. It bounced without mercy onto the rocks, finally rolled onto its back, and lay still.

The shaman Sarth hobbled over to the Grand Khan’s body. He pressed the end of the wood against the stab wound, which immediately began to heal. He then set down his makeshift staff and removed from his kilt the dagger that had been sheathed there. Reaching into Golgren’s tunic, he pulled free the half-breed’s original, mummified hand. Sarth placed the relic on top of Golgren’s chest and set both other hands atop the severed one.

The ancient ogre drew a pattern consisting of circles within circles over the hands. He gently moved aside the left hand and perfectly aligned the two right ones.

Sarth took up the dagger. Testing the edge, he muttered a few words of power before acting.

Golgren screamed. His eyes opened as wide as shields. He stared at his new right hand, which lay sprawled on the ground next to the mummified one.

Even as the half-breed drank in the horrific sight, Sarth took a piece of green-stained cloth from a small pouch he had carried with him and wrapped the end of the stump with it.

Golgren slowly registered the sight of the shaman. “You! Why?”

“Have you seen the blood?” the old ogre calmly asked in Common. “Ke?”

“Ke. Yes … No.”

The half-breed’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed. Neither the stump nor the freshly cut appendage showed any signs of bleeding. Indeed, at the frayed wrist of the hand, there was flesh, sinew, and bone, but no blood, no moisture at all.

“The gifts of the gods must always be questioned,” Sarth muttered, rubbing the tip of his dagger in the dirt even though it was devoid of even the slightest drop of blood. “To see if they are gifts after all.”

“My hand!” Golgren rasped. He grabbed with his left hand for the mummified one.

Sarth watched him replace the lost appendage under his tunic. “To possess is not to own.”

The shaman drew a jagged pattern over the other severed hand. As Golgren watched, the hand shriveled, its fingers folding inward. The appendage continued to dry up, turning crisp.

Sarth brought a bony fist down on it. The hand shattered, the dust left by it suddenly blowing away until nothing remained.

Memories slowly returned to Golgren. He leaped to his feet, turning in search of Safrag and the gargoyles. And the Fire Rose.

“Var inu,” responded the withered ogre. “All gone. Gone long.”

“How long?”

The shaman shrugged. “They are gone.”

Golgren gazed at the landscape, thinking of something else. “Idaria.”

“Trails that must cross will cross, trails that must not will not.”

Sarth’s remark caused Golgren to focus on him as he never had before. “Sarth speaks much and speaks well. Sarth also comes to a place where Sarth would not be expected to be found.” He leaned down, his face very close to that of the shaman’s. “How is it that Sarth comes to be in the vale?”

“How does Sirrion light the sun?” asked the elder ogre casually as he rose. “How does the unborn one survive being born?”

Through glittering emerald eyes, Golgren studied his newly maimed limb. “He does because that is what he does.” After a moment’s more consideration, the half-breed looked back to Sarth. “He-”

The shaman was gone.

Golgren evinced no surprise. He looked around, but although there was no possible manner by which Sarth could have so quickly left his sight, the elderly ogre was gone.

Something caught Golgren’s attention. There were images scratched into the ground, images that could only have been put there by Sarth.

There were three. One was a sun. Below it was a horned symbol that he at first took for an Uruv Suurt, but that he realized was some other creature.

The third could only be the Fire Rose.

The half-breed briefly bared his teeth. One foot shoved dirt over the images, though the images themselves were already burned into his mind. Golgren forgot very little; remembering helped him survive.

“I am tired of games,” he muttered to the empty air. “Tired of yours, Sarth, and of the Titans’. Tired also of those of the gods, and tired of my own.” Golgren bared his teeth again. “And so I shall put an end to all the games, yes. I will take the Fire Rose from Safrag, and I will use it but once more, to rid the ogre race of the sorcerers, gargoyles, and all else in my path.” The Grand Khan raised his maimed limb, admiring its awful appearance. “And even with one hand, if it must be.”

Something drew his attention back to the images he had covered. Golgren’s brow furrowed as one registered. Somehow, its details had escaped his gaze when he had inspected the other two.

It was a tree. He recalled another image of a tree, one that was part of a beautiful, intricate tapestry that hung in the palace. The tapestry had been part of the spoils from Silvanost. Golgren recalled the name for that particular tree, even though he had only seen a real one once, long ago, when in the conquered elf realm. An oak.

“My Idaria,” he murmured thoughtfully.

As he looked up from the drawing, he caught a glimpse of something within the mountains beyond: a single gargoyle descending.

With only his well-honed wits and his one hand as available weapons, the half-breed started for the mountains.