The body was once again seated as before. Golgren met Idaria’s gaze and knew that, like him, she had not seen any movement. Yet one moment, the High Ogre had been lying with his head on the table, and in the he next breath had resumed his previous pose.
Or nearly his previous pose.
One skeletal finger of the dead leader was pointing past the other corpses to the nearest wall.
Golgren stepped to the wall, carefully studying the images emblazoned there. No Fire Rose, or griffon, or other intriguing design was there, only an image of the sun over a landscape in flux.
He touched the sun.
The signet suddenly flared.
The wall melted.
A set of golden steps led down. From wherever the steps led wafted a heat that made the ogre leader begin to sweat. Despite the heat, Golgren wasted not a moment in descending.
The walls flanking the steps glowed a bright orange-red. The heat increased as the half-breed proceeded down, but never became so stifling that he had to turn around. Still, by the time he reached the bottom of the steps, Golgren, who had faced the incessant heat of the ogre lands throughout his life, was nearly gasping for breath.
As he focused through tearing eyes on the scene before him, the Grand Khan for a moment completely forgot the heat.
Ahead lay a chamber, in the center of which stood an imposing statue of gold-a statue with no face. It was identical to the figure that had led them through the earlier passages, identical in all ways, save its tremendous size. The statue stood at least a head taller than even an imposing Titan like Safrag.
Both hands were stretched out with their palms up, as if the giant contemplated what lay in each. In the left was held a sphere that, although it had false flames rising up from it, also depicted what appeared to be landscapes.
Once more, Golgren blinked away tears as the heat stirred his eyes. He recognized a few of the areas shown on the sphere from maps. It was some sort of representation of his world, of Krynn, but as a round ball, not the flat plate Golgren’s tribe had believed it to be.
He looked at what lay in the other palm … and realized that there was nothing in it. Golgren shook his head in disbelief; he was certain something had been there a moment before. The Grand Khan strode up closer to the statue.
As he did so, the heat surged. He was perspiring heavily. The moisture spilled into his eyes in such quantity that everything took on a murky appearance, as if he stared at the statue’s palm from deep within some body of water. No matter how hard Golgren blinked, his vision did not clear. Indeed, at times thing looked as though they were changing, even as he stared-
No, what he was seeing had changed. And the golden figure was slowly but surely bending down toward him, its empty hand closing on the half-breed. A fiery light erupted from the seemingly empty palm. Golgren covered his eyes-
I’m so hungry … have you brought me something?
The voice in his head startled Golgren as little else in his life had shocked him. He uncovered his eyes and looked around. But there was not only no sign of whoever had spoken, the great statue was also gone.
In its place-in place of the entire chamber into which he had just stepped-was what seemed to be the interior of a temple. A curved, stone path ran from where the half-breed stood to the other end of the room. Vast reliefs of the High Ogre race spread across the near walls of the temple and across the ceiling, but just as in the one area of the passages, those farther away from him were scorched beyond recognition.
Ahead lay what was surely an altar. As Golgren stepped toward it, he saw that it was built into the rock-or had actually even been carved from it. Much of the altar consisted of a long platform of gray marble stretching across the width of the chamber. Meticulously carved into the altar-and, especially, the main ledge-were a variety of symbols that the Grand Khan assumed derived from the language of the High Ogres. Mixed with them were the symbols of the gods, dark, neutral, and light. Above the main ledge, he could see an arch with black bars running perpendicular to one another, much like those of a gate or a prison door.
And within the arch, something glowed a faint red.
He immediately started for the altar. Yet barely had he moved than his foot caught on something.
Golgren gazed down at another High Ogre corpse … one far more skeletal than those above. The skeleton lay sprawled headfirst toward the altar, one extended arm just touching the base of the structure.
He knew the corpse for a High Ogre, but only barely. There were too many things wrong with it.
The skull looked as if it had been stretched long, and the jaws-set in a scream-appeared fused to the skull, not loose as they should have been. Yet even that was not as unsettling as the rest of the body. The arm that reached for the altar was twisted at an odd angle and actually split at the elbow, from where two forearms, both ending in hands, began.
Unlike the mummified figures in the other chamber, the robes of the skeleton were in tatters, revealing a rib cage that was also oddly fused, as if instead of a series of ribs the High Ogre had only one massive rib on each side of its body. Yet despite that solid appearance, something had cause the center to burst open; in Golgren’s mind that event was very likely what had finished off the macabre figure.
The horrific sight caused the Grand Khan to hesitate for only a moment. Whoever the other High Ogre had been in life, he had failed in his quest. Golgren, however, had no intention of doing so. Too much had led him to that moment. He was meant to succeed.
He stepped up to the altar. The glow within the small, barred alcove increased.
Golgren put a hand to the bars.
“Let the meredrake find the trail, take from the meredrake the prey. You should know that works so well.”
Golgren did not even look behind him. “Good Safrag, the vipers found your poison too much for their delicate stomachs?”
A tremendous force threw the Grand Khan to the side, sending him spilling into the skeleton. Golgren rolled over the ancient corpse and came up with one of its arm bones in his grip. In one fluid movement he flung the bone at the Titan.
It came within inches of the sorcerer’s handsome face, but flew off in another direction as if it had bounced off an invisible wall. The bone fell against the wall to Safrag’s right with a clatter that echoed loud and long.
“You will live only long enough to witness my triumph, the Titan triumph, mongrel.” The gargantuan spellcaster beamed toothily as he glided toward Golgren and the altar. “Would you like to know what is going on with your little realm? The foundation is cracking, oh Grand Khan. Garantha has been undermined by those you thought would give their blood to you! You are betrayed at every turn, mongrel, even by your adoring slave.”
Golgren’s eyes darted past Safrag, but there was indeed no sign of Idaria. Hadn’t she been following him closely, as ever?
The Titan reached the altar. He extended a taloned hand to the bars.
“Be so very careful, good Safrag,” Golgren mocked. “You may come away with too many hands or heads.”
The spellcaster paused. He looked down at the remains of the fallen High Ogre, and glanced at Golgren. “A wonderful point, mongrel. Come, elf. I have a task for you.”
At last, Golgren spotted Idaria, her face devoid of all emotion, entering the chamber at the far end. Golgren eyed her up and down, sensing no spell, no coercion. To his astonishment, she walked over to Safrag with what seemed utter willingness.
“I will open the way, elf. You’ll remove that within, won’t you?”
“Yes, Safrag,” she replied, not looking at Golgren.