by Matt Forbeck
"What was the imperator's name?" asked Dougal.
Ember fixed him with a stony glare.
"I'm not objecting to you, I'm just dying to know," he clarified. "The human tales never mention his name, other than the imperator of the Flame Legion."
Ember nodded. "I do not know. After his disgrace, his name was stricken from our records."
"Bear's tears, that's cold!" muttered Gullik.
"It is our way." She waited for a moment. "May I continue?"
Silence and polite nods from the others. Ember resumed: "Frye and his warband of assassins scaled the city's wall that night and worked their way to the king's private chambers. They killed many guards along the way, silently dispatching them by sword and by spell.
"When they made it to the king's private chambers, they found it empty. They thought that they had missed the hated Sorcerer-King, that perhaps he had learned of their mission and even set a trap for them. They had arrived in the middle of the night, after all, and he was not there.
"The Fireshadows searched the royal quarters. That was when one charr stumbled upon the body of a human lying under a table in the king's private bedchamber.
"Frye turned the human over. As he did, the human let out a deep breath and his expression flickered back to life. This human had a knife driven into his chest, but he still had enough breath in him to speak."
"Who planted the blade in his chest?" asked Riona. "A charr?"
Ember glowered at the new interruption but, rather than rise to Riona's bait, simply replied, "It was a human knife, the story goes. Had a charr done it, I would have not hesitated to say so.
"The dying human's name was Savione. He claimed to be the king's servant. It was clear even to Frye that he was no warrior.
" 'You must stop him,' said Savione. 'The king is mad with grief, and he plans to use a great magic. He will kill us all.'
"At this point, the servant choked on his own blood and nearly died, but one of the Fireshadows tended to him so that he could finish what he had to say.
"The servant Savione opened his eyes again and spoke: 'When Adelbern saw the legions amassing outside of the city, he despaired. We dug in and tried to withstand the siege for as long as we could. When we saw the latest wave of charr arrive, we knew our final moment had come, that our time had finally run out. His Majesty told me, "This is no longer a siege, Savione. This will become an assault. But if force of arms fails us, force of will shall not. Where swords may fail, sorcery may succeed."
" 'His Majesty bears on his hip a mighty blade, a relic of now-lost Orr and its City of the Gods.' This was the sword Magdaer, twin to Sohothin, as your story said. 'He drew the sword and looked deep into its depths.
" 'The king said, "I have long known that Magdaer had other powers-remnants of the gods themselves. We Ascalonians may be doomed, but Ascalon will live on forever!" '
"The human looked at the charr, his life breath leaving his body. 'He is in the throne room,' said the servant, 'surrounded by his Royal Guard and as many other soldiers as the walls can spare. He will unleash the power of his sacred sword, Magdaer. He means to kill all the charr-but the price, the sacrifice…'
"Savione closed his eyes, and the Fireshadow healers could not do anything more for him. Frye took the counsel of his warband and made his decision. If the dying human spoke the truth, the entire legion was marching into a trap. The Sorcerer-King would be too well protected for them to reach him. They decided to abandon their mission and alert their imperator to the danger instead.
"When Frye Fireburn and his warband returned to tell their imperator-who still bore the Claw of the Khan-Ur, mind you, and the loyalty of the legions-about the Sorcerer-King's plan, he refused to listen to them. 'We will breach the walls of the city tonight,' the imperator said.
" 'It's a trap,' argued Frye. 'Once our forces enter the city, this mad king will kill us all.'
"The imperator spat on Frye and said, 'You must truly fear my wrath to come up with such ridiculous tales to distract me from your failure. I sent you in to kill a king, and you come back with wild excuses. I do not accept such incompetence in the Flame Legion.'
"Frye and his warband protested the imperator's accusation. They insisted that every word they had told him was true, and they demanded that he halt the invasion until they could figure out how to deal with this new threat from the Sorcerer-King.
"The imperator refused to listen to Frye and his fellows, and he had them arrested. 'Because you have been faithful servants until this day,' the imperator said, 'I will not tear out your throats.'
"Instead, he ordered that Frye and his fellows be bound hand and foot and tied to stakes placed on the Viewing Hill. I do not know what the humans called it, but it provided a clear line of sight into Ascalon City.
"The imperator believed that this punishment would be worse than death. 'You will witness the triumph of your legion, but you will not be part of it. You will have to bear that shame until the day our gods bless you with death.' "
"Raven's beak!" said Gullik, despite himself. "I thought the charr were godless!"
Kranxx elbowed the norn, irritated by the new interruption. "That didn't happen until later, after Kalla Scorchrazor destroyed the shaman caste," he said. "Has living in the frozen mountains for so long broken your sense of time?"
Ember ignored them. "After Frye and the others were staked out here according to the imperator's wishes, they howled at the stars as the walls of Ascalon City finally crumbled under the charr assault. They had long hoped to see this day, but they feared the imperator's hubris would ruin it all.
"Frye and his warband watched, unable to turn away. Soon after the gates fell, the imperator stormed into the city's main square. Adelbern, the Sorcerer-King, stood defiant on the parapet of his tallest tower with his magical sword in his hands. It burned with a fire that swirled about its blade as if it were alive. He shouted at the soldiers below as they fled before the Flame Legion's forces, some of them escaping through the holes the charr had made in the walls.
" 'Retreat?' the Sorcerer-King shouted. 'Retreat is not an option!'
"With the Flame Legion flooding through the city's defenses, Ascalon City had already been lost. The human soldiers ignored their king's complaint as their retreat transformed into a rout.
"The insane king raised his sword-a relic from the ancient land of Orr-over his head and bellowed down at his men, 'We will never surrender! Never!'
"Then he plunged his sword downward. As it struck the stones beneath his feet, a gout of white fire shaped like a blade shot from the tower's roof, enveloping Adelbern. The tower collapsed then, its very stones unable to withstand the power of the Foefire. Adelbern rode the battered rocks all the way down, disappearing in a cloud of shattered stones and dust.
"The mystic light from the Foefire burned without abatement. When the last stone of the tower stopped tumbling, the light intensified for an instant, then burst out and engulfed the entire city. The wave of destruction spread out from there, soon engulfing nearly all of Ascalon.
"The charr nearest the tower-the imperator and his victorious guard-were immolated in a heartbeat, their fur igniting like tinder, their flesh blasted by the unearthly flames. Yet, what happened to the humans in the blast was infinitely worse.
"The air in Ascalon City rang with a choir of their screams as the humans died in their tracks. Their bodies were blasted into burning fragments, but their spirits remained standing. Their mortal forms were reduced to broken skeletons but their souls remained, eternally bound to Ascalon. Only the charr close to the city were destroyed in the blast, but every human for leagues around was suddenly transformed into a ghost.
"This is why we call him the Sorcerer-King." Ember nodded at Dougal and Riona. "He worked a spell as great as the Searing itself, and in a single blow denied the Flame Legion their ultimate victory and damned the humans of his own land. Before the night ended, not a single body in Ascalon City still drew a breath. The Foefire that towered
over this carnage remains to this day.
"Eventually, Frye managed to free himself and then the other charr in his warband. Unbound, they slunk away from the disaster, determined to bring news of the atrocity to the rest of the charr.
"The Fireshadows returned to the invasion's staging grounds-the site of the Black Citadel today. When they delivered the news of the Flame imperator's defeat at Ascalon City, few who heard the news could believe their ears. Everyone who met Fireburn and his warband, though, trusted every word because they could see how the horrors they had witnessed had transformed them.
"From head to toe, the fur of each of them had turned a snowy white."
There was silence in the empty barn. Even Riona seemed cowed by the strength of Ember's story. At last Dougal said, "What of the Claw?"
"It was on the imperator," said Ember. "He was in the city. There were a few attempts at salvage by the charr after the Foefire, but there were too many ghosts, and the city itself was declared off-limits. We had assumed that it had been destroyed."
"Someone thinks otherwise," said Kranxx. "Why else would the truce faction demand it, and Almorra think we could provide it?"
Gullik added, "It would be wherever this nameless imperator fell, then?"
Dougal scowled for a moment, then said, "It is in the royal treasury."
All eyes turned to him and he continued: "On the back of Dak's map there was a list. Gold, silver, tribute, and gifts from different lands. Suits of ornate armor. An inventory of the royal treasury. And at the bottom of it, the word 'claw.' That's why I think it is there."
"How would anyone know it was there, if it disappeared in the Foefire?" said Riona. Her earlier irritation had evaporated by this point.
"That I do not know," said Dougal. "I suspect it was on another piece of parchment and transferred to the map later, perhaps by a group of salvagers that knew more legends than we did. If someone had uncovered the royal regalia of the treasury over the past two hundred years, whether they were charr or human, we would have heard of it."
"As with the Claw," said Riona.
"As with the Claw," agreed Dougal. "It is a tenuous link, but the most likely one."
"Mysteries upon mysteries," yawned Gullik. "I know I have spent a hard night walking, and more in sight. Let us think more of this later, after a good sleep."
Kranxx volunteered for the first watch. Dougal offered to join him. Riona didn't say anything to him, but she was less frosty and more relaxed as she laid out her bedroll. The shock of the previous night had washed over her, Dougal decided, and she had come to terms with it. That did not surprise him. If Riona was anything, she was resilient.
Putting his back against one of the feed barn's walls, Dougal pulled out the locket with Vala's cameo. It felt warm and reassuring in the darkness. Dougal removed the Golem's Eye as well and saw a warm red spark dancing at its heart. He wondered if he could use it to see the cameo.
"Is that what I think it is?" Kranxx was suddenly at his side. "How did you get your hands on a vintage ambient thaumaturgic construct like that? They don't enchant them like that anymore."
Dougal wanted to hide the gem, to keep it a secret. Yet, hadn't keeping secrets done nothing but hurt him and the others? Slowly he held it up and let it catch the moonlight shining through the slots of the barn wall.
"I… recovered it," Dougal said, "with Killeen's help. From the tomb of an asura named Blimm."
At the mention of Blimm's name, Kranxx choked. Dougal smacked him on the back to help him clear his throat.
"May I… see it?" said the asura, with the voice of a child asking for a third piece of candy.
Dougal's mouth was a thin line, but hesitantly he handed the gem over.
The asura examined the gem closely. "It's been deactivated," he said. "That's standby illumination in the heart. That is old magic, from just after my ancestors emerged on the surface." The asura blinked at it, turned it over in his hands, whistled softly, then handed it back. Dougal noticed that Kranxx seemed to have the same problem returning it that he had had giving it.
"It did that automatically after we left the crypts beneath Divinity's Reach," said Dougal.
Kranxx grinned as Dougal pocketed the gem. "It's an archaic spell matrix, but I think I know just how to recharge it. If you're interested, of course."
Dougal felt uncomfortable. The Golem's Eye was a victory, messy and bought at a high price, but a victory nonetheless. And should everything go south, it would bring a pretty gold piece in Lion's Arch, or even Rata Sum.
And the sudden avarice in Kranxx's eye reminded him of Clagg.
"I think we have other things to worry about," said Dougal, and, to his surprise, the asura did not argue or offer any retort. Instead he just nodded and crossed to the far side of the barn and sat by the other entrance.
Yet, through the rest of their watch, Dougal felt that the asura was watching him, not the outside world. And when, after a few uneventful hours, Ember and Gullik took their watch, Dougal shifted the gem to another pocket, buttoned it, and then slept on that side for the rest of the evening.
It was almost morning when Dougal awoke, refreshed. His hand went to his pocket, but the gem was still there, and he cursed his own distrust. He looked around: Riona, Ember, and Kranxx were all asleep in the soft hay. Gullik was alone and awake by one of the barn doors.
"Couldn't sleep?" Dougal asked.
Gullik shook his head. "Normally I sleep like Bear herself, but sleep was a prey I could not catch this evening."
Dougal sat down next to the norn. Because of their difference in size, he felt like a child sitting with a parent.
"Thinking about Killeen?"
Gullik nodded.
"It's not your fault."
"Of course it is! If I had not charged into battle against that minion, we might have escaped from the Dragonbrand clean!"
"Or it might have run us down and killed us all."
"I would like to believe you are right."
Dougal thought about this for a moment, then spoke. "Gullik, you charge into battle. That's who you are, and we all know it. Killeen, she stuck by her friends, and we all knew that too. What happened was inevitable."
"You mean she had to die?"
"Not at all. I mean you had to fight the creature, and she had to help you."
"And you had to join us too!"
Dougal smiled a bit at this, the first time he'd managed it since Killeen had been killed. "Apparently. Either way, you can't fault yourself for being yourself. The rest of us don't."
Gullik let out a deep sigh. "It is a painful thing when friends perish. It is a worse thing when they die because of your choices."
"I understand," said Dougal. "And I've often thought that you should never adventure with people you like, because it is difficult to lose them. But having friends with you makes the journey so much better."
The norn reached out and slapped Dougal on the back with a surprisingly soft blow. "You would make a good norn. And I don't toss around such an honor without reason!"
Gullik's loud voice woke the others up, and they pulled themselves awake. Already the sun was cresting the far horizon, throwing prison-bar shadows through the barn. They breakfasted on cold rations, and even Riona seemed the better for a good sleep.
"We should burrow in for the day," said Riona. "It is too dangerous to be out in daylight."
"No," said Ember, and for once her voice was subdued, almost worried. "There will be herdsmen out for the cattle. I doubt there will be any patrols, but the charr are very good at reporting trespassers."
"What do you recommend?" asked Dougal.
The charr took a deep breath and let the air out in a slow growl. "Gullik," she said, "do you still have those manacles?"
Gullik smiled and said, "Of course! You gave them to me, and I have held them for you!"
Riona's eyes went wide. "No," she said. "No, that is not what's going to happen."
"I'm afraid so," said Ember, hiding whateve
r delight she might be feeling behind a concerned exterior. "The only way you two humans can enter the Ascalon Basin is as my prisoners."
You have to be kidding," said Riona, flushing.
"I wish I were," said Ember. "We have been fortunate so far, but we are moving into areas occupied by charr settlers, warbands, and small patrols. We can travel by day as a charr and her captured human renegades."
Dougal nodded at the idea, but Riona said, "You cannot expect us to be unarmed and defenseless in the midst of charr territory."
"Remind me," said Gullik, "have we had this discussion before? It seems oddly familiar."
"Give me a moment," said Dougal, and steered Riona away from the others. She resisted stiffly but finally went with him. "You realize you sound like Ember when we were in Ebonhawke."
"And look how well that turned out," said Riona hotly.
"But she's right. And you asked me a while back if I trust her. I do, and you should as well."
"It's not her I'm suddenly doubting." She looked accusingly into his eyes. Despite himself, Dougal turned away, shamed and silenced.
"Here is what I need to know," she said. "What you said back on the battlements of Ebonhawke. You promised. Did you mean it? Will you help me get the Claw?"
Dougal felt his face grow hot. "Of course. Yes. I meant it. We will get the Claw of the Khan-Ur."
"All right, then," she said, and walked over to Ember, now holding the chains. She held her wrists up to be shackled. "Let's do this and get on the road."
In the end, the chained manacles, originally fitted for the charr's wrists, were too large for the humans. Kranxx rearranged the metal cuffs and chains, fitting one wrist manacle around Riona's neck and one around Dougal's, and settled for loose ropes around their wrists. The third large cuff, which had been fitted for the charr's neck, Ember handed to the norn.
"You are their keeper," said Ember. "Norn mercenaries are common enough. No one will question why a charr is using a norn to keep an eye on prisoners."
