As the supreme voice, Dauroth had formerly held the place of honor at the center of the Black Talon. But both he and his intended successor, Hundjal, had perished that ignominious day. The apprentice had died at the whim of his master, but even so, several seats had opened up in the Black Talon, and there was a new Titan in charge-whose ascendancy to power had been a tremendous surprise to some.
No one argued that Safrag was not the true master. There had been some protest early on, but those two grumbling Titans had simply disappeared, and none of the others were at all interested in asking questions as to their fate.
For the most part, the dread sorcerers were of a kind, and the epitome of what Dauroth had dreamed was the picture of their glorious ancestors. Their skin was of an arresting blue tint, just as was said to be true of their ancestors, in the tales of the High Ogres. Dauroth’s intended golden age was to have been populated by beings who were giants among giants. Thus the Titans were some fifteen feet tall, more than half again the height of their brethren. Built like graceful acrobats, they were not the brutish, muscular warriors that the rest of the race had developed into. No ordinary ogre could match a Titan in hand-to-hand combat, for the latter’s sleek form hid not only tremendous strength, but swiftness and agility.
The High Ogres had been beautiful and so the Titans were also, albeit with a subtle touch of darkness. Their skin was without blemish, and their golden eyes glowed. The high, sharp point of their ears was quite visible, due to their habit of binding their long, ebony hair into tight, thick tails. Each wore an elegant, silken robe-dark blue with hints of red-that flowed down to sandaled feet. Crimson sashes stretched from the right shoulder down to the left side of their golden-belted waists. A decorative armor plate covered their left shoulders, and their arms themselves were bare, save for a gleaming silver metal band on the right wrist, a red silken one on the other.
Although they resembled each other enough to be brothers-all, that is, save for one of their number-if one looked close, one could still see distinctive features that remained as faint memories of their former lives. It was the group that was paramount, not the individual. That had been the law under Dauroth, and it was still the law under Safrag-although that law applied to everyone but the leader.
Gargoyles had been part of the discussion held by Golgren and Tyranos; not at all by chance, they were part of the current debate among the Black Talon.
The Titans despised the tongue of their base brethren and also eschewed the use of Common, save when having to deal with outsiders or those new among their ranks. Instead, they sang the words of a glorious language Dauroth had claimed was that of the High Ogres. Safrag, at least, knew it was simply another of his late master’s creations. So much of the Titans’ culture was imaginative fabrication, not true fact or history. The former apprentice had no qualms about keeping what he liked about the Titan legacy and gradually changing what he did not.
But to shape the Titans as he ultimately desired, to shape all ogres as he planned, Safrag needed something special. It was what he had invoked to manipulate Dauroth into slaying Hundjal, before tricking his master into slaying himself with his own spellwork.
Legend named it the Fire Rose. And whoever was master of the gargoyles was interfering with his attempt to find it once and for all.
Safrag stood. He was a monumental sight even to the rest of the Black Talon, most of whom suspected him of somehow causing the deaths of Dauroth and Hundjal by his cunning. The other members of the inner circle listened breathlessly as he sang to them of the reason for their summons.
“Another!” he shouted, his song strident. Outsiders would have perhaps been captivated by the singing but would have been utterly unable to decipher the meaning of his words. “There lies another!”
He gestured to the center of the chamber, to the floor where a symbol of a great black claw had been set in stone. Directly above the claw symbol, a crackling sphere of white-blue energy was responsible for what little illumination lit the chamber.
Safrag stretched out his hand. Each nail was as dark as night, long, and tapering to a sudden, sharp curve. His nails were well matched with the shorter, but sharper, hooks at his elbows.
Black flames burst from the stone floor, the talon symbol briefly coming alive in the fire. The fire began to transform itself, taking on a constantly shifting shape that seemed to want nothing more than to leap and dance. That shape began to coalesce, and as it did, the flames started to die.
And in moments, where there had been fire, there struggled a gargoyle, gray-blue in color and with a long muzzle almost avian in its beaky shape.
“I seek for us the means to achieve our dreams,” Safrag intoned. He glanced at those on his left, and those on his right. His anger was clear and righteous. “I seek that which legend says can transform our realm into the paradise it once was and was meant to be! And what do you give me, instead? Another winged vermin.”
Unlike the members of the Black Talon, the imprisoned creature was not cowed. The gargoyle hissed and spat and tried to reach for Safrag with his claws. Its wings beat, but it did not rise so much as an inch off the floor. There was no sign of what held the beast captive, but it certainly did so thoroughly.
“It was caught observing our search near Khur,” sang the Titan who had brought the creature to Safrag. Khur was a desolate land northeast of Blode and the subject of much conjecture as to the likely hiding place of the mysterious artifact. “Better to bring it to the Black Talon and question what it knows-”
Safrag cut the other Titan off. “It knows as much as those before it, and will tell us none of it … will you, beast?”
The gargoyle snapped at him again. Such creatures could speak, and there were some scholars who said that they had an intelligence comparable to that of an average ogre. But the greatest tortures that Safrag had devised had proven unable to stir the creatures’ tongues to wagging.
And so, to the Titan leader, one more gargoyle meant little but irritation. It was their master he desired, their chief-a master Safrag felt certain was somehow tied to Golgren.
He clenched his fist. The gargoyle howled as it suddenly twisted like a wet cloth that someone sought to tightly wring out. Bones cracked, and its scaled hide ripped open to unleash a sickening torrent of blood, other fluids, and crushed organs.
Safrag gestured. The black flames briefly burst to life again, completely devouring the gargoyle while protecting the pristine floor from its destroyed body, fluids, and organs.
The lead Titan surveyed the others with a glare. “Bring me the head of that refuse’s master and nothing less! Otherwise we waste time. There must be no further interruption of our hunt.”
“What hunt?” blurted Yatilun, one of the first to support Safrag’s ascension and, of late, one of those most frustrated by the lack of progress in their quest. “We find one dead end after another while our cache of elixir depletes. Dauroth would have-”
A singular look from Safrag sent the other Titan withdrawing into his chair, his mouth clamped shut. The leader of the Black Talon smiled around broadly. But it was no smile of pleasure, rather a reminder that he would tolerate only so much. Like all Titans, Safrag’s handsome facade crumbled when his teeth were revealed, twin rows of sharp teeth more akin to those of a shark than any other creature. Those seated on each side of Safrag surreptitiously leaned away from him.