They had nothing with which to carry water; their sacks had been buried under tons of rock. Both drank as much as they could.
Just as they finished, Golgren felt a warmth on his hand. Immediately, he held up the signet.
The symbols faintly glowed.
“Look,” the elf murmured, pointing.
He looked where she pointed, at where the stream gushed forth from the mountainside. There, a symbol etched in the rock also glowed faintly.
A curved line with two dots to its right.
As Golgren reached for the etching, both its glow and that of the signet faded. Despite that, he was able to trace the symbol and verify its astonishing existence.
Golgren ran his hands along the mountainside, but found no other etchings, no hidden gaps. It was as if someone else had paused to drink and decided to leave the mysterious symbol.
“It is old,” Idaria interjected. “Scratched by one of the High Ogres.”
Golgren continued to trace the markings. “Yes, it would be them. Not the Titans. The sorcerers, they would have no reason for doing that.”
“The vision …”
The Grand Khan glanced at her. “The vision?”
The slave’s eyes grew veiled. “The one in Ben-ihm.”
He bared his teeth slightly. “So, my Idaria was already present for the vision? You did not appear after?”
“No, my lord. I was there but a moment before you rose. I saw the vision of the casters, and the shadow that overtook them in the end.”
He showed no anger at her revelation. “The High Ogres were surely dead long ago. But their magic …” The half-breed grinned darkly. “Their magic maybe lives.”
He stroked the symbol and touched the signet to it. But if Golgren hoped for anything more to happen, he was sorely disappointed.
“We are done,” he finally said to Idaria.
Departing the stream, the pair continued on through the harsh mountain pass. Without horses, the journey was certain to take much longer, but there was nothing they could do about that.
Night fell upon them and once more they found what shelter they could. The dreams and nightmares that so often haunted Golgren returned with a vengeance. He saw visions of his mother slaughtered, and her body-which he had so painstakingly carried to safety-eaten by the scavenging ji-baraki. Whereas in the waking world the half-breed had avenged himself on the beasts, in his nightmares they kept dragging the corpse out of reach. All the while, the unblinking eyes of his elf mother condemned him for even being born.
The other nightmares were twisted versions of important events that had marked his life. In one he led the village of his youth into battle against the Nerakans, only to watch the villagers slaughtered as the knights turned into scorpion warriors with four arms-each wielding a sword or some wickedly-barbed club-and as many tails. Worse yet, the dead stumbled to their feet to join the warriors trying to drag him down into the bowels of Golthuu’s desolate landscape.
But through the nightmares there came at last a soft touch and soothing murmurs. The Grand Khan awoke to Idaria.
She said nothing more, and he did not thank her. It was her duty as his slave.
It was still dark, but Golgren had no immediate desire to return to his slumber. He rubbed his thick brow and stared at their murky surroundings. Vague rock formations took on more sinister aspects at night. Some resembled beasts, both real and mythic. There was the head of a roaring dragon. Beyond that he could see the wing and spine outline of a V’radu Ikn, a flying creature like a ji-baraki with feathered appendages. V’radu Ikn did not, fortunately, exist anywhere but in the imagination of ancient ogre storytellers. They were said to sneak up on a warrior the night before a significant battle in order to steal and eat his courage. Losing one’s courage was the worst thing that could befall an ogre.
Yet another rock formation took the shape of a hooded figure bent over as if carrying a heavy burden. If Golgren squinted, it almost looked as if another, identical figure loomed a little behind the first, no doubt assisting with the load.
He realized that the shapes were moving, albeit very, very slowly.
The pair trudged along as if hardly able to stand, much less carry whatever was their shared burden. Golgren started to rise, but hesitated when he noticed two more hooded shapes behind the first pair.
From his side, Idaria quietly asked, “My lord, what is it? Do you see something?”
That she asked the question clearly meant that the vision belonged to his eyes only. The Grand Khan suddenly looked to his hand. The warmth told him what his eyes verified a breath later-there was a faint glow emanating from the symbols.
“What do you see, my lord?” the elf inquired again.
Golgren did not answer her, and as he peered again at the figures, he saw two more. All moved with silence; all moved as though they carried the weight of the entire world on their backs.
The Grand Khan let out a slight hiss as he made a count of the figures. Eight in total.
There had been eight High Ogres in his vision.
Golgren slowly moved toward the figures, trying to focus better on them. Although he was able to make them out as forms, they were never very distinct. As he drew closer, he saw that they did not exactly walk, but kept jerking slightly and shifting forward, as if someone were pushing along a series of drawings.
Their poses varied. Each shift revealed slight differences from the previous manifestation. It came to Golgren’s mind that he was perhaps seeing pieces of the past.
That he was experiencing a vision that had something to do with the artifact was obvious; perhaps the figures even carried the artifact. However, no matter the angle from which he studied the shadows, he was never able to see what it was they carried. Indeed, when Golgren tried to come around behind the figures, he discovered they had no dimension of depth. Their overall images had two sides, but not front or back-very much like drawings.
Idaria joined him, aware that something beyond her ken was taking place, yet still trying in vain to perceive what it was. She started to come around Golgren’s other side, putting herself in the shadows’ path without realizing it.
Golgren tried to warn her off, but it was too late. The first shade passed directly through the slave without pause, and without any apparent effect either to her or to the shadowy figure.
Finally with some idea of what was happening, Idaria moved over behind Golgren, following him as he paced the last of the shades.
Standing, they would have been just slightly shorter than Golgren and roughly the size of an Uruv Suurt. There were faint glimpses of faces among them, but not enough to identify them.
“It is the eight,” he verified to himself. “The eight casters.” The Grand Khan again attempted to spot what it was that those in front carried, but all he caught were glimpses of what seemed to be a large, dark chest.
So engrossed was he in angling for a better view that he no longer paid attention to where the band was heading. It was Idaria who saved him at the last second from what might have been a hard collision with a wall of rock, the elf pulling Golgren back with a surprising display of strength. Golgren watched narrow-eyed as the final shadow entered the rock.
He thrust his hand after the last figure. Surprisingly, his fingers passed through, briefly, but they grazed the rock hard enough to warn the half-breed that the wall was no illusion.
As the final shape faded away, something new shimmered into existence. Golgren’s eyes widened as he beheld the second symbol etched by the fires, scored into the rock wall.
A brief but startled sound from Idaria indicated that she saw the symbol too. Golgren studied the mark closely, trying to see if it differed in some way from the one in the encampment. As far as he could determine, they were identical.