Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon (18 page)

Still, here was an old storefront he used to visit, and there was the fountain he remembered, and last was the tavern where he and Dak and Jervis and Vala and Marga would gather after patrol. He thought of them all, in that pale, dead city, and his heart sank again.

He looked at the others. Killeen had her hood up, and Gullik looked particularly bored. Ember looked about, possibly scouting for escape routes. His eyes locked with Riona’s for a moment, and he saw in them the same sadness that he felt.

At last they reached a particularly thick reinforced door attached to a particularly dingy and windowless building. The guards took up positions on either side of the door as Kranxx fumbled with a set of oversized keys. He made a great production of opening no less than three sets of locks and swinging the door inward, then stepped aside. To the guards he said, “See you in the morning.” To Dougal he said, “You lot! Inside! Quit
wasting my time!”

The group dutifully entered, Ember giving token resistance on her chains and being pushed forward by Gullik. The asura stood by the door, slammed it after they entered, and resecured the locks, adding a pair of dead bolts as well.

Dougal looked around. The room was small, low-ceilinged—Gullik had to duck to miss the crossbeams—and littered with all manner of anvils, forges, odd-shaped rocks, skulls, glassware, and a variety of tools. What the room missed was the obvious cage that Kranxx had mentioned to the Vanguard lieutenant.

The asura finished barring the door and picked up something that looked like an elongated tuning fork. He tapped it against a metal plate and a bolt of lightning arced between the tines.

“I’m going to need you to scream,” he said to Ember quietly.

Ember looked down at the asura, her shoulders hunched, “Why should I …”

“We have two guards outside who overheard me talking about skinning you,” said the asura. “I do not doubt that one if not both have their ears pressed against the door, waiting to hear your screams. We should oblige them.”

Ember looked angrily at the asura, then let out a loud snarl.

Kranxx shook his head. “Pitiful. I said a
scream,
” said Kranxx. He smacked the tuning fork against the metal plate again and it cracked like a lightning bolt, casting harsh shadows of the group behind them.

The manacled charr, standing ten feet away from him, unharmed, scowled. Then she bellowed, “No! I will never submit!
Argggghhh!
”

“Into the cage, beast!” shouted the asura.

“A charr will never—
Arggh!
The pain! My fur!
I’m burning!
” cried Ember.

“You do not know pain yet! Into the cage!” Kranxx tapped the fork a third time and it exploded in a shower of sparks, matched by Ember’s own ear-piercing scream.

“Throw it in the cage and we can begin!” said the asura.

“Yes, Master Kranxx!” shouted Gullik enthusiastically. Riona and Ember both looked at the norn, their mouths open in disbelief. Gullik raised his eyebrows and said, “Just trying to help.”

“Good!” cried Kranxx in triumph. “Now administer the sedative and we can begin. I want to flay that creature alive!” And he calmly set down his lightning fork and said in a low voice, “That was very good, charr. Have you done that professionally?”

“I have had my opportunities,” said Ember, no longer as panicked as she had once appeared.

“Very well,” said the asura, listening for a moment to his door, then nodding to the others. “Come, we should be out of here. Lieutenant Stafford will not dare wake his commander, but you can bet he’ll be there in his office with the first dawn’s light. And don’t touch that.” The last was directed at Gullik, who had reached out for the lightning fork.

Kranxx pulled a bag from one side of his worktable
and put the fork into it, along with a couple flasks of bluish liquid and a couple other tools. He adjusted a few things on his workbench. He looked around the workshop and let out a sigh, then turned toward a back wall stacked with barrels. He opened one of the barrels, reached in, and pulled a switch, and the entire wall, complete with false barrel fronts, swung outward, revealing a narrow set of stairs descending into the earth.

“Follow me,” said the asura, pulling a small gem from his pocket and blowing on it. It glowed with an amber radiance. As he walked down the stairs, other gems set into walls glimmered to life, with wan flames that provided a minimum of guidance.

Riona, still holding on to Ember’s chain, followed Kranxx; Killeen and Gullik went next; and Dougal brought up the rear. He looked around the empty, windowless workshop and thought he heard the sound of cooling metal ticking away as it contracted. He wondered how long the guards outside would be content with listening to a sedated charr behind closed doors.

As Dougal worked his way through the passage, he noted that the smaller gemstones were already fading. They walked for what he estimated were two city blocks, then turned right and walked another one. Dougal tried to visualize where that put him in the city, but failed.

They emerged in the large basement of another building, probably a warehouse, at the top of a ramp. The ramp switched back twice before opening up into a space large enough to be a throne room but stacked
with storage shelves. Little sat on the shelves but a few basic supplies plus several slabs of stone and ingots of metal stacked in a haphazard way, all wreathed in shadow. Several half-built golems lay in a pile in one corner, and along one wall was the half-constructed form of an asura gate. The shelves had been cleared away from the front of the room, the centerpiece of which was a long, circular lab table set at the perfect height for an asura to work at.

Kranxx slapped a small panel as he came into the room, and a flame leaped to life under a pot sitting on a metal surface. “Pardon the mess,” he said. “I don’t often have guests.”

Ember crinkled her snout as she sniffed at the air. “I can see why,” she said. “It smells like something died down here.”

“No one can prove that,” said Kranxx, smiling. “And if they can, I wasn’t anywhere near here when it happened.”

He turned to Riona. “Are you in charge here, or were you just the only one willing to hold the charr’s chain?”

Riona nodded indignantly. “While we appreciate your aid, our business here is our own. We must leave this place as soon as possible, by orders of the queen of Kryta.”

“Right,” Kranxx said. “And I’m really Master Snaff of Destiny’s Edge.”

“I assume you are the general’s ‘man’ in Ebonhawke,” said Dougal.

Kranxx sneered at that. “She didn’t mention me by
name? That sounds like Soulkeeper coming and going. She is too clever by half, sometimes. Thinks she’s running the Order of Whispers or something.”

“The what?” asked Killeen.

“Tactician Kranxx, of the Vigil,” said the asura, quickly introducing himself with a small bow. Returning to Riona: “You’re a crusader. Almorra recruits people like you.”

“We are both crusaders of the Vigil,” said Ember. “I am Ember Doomforge. The human female is Riona Grady. And she speaks the truth: our mission is on behalf of the queen of Kryta.”

Kranxx nodded. “Soulkeeper warned me you people might not be too sharp, but when I joined the Vigil, I had no idea that it might ever sink this low. Smuggling a charr into Ebonhawke! Has she lost her mind?”

Killeen opened her mouth to point out it had been Dougal’s idea, but Dougal raised a hand and silently pleaded with her to keep her helpful truths to herself.

“What did General Soulkeeper say in her message?” said Riona.

“Very little,” said Kranxx. “Very need-to-know, she is. ‘Expect visitors that will need to leave Ebonhawke quietly. Some may be problematic.’ Problematic! She is a master of understatement. And she provided the date and time to reconfigure the gate.
That
was some mighty arcane kludging, by the way. They’re going to have to recalibrate an entire bank of crystals after that one. Don’t touch that, either.” Gullik had found a pack hanging on a nearby peg intriguing, and looked at the asura sheepishly as he edged away from it.

“Very well,” said Riona, “you have gotten us here and past the Ebon Vanguard. Where do we go from here?”

“I have to go out and make a few final arrangements,” said Kranxx. “Plant a few false leads and wrap up some personal business. Then we will go out by way of the sewers.”

“Sewers?” said Riona.

“We?” said Dougal.

“We,” said Kranxx. “After this, I’m burned as an asset. And there will likely be an investigation and some changes regarding using and protecting the asura gate as well. Once Commander Samuelsson gets up and the lieutenant talks to him, I am going to become a person of interest. So, like it or not, I am coming with you. Where are we going?”

“Ascalon City,” said Dougal.

Kranxx let out a low whistle. “Almorra,” he said, “you never do anything in halves. Very well, then, get a bit of rest—you’re going to need it. I will be back. And in the name of the Eternal Alchemy”—he looked at Gullik—“don’t touch anything.”

Gullik looked disappointed and collapsed onto a pile of sacks in the corner. The sides of one of the sacks split and potatoes rolled out. Killeen lowered herself down next to him and tried to make herself comfortable using the norn’s pack as a pillow.

Ember held out her manacled hands and let out a low growl.

“Not yet,” said Riona. “We aren’t out of Ebonhawke.”

“You must be kidding,” snarled the charr. “We’re in a basement. If the Vanguard finds us, we’re better off if I can pull my own weight.”

“I don’t think—” said Riona.

“Do it,” said Dougal sharply. “Ember’s right.”

“We’re taking all sorts of risks—” Riona started again.

“Unlock her,” said Dougal, “or I’ll fish out my tools and break the locks myself.”

Riona shot Dougal a hot flash of anger but pulled the keys from her pouch and tripped the tumblers in Ember’s wrist and neck manacles. The charr immediately stretched herself out to her full height, raised her arms, and let out a powerful growl. “You have no idea how good that feels,” she said.

“You’d be surprised,” said Riona, but Ember ignored her and joined the other two on the pile of potato sacks.

Riona turned to Dougal. Her face was bunched with anger and, Dougal thought, a little confusion. Instead she said, “You going to get some rest? I’ll stand watch until Tactician Kranxx gets back.”

“You froze,” said Dougal. “At the asura gate. You were willing to hand over Ember.”

“You would have thought of something,” said Riona, but Dougal shook his head.

“You could have handed over your magic purple-stamped letter,” Dougal said pointedly. “Orders from the queen of Kryta and Logan Thackeray.”

“Thackeray’s name doesn’t hold the weight around here it once did,” she said. “And as for Queen Jennah, you know that most of us here think that she is distant authority at best.”

Dougal ignored her and continued, still keeping his voice down. “But instead you would have handed one of your fellow crusaders over.”

“A charr crusader,” said Riona, her voice low but her face flushed. “And she knew the risks.”

“Beside the point,” said Dougal.

Riona was angry now. “You remember the other night, when Crusader Doomforge said she would do anything to make sure the mission succeeded—even if it meant the death of one of us?” Dougal nodded, and she continued hotly, “I feel the same way. If we were going to fight and die there at the gate, the mission would have failed. You know that. Ember knew that. She would have sacrificed herself if she had to: that’s how the Vigil operates.”

“We were lucky,” said Dougal.

“
You
are lucky,” said Riona, calming herself. “That’s why you’ve survived long enough to come along. And are you
really
one to lecture me about sacrificing allies?”

Dougal opened his mouth but nothing came out. Riona nodded in triumph. “Now, if you don’t mind, I could use some time away from all of you.” And with that, she retreated to the far side of the room and wrapped herself up in her cloak, watching Ember and the others. Gullik was already snoring loudly.

Dougal let out a long breath and looked at the
brooding Riona at one side of the room and the three nonhumans on the other side. He walked up to the low asura-height table and tested it. It seemed strong enough to support a full-grown norn. Dougal lay down on the tabletop, wrapped himself in his cloak, and was asleep in moments.

His sleep must have been dreamless, because the next thing he realized, he was being shaken by the shoulders by a small child.

“Wake up, you bookah!” snapped Kranxx, rolling off him as Dougal sat up, blinking back his slumber and wondering if he was ever again going to sleep through an entire night.

As Kranxx’s angry face came into focus, he managed a mumbled “What now?”

“Where is she?” said Kranxx, and looked over at the others. Killeen was pulling herself to her feet, and Ember was shaking the norn from his deep slumbers.

“She?” was all Dougal could manage.

“The girl, Riona!” said Kranxx. “While you’ve been sleeping, she’s wandered off!”

We should leave her behind,” said Ember. In his heart, Dougal knew the charr was right.