Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [8]
The passage beyond opened into a wide hall lit by unnatural light. At the far end, a staircase made of polished green stone banded in bronze led up to a great brazen door flanked by great bowls of blue-green flame that flickered from unnatural sources. The gilded frame of the door was carved with the swooping rays and tangents of the asuran alphabet, which danced in the unearthly radiance. Dougal, despite himself, was speechless.
“Gentlefolk,” said Clagg smugly, tucking away his glowing map, “we have arrived. Welcome to Blimm’s tomb.”
They climbed the steps three abreast, Dougal flanked and overshadowed by the larger norn and asura-piloted golem. The stairs themselves were wide and flat, almost a ramp up to great double doors.
Dougal shot a glance at Killeen, slung to the golem’s back like a child in a cradleboard. She managed a weak smile and tried to raise an arm. Perhaps Clagg’s potion was having some effect, or the sylvari’s own recuperative powers were kicking in.
They reached the top. Dougal feeling like a supplicant in the great temple. A large steel bas-relief image, as tall as Dougal himself, hung to one side, as if emerging from the wall itself. It portrayed the image of a golem of the ancient style staring back at all who approached. A bright red gem sat affixed in the carving’s stubby head. Gyda gasped at the sight of it.
The norn reached out and pried the gem from the door. She considered it for a moment, then squeezed it in her bare hand as if it were an overripe nut. It crunched between her fingers, and a moment later she opened her fist to let a handful of pink dust cascade from it.
“A fake,” she said with a dismissive sigh. “To have found such a grand treasure so easily would have shown a real lack of imagination on the part of your Blimm.”
Clagg scoffed. “You really think that an asura like Blimm would be foolish enough to leave the Golem’s Eye mounted on the outside of the door?”
Dougal barely stifled a laugh at the scorn dripping from Clagg’s lips. It was good to see someone else at the end of Clagg’s verbal lash.
“I have seen things far more foolish in my own lands,” Gyda said.
“Or in any mirror you passed,” Dougal muttered as he stepped forward to examine the writing scrawled over the door and frame.
“Hold! What did you—”
Dougal cut the norn off with a wave of his hand. “Shush. Reading.”
“You can read this?” said Clagg, with mild surprise.
“You did bring me here for my mind,” said Dougal, a little sharper than he had intended.
He stared for a moment at the words carved into the surface of the door. They were written in asuran script but used an archaic dialect popular before the subterranean asura had been forced to the surface more than 250 years earlier. It was a half-mathematical, half-structured sentence, and the syntax would make a human scribe take to the bottle. Many asura could no longer even read it. According to Dougal’s research, Blimm’s paranoia had driven him to write his notes in this script for that exact reason.
Dougal ran his fingers along the text as if he could peel the meaning from it with his fingernails. “It’s very old, but I think I can make it out.” He cleared his throat and began to read aloud: “ ‘Here lies Blimm, the greatest of the golemancers, favored counselor of Livia, apprentice to Oola, whose brilliance he has surpassed, the finest mind to grace Tyria in his or any other generation—’ ”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Clagg said impatiently. “Blah, blah, blah. Get on to the promises of curses on any who would disturb his rest. There may be something useful there.”
Dougal shrugged and skipped over the next several words. “Here we go: ‘Let those who would dare to disturb his rest be cursed for eternity by the bones that line these tombs. Let the earth rise up against them and their remains serve as a testament of his greatness. Let their remains join those that surround him.’ It goes on like that for a while.”
“How absolutely