Chapter 30. Celestial Sigil

riel’s initial excitement about the fortress soon wore off as they began taking stock of its condition.  The bandits had occupied only a small part of it, an outbuilding that had been a barracks or servant’s quarters at one time.  The great hall that dominated the courtyard was completely boarded up on the ground floor while the two floors above had shattered windows and the furnishings within had been largely cast out and left to rot on the cobbles.  Morisedd pointed out that much of the boarding had occurred from the outside, as if to seal something in, and in places it was bowed outward and splintered, indicating something had tried to break out.

It was growing dark, for although the weather was more clement in this region, still the days did not last long and a thick pall of clouds added to the sense of foreboding.  The Dunvael rangers studied the situation and eventually it was decided to leave the matter until morning.  They took over the bandit’s quarters and posted a guard against their return.  By nightfall, Uriel was feeling cheered again for the Dunvael built a blazing fire and a boar was roasting over it after a successful hunting expedition.  There was even a barrel of ale among the stash of bandit swag and they were soon in high spirits and contentedly curling up amid the thieves’ stash of bedding and blankets.

Murdi was possibly more excited about the situation than she.  He told her about the different creatures he had seen or detected in the dense forest surrounding the hilltop.  He and Lemony were already deciding upon the location of a shrine to Melandru.  Uriel rolled over and kissed him until he grew quiet, laughing softly when he realized he was keeping her awake.  Did he have any idea how much work they had to do in the morning?

At last the singing and chatter died down and the rain returned to extinguish the embers of the fire in the courtyard.  Dawn was heralded by the twin squeaking of whistles punctuated by Lemony’s intermittent laughter.  Uriel yawned and stretched, the place where Morisedd had lain beside her already cool.  She rose stiffly, rubbing a crick in her neck as she moved toward the rickety door and gazed out into the sunlit courtyard.  Somehow Mog and Lemony had found a pair of tin flutes and the big mesmer was trying to teach her how to use it properly.  The two were breathless with laughter as a number of the Dunvael rangers were playfully covering their ears and protesting.

“Good morning, Uriel!” Lemony cried, “I’ve found the perfect place for the orphanage!”

“That’s great, Lem.  First we need to find the perfect place for the celestial sigil.”

“Ah, now that I can help ye with,” Mog said sagely, “Ye’ll be needin’ a proper magician.”

Uriel frowned dubiously.  Mog was hardly proper.  As for his prowess as a magician, she had her doubts if it was anything like his ability to create noise.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Lemony hooted, “Lyssa brought us all together at exactly the right time and place.”

Uriel smiled and humored Lemony.  The little monk was decidedly insane, but she loved her anyway. 

“So where do you suggest we put the sigil, then?” she asked, turning to Mog.  He ran his fingers through his coarse ginger beard and pointed toward the great hall.  She followed the gesture and was about to complain when he began walking toward the hall.  Lemony bounced happily after him, two strides for his one, like a happy dog in pursuit of its master.

Uriel sighed and followed, herself barely able to keep up with the mesmer’s lanky stride.  For a moment she thought he meant to go inside the great hall, but he ambled past the boarded up doors and windows and headed toward the rear of the building.  She considered it odd that she had no memory of a path through here, in fact, she was quite certain there had been no gap between the curtain wall and the hall’s eastern flank, yet here they were dodging past fallen masonry and tangles of weeds over a mossy path of worn flagstone. Then they emerged at the southern end of the massive building to a secluded yard. 

It had once been a splendid garden.  There was a plant-choked fountain peering past the mounds of overgrown hedges and beds. The great hall’s wide doors loomed above the broad sweep of a staircase that curled down to the branching garden pathways. It must have been beautiful once with its hanging pots of flowers and window boxes.  Now it was a silent ruin tucked within the protective walls of the fortress.  Mog, however, did not stop, but strode undaunted over the weed-choked path toward the sloping and decayed remains of an arbor.  Lemony, in her excitement, rebounded off of his back when he stopped, to which he chuckled and offered her a hand to help her get up.

He stood in the center of a circle of stones, the pavers depicting a radiant eight-point starburst.  It was an Ascalonian device, one she remembered from Nolani.  At one time, a sigil had been attuned here.  Mog was beaming at its center, clearly pleased with himself.

“Th’ l’il lass an’ I found it last night.”

“We cleaned it up,” Lemony boasted, pointing to a pile of wilting weeds off to the side.

“Aye, t’was o’er grown, but now t’is right as rain.”

Uriel felt a strange surge of emotion, gratitude swelling up within her as she gazed upon Lemony and the ridiculous mesmer.  She embraced the little monk tightly and considered better of doing the same with Mog, curtseying to him instead, her throat too tight to speak.

“Let’s be getting’ her attuned,” Mog announced, cracking his knuckles, “I ‘aven’t got all day.”

Now it was Uriel’s turn to chuckle.  The sigil was lovingly wrapped in swathes of silk in a pouch she kept with her at all times for fear of losing it.  She brought it out into the light and admired its intricate design and starlight glow.  Mog gestured to a gap at the center of the circle, an exact fit for the pulsing stone.  With infinite care she knelt before the socket and fitted it in place, gasping when it flared brightly and melded with the tiles.  A circle of light swept out from it in a shimmering wave and before she could step away, it engulfed her and her vision was filled with its azure glow.  For an instant it seemed the earth shifted beneath her feet and she was gazing down once more on the sunburst tiles.  It was dark and cold.

She blinked, startled at first, and then smiling broadly even as she shivered amid the ice laden ruins of the old Red Lotus guild compound.  It had worked!  She could hardly wait to tell Master Bei, but first she needed to get back and find a coat and a protective entourage.  Chuckling to herself, she brushed the central stone of the eight-point sunburst with her toe and focused upon the sigil at her new guild hall.  She had not traveled this way since her time at Nolani and she remembered with fondness the day Master Tasos had taught her how.  At first, nothing happened and she worried that it was broken.  Then, a soft humming sound emanated from the stone and the wave of light surged from the center-point, enveloping her as before.  She emerged once more into sunlight before her delighted friends.

“That’s wonderful!” chirped Lemony, rushing toward the center.  Uriel caught her just in time.

“No, Lem, I need to attune you and teach you how to travel first and it’s very cold and dark on the other end.  Also, we need to gather some protection, as well.  Master Bei seemed convinced there was danger brewing in Cantha.”

“When?” she demanded, “I’m scared for Zhou.”

“Aye, we’d better be movin’ fast if Master Joe is in trouble.”

Uriel chuckled, imagining Zhou wincing whenever he heard Mog say his name incorrectly.  She sensed the lanky mesmer knew better but was a bit of a trickster.

“Agreed, we need to get back to Cantha soon so that he can make arrangements and I can begin attuning people to this location.  We have so much work to do, not to mention, our supplies are going to run out soon.  And the fortress is a mess.  It’s not really suitable for housing scores of people and that’s exactly what we’ll need.

“At least it’s warm, if a little rainy,” Lemony pointed out, “We could get some tents in Lion’s Arch at the outfitters.”

Uriel nodded.  Lemony could, on occasion, be alarmingly level-headed.

“Alright.  I’ll start with attuning Sywno’s people and see if they would be amenable to using the sigil for traveling to and from Lion’s Arch to procure our supplies.  I’d like to see what’s locked up inside the great hall before we leave for Cantha, however. I don’t want a bunch of innocent servants and children underfoot if it turns out to be bad.”

“Good point, lass.”

“Thank you, Mog.  I owe you.”

“Well, if yer givin’ out favors, I wouldn’t turn down a place to hang me coat.  T’is been a long time since old Mog had a place t’ call home.  An’ I reckon I could help out an’ make the place respectable.  Ye’ll be needin’ entertainment when all t’is settled, too.”

“Oh! Please let him stay, Uriel!”

Uriel laughed and shrugged.

“If the place is suitable for human habitation, you’re on.”

She strode back the way they had come, amused by the earnest chatter of the monk behind her.  Lemony had a habit of attracting strange company and it was not the first time she had dragged home a wandering mesmer after all.  At least this one seemed decent.  For a mesmer, at least.

In the wide courtyard the Dunvael clan were already busily sorting the garbage in preparation to burn or bury it while Sywno looked on, occasionally directing them.  Morisedd was helping four others lever a large chunk of fallen masonry toward the gate that led down to the docks so they could pitch it over the cliff.  They really needed more tools to finish the work properly.

“Murdi,” Uriel called, “Sywno, I need your help.”

The two men stopped what they were doing and strode toward her.  Mog and Lemony invited themselves along.

“I want to see what is inside the hall while it’s daylight and we have no innocents at hand.  I’m worried that whatever drove the people off the island might still be in there.”

“Indeed, I sense there is something fey within, also,” Sywno replied, nodding.

“As do I,” said Morisedd, “and I agree, now is a good time while we are rested and strong.”

“Before we do that, we should all attune to the sigil in case we need to escape,” Uriel said.  The two men nodded, looking mildly relieved that she had succeeded in that endeavor while they had been busy.

For the next hour, Uriel labored over the simple rite her master had taught her all those years ago to make sure each of them could travel at will to any place in Tyria that they had visited that had a similar device.  Unfortunately, each attunement used up her gem dust and she had to send one of them ahead to buy more in Lion’s Arch.  Mog and Lemony volunteered and the two of them vanished and were back shortly, the valuable powder costing them one hundred coins for each person.  They had also procured a chest of shovels, rope, winches, buckets and pry bars as well as a wheel barrow in which Lemony was sitting when they reappeared in the garden.  Mog immediately ran off with her squealing in delight as he pushed the barrow toward the courtyard.

Once the last of them was successfully attuned, they gathered to hear Morisedd and Sywno’s plan.  They would approach from the courtyard where there was plenty of room to run.  While Uriel had been busy, they had moved some of the rubble and junk to form barricades that they could hide behind in case of projectiles.  Now it was a simple matter of prizing the planks off the door.

Everyone was silent as Morisedd and two of the younger rangers set to work.  Arrows were nocked.  Uriel performed a rite of attunement, opening herself to the plane of fire and preparing to channel its might.  Lemony was at her side, chanting a brief prayer and wrapping herself in an enchantment in preparation for the coming battle.  As for Mog, his bulk was slightly forward of them, as if he were protecting Uriel and Lemony.  He clasped a shimmering chakram and a bejeweled rod, his face now partially concealed by a grim looking mask.

The last plank fell with an abrupt snap, its splintered fragments landing at Morisedd’s feet.  He grasped the verdigris encrusted handle on his half of the massive double doors and gave it a tentative pull.  His lean frame struggled in vain for the years had been unkind to the abandoned fortress and the hinges were no doubt corroded rigid.  Then dust flowed in violent cascades from its edges as something or someone pushed against the portal from the inside.  The two younger rangers who were with him gave cries of alarm and Morisedd nodded grimly, urging them away as he trotted protectively behind them.  Once he was back at Uriel’s side, he took up his bow and fixed an arrow to the string, his visage a mask of deadly calm.

Rusted beyond use, the door collapsed under pressure with a low roar of splintering wood and twisted metal.  A cloud of dust burst from the throat of the hall like a gout of flame from a dragon’s jaws.  As the choking cloud dissipated, there emerged the fearsome shapes of undead, skeletons clad in moldering rags and rusted armor, many still bearing the emblems of fallen Orr.  The smell of rot and charnel caused them to gag, the unclean odor rising in a miasmal belch from the heart of the hall.

Before the horde of undead could sweep down on them, however, Uriel chanted and focused, become a conduit to the plane of fire.  Her body trembled with potential as she concentrated, the long incantation gathering flames to her fingertips until at last the heavens answered her call.  Molten rock and flame crashed down upon the tightly gathered crowd of skeletons and ghouls as arrows flew thick as swarming locusts toward their mark.  In nearly perfect sync, the Dunvael rangers fired again and again, the arrows shredding their foes before they even had a chance to advance from the hall.  Uriel watched Mog spin, a hex issuing from his lips.  There were healers among the horde but they were crushed by the mesmer’s subtle spells, their incantations foiled or backfiring with deadly results.

No sooner had they slaughtered the first wave than did the second pour clattering and reeking from the darkness of the hall.  Uriel tried to imagine what had happened here the day those vile creatures were trapped inside.  The residents must have sought to confine them in order to make good their escape.  She wondered if they had succeeded.  There was little time for musing, however, for the second wave was, if anything, greater than the first.  This time the skeletal horde broke in a reeking wave against the first rank of rangers, many of them shattered by the hail of arrows.  Mog managed to stop one of the skeletal sorcerers from causing the earth to shake.  The creature fell back with a shriek while its nearest compatriots recoiled from the outburst of chaotic energies.  It bought Uriel enough time to finish her spell and she burned them to cinders with a fierce phoenix aura that radiated in a deathly wheel from her willowy form.

Again the whine and clatter of arrows shattered their foes.  Bone and tatters of cloth rained to the ground, mounding up before their line.  And then there was silence as the rangers held their fire and the black gape of the hall was still.  For many long moments they stood there listening.

And then a darkness swept over the hilltop and clouds gathered.  Chill gusts of wind and rain lashed them, hail battered their exposed crowns, but they did not break their line.  A deathly shriek pierced the stillness and the blue glare of enormous eyes beamed from the shadows of the hall.  At last the beast emerged, a hideous parody of the mightiest of creatures, a dragon of bone and desiccated flesh.  The horrid sound issuing from its jaws put Uriel in mind of squealing pigs and screaming women.  Massive and terrible it rushed toward them, arrows zinging off of its putrid form as if they were little more than gnats.  For every one that struck true, ten others shattered uselessly.  Uriel swiftly gathered her energies for another mighty volley of fire only to fall back choking as a sickening gas flowed over she and Mog and Lemony.  They staggered away from the seething cloud as two of the rangers dropped their bows and took up axes and a third wielded a mighty hammer.  Sywno called upon Melandru and summoned healing waters from the worn cobbles to soothe his wounded and frightened clan as many of them withdrew bleeding and frightened by the towering menace.

The undead dragon bore a deathly green aura, an accursed shroud that gathered its power and focused them in ways beyond those of its less powerful kindred.  It was an elder of its kind and had no doubt dined upon the energies of countless victims.  It was far outnumbered, yet they were daunted by its immense size and strength.  Uriel chanted her fastest spell, focusing an intense ball of fire upon the creature and dismayed when it hardly left a mark upon the beast’s yellowed bones.

“Scatter!” cried Sywno, “Keep moving if it draws too close!”

Hammer and axe crashed uselessly against the dragon’s flank.  It swept one of them aside with a calcareous claw and drew back its head, the frigid energies of Grenth’s domain heeding its call.  It was coming for Lemony, drawn to her light and enchantments.  The little monk shrieked in terror and dashed away as the rangers around them scattered in four directions.  Mog bravely held his ground and shouted a single syllable, his body wreathed in chaotic energies as the beast squealed in pain and fury.  Denied its opportunity to feast upon Lemony’s corrupted enchantment, it turned upon the mesmer, its great jaws lashing toward him.  Mog was tall but agile and tumbled aside, regaining his feet some distance behind the line of rangers.  Arrows pounded into the fell creature’s form and it fell back with a roar.  Eldritch shadows gathered once more around its form and a well placed arrow from Morisedd silenced its incantation.  Now the rangers followed his example, stopping the creature by aiming for its luminous eyes and jaws whenever it attempted to call to the realm of death and cold.  Its curses silenced, Uriel and the other magi unleashed the elements upon it.  Burning arrows, axe and hammer were added to the fray and Mog stole away its energies.

It seemed the creature would never yield though they hacked and burned and chipped away at its bones and mummified sinews.  Its shrieks rent the air, too blinded by rage and blood lust to see it was losing blow by tiny blow.  At last it flagged, stumbling, its bones turning to dust and crumbling with a final enraged scream.  The fortress was theirs at last.

Trembling with exhaustion, Uriel sank to the ground.  Lemony and Morisedd came to her side and she embraced them each in turn, thanking them through parched lips.  She was not the only one who was worn out.  Many of the rangers now staggered to their knees and gasped for breath.  It had been a long gruesome fight.  The beast had managed to wound with its claws and mighty teeth despite having its spells disrupted.  The coppery smell of blood now tainted the air and darkened the ground where it flowed amid the puddles of rain.

“I need to help the wounded,” Lemony said wearily, hugging her a final time, “but we have won and I shall thank the gods.”

“As will I,” murmured Uriel, “and I thank you, as well, my friend, for staying with me through thick and thin.”

Lemony smiled sweetly before staggering off to follow the rangers who were carrying the wounded to shelter from the pouring rain.  Uriel was glad for the storm.  Already the awful smell of death was being washed away.

“I know we have fought a long, difficult battle, but it is urgent we go to Master Bei.  Any who are willing to serve as escort come with me.  I will also need a few of you to procure tents from Lion’s Arch,” she announced, heartened when Morisedd, Brioch and Armagil instantly volunteered to ward her.

“I will post a guard on the hall,” Sywno said to her, “although the evil I sensed is now gone.  I will perform a purification in Melandru’s name.”

“Thank you,” she said, bowing to the elder ranger.  He nodded in return and walked away, the stiffness in his gait betraying his weariness and pain.

“We should be going,” Morisedd told her, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.

“I am so grateful to your clan, Murdi.  I don’t know how we could have done any of this without them.  I hope there is some way we can repay you.”

“Let us ward the forest and make our new home here,” he said quietly, “There are no ettins or avacara to trouble us and Sywno can spend his last days in peace.”

There was the faintest ache of regret in Morisedd’s voice as he said those words.  She knew without asking him that Sywno was dying and would not be with them much longer.

“I wish I could give him more than that.”

“I do, too.”