Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [122]
Dougal adjusted his grip on the handle and turned it clockwise now. When Dougal reached the point of resistance this time, he felt something sharp push up against his wrist. He stopped cold.
“Good,” the phantom voice seemed to say in his ear.
Screwing up his courage, Dougal took a deep breath. If he got this wrong, he’d soon be missing his favorite hand. He could only hope that he’d be able to open the door with his other hand before he passed out from a lack of blood.
Dougal cranked the handle with a sharp twist. The blade that had been pressed against his wrist moved away. Within the stone slab there was a grumbling as iron bolts were withdrawn.
Dougal turned and looked behind him, but there was no one there, only a blue-white mist that curled around a statue of a female warrior and then was gone.
Dougal pulled on the handle, and the door swung outward on well-oiled hinges.
The vault of King Adelbern lay open to him at last.
Dougal stepped through the door and into a large room lined with shelves. Magical lights illuminated the place from ceiling to floor, glowing with a bluish hue that cast everything in an otherworldly light. The walls and ceiling of the room were made of perfectly fitted cut stone bound together with crisscrossing strips of iron. These had no doubt been made to keep thieves from drilling into the vault, but by the way the iron bands sagged violently in the center of the ceiling, Dougal knew that they’d also kept the room from collapsing under the pressure from the fallen tower above.
He hoped they’d hold just a few minutes longer.
The shelves on both sides were filled with terra-cotta jars, each filled to overflowing with gold coins and jewelry. At the base of the shelves were piles of ornate swords and armor salvaged by King Adelbern from the wreckage above and tucked away, much like an elderly woman might hide silver pieces throughout the house in case of burglars. Rough sacks of gold and platinum were tucked into every nook and cranny.
A particularly large, ironbound chest sat on the far side of the polished marble floor, its lid unlocked and flipped back to rest against the wall behind it. A few gold coins lay scattered about the place where they had spilled out of a single sack that sprawled open on the floor next to the chest.
Dougal slipped into the vault, moving carefully and scanning for traps of any kind. The adrenaline coursing through his veins magnified his senses. While he didn’t expect to find any more dangers located behind such a complicated and lethal lock, he’d known many people who’d died from making such assumptions.
He reached the chest and looked inside.
The Claw of the Khan-Ur sat inside the chest, atop a bed of gold coins and precious gems. Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies sparkled back at him in the tiny lantern’s light.
But the Claw held Dougal’s attention. Two blades pointing forward, two pointed back, a handgrip in the middle. An ungue. It was set with four gems—red, black, gray, and golden—for the four children of the imperator, and the four founders of the modern legions.
There was something else, though, hanging from the forward, upward-turned blade. A simple golden chain, and hanging from that chain, a locket, twin to Dougal’s own.
Dougal picked up the locket and held it up to the light, then opened it, although he knew what he would find. His own cameo, jet, set in ivory.
He thought of the soft voice in the hallway. “Thank you, Vala,” he said, not sure if she could hear and not caring if she didn’t. He pocketed the locket and turned to the Claw itself.
Dougal reached into the chest and carefully grasped the Claw by its jewel-encrusted handle. No trap was sprung. He didn’t expect that Adelbern would have the desire or knowledge to construct a trap in the chest, but he couldn’t be sure. Time was wasting, though, and he needed to move fast. Steadying himself, he yanked the weapon from the chest with a single sharp movement.
The Claw came out of the chest without