Ulgrod went down on one knee. “I’m yours to do with as you command, master.”
Safrag nodded gratefully. “Your sacrifice will be remembered by all.”
The other sorcerer frowned. “My-”
Safrag vanished and suddenly appeared standing next to the kneeling figure. In one hand he held the signet, and in the other he wielded a black blade made of obsidian and curved like a sickle moon.
The blade carved a slice through Ulgrod’s throat. The blood that flowed from the awful wound was anything but ordinary, for it glowed with a fiery heat and radiated a magical energy that made Safrag’s staring visage terrifying to behold.
None of the members of the inner circle so much as moved a finger, for they were not surprised at the shocking turn of events. They had been made aware of what Safrag intended, and although some had shown looks of horror, those had faded quickly at the promise of what the dire deed might bring them.
The Fire Rose.
Ulgrod managed no final word, not even a final sound. He slumped before Safrag, still positioned on one knee thanks to the slightest use of the other Titan’s power to keep him so.
“Blood is the power, blood is the might,” Safrag intoned.
The other members of the Black Talon materialized, creating a six-sided pattern within which Morgada and three others formed a square. Safrag and the late Ulgrod remained at the center.
The lead sorcerer held the blade high. “Blood is the power, blood is the might,” he repeated. “Blood binds, blood guides.”
Each of the other Titans drew a symbol before them, their personal mark. Dauroth had begun the tradition, and Safrag had continued it. The marks were tied to the very core of the Titans’ beings. By summoning them, they opened themselves to whatever Safrag chose to do with them. By such means Dauroth had had the power to condemn Falstoch and the like to the forms they suffered. Also by such means had Safrag earlier tricked Ulgrod into giving up his life force. Ulgrod had expected to rise to the Black Talon. In a sense that was exactly what he was destined to do, for he would forever be a part of them.
The marks of each Titan glowed blue, but never the same blue as any of the others in attendance. As one, the ten knelt around Safrag, who kept the body of Ulgrod at a point beyond life but not yet true death. Were it his desire, Safrag could still save the one whom he had grievously wounded.
Instead it was Ulgrod’s blood that Safrag sought to save-save and use. He had followed a clear line of thought over the past few days, and his thoughts were racing. So much magic existed in the elixir, enough to make of brutish ogres towering, flawless spellcasters like none ever seen on the face of Krynn.
Would not the very blood that flowed through them, the former apprentice reasoned, be capable of fantastic feats?
There had been only one way to find out and be certain, and the allure of the Fire Rose had been enough to sway the rest of the inner circle. After all, none of them would have to give up their blood.
Those who were not of the Black Talon would not learn Ulgrod’s true fate, only that he had made a great sacrifice in the search for the fabled artifact. Ulgrod’s death meant the meager supply of elixir would last that much longer.
The assembled sorcerers held their palms toward Safrag. They slowly thrust them forward, and as they did so, the glowing marks floated not to the lead Titan, but rather on an angle upward, toward the obsidian dagger.
As they willed it, the other Titans also began singing with one voice. There were no words to their song, only tones. The tones grew stronger the closer the magical symbols came to the blade.
And when the marks touched the bloodied tip of the blade, they seemed to be sucked within as if slipping into the middle of a vortex. The Titans groaned, and their wordless song took on a harsher, demanding tone.
Safrag murmured as the others sang. As he did, various symbols appeared around him, and faded away. Each was a tinier representation of the marks of the others, among them Ulgrod’s. Like miniature stars, they flared to life, glittered, and glided over Safrag and the frozen form before dying.
Safrag lowered the blade. The other sorcerers immediately quieted.
It had been his original intention next to bleed himself with the ensorcelled blade, mingling the power of sacrificed Titan blood with the magical essence of his own greatness. Through that technique, Safrag believed he could elevate his skills to a point where he could perhaps see beyond the ancient High Ogre wards hiding the Fire Rose in the wilderness. Were it to work, there would also be no more need of Golgren.
But Falstoch’s report suggested another, safer path to his goal. The signet had proven itself bound to the resting place of the Rose. That meant he could turn the smaller artifact into a guide for the spellcasters, not the half-breed.
Bringing down the dagger, Safrag touched its point to the symbols on the signet.
A great plume of flame burst from the signet. Startled, Safrag dropped the ring.
An ear-rending hiss filled the chamber. The flames burned such a bright orange-red that even the blue-skinned Titans took on its hue.
“No one moves!” commanded Safrag.
The flames rose above the signet, spun, and whirled. As they did, limbs-golden limbs-grew from the plume.
A figure of gleaming metal formed from the fire. The flames sank within, utterly disappearing.
The golden figure had no face, no other features. It did not turn to Safrag, but rather stared off in another direction.
It was Morgada who recognized what was indicated. “He stares in the direction of the vale! I am certain of it!”
“But we know that much already!” snapped another Titan. “For all that, for Ulgrod’s use, there must be more!”
“So there must.” Safrag, defying the nearby presence of the golden figure, stretched down to seize the signet.
The figure reshaped, the front facing the Titan leader. Safrag paused, but the figure did not otherwise move.
With more confidence, the Titan straightened. He dared put the ring on.
“Show me!” he demanded of the gleaming figure. “Show me where to seek the Fire Rose!”
The golden figure made a sudden cutting gesture that caused the other Titans to push back in surprise. In the wake of the movement of its arm, a trail of flames briefly flared across the air toward the Titan Leader.
Both Safrag and the golden figure vanished.
Morgada and the others leaped to their feet. As they did, Ulgrod’s body, no longer held by Safrag’s magic, finished collapsing into a bloody pile. The gruesome sight was all but ignored as the sorcerers stared at the place where their leader had last stood. All that remained to mark Safrag’s presence was the dagger, which Morgada finally picked up to show the others.
“It’s clean of blood,” she informed the others.
They all stared at it for a moment, the truth of her words obvious. The female Titan finally glanced down at Ulgrod himself, and gasped.
The others followed her gaze and repeated her exclamation.
Ulgrod’s robes were lying there, not in the least stained. Of the Titan himself there was nothing but a burnt outline.
XIV
BLOOD AND FIRE
Golgren ran his fingers over the carving in the wall, seeking to determine its meaning. With no light by which to see the High Ogres’ work, the Grand Khan tried to identify the various markings from memory of what he had seen before.
Golgren glanced into the dark behind him, whispering, “You are well, my Idaria?”
“I am, my lord. Thank you for binding the wound.”
“We may have need of your precious blood again.” Continuing his inspection of the wall, the Grand Khan remarked, “A fascinating idea that an elf’s blood could be so poisonous. The Titans are daring indeed.” Golgren did not ask Idaria how she had found the dagger. That was the least of his interests.
He sensed her step closer to him. “What may be poison to one may also give life, depending on how it is ministered.�
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In the dark, the slave’s outline was barely discernible. “It is true that those monstrosities were of the Titans?” He had suspected that the creatures served the sorcerers, but something in what Idaria had said made him think perhaps they also had a blood relationship. “Like Donnag.”
“Like Donnag, yes.” But something in her tone lingered in the air like a question.
“And can elf blood help guide us out?” he asked Idaria.
“It cannot,” Idaria replied solemnly. “When I dared cut myself, I did so only because of some knowledge I had involving the use of blood and the transformation of the creatures who do the bidding of the Titans. I took a chance that it would work.”
She offered no other explanation. The Grand Khan did not care. He was concerned about getting out of that place alive.
They could have returned down the passage through which he had first traveled, but Golgren knew that he would find only another dead end. Perhaps Idaria knew a way. “How is it you were able to come to the tunnels? Did you follow me through?”
Idaria was silent for a moment before replying, “I searched for more than two hours to find a way in at the precise location where you vanished, my lord.”
“Two hours? So very long? And the creatures. You recall when you first saw them?”
“Barely a minute before I dared take a chance and drew the blood.”
“A curious shuffling of time,” he remarked, thinking. “It is not. Perhaps … Ah!”
They both stepped back as a golden glow erupted from the area Golgren had just touched. The half-breed and the elf watched as the glow spread like fire throughout the entire life-sized relief.
In the growing light, Golgren glanced at his hand. There were no traces of blood upon it, as he had thought there would be. The Grand Khan had been certain that some remnant of the elf’s blood was responsible for the flaring light.
If not Idaria’s blood, what?
He gazed again upon the magically illuminated relief. And recognized there was something wrong with it.
It was not the symbols and markings and the Ogres that he had glimpsed during the struggle with the monstrosities. Instead it was one vast scene with eight robed High Ogres casting a spell on what appeared to be a burning flower turned upside down. The casters themselves appeared to be surrounded by bright coronas.
Framing all that was a specific setting: mountains, great buildings with sharp, jutting towers, a river, and odd animals that looked like crosses between various, more familiar species.
“Well?” asked a voice that made Golgren bare his teeth. “You wanted to enter, and so you can.”
The Grand Khan calmly turned to face Safrag.
“Dauroth did not understand that he entertained a viper in his midst,” Golgren remarked.
“How droll,” returned the Titan, striding like a god toward the two shorter figures. Safrag’s head barely missed scraping the passage’s ceiling. “We are in the vale, and thus I must be one of the legendary serpents.”
“We are in the dread valley?” murmured Idaria. “But that was still days away.”
“She is a curious slave.” Safrag kept his hands behind his back as he looked from her to Golgren. “Just as you are a curious master. Is it love? Lust? Common goals? Common betrayals?”
Sneering, Golgren returned, “And is the Titan leader so interested in the souls of others? In emotions? How caring is Safrag of others!”
“Merely curious about the workings of your confused mind, oh Grand Khan. Are you ogre or are you elf?” Before Golgren could reply again, Safrag cut him off with a wave of one hand.
A hand that flaunted the signet.
Golgren’s sneer became a veiled stare. Drawing the dagger, he took a step toward the sorcerer.
Flames surrounded him. The dagger became hot. He was forced to drop it and step back to the glowing panorama.
The dagger melted, becoming a puddle of metal and other bits.
“I shall make it clear in the very best Common, mongrel. There’s only one reason why you still live: I have not decided if you are still of need to me given that I am on the threshold of rediscovering the most powerful artifact since the Graygem!”
“I know nothing of the Graygem,” Golgren replied coldly and without fear. “And the Fire Rose will never bloom for you.”
“How poetic and pathetic.” Safrag gestured with the hand bearing the signet.
The rock behind Golgren rumbled. He looked at the wall and saw the relief had split in two, revealing a passage behind it.
“So close,” murmured Safrag. “After so many years of biding my time, serving the ignorant and the fearful.”
“Not to mention slaying your master.”
The Titan looked mildly offended. “Dauroth refused to hunt for the Fire Rose, even though all we sought could have been so easily gained from it! And, besides, another betrayed Dauroth. The rest know that.”
“And who betrayed the other?”
Safrag chuckled. “You still try to amuse.” He gestured, and the flames died away. “But you are not amusing enough. Enter, mongrel.”
Golgren stayed his ground.
The Titan was unimpressed. He extended his other hand toward Idaria.
The elf gasped. Vapors rose from her body, and her flesh started to desiccate.
The half-breed started not for her, but rather toward the new passage.
With another smile, Safrag ceased his assault on Idaria. She slipped to one knee, but the Titan immediately forced the silver-haired slave to a standing position and made her follow Golgren. He trailed after the two smaller beings.
A slight breeze caressed the Grand Khan’s face as he stepped through the cracked relief. The passage did not light up as it had when he had worn the signet. Safrag created a floating sphere of low, blue light that drifted a few feet before them, remaining constantly ahead as the trio walked.
There was also a faint golden aura around Idaria, Golgren noted, though that must have been the handiwork of the sorcerer. Curiously, no such spell covered the Grand Khan.
There was nothing inscribed on the tunnel walls, but all could sense it was no ordinary mountain passage. Safrag’s breathing grew more rapid and eager as they proceeded.
But barely had they gone more than a hundred yards when the trio came to another tunnel that branched off. Safrag ordered a pause.
Holding his fist forward so that the signet faced the two choices, the blue-skinned sorcerer commanded, “Show me the proper way!”
A plume of fire burst to life before them. A figure began to coalesce within, and faded away. The flames extinguished.
Safrag looked furious.
“Something is amiss?” Golgren innocently inquired.
“It was too quick,” the Titan murmured to himself. “I had no time to gather Ulgrod’s blood.” He focused on Idaria. “But perhaps …”
The elf tried to pull away, but she could not free herself of his control. Like a puppet on strings, she moved inexorably toward Safrag.
A curved dagger made of obsidian materialized in his other hand. There were stains upon it whose origins Golgren did not have to guess.
“There is a better way. A less … messy way,” he quietly declared.
The Titan glanced at him. “And that is?”
The Grand Khan stretched out his hand. “Return the signet to me.”
The towering figure roared with laughter. “You are amusing after all, mongrel! Return that powerful signet to you? And you have a reason why I should act so madly?”
“The signet will work for me. You and I both know that. There will be no need for blood, spells, questions …”
“And no risk to me?” Safrag bared his double rows of sharp teeth. “Wearing the signet made you safe from most Titan magic; you and I know that, oh Great Khan! Return it to you? I think not.”
“I wish to find the Fire Rose. You wish the same. The signet for some reason wishes it of me also.”
“Yes, it does seem to
be bound to you.” Dismissing the insidious dagger, the spellcaster suddenly grinned like a hungry ji-baraki about to pounce on its victim from behind. “Perhaps you can lend me a hand after all.”
He gestured.
Golgren grabbed at his throat. He struggled to breathe as the chain around his neck twisted and turned.
A mound rose from his chest. It strained to be free, almost pulling the Grand Khan with it.
A grotesque missile burst away from him, slipping up over his throat and pulling with such force that it tore free of the chain, which went scattering across the passage floor.
Safrag seized the object as it came to him. He held it up, admiring the awful sight of Golgren’s mummified hand.
“Exquisite work. Almost as fresh as if it had been cut off yesterday, rather than-what is it, at least three years?”
“Give me that.” Golgren coldly whispered.
The Titan cocked his head. “It may be that I no longer need you, Grand Khan. You would do best not to test that supposition. Remain compliant and you live, at least for the moment. Oh, and I might let her live too, of course.”
Golgren did not glance at Idaria. He eyed the Titan for a moment more, before retreating a step.
“That’s better.” Safrag turned the mummified hand toward himself, and placed the ring on one of its curled fingers with deliberation. The sorcerer summoned the obsidian blade once more, which caused the elf to start. “Rest easy, slave. Your blood is not needed yet. There looks to be enough remaining on the blade for what I need. If not, I have the signet itself.”
He touched the dagger’s tip to the hand. As he did, Golgren’s gaze narrowed.
The hand clenched.
“Excellent.” Safrag released it. The hand did not drop to the ground, but rather it floated as if weighing nothing. It opened and clenched again, repeating the dread sight over and over until the Titan waved his palm over it.
The disembodied hand hovered silently. The wrinkled skin smoothed, and a sheen of freshness spread over the appendage. Indeed, it appeared to have been newly severed.
And as the hand changed, the signet began to glow-faintly, but it glowed.
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