A metal door identical to the previous one greeted them. Stefan took more caution opening it, but once more they were greeted by no menace.
Beyond the door, a heavy scent prompted Chasm to emit a low, warning growl. The Solamnian also knew the smell. It was a place where the great flock of gargoyles gathered.
In the limited light of the pendant, Stefan saw nothing. He looked to his companion, who sniffed the pungent air. After a moment, Chasm gave a grunt and moved forward. Stefan followed.
“Gods,” the cleric murmured. Even a few steps farther into the room brought a much, much heavier wave of the stench. It was not simply a matter of how many gargoyles nested in the room, but how many generations of them had done so.
The vast chamber had the look of once having been a ballroom perhaps, or at least a place for a gathering of beings other than gargoyles. There was a mosaic pattern on the marble floor, but between the darkness and the disarray of the creatures living in the room, Stefan could not make out what it was.
Large patches of dried shrubs, branches, and other vegetable matter had been gathered to make countless sleeping places for the flock. Bits of food-unidentifiable meat, pieces of fur, various plants-lay scattered. There were many bones, some quite large. Stefan peered at a skull, grateful to see it was not human or some other intelligent race.
“No young,” he muttered to Chasm.
“Hidden to keep alive.”
“Why?”
“Males fight,” the gargoyle replied with a tone that indicated Stefan should know that. “Young not quick.”
“You were raised by Tyranos. How do you know-”
“All know.”
“But-” The cleric hesitated. Amid the many smaller nests making up the huge one he spotted a single, dark form. The Solamnian gripped his sword tighter. Chasm, responding to his sudden tenseness, crouched in preparation for a leap.
The form remained still. Stefan closed on the nest. Unlike the gargoyles he had seen, the beast apparently had some whiteness or silver to it. He wondered if it had been dead a while.
At last, the light of the pendant washed over the unmoving figure.
The knight nearly dropped his weapon. Chasm let out a low rumble of nervousness. The gargoyle was as stunned as the human, for although they both recognized the unconscious figure, it was not anyone they had expected to find.
It was Idaria.
Setting down his sword, Stefan rushed to the elf slave’s side. She looked bruised, but otherwise whole. The cleric’s brow furrowed as he carefully raised her head up. The elf looked peaceful, as if she were just taking a nap.
Her eyes fluttered open. She shook her head. “Sir S-Stefan? No, you cannot be.” Idaria pulled away. “You-You must be him! You must be-”
The elf fell back, trying to swallow air. The cleric fumbled for a water sack he belatedly recalled he had lost long before.
“Lady Idaria, it is me! It is Stefan Rennert-”
“No!” Her eyes widening, she tried to scuttle away from him. “The Solamnian is dead. You cannot fool me with his semblance! You are no more him than you were the Nerakan!”
“Nerakan? Lady Idaria, what are you talking about?” The elf hesitated. In a small voice she asked, “Sir Stefan, is it you? Is it truly you?”
“I swear it.”
Her eyes growing both hopeful and determined, Idaria took hold of his arm. “Sir Stefan! We must help him. The Titan fights with him. But worse, there is the-”
She stopped in mid-breath, suddenly staring with cold eyes past him. At the same time, Chasm let out a warning cry.
Stefan whirled around to discover several shadowed forms converging on the trio. He had not even heard or sensed them, yet they were so near that Chasm had to leap back to avoid being grabbed. The gargoyle took to the air-
— and was tackled by a bony form. Two others quickly joined the tangle, the three monstrous creatures bringing Chasm down as quickly as he had risen.
They were gargoyles, but gargoyles long, long dead. Only scraps of hide still clung to their skeletal forms.
Stefan had his own predicament, for other figures surrounded Idaria and him. In the pale light of Kiri-Jolith’s medallion, their aspects were awful. Like the gargoyles who had just attacked Chasm, the figures were long dead. Scraps of clothing and rusting armor remained to mark what the horrors had once been.
They were all taller than Stefan, more the height of Golgren. As they stretched fleshless hands toward the knight, he noted some still wore adornments and had bits of long, flowing hair. Stefan would have taken them for elves, but they were not. They were something quite different.
Tugging Idaria behind him, the Solamnian slashed at the first corpse, severing its bony hands and chopping off its head. He hurled the still-standing figure into the one closest to it and tried to drive two others back.
“Sir Stefan! You cannot-”
The rest of what the elf was saying was lost as Chasm let out a terrible hiss of frustration. The gargoyle’s horrific counterparts had him pinned to the floor.
Chasm’s fate was up to him. Stefan was already hard pressed. More and more skeletal hands grasped for him and the elf, and it was all he could do to get away. They were suddenly everywhere. The cleric struck down two more before realizing from their garments that they were the first two he had faced.
The dead were rebuilding themselves.
Uttering a prayer to Kiri-Jolith, the cleric redoubled his efforts. The undead were thrown back slightly. Stefan saw an opening.
“My lady!” he shouted. “That-”
His sword arm was seized. Two undead ripped the blade from his grip. Three more brought the Solamnian to his knees.
He heard a cry from Idaria and another desperate hiss from Chasm. Looking for the elf, Stefan forced his head up.
A bony hand wielding the knight’s own sword thrust the weapon at Stefan’s chest. The armor should have stopped the point, but the monstrous figure shoved the sword with inhuman strength. The blade sank through not only metal, but flesh and bone. It plunged until it reached the Solamnian’s heart, though Stefan knew before that the wound was fatal.
Sir Stefan Rennert fell lifeless, his last thought only that he had failed his mission, and his companions.
It said much for the Fire Rose’s seductive powers that even though Golgren was sorely wounded, he still managed to stretch his shaking hand forward and seize hold of its stem. Nothing mattered more than keeping a grip on the artifact.
Safrag sought to stab him again, but the landscape went through yet another upheaval. Flames erupted around the duo, and where once the Titan had stood, a ravine formed.
The abrupt change caught Safrag so off guard he could not keep himself from falling. His hand slipped free of the artifact.
But as the sorcerer vanished from his sight, Golgren’s will failed. He tumbled over and, in doing so, sent the Fire Rose flying.
Sirrion’s creation went bouncing along the churning earth, fiery sparks marking each time it struck something solid. Yet its crystalline form was not marred in the least.
Golgren dragged himself after the artifact. The Fire Rose had come to rest against a fair sized rock, with the area stable once more.
His breathing ragged, the half-breed pulled himself toward the artifact one hand at time. The furious glitter of the Fire Rose ensnared his gaze much as Sirrion’s eyes had done earlier. All that mattered was to reach it, hold it, possess it.
It will put everything right, a voice in the Grand Khan’s head whispered enticingly. It will heal everything.
A shadow passed over him.
With a determined grunt, Golgren catapulted himself toward the Fire Rose. He sensed the gargoyle descending just as he grabbed the magical piece. Golgren rolled on his back, clutching the Fire Rose, and watched with disbelief as his winged attacker suddenly writhed in the air.