“They” were the mummified high ogres seated at the ancient table. The duo had once again returned to the ancient mountain sanctum.
As if intending to do just as the wizard suggested, Golgren stepped near the prime female. She sat exactly as last time, but appearances could be deceiving. The half-breed peered closely at what had once been her eyes, waiting to see if anything would happen.
Behind him, Tyranos let out a sarcastic laugh. “Looks like she’s got nothing to say this time! You must’ve offended her somehow.”
The hand nearest Golgren moved. Even though the half-breed sensed it happening, he did not shift his own away.
The gnarled fingers wrapped around his wrist.
Golgren’s mind filled with visions of the past.
They were a pitiful handful, the survivors of the once-great race. The prize they thought would salvage the legacy of their people had instead added the final nail to their coffins. The Fire Rose had turned out not to be salvation, but rather damnation.
As they hurried to secure it from those who had once been their friends, allies, and even family, the small group of spellcasters also had to fight against the Fire Rose’s seduction. They all wanted to use it, and some had even suggested, quite convincingly, how it could be still become a force for good for the High Ogre race.
But in the end, overall agreement remained that the Fire Rose had to be not just hidden, but covered with enchantments that would prevent the most corrupted of them from regaining it. Xiryn had become so obsessed with the god’s “gift” that he had murdered those who most trusted him and had seduced several others to his terrible cause with dreams of immortality and ultimate power. He was a threat not only to what little remained of the High Ogre race, but to the rest of Krynn as well.
So the small band had made it to that hidden place and set in motion their plan. They secreted the Fire Rose in the hidden chamber deep within the mountains of the Vale of Vipers then made certain with the last of their strength that Xiryn could never place his hands upon it even if he reached the location.
Yet there were those among them who did not trust to even that “absolute” solution. They no longer had the might to destroy Xiryn, and Xiryn would never willingly end his pursuit of the Fire Rose. He would seek a way by which to have it.
Thus, they gathered in that hidden place to formulate some new plot. Each had some reserves of strength, so they hoped that what she suggested might work. She was their leader. Her mate, who was second among them, sat across from her. Other than their son-who was long absent on orders from her-her mate and the rest of the High Ogres would be giving all that they had left, which likely meant death for the weakest.
But then just as they were beginning, there came the rush of cold wind and the flapping of wings in that place where neither should have been possible. There had been no warning. Her mate had seen death coming, and she had felt it on her back. The rest, thankfully, never felt their doom. Neither did they hear Xiryn’s triumphant laugh.
What they also did not feel, nor even did Xiryn sense, was that it was not his spells that sucked their lives from their bodies. It was her work, a last moment’s hope that she shared with only her mate. Their power, their life energies, she sent to the one left who could keep watch against Xiryn.
Their son. His handsome face appeared-
Golgren tore away from the skeletal hand. The female corpse shifted slightly then somehow readjusted to the same position from before.
“Answer me, Grand Khan!” Tyranos was shouting. “What, by the Kraken, are you-?”
“Sarth…” the half-breed murmured. “Sarth …”
“Yes, Sarth,” came a familiar, wizened voice.
Both Golgren and Tyranos turned to where the male counterpart to the female sat. There, standing behind the corpse, was the hunched figure of the ogre shaman.
Golgren’s eyes narrowed. “But Sarth in the vision was a High Ogre, not a lowly ogre.”
The shaman chuckled, a harsh sound without any humor to it. “And this is the true Sarth now. I have changed with time and made time change me as necessary.”
“What do you two mean?” snarled the wizard. He gestured with the staff at the shaman. “That is a High Ogre? He hardly looks like one! He’s too tall too! Morgada had it right; they were only our height.”
“There are many who look as they are not,” Sarth countered, eyes suddenly so piercing that Tyranos had to turn his own gaze away. “And many who are more than they appear,” the hunched figure added, looking to Golgren.
Unlike the mage, Golgren stood steadfast, meeting Sarth’s eyes. “So I have been told.”
In an uncommonly touching gesture, Sarth briefly placed one hand on the male mummy’s shoulder. The shaman smiled softly to the body then, with his staff, made his way toward Golgren and the female corpse.
“I’ve forgotten their names. I’ve forgotten my own. Sarth I took when I chose to go among the descendants of my misbegotten people. I let the magic shape me as it had them and then buried myself among them, waiting for Xiryn.” Sarth spit out the last word. “That name, though, will forever burn in my memory.”
Golgren still had questions. “I have known you, Sarth. There was no sign, no hint.”
The withered shaman stepped past him to ever so lightly touch the cheek of the female mummy. Sarth’s eyes glistened, though no tear fell.
“I made myself forget. Sarth the shaman simply went on from region to region, tribe to tribe. Only Xiryn’s actions could awaken the true me … or as much as survived the centuries.”
The wizard snorted. “You can’t be a High Ogre, not even the missing ninth! They lived too long ago! The other one, he’s survived, but more as a ghoul than a living creature.”
Without looking at Tyranos, Sarth answered, “Xiryn took upon himself a quicker, more powerful spell, but with a slowly degrading fault. He lived but his body forgot that. He decayed, even though he walked Krynn. To slow that process, he took from his rabid followers some great measure of their own life forces and magic. They became even less than him, husks, trapping sparks of existence within, living off his obsession.”
“But you found a better way, eh?”
It was Sarth’s turn to snort. “No. Only one that kept me from becoming as Xiryn. I did not ask for it; my parents thrust it upon me. And if it were my choice, I would be dead.”
“You came to my people,” Golgren interrupted. “Came to them before I was born.”
He had sensed Xiryn’s probing presence, Sarth explained. Observing from the citadel that had once been a place of hope for the dwindling High Ogre race, Xiryn had developed, over the recent generations, an avid and inexplicable interest in the degenerate heirs of his kind. Sarth, stirred to action after so many centuries, long sought the reason. After a while, he decided that Xiryn sought any vestigial trace of the race’s greatness in the beasts that represented it. But Sarth found little success, and the shaman had again buried himself in his ogre persona, forgetting his true identity for another two or three generations.
“But I slept too deep then. Only shortly before you were conceived did I awaken and discover the truth of Xiryn’s plan! The forced creation of a thing that did not by common nature exist on Krynn-an ogre breeding successfully with an elf!”
There had been several experiments made by Xiryn, but Golgren had finally been deemed the successful candidate. Xiryn indifferently slaughtered the others. He wanted no one to use his very plot against him. Despite having discovered no trace of any of his enemies, his paranoia kept him wary. So wary, in fact, that Sarth had to tread very lightly, lurking in the shadows and continuing to be an ogre shaman in deed as well as appearance.
“What an enchanting story!” rumbled Tyranos, swinging his staff like a club. “Does it go on much longer?”
“No longer than the tale of an Uruv Suurt whose shame makes him desire another skin.”