The Fire Rose

II

There had been many changes in the Black Talon, the inner circle of the Titans. Their founder, Dauroth, had not been the only Titan to perish that foul day when Garantha had been assaulted by the undead and their leader had finally decided to provoke the half-breed’s demise. The quake would have slain Golgren a hundred times over, save for the fact that he had carried an ancient signet once wielded by the High Ogres. There was still debate among the Titans over where the would-be Grand Khan had obtained such a valuable prize, just the sort of trinket so long sought after by the sorcerers.

The eleven members of the Black Talon sat in massive, high-backed stone chairs. They were designed not only for the Titans’ great height, but also to give each the appearance of authority to any other of their number who stood before them. The most imposing of the chairs was set in the center and stood more than a head higher than the rest. All eleven were placed behind an arching wooden platform, which gave the appearance of a tribunal. Those on each end, the least in rank of the inner circle, faced one another.

The chamber in which the Black Talon gathered was itself in the center of the sprawling edifice that was the Titans’ domain. The sorcerers did not dwell in Garantha, though they kept a constant watch on its happenings, especially with regard to the mongrel who sat on the throne there. Rather, their sanctum was located far south of Golgren’s capital, in southern Golthuu or-as the Titans still thought it-the land of Blode. Indeed, the magically hidden valley in which their headquarters lay was barely two dozen miles from Bloten, previously the capital of Blode. Had anyone been unfortunate enough to stumble into the valley, it was very unlikely that the person would have survived a journey through the misty forest surrounding the sanctum. The Titans also preserved their privacy through monstrous guardians stalking the wooded land.

As the supreme voice, Dauroth had formerly held the place of honor at the center of the Black Talon. But both he and his intended successor, Hundjal, had perished that ignominious day. The apprentice had died at the whim of his master, but even so, several seats had opened up in the Black Talon, and there was a new Titan in charge-whose ascendancy to power had been a tremendous surprise to some.

No one argued that Safrag was not the true master. There had been some protest early on, but those two grumbling Titans had simply disappeared, and none of the others were at all interested in asking questions as to their fate.

For the most part, the dread sorcerers were of a kind, and the epitome of what Dauroth had dreamed was the picture of their glorious ancestors. Their skin was of an arresting blue tint, just as was said to be true of their ancestors, in the tales of the High Ogres. Dauroth’s intended golden age was to have been populated by beings who were giants among giants. Thus the Titans were some fifteen feet tall, more than half again the height of their brethren. Built like graceful acrobats, they were not the brutish, muscular warriors that the rest of the race had developed into. No ordinary ogre could match a Titan in hand-to-hand combat, for the latter’s sleek form hid not only tremendous strength, but swiftness and agility.

The High Ogres had been beautiful and so the Titans were also, albeit with a subtle touch of darkness. Their skin was without blemish, and their golden eyes glowed. The high, sharp point of their ears was quite visible, due to their habit of binding their long, ebony hair into tight, thick tails. Each wore an elegant, silken robe-dark blue with hints of red-that flowed down to sandaled feet. Crimson sashes stretched from the right shoulder down to the left side of their golden-belted waists. A decorative armor plate covered their left shoulders, and their arms themselves were bare, save for a gleaming silver metal band on the right wrist, a red silken one on the other.

Although they resembled each other enough to be brothers-all, that is, save for one of their number-if one looked close, one could still see distinctive features that remained as faint memories of their former lives. It was the group that was paramount, not the individual. That had been the law under Dauroth, and it was still the law under Safrag-although that law applied to everyone but the leader.

Gargoyles had been part of the discussion held by Golgren and Tyranos; not at all by chance, they were part of the current debate among the Black Talon.

The Titans despised the tongue of their base brethren and also eschewed the use of Common, save when having to deal with outsiders or those new among their ranks. Instead, they sang the words of a glorious language Dauroth had claimed was that of the High Ogres. Safrag, at least, knew it was simply another of his late master’s creations. So much of the Titans’ culture was imaginative fabrication, not true fact or history. The former apprentice had no qualms about keeping what he liked about the Titan legacy and gradually changing what he did not.

But to shape the Titans as he ultimately desired, to shape all ogres as he planned, Safrag needed something special. It was what he had invoked to manipulate Dauroth into slaying Hundjal, before tricking his master into slaying himself with his own spellwork.

Legend named it the Fire Rose. And whoever was master of the gargoyles was interfering with his attempt to find it once and for all.

Safrag stood. He was a monumental sight even to the rest of the Black Talon, most of whom suspected him of somehow causing the deaths of Dauroth and Hundjal by his cunning. The other members of the inner circle listened breathlessly as he sang to them of the reason for their summons.

“Another!” he shouted, his song strident. Outsiders would have perhaps been captivated by the singing but would have been utterly unable to decipher the meaning of his words. “There lies another!”

He gestured to the center of the chamber, to the floor where a symbol of a great black claw had been set in stone. Directly above the claw symbol, a crackling sphere of white-blue energy was responsible for what little illumination lit the chamber.

Safrag stretched out his hand. Each nail was as dark as night, long, and tapering to a sudden, sharp curve. His nails were well matched with the shorter, but sharper, hooks at his elbows.

Black flames burst from the stone floor, the talon symbol briefly coming alive in the fire. The fire began to transform itself, taking on a constantly shifting shape that seemed to want nothing more than to leap and dance. That shape began to coalesce, and as it did, the flames started to die.

And in moments, where there had been fire, there struggled a gargoyle, gray-blue in color and with a long muzzle almost avian in its beaky shape.

“I seek for us the means to achieve our dreams,” Safrag intoned. He glanced at those on his left, and those on his right. His anger was clear and righteous. “I seek that which legend says can transform our realm into the paradise it once was and was meant to be! And what do you give me, instead? Another winged vermin.”

Unlike the members of the Black Talon, the imprisoned creature was not cowed. The gargoyle hissed and spat and tried to reach for Safrag with his claws. Its wings beat, but it did not rise so much as an inch off the floor. There was no sign of what held the beast captive, but it certainly did so thoroughly.

“It was caught observing our search near Khur,” sang the Titan who had brought the creature to Safrag. Khur was a desolate land northeast of Blode and the subject of much conjecture as to the likely hiding place of the mysterious artifact. “Better to bring it to the Black Talon and question what it knows-”

Safrag cut the other Titan off. “It knows as much as those before it, and will tell us none of it … will you, beast?”

The gargoyle snapped at him again. Such creatures could speak, and there were some scholars who said that they had an intelligence comparable to that of an average ogre. But the greatest tortures that Safrag had devised had proven unable to stir the creatures’ tongues to wagging.

And so, to the Titan leader, one more gargoyle meant little but irritation. It was their master he desired, their chief-a master Safrag felt certain was somehow tied to Golgren.

He clenched his fist. The gargoyle howled as it suddenly twisted like a wet cloth that someone sought to tightly wring out. Bones cracked, and its scaled hide ripped open to unleash a sickening torrent of blood, other fluids, and crushed organs.

Safrag gestured. The black flames briefly burst to life again, completely devouring the gargoyle while protecting the pristine floor from its destroyed body, fluids, and organs.

The lead Titan surveyed the others with a glare. “Bring me the head of that refuse’s master and nothing less! Otherwise we waste time. There must be no further interruption of our hunt.”

“What hunt?” blurted Yatilun, one of the first to support Safrag’s ascension and, of late, one of those most frustrated by the lack of progress in their quest. “We find one dead end after another while our cache of elixir depletes. Dauroth would have-”

A singular look from Safrag sent the other Titan withdrawing into his chair, his mouth clamped shut. The leader of the Black Talon smiled around broadly. But it was no smile of pleasure, rather a reminder that he would tolerate only so much. Like all Titans, Safrag’s handsome facade crumbled when his teeth were revealed, twin rows of sharp teeth more akin to those of a shark than any other creature. Those seated on each side of Safrag surreptitiously leaned away from him.

But one Titan dared speak. A feminine hand touched Safrag’s. He looked down to his right, where the lone female among the Black Talon, the only representative of her gender to be invited into the inner circle, sat as his favored apprentice.

“He is only as anxious as the rest of us, master,” the female Titan whispered, her full, dark lips creased in a slight smile. Long lashes partially veiled her brilliant, golden eyes. “Yatilun merely spoke before he considered.”

Her hand lingered a moment longer than necessary. While Safrag’s expression did not change, he did not pull his hand away from her touch.

It was not merely because she was the only female among them that most of the other Titans were prey to her allure. The transformation from ogre to sorceress had created a seductress unparalleled in her. Her long, flowing midnight black hair-hair never bound as a male’s was, beautiful hair that streamed down to her waist-framed a face that made the most glorious elf princess appear a hag by comparison.

Morgada continued displaying her half smile with hints of teeth not so grand in size as a male’s, but certainly as sharp or even sharper. Safrag turned his gaze from his apprentice to Yatilun.

“We are all anxious to see the destiny of our people fulfilled,” the lead Titan sang in a conciliatory, soothing tone. “And so, I do forgive your outburst, my friend.”

“Gracious is Safrag,” Yatilun sang back in the Titan language.

“It is true, all trails have led to nothing thus far, and that must be remedied. That is why I have summoned all of you. I have pored over all matters arcane and have at last determined how best to pinpoint the Fire Rose.”

“The small piece that Dauroth and you discovered was supposed to help us many, many months ago,” pointed out another Titan. “‘ Like calling to like.’ Is that not how it works?”

Safrag bowed his head in acknowledgment of the words he himself had uttered just after making his claim to Dauroth’s position. “True, but for the first months we were too weak to undertake such an imposing spell. For the months that followed, we made the assumption that our previous conjurations would work as well for the matter in hand, as they have worked for other purposes, yes?”

“Of course,” remarked Yatilun, intrigued. “Why not?”

Their leader looked to his apprentice. “Morgada?”

With a smile designed to draw every eye to her, she answered, “High Ogre magic still eludes us.”

As her words registered among the inner circle, Safrag added his own satisfied smile to hers. “High Ogre magic. Though Dauroth preached to us about how ours was a power akin to that of the ancients’, he failed to realize they had many, many generations of study and use that we did not.”

“How can we overcome an obstacle of experience that far dwarfs ours?” asked another sorcerer. Several of the inner circle murmured their agreement with that burning question.

“Why, by using the ancients themselves, their very powers and secrets, in order to learn where the artifact is.”

There was a great rumble from the rest of the Black Talon. Safrag looked again to Morgada, whose eyes flashed their approval.

“How do we do that?” Yatilun finally asked. “What do you mean by that riddle? Must we raise the dead?”

“Hardly that. We merely have to rob the dead-which we already have.” He gestured at the spot where the gargoyle had stood.

Another burst of black flame erupted, but it lasted only scant seconds before retreating to the nether reaches. In its wake, the fire left a black metal chest chained by silver strands, hovering at waist level. The box was large enough to hold a small cat, and there appeared to be no separation between the lid and its main body.

Safrag suddenly stood next to the box and tapped on the top of it with one finger. With a hiss the strands became serpents that writhed and sought his hand.

Startled, the other sorcerers edged back. However, an undaunted Safrag let the serpents bite him.

The serpents stiffened as they bit. One by one, the serpent guardians turned to ash that fell to the floor and faded away.

With what seemed almost reverence, Safrag raised the lid.

A fiery light filled the chamber that nearly blinded the Titans. They were forced to shield their eyes.

His own gaze already protected by his spellwork, Safrag reached inside.

His hand thrust into a clear liquid. He removed something that was easily hidden in his returning fist yet still illuminated the chamber from between his clenched fingers.

“Behold!” he proclaimed. “Only a hint of the glory that we seek.”

The lead Titan opened his hand palm up to display for the rest a tiny, tiny fragment of what appeared to be incandescent pearl. Freed of his grip, it again radiated a brilliant light.

“Behold! The slightest piece of the greatest artifact of the High Ogres.”

“The Fire Rose!” more than one Titan murmured. They had all seen the fragment once before-when they had last sought the artifact from which it had somehow broken off-but so great was its power that all marveled at it as if for the first time.

“But … We have used it before,” the Titan on Morgada’s other side finally spouted. “We came away with nothing!”

“That is true, Draug. But, as I said, we used only our own, deficient magic. It is true High Ogre power that we need. And a ready source for it has been awaiting us all the while.”

Draug and the others held their tongues as Safrag dismissed the box almost contemptuously. Still clutching the pea-sized fragment, he spread his hands toward the other ten members of the Black Talon.

“Come to me and receive life unbound …”

Several of the Titans started forward warily. His words were the opening declaration to one of the supreme rituals of their kind. More than one looked to their neighbor for verification that they had heard true.

Rising smoothly, Morgada vanished from her place, only to reappear at a point close to the right of her master. The Titaness turned to him, her face expressionless.

Her bold action stirred the rest into movement. One by one, the members of the Talon took up their proper places. They glanced around at each other, wondering what their leader planned. He still held the minute piece of the legendary artifact. But surely he did not plan to use it directly on them …

Safrag whispered something to the fragment. Almost with reluctance, he tossed it from his palm. Yatilun gasped and nearly leaped from his place for fear that it would shatter and explode when it struck the stone floor.

Instead the artifact fragment flew up in the air, rising to a place directly above the lead Titan and just below the white-blue sphere whose light it utterly overwhelmed.

As it hovered above them, Safrag smiled at his companions.

“Do you accept what I offer?” he sang, speaking the next line of the ritual.

“I am an empty vessel,” Morgada led the others in replying. “Let that vessel be filled.”

“Let that vessel be filled.” The rest concluded the chant.

“Magic is the blood, the blood is the magic. Take unto you that which I give, and you will live forever!”

As one, the other Titans declared, “We will live forever! Let the magic be our blood, for we would drink of eternity.”

Safrag should have brought forth the dwindling supply of elixir that the Titans needed to imbibe every so often to keep their forms and power. If they did not drink it, they were doomed to a terrible fate. There was a monstrous price to pay for becoming a Titan: deprived of the elixir-which included fresh elf blood as one of its chief ingredients-a sorcerer’s body would go through such withdrawals from the loss of magic that it would twist and warp and become a thing so foul even the lowest ogre would turn from it in disgust.

Donnag, once master of Blode and believed by many at the time of his ascension to be the one who would restore the ogres to their glory, had joined the Titans at Dauroth’s invitation. Yet Donnag had been far too eager to slay the upstart Golgren. When his plot had failed-risking open battle between the influential half-breed and the Titans-Dauroth had permitted Golgren to condemn the chieftain to no more elixirs.

There was question as to how Golgren had discovered the Titans’ secret-and all the most likely answers pointed to the sinister Uruv Suurt priestess and empress, Nephera. But what mattered was that Donnag had become an object lesson to all, before his eventual grisly death. His body had bent, his skin had developed boils all over, and his bones had shifted to odd and unsettling positions, making it hard for him to walk or even talk. Even his own clan had finally turned on him.

There was one fate worse than to be denied the elixir, and that fate was a nightmare in itself. An end to the supply was enough to keep the Titans under Safrag’s thumb. For only he had access to remaining stocks secreted by Dauroth.

In the days of plenty, each Titan would imbibe on his own. Of late, though, Safrag had insisted that the Talon always drink the elixir together. The inner circle ought to stay strong and united, so his reasoning went. If the Fire Rose was found, its wondrous power would offer the key to the golden age. But it also would free the Titans of the potion they so desperately needed to maintain their might, and the mongrel who currently kept them from its crucial ingredients. With the Fire Rose, they could rejuvenate themselves with merely a touch of its power.

That is if the tales were true.

With the fragment still hovering far above him, Safrag sang, “Let the magic come forth to quench our thirst!”

The other Titans prepared themselves to receive one of the tiny vials. But the elixir did not materialize. As the sorcerers stirred, beginning to comprehend, Safrag raised his hands upward.

Under the brilliant glow of the fragment, a long shape began to form. Some of the Titans frowned, quickly recognizing its general shape and outline-that of a body.

But it was no newly slain corpse of one of the elves used to create the elixir. Instead, the body-smaller by at least half than those of the great Titans who observed it-was no more than bones.

“The ancient!” Draug gasped.

They all knew the bones well, for the Titans had been the grave robbers responsible for their taking. The bones were millennia old, the remains of a once mighty High Ogre whose tomb the Black Talon had ransacked in its relentless quest for the secrets of the past. The body had been fully intact when Dauroth had led his followers to it. But despite their reverence for their ancestors, he had without hesitation, in order to better seek out any powerful secrets within, destroyed the wards that had kept it in such perfect order for so long.

After failing to unlock any secrets, Dauroth had returned the bones to the sanctum. Magic was so integral to High Ogre society that even the remains should be preserved.

And Safrag had found use for them.

The Titans stared in wonder and pleasure.

“Do you accept the power and the life?” Safrag sang.

“We accept,” Morgada and the others replied.

“Let the vessels be filled, and the desire emptied from them!”

The Titans raised their upturned hands shoulder high. They bent their heads back and closed their eyes.

A faint aura surrounded each of them, a sign that the individual sorcerers had opened themselves up to receive what their leader offered. It was the only moment, waking or sleeping, that Titans left themselves unguarded, even before their own leader. Otherwise, all kept their own hidden defenses, just in case of argument or ambition. Or worse.

Seen from above, the eleven formed a five-pointed star within a five-pointed star, with Safrag occupying the center point. The skeleton hovered directly over him and just below the fragment.

Safrag stared up at the skeleton. His golden eyes flared. With one finger, he drew the star within a star pattern. The pattern blazed red and floated up to the remains of the High Ogre.

As it touched the floating skeleton, the pattern grew to envelop the bones.

Safrag muttered under his breath and his eyes closed.

The pattern became the skeleton, which burned a bright crimson. From the center of the ancient corpse, tendrils of energy shot forth to strike each Titan, hitting them full on the chest.

One last tendril rose to touch the fragment of the Fire Rose.

Some of the sorcerers gasped when struck, but for the most part they remained silent. Only Safrag could be heard, murmuring. The lead Titan opened his eyes to slits, his gaze taking in those within view. A slight smile crossed his lips as he finished the incantation.

More and more the tendrils fed the Titans, and as they did the bones began to wither. They cracked and crumbled, and even the dust that they formed burned away as the Black Talon received the inherent magic flowing from them. All semblance of a body faded away until eventually only the crimson glow remained. Even that finally faded away, and with it went the tendrils.

Yatilun was the first to find his voice. His eyes wide in awe, the Titan rasped, “Never … never have I felt so alive! So powerful! So-”

“So truly as one of the ancients,” Safrag finished for him as the other Titan nodded. Their leader looked to the others. Each face-even Morgada’s-was marked by the same rapture.

“There is nothing beyond us!” Draug managed. “We could flay the mongrel alive and take Garantha in a single minute! We could wash away Uruv Suurt Ambeon with one vast wave taken from the sea, sending all those horned devils back to Mithas to lie dead at the feet of their emperor-”

Others began to babble similar sentiments. Safrag watched them with amusement. Such euphoria was not uncommon after a Titan’s imbibing of the elixir. But the power given to them by the bones had magnified that effect several times over.

“There is only one purpose for our mighty gift,” he finally interjected, his brusque tone silencing all objections. “Keep to your positions.”

They immediately obeyed. Safrag gazed up at the fragment, which shimmered. He raised his hand toward it. At the same time, the other members of the Black Talon pointed at him.

New tendrils of the same hue as those that had struck the Titans spread from one sorcerer to the next. The star within the star pattern was recreated; the focus of its energies was the figure at its center.

And he, in turn, focused those energies upon the fragment.

The moment the tendrils struck it, the Titans stood as if frozen. Their golden orbs turned utter white, and their skin grew so pale they looked as if death had claimed them. Only a faint rising of their chests gave any clue that life remained within them.

Safrag’s mouth opened suddenly, and the voice that emerged sounded like nothing mortal.

“South … South to east… East to north and north to west and west to south … Under the raven’s beak, and at the mark of the burning sun… He claims his child, and his child claims the world …”

Safrag jerked. His voice changed, sounding female but powerful. “The wings stretch long and over the land. The gargoyle king seeks his hand … The fire calls his heart and has eaten his soul, and the king sits upon his throne, the Rose’s sweet scent calling …”

Again, the Titan leader jerked spasmodically. He struggled to turn his hand clockwise, but with his face contorted with the effort, his hand completed a circle.

The sorcerers shook. A vision formed before Safrag. He gritted his teeth from the effort and pain. The vision defined itself. The key to the Fire Rose revealed itself to him.

And caused him to roar in fury and disbelief.

The unexpected cry broke the spell. Some of the Titans collapsed to the floor, while the rest struggled to remain on their feet. Only Safrag retained enough strength to not only keep steady and poised, but to continue his wordless roar.

Finally able to focus, Morgada stared at him in concern. “Master! What is it? Has the spell turned on you?”

Safrag turned such a murderous gaze upon her that the Titaness crouched in fear of being reduced to a stain on the floor. Yet his anger was not aimed at her. Instead, he pointed before him. In the chaos of the spell’s shattering, the vision he had summoned-and kept intact through his own magic-stood unnoticed. Morgada gazed at the revelation and was dumbfounded.

“What does that mean?” she asked, as she stalked around the image. In the center of the vision stood a figure. One by one, the inner circle of the Titans surrounded the figure, staring at it.

“What does it mean?” Morgada asked again of Safrag.

The lead Titan eyed the hated face, the mocking smile … the missing hand. He nodded to all the others. Their eyes did not deceive them.

“It seems that the Grand Khan Golgren is our key to the Fire Rose,” Safrag finally said.

And very slowly and bitterly, he smiled.