Edge of Destiny (guild wars)

by J. Robert King

  They were back, in control. Their eyes no longer glowed with the blue-white aura of the Dragonspawn. Eir turned toward their foe.

  The Dragonspawn stood with hands outflung, eyes gushing wrath on Garm.

  "No!"

  The dire wolf stood enveloped in blue-white energy. Power sluiced past his gaping jaws and coursed over his hackles. It sought entry. It probed for a chink that would let its icy talons reach into his heart, into his mind. But there was no such chink.

  Garm had only one alpha, now and forever.

  "This is our chance!" Eir shouted to the Bigs. "Let's go!"

  Eir stepped out from behind her dire wolf into the full brunt of the boreal blast. More frost etched across her armor, but she strode toward the Dragonspawn and broke into a run.

  Garm did, too, alongside her.

  Big Snaff and Big Zojja joined the charge.

  "Ten more paces," Eir cried, "and the Dragonspawn will be a pile of ice!"

  But in five more paces, he was gone. The air folded around his frozen figure and closed on him.

  Eir took three more strides before stumping to a halt.

  Garm, Big Snaff, and Big Zojja pulled up alongside her.

  "Where did he go?"

  A sharp crack came from above. The comrades looked up to see an icicle the size of a fir tree break from the ceiling and plunge toward them. It didn't seem to move, only to grow larger.

  "Back!" Eir commanded.

  The golems leaped back, skidding on the icy floor.

  The icicle struck, its tip hurling out hailstones. The shaft rammed downward, disintegrating until it reached its center, which struck the floor like a hammer. The cavern shook.

  Big Snaff brushed ice off his steel hide. "Lucky for us, we got out of the way."

  "We're not out of the way," replied Eir, looking up at the thousands of similar icicles hanging overhead.

  Crack, crack, crack, crack!

  "He's trying to drive us out," Eir cried. "Deeper! Run deeper!"

  She ran forward, followed by golems that fissured the ice as they went. The four comrades ran headlong into the darkness.

  Behind them, icicles fell. Boom! Boom! Boom! They hissed and burst like rockets. Frozen shrapnel rang across the golems' metal skins. Boom! Boom! Boom!

  One icicle grazed Eir's elbow, dragging her sideways-away from another icicle that staved the floor before her. She spun past its disintegrating bulk over a field of slippery shards.

  "Keep going!"

  Garm leaped aside as an ice shaft struck before him, going off like a bomb.

  Big Snaff and Big Zojja danced past two more columns while a third toppled before them like a felled tree.

  "Jump!" Snaff cried.

  The golems grasped hands and leaped as the icicle hit. Big Zojja and Big Snaff sailed side by side over the shattering ice. The two golems fell into a wave of crushed ice that picked up Eir and Garm and dumped them into another chute.

  "Down we go!" Eir called.

  For a time, there was only metal scraping ice and golems spinning and the wave breaking. Then the floor flattened out again in deep darkness. Eir, Garm, and the golems ground to a halt, and the last skittering shards of ice tumbled to silence.

  "Now where are we?" Zojja wondered through her speaking tube.

  Snaff replied philosophically, "Somewhere else."

  "Somewhere he was trying to keep us from," Eir said as she rose. "This is probably his inner sanctum."

  Something moved in the darkness.

  The golems turned to see.

  Ahead, the black air unfolded, and the Dragonspawn took shape. His figure glowed ice blue, and his soul whirled in a cyclone about him.

  "It all comes down to this," Eir said, "the courage of four heroes-"

  "And the golemancy of two geniuses," Zojja added.

  "Against the Dragonspawn." Eir paused. "Spirit of Wolf, guide my work." So saying, Eir transformed from a towering norn into the aspect of her totem animal. She became a dire wolf like Garm, only standing on hind legs, with eyes like fire and a coat as red as blood.

  Side by side, the red wolf and the black wolf charged through the inner sanctum, bearing down on the ice champion. Big Snaff and Big Zojja followed.

  "Kal-throk-tok!" the Dragonspawn cried in a voice like thunder. He raised his sword of eternal ice. Dark magic roiled around it. He plunged the sword into the glacier beneath him, cracking through the frozen floor. The crack spread like black lightning, splitting one side of the glacier from the other.

  Eir and Garm leaped to one side and Big Snaff and Big Zojja to the other.

  Still, the crack raced along, up the far wall of the ice cave and onto the ceiling. The split grew wider, and above, light poured through the glacier.

  A mile of ice had ruptured, and the crevice gushed sunlight.

  Eir and Garm struggled to stay upright as the ice cave shook, and Big Snaff and Big Zojja scrabbled to keep from falling into the chasm.

  "Kal-throk-tok! Borea-kal-lu-ki Joor-maag."

  Suddenly, something else was in that ice cavern. A presence. It was as old as the world, as uncaring of mortal creatures. It was colder than a blizzard: not just the power to freeze but the will to, to see living things shiver to stillness and crack open. This was the power behind the Dragonspawn. He wielded only a portion of it-the portion that could pour through eye sockets and skeletal fingertips. Now, Eir, Garm, and the Bigs were in the presence of the power itself.

  We are in its inner sanctum, and it is going to get rid of us, Eir thought. She shouted, "Get away from the crevice!"

  Big Snaff and Big Zojja clawed their way toward the wall of the chamber.

  Out of the fissure behind them, a blast of cold and snow erupted. It was like an inverted avalanche. Hunks of slush smashed into the golems and coated them and froze them. The storm hauled them off the floor.

  "Get out! Jump!" Eir shouted.

  The hatches of the golems opened, and first Snaff and then Zojja tumbled out. They crashed to the icy floor of the cave as their golems were hauled up on the erupting storm. The golems jolted up the chasm, occasionally smashing against the ice cliffs. Moments later, the golems flew past the surface of the glacier and were flung through the air on a storm of hail.

  "We have to escape," Eir told Garm as she clambered toward the entrance to the hollow. Already it was filling in. If they stayed even minutes, they would be buried in the glacier's heart. "Climb out!"

  On the other side of the rent, Snaff and Zojja also scrambled toward the chute that had brought them down. They would have to find handholds, some way out.

  Even as Eir climbed, arms stiffening beneath the onslaught of snow, she knew what this was: failure. She had not been corrupted by the Dragonspawn, but she had not slain it, either. And if she knew the Dragonspawn, her people would pay for her hubris.

  The ice cave had probably saved their lives. When at last the companions had crawled from it, they found a world buried in snow. It was more than ten feet deep and still falling. The sky was black overhead, disgorging the fury of the Dragonspawn. Snow, hail, sleet, and ice pummeled the ground and piled atop glaciers. Boreal winds whipped the white stuff into gigantic drifts and tormented pillars. Winter lightning mantled the mountaintops.

  Anything that had once lived on the steppes was now battered to death or buried alive.

  And this storm would be pummeling Hoelbrak as well.

  A week later, when Eir, Garm, Snaff, and Zojja straggled into Hoelbrak, they found a city buried in snow. Many roofs had collapsed, and most lanes were impassable. And in the main lane, opened by the work of hundreds of hands and shovels, stood an imposing figure.

  The snow-mantled man strode toward Eir and her friends. Light washed across him, showing an old, battle-scarred face wreathed in silver hair. The norn's blue eyes, though, shone with the fire of a young man.

  "Knut Whitebear!" Eir gasped, dropping to her knee.

  "Rise, daughter of snow."

  Eir did, a chill running do
wn her back. No one had called her daughter since her own father had died. It was as if he stood before her once again, disappointed.

  Knut Whitebear brushed snow from his pelts. His eyes were grave and kindly. "You are so strong, so determined," he said, lifting his hand to straighten the tangled hair that fell to her shoulder, "it is hard to remember that you are just a child."

  "I am not a child!" Eir replied.

  "Oh? You march a pair of windup toys through my town. You tell everyone that they will kill the Dragonspawn, only to bring upon us a millennial storm that buries us alive?"

  "We almost did it," Eir said. "We were so close. We were in the inner sanctum."

  Knut's face stiffened. "This storm was worse than the icebrood. It has killed more-"

  "What are you telling me?" Eir asked.

  "The doors of my lodge are closed to you," he said simply.

  "What?"

  "You and your wolf and your companions."

  Tears rolled down her face. "How long?"

  "Until you can return with real warriors, not clockwork toys."

  "We got further-"

  "You failed," Knut said plainly, "and we have paid the price."

  "But I will succeed. I will stop him! I'll bring better warriors."

  Knut did not answer, but only turned to leave.

  Snaff looked down at his feet. "Where are we supposed to find warriors?"

  "We'll go where they gather," Eir said with a bleak smile. "We'll go to Lion's Arch."

  PART II

  SLAYING MONSTERS

  LION'S ARCH

  Names?" growled the Lion's Arch gate guard-a norn holding a quill the size of an arrow.

  "Logan Thackeray of Kryta, and this is Rytlock Brimstone of the Blood Legion, and Caithe, one of the Firstborn of the sylvari."

  If the guard was impressed, he showed no sign, scrawling the names in a gigantic book on a stand. "What's your reason for visiting Lion's Arch?"

  Rytlock muttered, "Just looking for an asura gate."

  "Where to?"

  "The Black Citadel."

  The norn snorted, then wrote, En route to the Black Citadel.

  "Not us," Logan said, pointing between himself and Caithe.

  The guard looked at them. "What are you here for?"

  "I'm a scout," Logan said.

  "What kind? Seraph?"

  "Um, no. My brother's in the Seraph, but I'm, well… freelance. Work for merchant caravans."

  "I see," the norn said, arching an eyebrow and writing, Unemployed. "And what about the sylvari?"

  "I joined them," Caithe said.

  "Would you just let us in?" Rytlock pressed.

  The norn glared at him. "What about the sylvari? Why does she want to enter Lion's Arch?"

  Caithe's eyebrows rose thoughtfully. "Is it interesting?"

  "What?"

  "The city. Is it interesting?"

  The guard scowled. "Of course."

  "Then put that down," Caithe replied.

  The norn wrote, Not applicable, snatched up a wooden stamp, and pounded it down on the entry. "In you go! Just don't break anything."

  Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe shuffled into the vaulted city gate, passing beneath an iron portcullis that dripped rusty water down their backs.

  "Why did he think I was 'not applicable'?" Caithe wondered.

  "Ha!" Rytlock barked, but then frowned and shook his head. "I don't know."

  The vault above them echoed with the clatter and tumult of the city ahead. As the three stepped out of the entryway, they caught their first real glimpse of Lion's Arch.

  "Wow," said Rytlock.

  The city was huge and a hodgepodge. To the left gleamed a wide bay full of great galleons. Their masts and rigging made a patchwork of the sky. A water gate guarded the entrance to this sheltered harbor, and pennants flew all down the docks. The docks teemed with longshoremen hauling skids from ships to warehouses. These warehouses themselves were former galleons, overturned on land. Many of the city's other buildings were also fashioned of ships washed ashore by the great flood. More than a few vessels had even been upturned to become strange towers, jutting skyward.

  "A market!" Caithe noted eagerly.

  Logan and Rytlock turned to see a manifold market spread beneath billowing blue sails. Stalls and tents crowded against each other, forming narrow lanes that thronged with people.

  "They say everything's for sale in Lion's Arch," Logan noted.

  Rytlock laughed. "Everything and everyone."

  "Let's see," said Caithe, striding into the marketplace.

  "Wait," Rytlock called, "we're looking for an asura gate!" But already the sylvari was approaching one of the outer stalls.

  Within it, an ancient-looking asura sat surrounded by buckets into which he flung bits of a machine he was dismantling. Each bucket was marked with a coin amount-1g, 2g, 3g. Without looking up, the asura said, "What sort of mechanism are you building?"

  Caithe's brow furrowed. "I'm not building a mechanism."

  "Then you're blocking my light."

  "What sort of mechanism are you building?"

  He looked up, eyes annoyed under linty brows. "Something that had no right getting built in the first place."

  "What was it?"

  "A washing machine."

  "Sounds helpful."

  "Would've been if I had dirty friends like yours," the asura noted as Rytlock and Logan strode up. "Not that they would've used it. Nobody did."

  "Why not?"

  The asura sighed. "You wore it over your body, like a yoke. It washed the clothes while you walked in them-sprayed them, sudsed them, wrenched them, rinsed them." He pantomimed the machine squirting and snatching at his clothes. "People didn't like it. Got them wet."

  "You should've called it a shower washer. People like getting wet in the shower."

  The asura's hands stopped on the device. His face went pale, and he glanced regretfully at the buckets all around him.

  Rytlock butted in. "Where's the nearest asura gate?"

  "It was a problem with marketing, not design," the asura said despondently. "A shower washer!"

  "Excuse me-the nearest gate?"

  The asura scowled. "Did Master Drup put you up to this? Is he taunting me again?"

  "Come on," Logan said to Caithe, taking her arm and leading her away.

  The three companions strolled onward through the wonderland of strange goods-silken scarves, pewter chalices, clockwork toys, rundlets and hogsheads of ale, sheaves of spice, parchment, linens, fish, nails. Every needful thing and needless thing piled on tabletops beneath the luffing blue canvas. Here was a cart selling sausages and there a booth filled with blades. A stall selling ice cream stood beside a stall selling torture implements. And these varied wares were hawked by a varied group of merchants-humans and sylvari, charr and norn, asura and ogre.

  "Why aren't they killing each other?" Rytlock wondered sourly.

  "That's Lion's Arch for you. Live and let live," replied Logan. "Just don't mention the E-word."

  "What E-word?"

  "The place I was leading a caravan to. The place you wish didn't exist."

  Rytlock hawked and spit. "That E-word."

  "I don't feel well," Caithe murmured, leaning against Logan.

  He caught her. "You look white."

  "That's her color."

  "All except your neck. There are little black lines-"

  "I'm fine," Caithe interrupted, straightening. "Just a little out of breath."

  Logan guided her to a half-wall out of the traffic of the main road and helped her sit. "Here. Just take a moment."

  Caithe nodded, staring emptily ahead.

  "What is it?" Rytlock rumbled.

  Caithe shook her head weakly. "All these lives-all intersecting."

  "Just ignore them," Logan advised. "You can be alone in a big city. Loneliest place in the world."

  "That young man there." Caithe pointed to a teenage boy leaning sullenly beside a set of wooden sta
irs.

  "Yeah? What about him?" Rytlock asked.

  "He's trying to get up the courage to go upstairs and knock on the door and see if the girl is home."

  The man and the charr looked at the nondescript kid, long hair veiling his eyes. Rytlock said, "How could you possibly know that?"

  Caithe stared at them, amazed. "Don't you see the rose behind him?"

  As she pointed it out, the flower seemed obvious.

  "Good luck to him," Logan said.

  "He needs more than luck. Look in the window." Caithe pointed to the head of the stairs, where a curtain waved in the breeze.

  Rytlock stared. "So what? A curtain."

  "See the hand on the sill beneath the curtain? The young man's hand?"

  "What about it?"

  "Why would a curtain be drawn at this time of day? And why would a young man be sitting beside it, watching another young man in the street?"

  Rytlock's jaw dropped. "Seriously? Is this what you do? You watch, put things together, figure them out?"

  "That man in the marketplace," Caithe said, nodding toward a swaggering fellow in a red greatcoat and black boots, "he's pretending to be a pirate for fear that he will be robbed, and the man beside him in the sackcloth shirt is pretending not to be a pirate so that he can pick his pocket."

  "How could you possibly-," Rytlock began, but broke off as the man in sackcloth slid his hand, branded with the pirate's P, into the other man's waistcoat. "Impressive."

  "This could be good," Logan said. "This could be very good."

  "This could be bad," Caithe echoed. "Very bad."

  "What?" her comrades chorused, but Caithe was gone.

  "Where did she-?" Rytlock began.

  Logan pointed. "Up there!" She was about a block ahead of them, her lithe figure slipping easily through the jostling throng. Logan strode out after her, dodging through the steady flow of traffic. "Excuse me. Pardon me. Look out!"

  Rytlock followed, his scowl clearing the way-that is, until another charr approached. The two locked eyes and traded fuming expressions as they marched into each other. They crashed like a pair of bulls, horns clacking and shoulders shoving.

  "Out of my way," Rytlock thundered, hurling the other charr aside.

  The other staggered a moment, dug his claws in, and drew a sword. "Says who?"