Sargonnas.
Faros had stumbled upon one of the main worship chambers used by the long-lost priests. Even now Faros could detect residual traces of dried, centuries-old offerings on the altar—although whether flesh, flora, or some other gift, it was impossible to say. The last inhabitants had left hurriedly.
Then something occurred to him: the passage he had just departed, the images of the transformation. The High Ogres could not have carved that out. Someone else, even minotaurs perhaps, had created that mural. That was the only explanation.
His interest fading, Faros turned from the chamber. He had no use for a god as dead as the High Ogres.
However, the rebel leader froze in his tracks, for it was not the corridor he now faced—but rather again the priests’ sanctum.
Looking over his shoulder, Faros saw the empty passage from which he had supposedly turned, yet when the minotaur tried to veer that way again, the chamber once more greeted his eyes.
“What trick is this?” Faros growled. He stood motionless for a moment, frowning … then charged ahead.
He did not know what he expected, but it was not the silence and emptiness that greeted him. Faros spun around, seeking the cause of this maze, finding only the silent images of the lost god.
A lost god whom Faros had the impulse to denounce.
“Is this your game?” he demanded of the nearest statue of Sargonnas.
The god figure, clad in armor reminiscent of the legions, did not answer. The carved eyes stared down imperiously, as if it was unthinkable for the god to answer to a mortal.
A rage filled the minotaur. This deity had not protected him, had not protected his family. Faros suddenly felt the urge to blame all his woes on Sargonnas. As he had done with the relief on the wall, the rebel leader took his sword to the statue, swinging with all his wrath and might at its mid-section.
The blade did more than simply score the marble figure. It sliced through the statue like water, cutting a massive ravine in the god’s belly.
Out of the wound gushed a torrent of steaming red fluid that at first sight Faros believed was blood. He scrambled back.
As the horrific deluge poured down upon him, it also spread to each side. Twin red rivers spilled onto the stone floor, which hissed and sizzled from the strange heat. Despite his swiftness, these two rivers surrounded Faros, meeting together behind him and widening enough so he could not leap to safety.
With a roar, the fiery liquid continued to burst forth from the statue’s wound but did not yet overflow the small area where the minotaur stood, crouched. The heat quickly covered his body in sweat.
Then, at last, the flow ceased. The roar became a hiss, then the chamber was again silent, save for the bubbling of the liquid. Not a single drop had stained the statue. The red lava continued to circulate, however, boiling furiously.
Faros’s astonishment gave way to mounting annoyance. Some force was playing games with him and the first culprit that came to mind was Nephera, high priestess of the Forerunners.
“Come for me, witch!” he demanded. “My blade waits! By my father, I’ll gut you or die trying!”
In response, a great bubble formed in the flow, swelling and rising. In moments, it had risen to loom over the wary fighter. Faros lunged at it, but the heat and molten flow kept him away.
Then, from each side, a limb suddenly burst out of the lava bubble. Before his eyes, the limbs solidified, becoming furred arms with huge hands ending in long, tapering fingers. Part of the top of the bubble slipped away, creating a head that further altered form. At the same time, the unearthly figure developed a thick, muscular torso, and more gradually, two legs. Garments formed about the body: armor plate over the chest and stomach, a kilt of fiery metal at and below the waist.
As the incredible figure defined itself, the molten earth retreated as if absorbed and sucked into the new entity. The floor retained no scars or burns from the flow. No lava blocked his escape. He could, if he desired, flee now.
The minotaur did not budge. Instead, under a furrowed brow, Faros studied the shape, recognizing and suspecting the truth at last.
As the final drops of fiery earth vanished within the towering form, two tremendous horns jutted up from its skull and the face solidified into one akin to Faros’s, only sleeker, more perfect.
“Hail, Faros Es-Kalin!” thundered the crimson minotaur, his breath a hot steaming cloud. Everything about the giant minotaur was the color of blood—from his fur, his eyes and teeth, to even his mane, and the breastplate and kilt he wore.
The rebel leader tensed, ready to fight if need be. “I’ve no reason to greet you in turn … if the Condor Lord you truly are.”
The fearsome figure’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he nodded. “Yes, Faros Es-Kalin, I am indeed … Sargonnas.”
Instead of fear or awe, anger was all Faros felt. “Is this where you’ve been hiding all these years, while your supposed children have been slaughtering one another? Is this where you came after you turned your back on us?”
An ominous expression crossed the deity’s countenance. His body raged with fire and he seemed to swell further in size. “I do not have to answer to you, mortal, but know that I did what I had to do … and all the while I felt each of my children’s suffering as if it were my own!”
“Small consolation to them!” Faros retorted with a snort, unmindful of the inherent danger. “And of no interest to me!” He lowered the sword contemptuously. “Just as you’re of no interest to me.”
He turned to depart, but his feet, instead of leading him out, spun him back toward Sargonnas.
“What I come to speak of has little do with either of us in the great scheme of things, Faros Es-Kalin, and much to do with all my children … and your people!”
“Stop calling me that!” Faros vehemently shook his head. “There is no Clan Kalin anymore!” His head throbbed. “There isn’t—”
Sargonnas suddenly lifted his head to the ceiling and emitted a tremendous roar. The entire chamber shook, bits of rock pelting Faros, who struggled to maintain his footing. The statues of the god then took up his cry, shrieking. The flames that were the Horned One’s mane flickered wildly, small droplets of fire scattering.
The crimson deity glared down again. “That the stars leave me but this one as my hope! I, who have guided Tremoc, Makel Ogrebane, Aryx Dragoneye, would be so reduced to this puny, ungrateful—to you!” He stalked forward, each step causing the stone to hiss. “You have been tempered in pain and battle! From the depths of slavery, you have risen to break your bonds and reclaim your pride! How I looked down at you in hope!
“But now you have sunk into this … this honorless, base shadow of a warrior! I have seen you ruthlessly behead captives bound before you! I have watched as scores who look to you for leadership perish bloodily in futile combat, so that you can add a few more skulls to your count! Ogre prisoners whose bones are broken have been left to be torn apart by meredrakes, while you watch with pleasure! You have taken the depravities of your slave master and added to the worst of his foul imagination!”
Sargonnas gestured, and before him appeared visions of the recent past. The flower-shaped towers of Sahd were recreated, but with ogres and legionaries hung from them. Other victims lay half-buried in the soil, their limbs stretched out with cuts strewn along their bodies. Drawn by the foul scent, scavengers and other creatures feasted on the tortured souls …
“There is what you have become, mortal …”
“What of it? I treat my enemies as they would me!”
This caused the god to bellow. A sulphuric blast assailed Faros. “You have become as low as your enemies! Even lower! Is this what Gradic of the House of Kalin taught his children?”
Faros brandished his blade angrily. “My father is dead! My clan is dead—no thanks to you!”
“Even a god cannot change what must be,” Sargonnas replied stoically. After a pause the giant’s face contorted and he grew angry, but this time his anger was
not directed at the tiny figure standing before him. “There may soon be no clans at all, if the evil that commands the temple holds sway much longer! That is why I came to you, why I still hope to resurrect that which I early on sensed was deep inside you. I believe it still slumbers there! That is why you must behold the truth of what threatens us all!”
A firestorm surrounded Faros, a whirlwind of flame that spun around, obscuring all else. Clutching his sword tightly—though what aid it could give him now he did not know—Faros gritted his teeth as the fiery winds tore at him from all directions. He felt as if his body was dispersing into a million pieces. Sargonnas and the temple vanished.
Then the flames, too, disappeared and a darkness descended upon the minotaur.
In that darkness he was not alone. Immediately, Faros sensed a distant presence, a monstrous, malevolent presence that drew from his soul the basic fears of a child.
A shadowy form coalesced in the darkness. A horribly familiar form. Faros recognized the great temple in Nethosak. It lurked as if at the edge of a dream, but was just real enough to send angry chills through the minotaur.
The high priestess of the Forerunners.
Faros did not need to see the temple to know the menacing power of Nephera. Faros had lived through the Night of Blood and its aftermath, and was well aware of the part the empress and the Forerunners had played in that travesty of history. Sargonnas was revealing nothing new to him.
Then suddenly Faros sensed another shape superimposed upon the temple. It was vague, barely a shadow in the blackness, tall, narrow, yet more than that the minotaur could not tell.
A horrific sensation swept over him. He felt as if an utter evil lurking in that shadowy edifice had seen and noted his presence. Despite himself, Faros was filled with dread. A nightmarish sensation overwhelmed him, ate away at his soul—
As quickly as Sargonnas had cast him into the darkness, Faros blinked and discovered that he had returned to the god’s chamber.
The fiery minotaur god was eyeing Faros intently. “Perhaps you see now …”
“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” muttered the former slave, trying to recover his bravado. “I don’t care what I’ve seen. I want nothing to do with the machinations of gods, especially you!”
This brought a brief but incredulous look from Sargonnas. “Stubbornness is a trait not unknown among my children, but you are truly the most obstinate I have come across in many a century!” He shook his head, his burning mane sending off more flickers of fire. “So much you have betrayed … yet in you still lies my hope …”
Faros’s ears went flat. His expression hardened. “Then you’ve no hope left! Begone, god!”
“Heed me well, Son of Gradic!” roared the deity, so loudly that Faros flinched at the noise. “I am the Lord of Vengeance and you, willingly or not, have followed my path well in that respect! I am many faces,” and as he spoke, Sargonnas’s countenance began to change. It became that of a somber, black-eyed elf, a pale, hawk-nosed human, and finally, a bearded, cunning dwarf, before shifting back to that of a minotaur. “And many facets!” This time the god swelled in size, growing nearly as huge as the condor symbol. The flames that were a part of him now lit up the chamber so brightly that Faros had to shield his eyes. “Above all, I am he who watches over his chosen, his children—”
“Watches and abandons!”
Abruptly, Sargonnas returned to his previous size. “I never wholly departed, Faros! I am—was—the consort of Takhisis, Queen of the Abyss! The others, even oh-so-noble Paladine, might have trusted her word, but I knew her like no other! When she took part in the oath to leave Krynn in the hands of the mortal races, I suspected her treachery, although never the astounding depths of it! Never did I believe she would steal the entire world!”
Faros did not understand the god’s babble, nor did he care to understand. The squabbles of gods were not for him. “So you admit you are a fool …”
“No more so than my children, for they, like so many others, did not recognize either the One God or the power behind the Forerunners!”
All this strange talk made Faros’s head spin. “Leave me alone, god,” he said. “If you are truly a god, what need do you have of my help?”
“I am not the only god to return, mortal … and that is why I come to you now! I am much weakened and still not yet whole! One of the gods seeks an opportunity to expand his domain at the cost of mine! He will make of the minotaur an even more foul thing … unless one can be found who can lead the race back to the path of honor and tradition for which they were meant!”
Faros laughed loud, mocking the god. “Me? Your champion? I’m no emperor in the making, Horned One! I serve you in vengeance and nothing more! I will not be part of your intricate web!”
“Vengeance may whet the appetite, but it will not satisfy it, warrior. Only honor can give sustenance and strength to your race. Within you—despite what you’ve sunken to—remains the seed of greatness, of one such as Ambeoutin himself!” The fearsome deity pointed an accusing finger at him. “It is within your power to reunite the minotaurs and guide them at last to their destiny!”
“I am not your champion,” Faros insisted, “and I will never be your emperor.”
“Then you are destined to die for nothing, forgotten, and your bloodline will also die forgotten! Is this the bond you honor with your father?”
“Leave my father be!” Faros glared harshly at Sargonnas. “Say no more about my father! He’s dead because of you!”
“The line of Kalin will end with your bones bleaching in the harsh sun of this benighted land,” the Horned One retorted, “and those who sought to erase your House from history will have finally triumphed—”
With a wild cry, Faros charged at Sargonnas, swinging his sword.
The god stood motionless. The sharp blade easily sank into his chest. Having expected otherwise, Faros gaped. The fiery deity showed no sign of pain as the sword tore through his torso.
No blood or organs spilled, no bone slowed the sword. The gaping wound sealed itself almost immediately.
Withdrawing his blade, Faros quickly stepped back, fully expecting the wrath of the god to descend upon him. Instead, Sargonnas simply touched the wound, now healed, and nodded. “A bold thing, striking a god. Gradic would have been proud.”
In reply, Faros threw down his sword. “I’ll hear no more from you! I’m no emperor. I’m not what you want. Leave, or let me do so.”
“I will let you be, Faros.” Sargonnas gestured at the sword, which leapt up, hilt first, into the former slave’s hand. The emerald gem in the hilt glittered as if with a fresh energy. “I see there is no dissuading you, but I will insist that, for the time being, you keep my sword.”
“Your sword?”
“Mine. Fashioned when the world was in its infancy, for a champion serving my unlamented mate. You didn’t find it by chance in that river, Faros. It has sought you for a long time. Have you not also wondered about that ring?”
The minotaur studied the black-gemmed ring he wore on his hand. He could not recall when he had found it, much less started to wear it. That it had magical properties he was well aware.
“Worn by the one most likely to protect my children. Given before you to General Rahm Es-Hestos, commander of the Imperial Guard … once believed by me to be a savior of the minotaurs.”
Sargonnas had been wrong there, Faros noted, just as he had been wrong about so much else. There was not much about the deity to inspire faith and confidence. Faros briefly considered leaving the sword and tearing off his magic ring, but the former had saved him more than once and the latter had also served him since coming into his possession.
Yet to accept them was to accept the blessing of Sargonnas …
The god perceived his conflict. With a sweep of his head, he added, “There are no conditions laid upon these gifts, mortal. I will ask no more of you, save that you might consider beyond your own thirst for vengeance and look to the lives of others,
as your father would have done.”
Look to the lives of others. Faros almost chuckled. He cared nothing for the lives of others, nothing for his own life.
“I will trouble you no more,” Sargonnas said. The fiery figure began to melt into the floor, the molten earth and flames simply vanishing into the cracks created by the ages.
As the god melted away, Faros took a step forward. His ears stayed flat and his nostrils flared. He felt the urge to say one last thing but kept silent.
The mound became a small, sizzling puddle. The chamber grew darker as the illumination created by Sargonnas’s presence faded.
Suddenly, the Condor Lord’s voice boomed throughout the chamber as if coming from everywhere. “Be wary, Faros, son of Gradic! Be wary of the master of the bronze tower.…”
With that, the last traces of the god disappeared into the stones.
The minotaur exhaled. He glanced up at the statue, now magically whole again. He shook his head, wondering if it had all been a dream.
“Faros?” came a tentative voice from behind him.
At first he thought Sargonnas had returned, then he recognized Bastion. The black-furred minotaur appeared at the entrance to the chamber, his expression as guarded as Faros’s own.
“What is it, Bastion?” he snapped, eyes still searching around for signs of Sargonnas
The other’s brow furrowed in concern. “The guard said I would find you here. Strange, I do not recall this chamber …”
“Guard?” Faros bit back a snarl. “Sargonnas!” he grumbled to himself.
“What was that?”
“Never mind! What is it that’s so important?”
Bastion dipped his horns to the side in respect. “On that day when you revealed that you knew all along who I was, yet spared me, I gave you my life. Now I offer it in a special mission which, after the carnage of today, I believe may succeed.”
Empire of Blood Page 3
