Chapter 8. Leaving Ascalon

fter climbing steadily for several hours, the air grew colder and the trail wound northward toward the Shiverpeaks.  Pendaran was glad of his treasured cloak and stashed away his battered cane and inscribed chakram to better clutch it around his winsome frame.  They were well past Rin and the place of his birth although the broken wastes in no way resembled the verdant land of his youth.

He was eager to leave behind the lands of sundered Ascalon, and not just because of the usual troubles resulting from his habitual thievery.  The dusty red and dun wasteland depressed him and made him think overmuch about what might have been.  He was homeless now, which was nothing unusual following the Searing.  As the last remaining heir of the Caradec estate he had been looking forward to a life of idle pursuits and comfort.  And now he was condemned to wandering and gleaning a living with what few skills he had acquired in his squandered youth

Of course, he had initially tried to find a respectable line of work.  Because his brother had died in service to Ascalon during the Guild War, he was accorded mild respect and assigned the role of aide-de-camp to Lord Kelson during the Charr invasion.  It had not paid well, but it had guaranteed him regular meals, a smart uniform and security.  Naturally he had asked for more dashing roles such as spy or emissary, jobs for which mesmers were well suited.  Those with much greater training and talent had merely laughed at him.

As a glorified scribe and messenger, his role brought him into continual contact with powerful members of the military.  That was how he had met Lady Miruene.  She had forced over large tips upon him, which frankly he was not meant to receive.  Then there was the red silk cravat that she draped around his neck and admired as she collared him like a beloved pet.  When the first brutal winter after the Searing closed in and chilled them all to the bone, she lavished her dead husband’s mink-lined cloak upon him.  Naively, he had taken her concern for his wellbeing at face value. Recalled to Ascalon City as snow caused their foes to withdraw, Lady Miruene had plied him with heady mulled wine and lured him into bed.

And so it began.  She paid handsomely for his services and became his teacher and finally his procuress as she introduced him to new clients.  When it became known to Lord Kelson that Pendaran was receiving money and gifts in exchange for sexual favors, he was summarily fired and made to leave in shame.  By that time he had the semblance of a home and all the comforts money could buy in the sundered remnants of Ascalon.

He grew to hate his life, having little choice with Miruene in charge of his affairs.  Their customers had refined tastes and bottomless pockets.  Sometimes he performed for them, music or poetry first, then gentle lovemaking that approached his most treasured and blissful memories of his wife, Clarissa.  But eventually Miruene gave in to greed and with higher fees came higher expectations.  When he refused to endure the humiliation and brutality of those clients, Miruene cast him out once more onto the streets.

Stealing from those who had used him was now his only pleasure, payback for the Searing and all that it had done to him.  Uriel was now among them and she would pay.  He hated her.  Her contempt and admiration sickened him and he longed to take her treasured jewel and flee.

Tomorrow when they arrived in Yak’s Bend, he would take his leave of her and one way or another the sapphire would go with him.  Biting his lip in anger, he glared at her voluptuous backside swaying alluringly before him.  Just as well she thought him stupid and pathetic.  He would show her.