But one Titan dared speak. A feminine hand touched Safrag’s. He looked down to his right, where the lone female among the Black Talon, the only representative of her gender to be invited into the inner circle, sat as his favored apprentice.
“He is only as anxious as the rest of us, master,” the female Titan whispered, her full, dark lips creased in a slight smile. Long lashes partially veiled her brilliant, golden eyes. “Yatilun merely spoke before he considered.”
Her hand lingered a moment longer than necessary. While Safrag’s expression did not change, he did not pull his hand away from her touch.
It was not merely because she was the only female among them that most of the other Titans were prey to her allure. The transformation from ogre to sorceress had created a seductress unparalleled in her. Her long, flowing midnight black hair-hair never bound as a male’s was, beautiful hair that streamed down to her waist-framed a face that made the most glorious elf princess appear a hag by comparison.
Morgada continued displaying her half smile with hints of teeth not so grand in size as a male’s, but certainly as sharp or even sharper. Safrag turned his gaze from his apprentice to Yatilun.
“We are all anxious to see the destiny of our people fulfilled,” the lead Titan sang in a conciliatory, soothing tone. “And so, I do forgive your outburst, my friend.”
“Gracious is Safrag,” Yatilun sang back in the Titan language.
“It is true, all trails have led to nothing thus far, and that must be remedied. That is why I have summoned all of you. I have pored over all matters arcane and have at last determined how best to pinpoint the Fire Rose.”
“The small piece that Dauroth and you discovered was supposed to help us many, many months ago,” pointed out another Titan. “‘ Like calling to like.’ Is that not how it works?”
Safrag bowed his head in acknowledgment of the words he himself had uttered just after making his claim to Dauroth’s position. “True, but for the first months we were too weak to undertake such an imposing spell. For the months that followed, we made the assumption that our previous conjurations would work as well for the matter in hand, as they have worked for other purposes, yes?”
“Of course,” remarked Yatilun, intrigued. “Why not?”
Their leader looked to his apprentice. “Morgada?”
With a smile designed to draw every eye to her, she answered, “High Ogre magic still eludes us.”
As her words registered among the inner circle, Safrag added his own satisfied smile to hers. “High Ogre magic. Though Dauroth preached to us about how ours was a power akin to that of the ancients’, he failed to realize they had many, many generations of study and use that we did not.”
“How can we overcome an obstacle of experience that far dwarfs ours?” asked another sorcerer. Several of the inner circle murmured their agreement with that burning question.
“Why, by using the ancients themselves, their very powers and secrets, in order to learn where the artifact is.”
There was a great rumble from the rest of the Black Talon. Safrag looked again to Morgada, whose eyes flashed their approval.
“How do we do that?” Yatilun finally asked. “What do you mean by that riddle? Must we raise the dead?”
“Hardly that. We merely have to rob the dead-which we already have.” He gestured at the spot where the gargoyle had stood.
Another burst of black flame erupted, but it lasted only scant seconds before retreating to the nether reaches. In its wake, the fire left a black metal chest chained by silver strands, hovering at waist level. The box was large enough to hold a small cat, and there appeared to be no separation between the lid and its main body.
Safrag suddenly stood next to the box and tapped on the top of it with one finger. With a hiss the strands became serpents that writhed and sought his hand.
Startled, the other sorcerers edged back. However, an undaunted Safrag let the serpents bite him.
The serpents stiffened as they bit. One by one, the serpent guardians turned to ash that fell to the floor and faded away.
With what seemed almost reverence, Safrag raised the lid.
A fiery light filled the chamber that nearly blinded the Titans. They were forced to shield their eyes.
His own gaze already protected by his spellwork, Safrag reached inside.
His hand thrust into a clear liquid. He removed something that was easily hidden in his returning fist yet still illuminated the chamber from between his clenched fingers.
“Behold!” he proclaimed. “Only a hint of the glory that we seek.”
The lead Titan opened his hand palm up to display for the rest a tiny, tiny fragment of what appeared to be incandescent pearl. Freed of his grip, it again radiated a brilliant light.
“Behold! The slightest piece of the greatest artifact of the High Ogres.”
“The Fire Rose!” more than one Titan murmured. They had all seen the fragment once before-when they had last sought the artifact from which it had somehow broken off-but so great was its power that all marveled at it as if for the first time.
“But … We have used it before,” the Titan on Morgada’s other side finally spouted. “We came away with nothing!”
“That is true, Draug. But, as I said, we used only our own, deficient magic. It is true High Ogre power that we need. And a ready source for it has been awaiting us all the while.”
Draug and the others held their tongues as Safrag dismissed the box almost contemptuously. Still clutching the pea-sized fragment, he spread his hands toward the other ten members of the Black Talon.
“Come to me and receive life unbound …”
Several of the Titans started forward warily. His words were the opening declaration to one of the supreme rituals of their kind. More than one looked to their neighbor for verification that they had heard true.
Rising smoothly, Morgada vanished from her place, only to reappear at a point close to the right of her master. The Titaness turned to him, her face expressionless.
Her bold action stirred the rest into movement. One by one, the members of the Talon took up their proper places. They glanced around at each other, wondering what their leader planned. He still held the minute piece of the legendary artifact. But surely he did not plan to use it directly on them …
Safrag whispered something to the fragment. Almost with reluctance, he tossed it from his palm. Yatilun gasped and nearly leaped from his place for fear that it would shatter and explode when it struck the stone floor.
Instead the artifact fragment flew up in the air, rising to a place directly above the lead Titan and just below the white-blue sphere whose light it utterly overwhelmed.
As it hovered above them, Safrag smiled at his companions.
“Do you accept what I offer?” he sang, speaking the next line of the ritual.
“I am an empty vessel,” Morgada led the others in replying. “Let that vessel be filled.”
“Let that vessel be filled.” The rest concluded the chant.
“Magic is the blood, the blood is the magic. Take unto you that which I give, and you will live forever!”
As one, the other Titans declared, “We will live forever! Let the magic be our blood, for we would drink of eternity.”
Safrag should have brought forth the dwindling supply of elixir that the Titans needed to imbibe every so often to keep their forms and power. If they did not drink it, they were doomed to a terrible fate. There was a monstrous price to pay for becoming a Titan: deprived of the elixir-which included fresh elf blood as one of its chief ingredients-a sorcerer’s body would go through such withdrawals from the loss of magic that it would twist and warp and become a thing so foul even the lowest ogre would turn from it in disgust.
Donnag, once master of Blode and believed by many at the time of his ascension to be the one who would restore the ogres to their glory, had joined the Titans at Dauroth’s invitation. Yet Donnag had been far too eager to slay the upstart Golgren. When his plot had failed-risking open battle between the influential half-breed and the Titans-Dauroth had permitted Golgren to condemn the chieftain to no more elixirs.