Richard Knaak - The Fire Rose

But his expression was triumphant. As the rest of the inner circle gaped, he stretched forth his arms and revealed the Fire Rose.

Its blazing light filled the chamber and brought a reddish orange cast to the face of each onlooker. The Titans sat speechless, until Morgada was the first to find her tongue.

“It is beautiful.”

“It is the future,” Safrag corrected.

“And Golgren?” gasped Kulgrath, unable to tear his eyes away from the dancing flames within the Rose. “Is he-?”

Safrag’s song was glorious as he shouted, “Golgren is a monument to his folly! Golgren the mongrel is no more!”

As one, the rest of the Black Talon smiled, joining him in celebrating the Grand Khan’s demise.

“The Fire Rose,” one murmured. “Is it all we hope it to be? Can it truly do so much?”

“You would have a test?”

“Is that possible?” asked Draug. “Can you wield it already?”

In answer, Safrag stepped aside and gestured to the spot where he had just stood.

A terrible stench filled the air. Many of the Titans sat back in disgust as a dripping horror materialized.

Falstoch looked around. The abomination was still bent in pain from the wound he had suffered.

Safrag nodded to the monstrosity. “Shall we try again?”

Without preamble, he held the Fire Rose before Falstoch’s constantly melting face. The abomination raised a deformed limb as the artifact’s burning light bathed it in reddish orange. Falstoch let out a cry that shook even the hardened Titans.

Falstoch began to transform. His body straightened and solidified. The wound vanished. The melting wax that had been his flesh became sleek blue skin. Features aligned differently on his face, molding themselves into a handsome visage. A lush mane of hair thrust out of his skull and fell back.

The garments of a Titan materialized around the changing Falstoch. As he finished his transformation, the garments clad him.

The newly rejuvenated sorcerer stood trembling. “Will it … Will it hold?” he sang in faltering Titan speech. “Will it?”

Safrag only beamed. After a moment, Falstoch let out a dark howl of joy. He gazed at his hands, felt his face, and howled again.

And the Titans of the inner circle reveled in his joy, in their triumph. It had been the least of tests. The Fire Rose not only wielded great magic, but it could be wielded by them .

Safrag held it high. “The dawning of the new Golden Age is upon us!” he sang exultantly. “The dawning of the rebirth of the High Ogres.”

Tyranos groaned as he awoke and immediately realized what he had done. Whoever was master of the gargoyles would have set some insidious trap for the rare intruder who might be searching for the Fire Rose. Yet Tyranos had not considered that possibility. Admittedly, he had a streak of smugness, which his earliest teachers had said would someday kill him despite his skills. It looked to be that day.

The massive spellcaster looked around and saw nothing. He was in utter darkness in a place that smelled to him like the grave. The reason for that became apparent as his eyes adjusted.

Corpses. Three. From the looks of them, they were all ancient, yet the smell of death still pervaded the dark, moist area. Tyranos guessed that was because there was nowhere for the smell to go. That boded ill as much as the dead themselves.

The three hung as he did, floating in what seemed to be midair with their arms and legs spread out. Tyranos could tell little about them save that one looked to be a gargoyle by its shape, while the others were closer to human or elf in form but taller.

The wizard squinted. High Ogres , perhaps. If so, the bodies had been trapped a long, long time.

He tried to turn his head, but only half succeeded with the movement. Still, he could turn enough to enable him to see that he was not floating, but rather seemed to be attached to several tiny strands that looked like nothing less than webbing.

“No damned spiders, thank you,” Tyranos rasped, more to hear anything than because he truly believed it was the work of any arachnid. What he could make out of the corpses gave no indication they had perished from having their life fluids sucked out of them. The webbing itself had been the cause of their demises. They had been trapped and had starved to death.

The wizard struggled, but to no avail. Physical strength meant nothing, otherwise the gargoyle wouldn’t be among the dead.

Tyranos looked for his staff. It was nowhere in sight.

“We can’t have that,” he muttered. Tyranos concentrated on the missing staff, trying to summon it.

It did not appear in his hand, but not because he wasn’t trying hard enough. The spellcaster could sense the staff attempting to draw near, but some other greater force held it back.

“Damn!” Tyranos gritted his teeth. After a moment, he murmured a spell.

The strands lit up as if electrified. The wizard continued to grit his teeth as his body also suffered some from the spell. He stared into the sightless sockets of one of the High Ogre dead.

After several seconds, the electrical illumination ceased. The odor of something having been burned wafted under Tyranos’s nose, although whether it was the strands or himself that was the source of the odor was a question he could not answer.

Taking a breath, he tugged as hard as he could on the strands holding his left hand.

Nothing happened.

A lengthy epithet escaped the wizard.

“So,” he snarled to himself. “Only one choice, Tyranos. Only one choice damn it.”

He set his chin against his chest and concentrated.

A heat arose just over his heart. Something radiated there, casting a vague, circular shape even though, had anyone looked, they would have seen no medallion, no tattoo.

To find the truth, they would have had to look much deeper into the wizard.

Tyranos let out a sudden roar of agony. The circular shape grew more evident beneath his robes, almost as if it were burning its way through to the outer world.

And as the circular shape glowed bright, the wizard’s form began to alter. His mouth and nose stretched forward, becoming part of one unusual feature. His clean-shaven face sprouted dark hair, even on the forehead and around the eyes.

With a furious cry, Tyranos threw the power that he had summoned into destroying the strands. He heard them burn with a satisfying sizzle, but at the same time felt the changing of his body worsen.

“I-will-not-revert!” he shouted to the darkness. “I-am-no longer-that!”

His left arm suddenly tore free of the snare. His right arm followed suit a breath later.

Struggling hard, the wizard tumbled forward with such force that he collided with the nearest corpse. Tyranos instinctively pushed himself back for fear he would become entangled in the dead figure’s trap.

His legs weakened. He collapsed on the floor. As he did, his face began to shrink again, finally returning to normalcy.

The glow over his chest faded. The wizard lay there, shivering.

His strength gradually returned enough to enable him to push himself to a sitting position. Yet Tyranos still shivered.

“Too damned close. But you knew that’d happen, didn’t you?”

Neither he nor any invisible voice answered the question. The wizard shoved himself up onto his feet. He was free of the strands, yet hardly free of the trap itself.

“Where are you?” he asked the missing staff. “Close by, but how close by? Ah.”

Gingerly stepping past the gargoyle corpse, Tyranos followed the sensation he felt. The staff was in some ways as bound to him as Chasm.

A faint glow emanated ahead. The muscular spellcaster grinned. “So, there you are! I’ve missed you.”