It was a signet.
Tyranos strained to identify the design on it, but his host’s fingers wrapped around the prize, drawing it into his fist.
The High Ogre female smiled at him then-and suddenly the wizard once more stood before the inert image on the wall.
“By the Kraken’s tentacles!” Tyranos angrily snapped. He started to reach toward the scene but hesitated. There was no point in seeking entrance back into that vision; the casters had created the scene to mark that moment and that moment only. If he reentered, Tyranos would only relive the exact same frustrating instant. He could look nowhere else, do nothing else.
But that brief glimpse into the past had done more than give him an extraordinary view of the High Ogres. It had told him clearly that whoever was interred in the tomb was probably buried with the very same signet he had beheld in the vision.
Despite the allure of the other images on the walls, Tyranos moved swiftly ahead, concerned only with his goal. A signet would aid him tremendously or, at the very least, equalize any advantage the Talon might gain should they locate a similar burial chamber, as he believed they might already have done.
Unseen but felt, energies swirled around the tomb, many of them utilized for shielding the place from mortal sight. Tyranos frowned. He sniffed the air but sensed nothing malicious.
The crystal continued to light the way, but its illumination had grown muted. The wizard could see barely a foot or two beyond the staff’s head. Worse, with each step, it was as if someone loaded heavy and still heavier iron weights on his shoulders. His mind started to cloud, the spells he had labored so long to memorize beginning to fade.
He knew that it was the tomb’s protective spells surreptitiously working on him. He had underestimated the High Ogres’ skills, blundering into their traps like a bull.
Then the wizard sensed that he was no longer alone.
Swinging the staff from one side to the next, Tyranos caught glimpses of golden-skinned warriors clad in flexible, blue-silver armor. But those glimpses were no more than fleeting looks, the figures vanishing whenever the light approached them. He swung the crystal toward where he had seen one, and very briefly the figure appeared again before vanishing once more. However, the wizard had seen just enough to know that they were converging on him with trouble in mind.
Another sweep of his staff revealed at least four guardians and in the right hand of each was grasped what Tyranos took to be short, squat maces, less than a foot in length. More details than that the wizard could not make out, save that each guardian bore a different rune across its armored hide.
Tyranos stood waiting, but the guardians had melted away and failed to materialize again. Then a terrible cold touched his shoulder, and the wizard screamed. Barely had he registered the cold than suddenly his lungs felt as though filled with water.
Choking, Tyranos dropped to his knees. In the process, his staff swung about wildly, revealing one of the armored figures raising his short mace in preparation for a strike.
The wizard threw himself forward, but if he expected to bowl over his foe, he was disappointed. Instead, Tyranos rolled unimpeded through the place where the guardian had stood-and vanished. The spellcaster grasped desperately for his staff, the most powerful magical item he had, the only one that might keep him alive.
“Fight like warriors!” he snarled at the unseen guardians as he shifted to a crouching position. “Show yourselves at least!”
They did not heed his demand, of course. Swearing an oath, Tyranos seized the staff like a club and shouted out another spell.
As the crystal slashed through the air, one of the guardians momentarily flickered into view. Tyranos uttered a different spell. The crystal’s light shifted from silver to utter white.
With a low moan, the guardian vanished in midswing.
Baring his teeth in satisfaction, the wizard steadied himself. The spell he had summoned should have been far stronger, but at least it had done some apparent damage.
His satisfaction was short-lived, though, as something touched him on his left arm, which sent him flying against one of the walls. The spellcaster dropped to the floor like a wet sack.
Fighting to keep his wits, Tyranos pushed himself up into a sitting position. The remaining three guardians were very near, he sensed, but his staff was out of reach, so he could only guess at their whereabouts. He understood that they were not ghosts, but rather elemental forces bound by the ancients into the semblances of mortals. However, that knowledge would do Tyranos little good if he failed to regain the staff.
The spellcaster lunged toward the lost weapon. He managed to cover half the distance when the cold hit him like a wall, stronger than before. Tyranos’s limbs stiffened as if numbed. He dropped forward, landing face first on the harsh stone.
Yet he was far from finished. With a roar of anger, Tyranos forced himself up on his frozen elbows and dragged himself toward his goal. His legs were so cold that they burned; then they really did begin to burn, hotter and hotter. As Tyranos neared the staff, the horrific heat coursed through his body, sending him into a new agony.
Eyes tearing, he stretched for his goal. A shaking hand grasped the artifact.
Tyranos spit out the words he needed then swung wildly.
A second guardian materialized in the brief blaze of white light he had summoned. Seen up close at last, its face was a parody of the beauty of the High Ogres, a mask of gold intricately shaped into facial features l acking a soul.
As the first had done, this one also emitted a chilling moan then faded away to nothing. Tyranos, ignoring the pain wracking his body, swerved around to where he judged one of his other attackers to be lurking.
Sure enough, the guardian was there but slightly farther away than Tyranos had anticipated. His magic light flashed, but not with the strength and reach necessary to eliminate that one.
“Yaaa!” A new wave of burning engulfed him. Still clutching the staff, the spellcaster rolled onto his back, writhing. He all but gasped out the required spell.
The crystal flared, eradicating a third guardian.
Instantly, the burning ceased. His breathing ragged, Tyranos used the staff to prop himself up to his feet.
There was another touch on his forearm.
A fear filled the wizard. He felt the walls closing in on him. No, not just the walls, but the entire mound, the entire hill. He realized he was being buried alive and that his bones would rot forever beside those of the tomb’s inhabitant.
A primal sound escaped Tyranos. Shivering, with tears running from his eyes, the wizard made a desperate stab with the staff, at the same time calling out the trusted spell.
He caught the last guardian square in the chest, his crystal light streaming toward and seemingly piercing the rune. The white light swallowed the inhuman figure-
And suddenly the walls felt as if they were receding. Tyranos still shivered but from exhaustion, not fear. He leaned on the staff, trying to catch his breath.
But the tomb’s builders did not intend for him to have any respite. From the darkness ahead slithered a murky form that vanished into and out of any patch of darkness available. Tyranos turned the staff’s light toward it, but it dived into a shadow and vanished without any further trace.
The wizard thrust into his pocket in search of a small vial. As he pulled it out, he heard a hiss close by his ear.
Something sought his throat, but he managed to twist out of the way of its grasp. Popping open the vial, Tyranos thrust it ahead of him, where he believed his attacker lurked.
There was a second, more virulent hiss, followed by a sucking sound from within the vial. The tiny container shook with such violence that the weary wizard could barely hold onto it.
The sucking sound grew louder, deafening. But the hiss did the opposite, shrinking, not only becoming fainter, but seeming to change its place of origin. It sounded as though it came from the same place as the other noise-from within the vial.