“Chance, as always, is the most fascinating course!” the god cheerfully remarked. “Yes, I was right about you.”
Sirrion exploded into flames. Golgren and Tyranos fought for balance as the entire city turned on its head.
The pair reappeared but not back in the chamber of the mummies.
Instead, they stood in an empty area that at first glance to most would have seemed just one more worthless piece of untillable land. There was little life save a few hardy and ugly shrubs with sharp stickers for leaves. The landscape itself consisted of tall, dirt-brown hills and little else.
Tyranos eyed their surroundings with contempt. “Now what backward part of Krynn have we dropped into?”
The half-breed did not answer, for he was racing away from the wizard at breakneck speed, seeking a place that he had not seen since his youth. That it would still exist was a definite possibility, for who would care to seek it out? That would mean risking life and limb, not to mention starvation.
And for what? There was nothing of value there unless you were a half-breed, who had been given at birth the name Guyvir, the Unborn, the mongrel who should not exist.
He found the crevasse looking exactly as memory recorded. Golgren pressed against it, discovering that reality was different than memory. He had been slighter, shorter as a youth, so had easier slipped inside. As an adult, he had to squeeze himself against the rock. Golgren ignored the scraping of his flesh and the dust in his lungs. All that mattered was to gain entrance.
At last he did. The cool cave air soothed some of the sting from where his skin had been removed. Still, the half-breed paid little attention to his injuries. All that mattered was her.
There was just enough light to see the crumbling temple. The shattered relief of the two battling mastarks remained, the gleam of one creature’s furious orb-carved from some brilliant, orange-red stone-greeting him as if welcoming back an old friend … or an old adversary. Beyond, other cracked walls and small alcoves stirred other memories, not all of them pleasant.
His foot knocked something. He peered down to see some of the jawbone and other skeletal remains of a large animal. They were the bones of a ji-baraki, an ogre-sized reptilian predator of that land. Golgren knew that, even without seeing the rest of the skull, which was missing. After all, he had killed the beast himself.
Then a rounded shape to his right made the half-breed forget all else. As if mesmerized, Golgren stepped toward a high pile of stones dug from the ruins. They were set in the shape of a six-foot-long mound, and if that caused resemblance to a burial place, it was because that was what it was.
It was where Golgren had buried his mother.
The half-breed went down on one knee to the side of the mound. A few withered plants lay atop the mount, somehow a little bit of their flowery scent still clinging to them. It had taken much effort for a young Golgren to find those plants; they were the best he could do. His mother deserved more than this, the semblance of the lush world she had forsaken when taken prisoner long before.
Words barely discernible to the naked ear spilled from his lips, words in a tongue that Golgren had not spoken since the fatal day he had lost her.
“Didn’t even know you knew how to speak Elvish.”
Golgren did not turn to the wizard. “Leave me.”
“This was where she died?”
“No. She died two days earlier.”
The wizard let out a snort that indicated surprise, not ridicule. “And you carried her for that long a time? You didn’t tell me that you were part minotaur too!”
Still facing the mound, Golgren bared his teeth. “Leave me!”
“Pay your respects; I can appreciate that. Just recall that there’s a living elf you seem interested in, albeit in another way.”
The wizard was silent after that, but his words had an effect on the half-breed. Even though he wanted to stay longer, Golgren finally rose. The look in his eyes when he finally turned to his hooded companion was enough to make Tyranos momentarily grip the staff in self-defense.
But just as quickly as he had glanced at the mage, Golgren shifted his attention elsewhere, to the faded image of the battling mastarks, although his thoughts still lingered in a different place.
“So,” Tyranos finally dared interject. “Any particular reason why Sirrion or maybe your friend Sarth might’ve dropped us off here? Surely not merely so you could pay your respects?”
Golgren suspected Tyranos knew the truth. “There was a dagger. With it, I slew the ji-baraki who sought to dine on her body. It remained with me until lost when Garantha was attacked.”
The wizard rubbed his chin. “Yes, I was never quite certain about that. What did our friend in the citadel hope to gain from the attack?”
“He stirred the situation.” Golgren did not explain further. Instead, he wandered over to where one wall had fallen down due, years before, to his careless leaning against it.
“Ah! He was setting all this into motion! Yes, that sounds right-be careful there!”
The reason for Tyranos’s shout had to do with Golgren’s suddenly stepping atop what was clearly a loose piece of stone overlooking a deep gap behind the wall. The half-breed stood perched atop the stone for a breath or two then dropped into the pit.
Golgren heard his companion shout something else, but it was lost to the half-breed as he landed. Centuries had not much altered the petrified garbage those who had built the temple had left behind. The first time that Golgren had landed there, he had been concerned only with finding his way back up. At the moment, though, he was hoping to locate something of value, a dagger or other weapon akin to the one he had lost. It was to him the most logical reason he had been sent there.
The pit was the only area that Golgren discovered was larger than memory claimed. The hopes of locating what might not even exist dimmed as he searched without finding anything.
Then, among the refuse, something stirred. Golgren groped around for some kind of weapon. He came up empty. Whatever stirred, the half-breed would have to face it unarmed.
There came a hissing sound, one so familiar, it sent a rare chill up the deposed Grand Khan’s spine. He knew the calls of many predators, but it was worse than that; it was as though he recognized the hiss as the voice of someone he knew.
Golgren watched the darkness even as his hand dug around for anything that might be wielded in a fight.
From above came Tyranos’s voice. “Are you all right?”
The half-breed did not answer. He was lost in time, remembering when last he had faced that most heinous foe. There were perhaps only a few others he hated as passionately, chief among them his father and the Nerakan who had slain his mother.
Something rose up from the refuse ahead of him. At first, it seemed an indistinct shape. Then as it moved toward him, Golgren made out the long, tapering forelegs and the sleek, sinister skull. The thing hissed again at him.
It was a ji-baraki but not just any ji-baraki. He sensed it was the one that he had killed, built from the missing skull set atop a collection of smaller bones and other fragments. Together, they reconstructed the body of the male beast Golgren had caught scavenging the corpse of his mother.
And in turn, it sought revenge against its killer, just as Golgren had taken revenge on it for desecrating the dead body of the only person who had ever cared for an unwanted infant.
The skeletal ji-baraki opened its toothy maw-the lower jaw composed of other bones and fragments-and hissed a third time. Golgren had tossed that skull into the refuse pit as a final gesture of his victory. He had forgotten about it until that moment.
As the ji-baraki hissed, it changed form. From skeleton, it became something part mist. The ghoulish aspect of its fleshless appearance remained, but it drifted as much as stalked toward him.