Richard Knaak - The Fire Rose

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.