The Fire Rose

by Richard A. Knaak

  But even as the gargantuan spellcaster quickly destroyed three of his tormentors, twice that number replaced them, the vipers dropping on him from various parts of the arch. Others squirmed and slid and slithered, seeking to break free so they could add their dark power to that of their brethren.

  One clamped its fangs down on Safrag’s wrist. As he shrieked, another planted its fangs in his shoulder.

  The Titan’s cries were music to Golgren’s ears, but he was looking ahead. The golden figure quietly turned its head toward the half-breed, as though beckoning him onward, but did not otherwise budge.

  Golgren stretched his hand forward. The figure did the same, using the arm that ended with Golgren’s severed appendage. The Grand Khan did not hesitate. Seizing the hand and the signet, he tore them free.

  The faceless figure reverted to a plume of flame, and faded away. However, the symbols on the signet still glowed, and when Golgren held the signet forward, their glow magnified.

  Without another word, he led Idaria on. The sounds of Safrag’s struggle faded behind them, whether due to some end to the struggle or the acoustics of the passage, Golgren did not know.

  As they raced along, Golgren paid little mind to the fantastic carvings and columns that lined the walls. The wonders of the High Ogres meant little to him, he who had an empire to lose. The Grand Khan had no doubt that events were taking place that threatened his reign. He needed to find the artifact and claim it for his own. At last he would have the chance to be rid of the Titans and his other foes.

  At last, he could begin remaking the world as it should be.

  There was no sound from behind them as they rushed through one passage after another. The great images on the walls and ceiling passed by the Grand Khan, for the most part unnoticed. Golgren paid fleeting interest to a pair of gigantic High Ogres carved in marble, because he was concerned that they, like the vipers, might prove more than merely lifelike.

  The two sentinels had been carved to peer down critically at any coming in their direction. One wore an expression almost sad, while the other appeared to be mouthing a warning. The Grand Khan did not care what concerned them, as long as they did not attack him. They were a sign that, after so long, he must be getting close.

  The signet ceased glowing.

  Golgren’s severed hand shriveled, again becoming the mummified relic he had for so long carried over his heart.

  The Grand Khan let out an oath as the illumination around them dimmed. He tugged the ring free and thrust it on his other hand, yet that did not light up the symbols or keep the magical radiance from utterly fading away.

  As darkness claimed them, Golgren also heard a short intake of breath from Idaria, who had been keeping up with him all along.

  “What is it?” he hissed.

  “Someone … There is someone ahead of us.”

  Feeling certain that it was either Safrag or some other Titan, Golgren thrust his lost hand into his tunic and braced himself for whatever attack was to come. He continued to hold the signet before him, as it was the only weapon he had, even if it didn’t work very reliably.

  Yet no sound came from ahead and certainly no flash of magic presaging his demise. Golgren sniffed the air, but sensed only an ancient mustiness.

  No, there was something else: the hint of some flower, or an aromatic scent. Try as he might, the half-breed could not identify the odor.

  “What do you smell, my Idaria?”

  “It is a place long dead,” she replied. “And I smell that.”

  “Do not play games. There is a scent that should be familiar to an elf’s sensitive nature. What is it?”

  After a moment, Idaria answered, “It is rosemary, I believe. Dried and ancient, but most likely rosemary.”

  “Ah, yes.” He recognized the scent from its use by her and other elves who had cooked for him. Most ogres had no appreciation for such smells, being so used to blood, sweat, and decay.

  But their ancestors … They had been more like Golgren, savoring wondrous and delicate scents.

  He took a step forward, focusing his will on the signet, demanding that it do something for him as before.

  The chamber suddenly illuminated, though the signet remained dull. A golden hue spread over Golgren and Idaria, and allowed them to at last see fully what the elf had only managed to glimpse.

  Ahead sat a long, wide table of what appeared to be iridescent pearl, set in the center of a chamber.

  Around it sat eight robed figures.

  Eight High Ogres.

  XVII

  THE FIRE ROSE

  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.