The Gargoyle King

XVIII

Day had become night, and night began to give way to day, and the battle had not ceased. An exhausted Faros had no idea at all of the struggle of Sir Augustus and the Solamnics, although he would have admired their determination and battle skills just as they would have respected his legionaries.

But such mattered little against the foe both fought. Magic was anathema to the Solamnics and the minotaurs. Faros especially resented that he needed a god’s assistance again, yet without it, even his best soldiers would soon all be dead.

Slowly but surely, the minotaurs were being defeated. There was no talk of retreat; it was not the minotaur way, especially against ogres of any kind. Kiri-Jolith had granted them what aid he could offer, but the onus was upon Faros’s people, and they fell short despite their best efforts.

There were bodies everywhere. The smell of death dominated the senses. A legionary lay sprawled to the side of Faros, his eyes staring blankly and with a terrible, ragged hole in his breastplate and chest. His heart had literally exploded from within. He was just one of many to have perished so.

We will not live out this new day at this rate, the emperor thought. Yet he continued to push his fighters forward. At that point, they did not fight for Golgren-no honorable legionary would-but rather because it was evident to all that such power as the Titans possessed must be confronted, or indeed, sooner rather than later, it would crash down on the empire.

And there seemed little that the minotaurs could do about that eventuality save die. Without warning, the ground to Faros’s right opened up. At least a dozen legionaries toppled into the newly created ravine. Some might have survived to climb out, but the gap closed as quickly as it had opened.

“Fight like warriors, not cowards!” the emperor growled at his enemies.

But the Titans would fight as they pleased.

An explosion rocked the vicinity, tossing Faros forward. He was not the target; the sound of splintering wood was immediate verification that one of the remaining catapults had been struck. Fragments rained down, some of them from the decimated machine, others, more grisly, from the unfortunate crew. The sharp tingling of the fur that accompanied the aftermath of lightning informed Faros what spell had been used.

The last of their heavy machines was gone. They had no more weapons that could reach the distant sorcerers. Faros grimly corrected his earlier assessment. We’ll not live to see midday, much less sunset.

An ominous shadow fell across the emperor. He looked up, but what he saw was no new spell by the minotaurs’ foes.

A vast swarm of winged creatures was heading toward the Titans.

They were gargoyles, more than any minotaur had ever seen. Faros tried to estimate their numbers but failed. That they were no allies of the Titans was quickly made evident by the beasts’ fierce cries as they dived toward the area where the sorcerers awaited. However, such primitive creatures couldn’t defeat spellcasters, Faros knew. They might buy a momentary reprieve for the legionaries, which Faros would use as best he could, but no more than that.

A blue haze materialized before the gargoyles’ initial ranks. The winged attackers dived straight into it.

Faros snorted. The beasts did not even have sense enough to avoid certain death.

But only two of the gargoyles-the ones farthest to each side-fell dead. The rest were suddenly covered with individual golden auras that seemed to protect them.

The emperor’s brow wrinkled. Gargoyles with magic?

The flock continued to descend. A few more of their number perished from other spells, but most of the gargoyles were actually going to reach the hidden Titans.

Faros raised his sword and shouted for attention. Legionaries in the area looked to their emperor.

“Regroup!” he commanded. “Form ranks! Let no one lag behind! Sound the call to advance!”

As his soldiers gathered, Faros bared his teeth in a grim smile. He and his army might still die that day, but they had just been given a chance to take a few of their enemies with them, and that was all a minotaur ever asked.

The minotaurs were not the only ones to discover an aerial army coming to their aid. Sir Augustus also witnessed the coming of countless gargoyles, creatures he assumed had to be some part of Golgren’s plan. Like Faros, the knight took immediate advantage, coordinating with his subordinates a renewed strike. At the back of his mind, though, he wondered at the power of the half-breed, that he could summon such beasts.

And if he could, why did he really need the Solamnics and the minotaurs anyway?

With a shrunken Morgada at his side, the true master of the flocks observed all from his sanctum.

The distractions are in place, the gargoyle king said approvingly. He will now act.

“But he’s suspicious. He knows of you.”

Xiryn gazed at her with his frosty eyes. And that is why he will act. Because of his suspicions and the belief that since he holds the Fire Rose, he holds all.

That made Morgada smile. “And like Dauroth, confidence will gain him only death.”

You know your part, the ghostly figure continued with a gesture of dismissal. For you, it should be simple.

The female Titan bowed. “Yes. It’ll be very simple.”

She vanished in a bloom of black flames.

The gargoyles’ lord chuckled. Yes, simple and not at all what you think, my treacherous puppet.

Rising from the throne, Xiryn summoned his monstrous followers. The ghastly figures surrounded him.

We are ready. Your reward is due.

He raised his left hand, and both he and the sinister throng disappeared, leaving only the wind to haunt the ancient citadel.

The place in which Golgren and Tyranos materialized was not the one that the wizard had chosen. That was made clear to the half-breed by the colorful expletives unleashed by the hooded figure the moment their location came into focus.

Yet if it were not the place of Tyranos’s choosing, the question as to why they had appeared there was one that Golgren found intriguing enough to ask his companion.

“Why ask me?” Tyranos snapped back. He gestured. “Ask them since they seem to like your company so much! They probably know better.”

“They” were the mummified high ogres seated at the ancient table. The duo had once again returned to the ancient mountain sanctum.

As if intending to do just as the wizard suggested, Golgren stepped near the prime female. She sat exactly as last time, but appearances could be deceiving. The half-breed peered closely at what had once been her eyes, waiting to see if anything would happen.

Behind him, Tyranos let out a sarcastic laugh. “Looks like she’s got nothing to say this time! You must’ve offended her somehow.”

The hand nearest Golgren moved. Even though the half-breed sensed it happening, he did not shift his own away.

The gnarled fingers wrapped around his wrist.

Golgren’s mind filled with visions of the past.

They were a pitiful handful, the survivors of the once-great race. The prize they thought would salvage the legacy of their people had instead added the final nail to their coffins. The Fire Rose had turned out not to be salvation, but rather damnation.

As they hurried to secure it from those who had once been their friends, allies, and even family, the small group of spellcasters also had to fight against the Fire Rose’s seduction. They all wanted to use it, and some had even suggested, quite convincingly, how it could be still become a force for good for the High Ogre race.

But in the end, overall agreement remained that the Fire Rose had to be not just hidden, but covered with enchantments that would prevent the most corrupted of them from regaining it. Xiryn had become so obsessed with the god’s “gift” that he had murdered those who most trusted him and had seduced several others to his terrible cause with dreams of immortality and ultimate power. He was a threat not only to what little remained of the High Ogre race, but to the rest of Krynn as well.

So the small band had made it to that hidden place and set in motion their plan. They secreted the Fire Rose in the hidden chamber deep within the mountains of the Vale of Vipers then made certain with the last of their strength that Xiryn could never place his hands upon it even if he reached the location.

Yet there were those among them who did not trust to even that “absolute” solution. They no longer had the might to destroy Xiryn, and Xiryn would never willingly end his pursuit of the Fire Rose. He would seek a way by which to have it.

Thus, they gathered in that hidden place to formulate some new plot. Each had some reserves of strength, so they hoped that what she suggested might work. She was their leader. Her mate, who was second among them, sat across from her. Other than their son-who was long absent on orders from her-her mate and the rest of the High Ogres would be giving all that they had left, which likely meant death for the weakest.

But then just as they were beginning, there came the rush of cold wind and the flapping of wings in that place where neither should have been possible. There had been no warning. Her mate had seen death coming, and she had felt it on her back. The rest, thankfully, never felt their doom. Neither did they hear Xiryn’s triumphant laugh.

What they also did not feel, nor even did Xiryn sense, was that it was not his spells that sucked their lives from their bodies. It was her work, a last moment’s hope that she shared with only her mate. Their power, their life energies, she sent to the one left who could keep watch against Xiryn.

Their son. His handsome face appeared-

Golgren tore away from the skeletal hand. The female corpse shifted slightly then somehow readjusted to the same position from before.

“Answer me, Grand Khan!” Tyranos was shouting. “What, by the Kraken, are you-?”

“Sarth…” the half-breed murmured. “Sarth …”

“Yes, Sarth,” came a familiar, wizened voice.

Both Golgren and Tyranos turned to where the male counterpart to the female sat. There, standing behind the corpse, was the hunched figure of the ogre shaman.

Golgren’s eyes narrowed. “But Sarth in the vision was a High Ogre, not a lowly ogre.”

The shaman chuckled, a harsh sound without any humor to it. “And this is the true Sarth now. I have changed with time and made time change me as necessary.”

“What do you two mean?” snarled the wizard. He gestured with the staff at the shaman. “That is a High Ogre? He hardly looks like one! He’s too tall too! Morgada had it right; they were only our height.”

“There are many who look as they are not,” Sarth countered, eyes suddenly so piercing that Tyranos had to turn his own gaze away. “And many who are more than they appear,” the hunched figure added, looking to Golgren.

Unlike the mage, Golgren stood steadfast, meeting Sarth’s eyes. “So I have been told.”

In an uncommonly touching gesture, Sarth briefly placed one hand on the male mummy’s shoulder. The shaman smiled softly to the body then, with his staff, made his way toward Golgren and the female corpse.

“I’ve forgotten their names. I’ve forgotten my own. Sarth I took when I chose to go among the descendants of my misbegotten people. I let the magic shape me as it had them and then buried myself among them, waiting for Xiryn.” Sarth spit out the last word. “That name, though, will forever burn in my memory.”

Golgren still had questions. “I have known you, Sarth. There was no sign, no hint.”

The withered shaman stepped past him to ever so lightly touch the cheek of the female mummy. Sarth’s eyes glistened, though no tear fell.

“I made myself forget. Sarth the shaman simply went on from region to region, tribe to tribe. Only Xiryn’s actions could awaken the true me … or as much as survived the centuries.”

The wizard snorted. “You can’t be a High Ogre, not even the missing ninth! They lived too long ago! The other one, he’s survived, but more as a ghoul than a living creature.”

Without looking at Tyranos, Sarth answered, “Xiryn took upon himself a quicker, more powerful spell, but with a slowly degrading fault. He lived but his body forgot that. He decayed, even though he walked Krynn. To slow that process, he took from his rabid followers some great measure of their own life forces and magic. They became even less than him, husks, trapping sparks of existence within, living off his obsession.”

“But you found a better way, eh?”

It was Sarth’s turn to snort. “No. Only one that kept me from becoming as Xiryn. I did not ask for it; my parents thrust it upon me. And if it were my choice, I would be dead.”

“You came to my people,” Golgren interrupted. “Came to them before I was born.”

He had sensed Xiryn’s probing presence, Sarth explained. Observing from the citadel that had once been a place of hope for the dwindling High Ogre race, Xiryn had developed, over the recent generations, an avid and inexplicable interest in the degenerate heirs of his kind. Sarth, stirred to action after so many centuries, long sought the reason. After a while, he decided that Xiryn sought any vestigial trace of the race’s greatness in the beasts that represented it. But Sarth found little success, and the shaman had again buried himself in his ogre persona, forgetting his true identity for another two or three generations.

“But I slept too deep then. Only shortly before you were conceived did I awaken and discover the truth of Xiryn’s plan! The forced creation of a thing that did not by common nature exist on Krynn-an ogre breeding successfully with an elf!”

There had been several experiments made by Xiryn, but Golgren had finally been deemed the successful candidate. Xiryn indifferently slaughtered the others. He wanted no one to use his very plot against him. Despite having discovered no trace of any of his enemies, his paranoia kept him wary. So wary, in fact, that Sarth had to tread very lightly, lurking in the shadows and continuing to be an ogre shaman in deed as well as appearance.

“What an enchanting story!” rumbled Tyranos, swinging his staff like a club. “Does it go on much longer?”

“No longer than the tale of an Uruv Suurt whose shame makes him desire another skin.”

The wizard brandished the staff. “My life is mine and no others, ogre!”

“You have chosen to bind your life to the Fire Rose. Therefore, your life is bound to his,” Sarth retorted, indicating Golgren. “To gain the prize, you must help him attain it.”

Tyranos grunted. “He’s this Xiryn’s creation and you want him to do exactly what the gargoyle king desires? That makes no sense!”

It was Golgren who understood what Sarth planned or, at least, hoped. “Yes. It is the only way.”

“But only if you’re strong enough. Against Xiryn, no one has been.”

The mage finally comprehended. He gave an evil grin. “You might as well hand it to Xiryn and bid him good luck with it! Besides, haven’t you forgotten another problem? The Titans, for instance?”

“The Titans were not planned for by either myself or Xiryn. They were, so I unearthed, one of the many convoluted plots of dread Takhisis-”

“Ha! So I always thought!”

Sarth ignored the outburst. “But though she is no more, another may have chosen them to be his messengers to the world.”

“Sirrion,” remarked Golgren.

The ancient gestured at their surroundings. “My parents and the others, they beseeched Sirrion to take back his ‘gift,’ but the god only grew angry, as he, being fire, oft does. In his furious departure, he scorched a part of the cavern, as you have no doubt seen. Sirrion simply answered my people’s first prayer; he sets no blame upon himself.”

“The gods, they rarely do,” the half-breed agreed. “The Titans … you think they serve Sirrion’s desire?”

Sarth shrugged. “We may all be serving Sirrion’s desire. Fire is conflict; we fuel it as if we had put wood to flame. Only peace and understanding can tame the fire, and peace and understanding are things long lost to our people’s thinking, Guyvir.”

“You have been warned not to call me that.”

“If you cannot forgive the hatred of your father, you cannot wield the Fire Rose successfully. If you do not wield it successfully, then whether it is Xiryn, the Titans, or Sirrion himself, the Fire Rose will forever change not merely the ogres, but the rest of Krynn … and not for the better. Sirrion wishes to be honored, and constant change is to him the greatest of honors. A Krynn in constant flux would be the most grand of temples dedicated to the fire lord.”

Tyranos rubbed the crystal, which flared brighter under his touch. “Sirrion isn’t Takhisis. He’s not evil.”

“No,” the half-breed interjected. “He is not good either.”

Sarth nodded, seeming like a pleased teacher. “And so you understand what about him, Guyvir?”

“That, being neither, he is more dangerous than the dark gods.”

“Madness!” growled Tyranos, stalking up to the shaman. “An indifferent god threatens the stability of Krynn? You think the others will just let it happen?”

Squatting, Sarth drew a symbol in the floor, his bony finger cutting through rock as if it were sand. The symbol, hidden from the view of the other two, flared bright for a breath then settled.

“In some ways,” he said, not looking up from his task. “Sirrion is dominant among them. Change currently envelops not only Krynn, but the gods too. They vie for places they never held before and come into conflict when they should not. If I were as mad as Xiryn, I would almost say that Sirrion stirs all of this … and possibly merely for his entertainment.”

The wizard turned on Golgren. “Are you hearing this? Do you trust this fool any more than you do the Titans? I wonder now if he really just wants to use you to get the Fire Rose for him? Have you considered that?”

The half-breed met Tyranos’s angry gaze with a calm, level one. “Yes, and he does not wish it.”

“And how can you be sure?” Tyranos turned to Sarth. “Tell us truly-”

But Sarth was gone.

The spellcaster swung the staff across the empty space once occupied by the shaman. Tyranos let out an oath that not only honored his minotaur lineage, but also would have burned the ears of some very hardy legionaries.

Golgren let the wizard rant. The half-breed went down on one knee to inspect what Sarth had drawn. There were, in fact, two symbols, not one. The first was a large, graceful wing, which did not in the least resemble those of a gargoyle.

The second was a slim tree that, despite its simplicity, very much resembled one very familiar to Golgren. He had seen it many times on the tapestry that had once hung in his palace.

It was an oak tree …

An oak tree and the wing of a large beast.

Golgren rose. He surveyed the chamber, including the gathered dead. His eyes suddenly shifted not to Sarth’s mother, but rather his father and something the half-breed recalled he himself had taken from the corpse and let Idaria wear.

A pendant that bore the symbol of the griffon, a creature whose wing was shaped much like that which Sarth had drawn.

“She will be there,” Golgren remarked in an almost matter-of-fact tone. “She has no choice.”

“What’s that?”

The deposed Grand Khan turned back to face Tyranos. “It is not merely Xiryn who desires Idaria to be there when the Titans are confronted, it is the dead who wish it as well.”