Matt Forbeck - Ghosts of Ascalon

He had buried Ascalon City deep, intent on never returning. Indeed, who would want to go there? The city was wrecked, first by the Searing, then by the Foefire, its inhabitants reduced to ghosts, its walls surrounded by extremely possessive charr.

And yet, he could feel the tug. Of failure. Of the price paid. Of things left undone.

Dougal reached into his shirt, fished out the locket, and looked at it for a long time. He carefully undid the clasp that opened it to reveal a cameo, ivory set against jet, of Vala in profile. Its twin, the one with his portrait, jet on ivory, was lost in Ascalon, along with everything else.

Dougal replaced the locket and carefully packed his gear in the battered backpack, and when he left the building, he turned right, toward the meeting with Riona. A low, thin mist still clung to the streets where the sun had not yet arrived to burn it off.

Both Riona and Killeen were waiting for him at the feet of Uzolan's Mechanical Orchestra, a frozen explosion of giant hornbells at one end of the festival grounds. It was early, and the orchestra had yet to be activated; its silence left the permanent carnival with an empty, lonely feeling. Bits of excelsior and other debris littered the pavement, and a few workers, fitted with the heavy leather collars of criminals, swept the remains of the previous celebration into larger piles.

The two women were waiting but not talking. Killeen seemed interested in the construction of the clockwork in the orchestra, while Riona paced, her arms folded. The official representative of the Vigil had regained that hard professional look that she had had the day before. Dougal wondered how well she had slept the previous night, now that she knew for sure that the others were well and truly dead.

"It's time," Riona said. "Let's go." She was just as sour as she'd been yesterday, a thundercloud on an otherwise clear morning. Killeen, of course, was the sun.

"This should be exciting," Killeen said. "The idea of a city filled with ghosts is just too intriguing. To my knowledge, no sylvari has ever ventured into Ascalon City. I will be the first of my people to see inside the city's walls."

"It's not that exciting," said Dougal. "More like terrifying."

Riona grunted at him.

"Surprised to find me here still?" Dougal asked Riona.

She shook her head. "Thackeray's people have had an eye on your place all night."

"And you don't think I could slip past them if I wanted to?"

She shrugged as if it didn't make a difference. "You didn't."

Dougal arched an eyebrow at her. "And you could have told Thackeray and his people that we had recovered something from the crypts after all."

"Captain Logan Thackeray only tolerates me at best," Riona said. "Telling him you had this gem would only have forced him to toss you in prison again. I need you in Ascalon City."

Dougal slung his pack over his shoulder. "Then let's move."

Dougal turned southward, to the main gates, but Riona instead moved north toward the Ascalonian district. Killeen was left in the middle, unsure which way to go.

Dougal pointed. "Main gate to the city is this way."

"We aren't using the main gate," said Riona. "Time is of the essence. We're going to use an asura gate."

Dougal walked back to Riona now, Killeen following and trying not to look like she was listening. "You didn't say anything about using an asura gate," he said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of them," said Riona, smiling slightly.

"Of course not," said Dougal. "It's magic. I don't particularly trust magic. Worse yet, it's asuran magic. They operate at such a level that even human spellcasters are still lagging in their wake."

"You are afraid," said Riona, with a tight smile. "You've faced a city full of ghosts and gods know what else, and you're afraid of a magical gate."

"An asuran magical gate," said Dougal. "There's a difference. Half the time they are taking it apart and putting it back together. And have you ever had one of them explain how it works?"

"It is a simple immobile-location dimensional transporter," said Killeen, "that shortcuts normal reality by bringing together two fixed points with suitable equipment tuned to the same metavibrational aetheric frequency." Dougal stared at her, and she added, "We have them in the Grove. The asura were one of the first peoples we met when we appeared."

"You have my sympathy," said Riona, and led the way into the Ascalonian district.

Divinity's Reach was waking up. The people who worked for an honest living were shuffling off to their jobs, but laughing children still raced through the streets, darting from doorway to doorway in their carefree games. The Seraph patrolled the streets, alone and in pairs, always on the hunt for innocents to protect and lawbreakers to bring to justice. Merchants' voices started to sound, hawking everything from apples to armor. Elders stood ready to train students in various specialties. Criers called out announcements from the queen and news from both inside the city and beyond its limits.

They passed through another set of walls, built within the city itself to separate it from the asura gate. Dougal noticed the walls were patrolled by white-armored members of the Seraph, armed with the newer, smooth-bored muskets. The Golem's Eye in his pocket felt suddenly heavy. They passed within the picket line without being challenged, and Dougal assumed that Riona's Vigil authority extended to these watchmen as well. And that Captain Logan Thackeray was delighted to get them out of his queen's city.

The gate itself was up on a low earth platform against the city's outer wall, a great stone loop filled with bronze pulsing energy. Even looking at the shifting surface of the gate's opening made Dougal a little queasy. The area around the gate was filled with wagons and bearers, golem carriers, and a small group of soldiers in dark armor: Ebon Vanguard. Dougal remembered that the Ascalonian district had a hospital for the more badly wounded soldiers from the fortress city of Ebonhawke.

Riona walked past the collected wagons to a smaller group, mostly human, but with a couple asura and their golems mixed in. The asura seemed unfazed by the crackling energy before them, but the humans apparently shared Dougal's nervousness.

"Aren't we cutting ahead of people?" said Killeen.

"Those are here to go to Ebonhawke," said Riona, pointing a chin at the larger group. "They have to tune the gate for the jump around noon. Requires a lot of energy. We're going to Lion's Arch." She looked at two asura arguing in front of a rune-inscribed pillar bristling with crystals and levers.

Dougal knew that the asura gates were used by the diminutive race, and they would never risk their own lives for something that had not been (mostly) tested and safe. The gates were leagues upon leagues apart, yet simply by stepping through the oval archways, they would be at a similar gate in Lion's Arch. Still, the asura's continual tendency to modify and meddle with their own work gave him pause.

The two asura in front of the plinth of crystals concluded their heated argument and the older of the two walked over to them. The younger stayed behind, shooting sullen looks at his elder.

"Sorry," said the older asura, a female. "Training day. My apprentice has his own ideas about the process of tuning two gates into alignment, and I have to beat some sense into him." She turned toward her sullen apprentice, who immediately brightened, then returned to his black cloud of resentment as soon as the elder's back was turned. Dougal watched the younger asura eye the arcane runes on the plinth and was concerned that the upstart apprentice would suddenly try to prove his point by changing the settings.

"Papers?" said the asura, and Riona presented a folded letter with a purple seal similar to the one she had presented Logan Thackeray in the jail. The asura reviewed it, grunted, and said, "Are you carrying anything from Orr, the Dragonbrand, or any other territory that has been dominated or altered by the presence of the Elder Dragons?" She recited the question with the complete lack of inflection born of repetition.