Delver Magic Book II: Throne of Vengeance

by Jeff Inlo

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  Deep in the caves of the sandstone mountain, hundreds of giant statues waited for the animation of magic. They stood with blank faces in simple lines. One looked much like the next, the positioning the same for each. They were not created for the purposes of art, as an expression of someone's creativity, or to convey some meaningful message. They were tools, tools that would soon hold great power.

  The carvings were composed of the same sandstone that surrounded them. The rock was nowhere near as hard or as durable as granite, but it was easier to carve. The statues were given powerful arms as well as sturdy legs by their algor sculptors. They stood in lifeless, unmoving columns. They stood near the tunnels the dwarves used to attack the algors. It would be the second time this day that an enemy would invade Dunop using the very tunnels dug by the dwarves themselves.

  Groups of algors stood in circles about the giants. They pressed their hands upon the statues in the same way an algorian healer would tend the wounded. The magic flowed from them in similar fashion, except it was not intended to heal living flesh. Instead, it brought life to lifeless rock.

  Statues began to act. They moved at first as if waking from a long sleep. They took small steps, stretching their arms, turning their heads. The cave began to rumble as more and more of the once immobile sculptures took to their own movements.

  The sight moved beyond comprehension, beyond logic. Solid rock was turning, twisting, and moving like any other creature of the land. It defied the very fabric of reality. Objects carved of sandstone - without muscles, without joints—they walked, they turned, they grabbed and held. It was a spectacle that perhaps only the algors could witness with such detachment.

  The algors, however, were not alone in their appearance of aloofness. Despite the miraculous power bestowed upon them, the sand giants themselves lacked any true appreciation for their own spectacular birth. They did not stare in wonder at their own flexing fingers. They did not look to each other with amazement. They did not even draw a connection between their own bodies and the abundance of lifeless rock that surrounded them. They appeared as if their awakening was nothing of any magnitude.

  If anything, the deficit of expression was almost frightening. As there was no curiosity, no substance of emotion, there was proof that this was not truly life, but simply the animation of rock. At that moment, their limited consciousness was almost completely blank. They had no purpose, no direction, no will and no desire. Though they had the capacity for each, at the moment of animation their awareness was limited to the fact that they could now move. Further awareness would be pressed upon them by the algors.

  As the sand giants now stirred about like dullards, they awaited their instructions, the command from their creators that would give them purpose. They remained harmless for the moment. There was no intrinsic thought of malice or destruction. They would only become the terrible weapons of war after the algors instructed them to be so.

  The algors that survived the dwarf attack now clustered about the animated giants. They waited for the very last statue to drink the energy of their hands. They had exhausted every spark of magic that had taken many days and great effort to collect. As the algors do not store magic without great concentration, the labor had left them weary. Many would collapse even now had they not been so determined to carry out their own act of vengeance.

  The memory of their dead haunted them. No other race could understand the hold of their community. Though through some twisted fate of nature they each craved individualism, they all belonged together. They can speak in unison, think as one. They can share thoughts, dream together. As much as they wish to be apart, they were all connected. No matter how far a single algor will travel out into the lonely desert, the hopes of this individual will always remain a part of the community.

  It is only in this light that the severity of the dwarf attack could be understood. As hundreds of algor lives were vanquished in that moment of battle, the torturous pain was magnified for their community. The community felt the death of each individual. The survivors were not untouched, not at the moment of loss and not afterward. They shared the pain of the dwarf strikes during battle, and they shared the grief and despair when the battle had ended. Each loss equated to the removal of a family member to the whole. Each surviving algor felt the pain for each lost. There were no faceless, unknown victims. There was no detachment. Thus, the grief for each algor was multiplied many hundreds of times over.

  It was with this pain that the algors now spoke, and they shouted out their grief in one chorus. The chant rang through the cave in simultaneous harmony. They spoke with pride as well as pain, and they gave their orders to the sand giants with honor to their own dead.

  "You shall follow these tunnels to the dwarf city. You will attack them. You will continue your assault until the dwarf threat against us has ended. You will remain in the tunnels and in the dwarf city. You will guard against any other threat against us. You will do this to the last ounce of power within your stone bodies. You will do this for the dead, for our brothers and sisters."

  The sand giants made only one simple acknowledgment of the orders that would now dictate the rest of their existence. They turned to the tunnels and began to descend into the darkness. The command of the algors was now their sole drive. It could not be changed, it could not be reversed. They would seek out the dwarves and attack until they could find no more, or until they themselves were destroyed. Even the algors themselves could no longer revoke this command.

  With purpose now driving them, the sand giants moved with greater ferocity. They pushed through the tunnels like thunder rolling across the sky. They ran into obstacles, cave-ins rigged by the dwarves and granite blocks stronger than their own sandstone bodies. They simply pushed on through falling stone and soil or dug around any obstacles they could not break or crush. The sentinels marched through the caverns with an image of the enemy that the algors had implanted in their limited awareness. They moved forward with the chant of the algors ever echoing in what served as their consciousness.