But when he responded, Sarth spoke calm and strong. “Bya d’lach iGuyviri.”
The drumming renewed. Sarth indicated for the father, Braag, to join him in the center of the bowl.
As Braag lowered the child toward the elder ogre, he revealed three jagged crimson bolts tattooed on his lower torso. They were one of the symbols marking him as chieftain of the tribe. That made the tininess of the infant even more significant, for a chief’s son should be great and strong from birth. Yet there was not even a lusty cry from the child, merely writhing movement and silence.
Sarth drew the symbol of the sun in the air and gestured at a crooked gap in the onyx outgrowth.
Without preamble, Braag placed the cloth-covered infant on the jagged surface. The figure inside squirmed more, but only when Sarth gently removed the top of the cloth was the son of Braag revealed.
Premature births-generally stillborns-were all too common among ogres, who struggled day to day for survival. The infant son of Braag looked very much like the result of a premature birth, not only in size, but in the stunted features of the face and the softness of the oddly pale skin.
The eyes opened … eyes that were not ogre at all, but more like that of the hated elves. Almond-shaped they were, and of an emerald green reminiscent of the distant forests of Silvanost. Small wonder, since the baby’s mother was an elf herself, a slavewith whom the chieftain was so obsessed he had made her his mate. He even accepted the son she had birthed, a son who, by all rights, should not have been possible. No crossbreeding between the two races was known before. Neither would have wanted such a birth either. But it had come.
And a son, even one as puny and as likely to die quickly as Braag believed he would, was better than nothing at all. To the chieftain, it was a way of binding the mother to him more, a desire far greater in his heart than to see the infant live. Only for her did he treat the wriggling mass like his own blood.
“Tun i f’da oGuyviri, oGuyviri,” Sarth muttered to the baby.
The eyes stared at the shaman as if understanding. Sarth grunted, and produced a rusty dagger seemingly from nowhere.
With expert precision, he drew a tiny red line across the infant’s chest. The child-called Guyvir by his father-squirmed but did not otherwise react, which caused both the shaman and Braag to hesitate for a moment. Sarth finally gave the chieftain an impressed grunt, which made Braag nod approvingly. Small and pale the chieftain’s son might be, but the baby handled pain better than most ogre children. That in itself was a trait in which the father might take some pride.
Sarth took the blade to Braag’s chest, where, with the bloody point, he drew a similar line. Thus the tie between father and child was acknowledged. The strength of the elder would feed the younger, while the potential greatness of the younger would make immortal the elder.
Assuming the younger lived.
The sun had risen enough that the bowl was almost blinding. Even with the thin strips of cloth to protect his eyes, Braag needed to shield them with one hand. Sarth appeared to pay the increasing brightness no mind, and neither, it seemed, did the child. Guyvir did nothing but continue to stare at the elder shaman, or perhaps through him. Sarth could not help but look up over his bent shoulder. Yet there was nothing to see.
Returning the dagger to the infant, the elder ogre let the oddly soft mouth touch the blade’s tip. Guyvir instinctively sought to suckle the tip, resulting in him lapping up a drop or two of the mingled blood.
The assembled males barked. The drummers doubled the beat.
Sarth set the dagger down next to the baby. The onyx outgrowth glowed with the power of the great fireball in the sky. The Burning was well underway. The shaman hurried with the ceremony. Not even a tiny child like that could be risked if there was any chance he would serve the tribe and the clan. Ogres were harsh and hardy, but not mad.
The elder ogre threw a pinch of gray powder at the staring child. Next to him, Braag let out a sound of mild surprise; the dust had seemingly come from Sarth’s very fingertips. There was no pouch at his waist, no cup at his side.
Guyvir sniffed at the dust, but did not even sneeze. For a child of any age, he seemed extremely calm, patient. Sarth’s brow grew more wrinkled.
“Idun tu i iGuyviri zadi tun-”
A shadow passed over Sirrion’s Eye. The drummers faltered, and all looked to the sky, including the shaman.
And all were immediately blinded by the fierce fireball that was the sun.
There was an intake of breath from Sarth as he turned his gaze back to the infant. Again, it seemed as if the baby Guyvir were staring past him.
Braag suddenly seized his son, a shocking break in the ceremony. Sarth put a warning hand on the chieftain’s arm, but Braag angrily shook it off.
“Gya i f’huu di iGuyviri tun jakabari ul!” Braag almost spat. His red-tinted eyes swept over his son with open loathing. Braag had taken the inexplicable shadowing of the sun as a sign his offspring was cursed.
Sarth shook his head, but Braag stalked away from the site, his warriors already gathering behind him. The shaman shookhis head again; the father risked a curse if he didn’t let the ceremony finish.
“Dya i f’huu di iGuyviri o iBraagi daruun,” the shaman murmured, glancing not at the retreating form of the chieftain, but rather up at the bright sky again. He nodded to himself. Turning to face empty air, he suddenly said in Common, “The fire is your destiny, Guyvir.”
And, at that moment, Golgren stirred. His first impulse was to look around him, yet there were no signs of Sarth, his father, or wretched Aur nu iSirriti. Even so, Golgren felt as if the event which he had dreamed had only just taken place, despite the fact he had been the infant in the dream.
He could not, of course, recall something so far back in his life as his birth ceremony, and he had never heard anyone talk about that event in his life. And yet … He recalled an odd look on his father’s ugly countenance whenever they had taken part in similar ceremonies, a look of uncertainty, as if Braag wondered if he had made some dreadful mistake.
But had that mistake been to take his child from Sirrion’s Eye, or simply to let Golgren live at all?
The half-breed stood. He had no idea where he was, save that he was underground in a wide chamber that looked to have been formed by nature. A vast number of narrow, long stalactites hung over him, while in various places on the floor shorter, thicker stalagmites thrust up as if miniature mountains.
Golgren registered one very unnatural element to the chamber: He could see almost as if the sun shone down upon it. There was no discernible source of illumination, yet he could see twenty strides in every direction. In one of those directions was a gap that led away from the chamber.
The symbol carved in the rock by what he assumed was High Ogre magic had sent him here, that much was obvious. But exactly how far he was from Idaria and his last location was impossible to know. He’d prefer to assume he was still in the mountains leading to the Vale of Vipers, but it was also possible that he was somewhere else in old Blode, if even in old Blode at all.