Richard Knaak - The Gargoyle King

“High Ogres!” the wizard gasped, forgetting the half-breed. He pushed past Golgren to approach two of the corpses. Placing one hand on the iridescent pearl table, he leaned close to a male figure whose face still bore the remnants of a star tattoo under its right eye.

“The lost nine.”

“Except there are eight,” Golgren pointed out.

“There should be nine,” the leonine Tyranos insisted. He studied the parchment skin, stared into the empty sockets. “The writing said the nine who fled …”

Golgren momentarily lost interest in the citadel. He knew that place, that sanctum buried deep in a mountain of the chain that led to the Vale of Vipers. With Idaria, he had discovered it through an artifact-a signet ring-that Tyranos himself had bequeathed to the Grand Khan through the elf. The ring had led them along a trail through the mountains and beyond more than one magical portal to that very spot. Unfortunately at the time, they had also been pursued by dripping monstrosities and Safrag.

“The signet brought me to this place once,” Golgren informed his companion without recounting the rest of the events involved.

Tyranos looked up at him. “Did it now?” He frowned. “I brought it from the tomb of another of these.”

“The ninth, perhaps?”

“No. The death of that one came before then, but of course they must be bound in some manner to the tomb’s occupant. I remember an image of a beautiful female.”

The wizard quickly glanced at the other corpse closest to him. After a moment, he impatiently shook his head and went to the next.

At the long end of the table, Tyranos came to a halt. He stared at a withered figure. It was a female, and it still had long, flowing hair that when viewed close seemed to fluctuate between gold and silver. The long tresses draped well over her shoulders. Even after centuries, there was enough of her small nose, the curve of her cheekbones, to give some hint of what had once been an astoundingly beautiful face.

“This was her. I know it though I could never recall her beauty perfectly. Yet this was her. She was their leader.”

The half-breed’s brow furrowed. He indicated the male seated at the other end. Seven of the figures, including the female of whom Tyranos had been speaking, sat almost peaceably, as though they had simply passed away in their sleep.

The same could not be said of the male, however. His expression was contorted, enraged, and a bit fearful.

“What of him? Is he not the leader?”

“Ogre prejudices against female rulers aside, while he was likely second among them, she would have been first.” Tyranos gazed off into the empty air. “I know her. I’ve seen her.”

That information only slightly clouded Golgren’s previously conceived notions about the eight bodies. “It’s obvious he suffered his death differently than the others.”

“And he’s also facing the direction from which I would guess someone might enter this place. Am I correct?” When Golgren nodded, Tyranos explained, “He saw their doom coming. The others perished utterly ignorant of it. A simple reasoning.”

“Yet he knew who it was who brought their deaths,” the half-ogre added.

“Hmm? How do you mean?”

“It is in his face. He knew who was coming to slay and the betrayal involved.”

Tyranos moved over to the High Ogre and peered at the macabre expression on the dead one’s face. “Be damned if I can see that, but it makes some sense, I suppose.” He rubbed his square jaw. “The ninth, perhaps?”

While the wizard’s suggestion also made sense, Golgren shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“Oh? And what makes you say that?”

Golgren only shrugged, not as fascinated by the subject as Tyranos. He surveyed the chamber, eyeing the runes upon the wall, the arched ceiling. All was the same as he had last left it.

Circling the table of the dead to reach Golgren, the wizard remarked, “I’ve never been here, but you have. Therefore, this has to do with you, as so much else does.”

“You speak in many riddles, wizard,” Golgren returned. “So much else, you say? Enlighten me, please.”

The sound of movement made both suddenly turn back to the table. The pair eyed the sinister tableau, but the cause of the sound did not reveal itself.

Pointing the staff in the general direction of the table, the spellcaster growled, “I’ll say again, oh Grand Khan, that it’s by your doing somehow that we’re here! You may not be cognizant of how you are involved, but it’s true, nevertheless!”

“I do not disagree about that.” Golgren frowned slightly. Something was different about the eight figures, he realized. Some very minor-yet it must be major -change.

He focused on the male at the one end. When Golgren had last been there, that figure was wearing a talisman adorned by the griffon symbol. Golgren had removed the talisman, putting the object in Idaria’s care. He had not been certain if the piece was valuable but thought it best not to leave it behind. When he removed the talisman, the corpse had pitched forward, the top half of its broken body sprawling on the table.

Only moments later, however, when Golgren had happened to look back at it, the figure had returned to its upright position.

It remained that way, unchanged since that incident. Yet something about it burned in Golgren’s memory.

“Just what are you doing now?”

Ignoring the wizard, Golgren took a step closer to the male corpse, studying it intently.

He realized what was different. One hand was pointing toward the opposite end of the table. That had not been the case before.

And at that end sat the female whom Tyranos had spoken of as the true leader of that desperate pack of ancient spellcasters.

There was something different in her pose, too, Golgren noticed as he stared at her. But he could not place it. He wended his way over to the second corpse, while Tyranos impatiently but silently watched.

Golgren had not paid as much mind to the female corpse as he had the male, and so it was more difficult to decide what had altered. As the wizard offered no advice or comment, Golgren knew that Tyranos had not noticed anything amiss.

He leaned with his one hand on the shimmering table as he peered closely at the face. He could see that she had been outwardly beautiful, far more so than an ogre and, yes, even Idaria.

Then something flickered in the High Ogre’s eyes.

A startled grunt escaped Golgren before he realized that he had imagined it. The eye sockets were as empty as those of her companions. Only darkness stared out from them. Only-

A beautiful pair of eyes the color of the sun met his own. They were different than those of the Titans, for in them there resided life, love, and hope, not utter arrogance and domination.

It happened so quickly and without warning that the half-breed instinctively pulled back-or tried to. Something secured his hand to the table, anchoring it there no matter how hard he tried to pull it free.

A hand barely covered in cracking skin clutched his own-her hand.

Golgren looked back into the dead one’s eyes only to discover that the sockets were dark and lifeless again.

The pressure on his hand ceased. He glanced down and discovered that the High Ogre’s hand again rested on the table, where it had been earlier.

“What happened?” Tyranos broke in from behind him. “Did you see something?”

The questions clearly indicated that the wizard had not experienced the same startling thing. Golgren bared his teeth at the mysterious corpse, and only then did he notice that there was something beneath his palm. He scooped it up.

It was a signet ring. The very same signet ring that the half-breed had last witnessed sinking into the earth during his struggles with Safrag over the Fire Rose, in the chamber where the dead High Ogres had secreted it.