"Ronan pa.s.sed on, and so, too, in time did Ventari, who spent his life tending to the young sapling. Before he died, Ventari carved his tablet and set it down at the base of the tree. When we awakened, that tablet became our law, and we were infused with the spirit of both brave Ronan and gentle Ventari.

"We were not there when all this happened, but we know it because of the Dream of Dreams. While we were quickening within the golden fruit of the Pale Tree, the tree spoke to us of the world outside. She taught us, if you will, of the nature of the waking world.

"We are not all-knowing," she continued. "The Dream of Dreams is not like a tome of all knowledge. But it does give us a life before our life, in which we learn much of the world we are coming into. Fire is hot. Wild animals can be dangerous, but many can be tamed. Here is the proper way to use a sword. This is how you cast a spell, if you are so disposed. We come into the world with knowledge of the world, but not necessarily the experience."

Riona shook her head. "Is there a difference? Experience gives you knowledge."

"For humans, most likely," said Killeen, "but not for us." She picked up an oversized drumstick. "This is the leg of a young moa. I know that it was a moa from the Dream, and further that it is well cooked but not overcooked. I know what it tastes like but have never tasted it myself." She took a bite of the leg, and chewed for a moment or two. "Chicken," she said at last, the word m.u.f.fled by the food in her cheek.

"I don't know what is weirder," said Riona, looking a little uneasy, "your telepathic dreams or the fact I am watching a plant eat an animal."

"Many plants eat animals," countered Killeen. "Flytraps, ibogas, jacarandas, pitcher plants. The oakhearts chase down and mash animals they encounter and use the remains to fertilize their young."

"Of course they do," said Riona. She turned to Dougal and whispered, loudly, "Creepy!"

If Killeen heard the comment, she did not respond to it. "But we don't have telepathic dreams. In the Dream of Dreams, one grows one's ident.i.ty. When one is Awakened into the world, we leave the Dream behind, for the most part. But what we learn in the world goes back into the Dream to help new sylvari understand. The Firstborn entered into a world without sylvari, but what they learned helped all that followed them. So, too, what I learn will help future generations."

"Must make it hard for sylvari to keep secrets," said Riona, and Dougal realized what she was thinking: Killeen knew everything they knew about the mission. Who else has emerged, newly fallen from the Pale Tree who knew about this?

"We try not to keep secrets," said Killeen, almost smugly. "But knowledge is rarely specific. A face, an item, perhaps a name, may stay with us once we Awaken. We may feel drawn to a particular place or person, or feel that some task needs to be done. Occasionally, something in the Dream echoes back to an awakened sylvari, but it is more of a feeling than a vision filled with details and specifics. That is one reason so many sylvari wish to fight the Elder Dragons: we dream of a great shadow in the Dream, and awaken to a world where the dragons cast an equally deep shadow on the land.

"As an example"-she motioned at Dougal with her moa bird-"I know about the long war between the charr and the humans, but not as much about the reasons why, or what happened in Ascalon City." She looked at Dougal and took another big bite of moa flesh to indicate she was done talking for a while.

Riona took another slug from her winegla.s.s, then reached for the bottle again. "Give her the abridged version, please."

Dougal wiped his mouth on his napkin, sat back in his chair, and began.

"As General Soulkeeper said, the charr were here on Tyria first and ran wild over the entire continent. When humans arrived, they were the first serious challenge to charr supremacy in centuries. But if it hadn't been for the death of the Khan-Ur, humanity might not have survived those ancient days. The Khan-Ur's children, who were also his four imperators-leaders of their own personal legions-fell to squabbling over his mantle, each accusing the others of treachery. They set their legions against each other. Blood, Iron, Flame, and Ash. None of them were strong enough to defeat the other three, though, and in the course of the civil war, the Claw of the Khan-Ur was lost. Yet, their internal dissension gave humanity some breathing room to develop, and with that time we conquered Ascalon.

"Several generations later, when the charr got their act together, we fought to keep them out of what we now considered our land. To that end, the kings of Ascalon began building a ma.s.sive wall that ran west from the s.h.i.+verpeaks all the way to the Blazeridge Mountains on the Eastern Frontier. It took nine hundred years to complete, but it kept the charr to the north of it, where they belonged. Indeed, backed by the strength of the wall, we pushed them even further north, so that for most Ascalonians the charr were a distant but always present threat.

"The Northern Wall stood unbreached for nearly two hundred years, but way back in 1070, the charr discovered a great magic, based on mighty cauldrons filled with mystic energy. The charr shamans, in particular those that commanded the Flame Legion, unlocked the secrets of the cauldrons and brought about the Searing. Great burning crystals fell from the sky and scourged the lands around them, breaking the Great Northern Wall.

"The charr flowed through the wall in an unstoppable wave that washed all the way through Ascalon until it crashed on the sh.o.r.es of Orr. In Orr, its most powerful vizier cast a forbidden spell of his own that stopped the charr cold, but only at the sacrifice of his entire nation, sinking Orr beneath the sea. But that, as they say, is another story.

"The Searing forced King Adelbern to move his throne from Rin to Ascalon City, the only major city in his nation that still stood. There, he felt, he would make his last stand against the charr invasion.

"The king's sole heir, Prince Rurik, disagreed with him and led a large portion of his people over the s.h.i.+verpeaks to safety in Kryta rather than wait for their doom with their king. Prince Rurik, by the way, never made it to Kryta with his followers: he gave his own life so that they might find their freedom. It is said that Prince Rurik's death hurt King Adelbern worse than the fall of Rin itself.

"Back in Ascalon City, the Flame Legion prepared for a final a.s.sault on the place's walls. The imperator of the Flame Legion somehow got his hands on the Claw."

"So this Flame Legion imperator was really the last Khan-Ur?" asked Killeen.

Dougal clicked his tongue at that. "Not quite. The Claw is a powerful weapon, legends say, a force that would allow one to unite the legions under a single banner. But you still have to convince the other legions and earn the t.i.tle of Khan-Ur to seal the deal, as it were. The Flame imperator decided that conquering Ascalon City and beheading King Adelbern with the Claw would cement his claim, so that's what he set out to do."

"The legions, led by the shamans of the Flame Legion, a.s.saulted the walls of Ascalon City with their forces, their tamed siege devourers, and their magical cauldrons. The charr armies overran the defenders and surmounted the walls. Adelbern fought until the last, armed with his great magical sword, Magdaer. Magdaer was an artifact from ancient Arah, the City of the G.o.ds, and infused with power. It is said that Magdaer's twin, Sohothin, was in the hands of his son, Rurik, when he died. In any event, Adelbern single-handedly brought down wave upon wave of charr warbands, making his last great stand on the battlements of his own tower.

"At last King Adelbern faced the Flame Legion imperator, the leader of the charr forces, who himself bore the Claw of the Khan-Ur. When the two weapons met, the energies within both exploded in a great jet of power that was seen from the s.h.i.+verpeaks themselves."

"The Foefire," said Killeen.

Dougal fell silent then, picturing that terrible event in his mind, making it match up with the horrible images he'd witnessed on his own venture into the harrowed city.

"Tell me more about the Foefire," Killeen said. "As a necromancer, that fascinates me."

A gruff voice-Dougal recognized it as Doomforge's-spoke from the darkness of the hallway. Dougal wondered how long the charr had been there and what she had heard.

"The Foefire destroyed every charr within Ascalon City, and for leagues around as well. The buildings, the farms, and the land were unharmed, but every charr within its reach was destroyed. The humans, however, suffered a different fate. Their souls were peeled loose from their shredded bodies, and they survive eternally as guardian ghosts to jealously protect the land. Adelbern, whom we call the Sorcerer-King, d.a.m.ned his people to destroy the charr. Adelbern did with cursed magic what his army had not been able to manage in years, and he cheated the charr of our triumph."

Doomforge stood in the room's arched entrance and waited for someone to gainsay her. Dougal resisted the temptation, and neither Riona nor Killeen seemed inclined to take the bait.

Doomforge grunted at the lack of any challenge. "General Soulkeeper sends me with her regrets. She cannot join us tonight."

" 'Us'?" Dougal said.

Doomforge moved into the room and cast her eye over the ruins of the meal. She had taken off her armor and now wore just a set of simple rope and leather clothes that Dougal could only describe as a harness. Dougal supposed that with all her fur she didn't need clothes for warmth, only charr standards of modesty. It covered just enough of her to manage that, although on a human it would have been considered scandalous. Despite her casual attire, she seemed far less relaxed than she had been in her armor.

"Soulkeeper asked me to dine with you so that we might become better acquainted." She looked down at the table. "But I see you are nearly finished."

Dougal waited for the charr to turn around and leave. He enjoyed watching her try to decide how long she would have to endure their company to fulfill her orders. Despite her actions against the norn, he wasn't about to make her feel at home.

Killeen, on the other hand, had no trouble with that at all. She leaped to her feet and scurried over to take the charr by the paw and escort her to a seat at the table. "The general is as wise as she is generous," she said. "I'm thrilled to have someone like you as a part of our guild."

Dougal winced at that word and saw Doomforge do the same as she accepted the seat the much smaller sylvari shoved in behind her. "I have a warband already," the charr said. "I do not need a guild."

Dougal nodded at that, finally finding something he and Doomforge could agree upon. "We are in no way a guild," he said. "Guilds are permanent organizations. They are created and maintained by their own members.h.i.+p, and are usually set up with long-term goals. We are four individuals gathered together for a single mission. We are a team, a company, maybe even what the asura call a krewe. And I don't even like teams that much." Riona failed to suppress a rude snort at that, but he ignored her. "It is often better to work alone."

Killeen smiled at them both as if they were slow-headed children. "But you're not working alone, are you? And you"-she turned back to Doomforge-"don't have your warband with you. I suppose, in a way, we're your warband."

Dougal almost choked on his wine at this, but Doomforge's reaction drowned out his own. "I am charr," she said, p.r.o.nouncing each word carefully. "My warband is to me what humans would consider a family. We were raised together as cubs in the creche, in the fahrar. We were trained to fight together as a unit. We may not share blood, for we honor our elders and forebears, but the bonds of battle hold stronger than any family tie."

"A family?" Killeen said, tilting her head at a curious angle. "All sylvari are a single family. We all sprang from the same source, the Pale Tree, but the Dream-our communal history and subconscious-binds us together even more than that. Perhaps that is why we treasure our individualism. When you have so much in common, the new experiences you have-those that separate you from the others-are what make you unique."

A servant swept in with a roast suckling pig on a platter and placed it before the charr. Doomforge eyed it for a long moment, then set to picking at it with a single talon, slicing the flesh from the bones like a master butcher. "By that," the charr said, "I mean that I already have a 'family' or 'guild' or 'warband' or whatever you wish to call it. I have no need for another."

"You can always use another family," said Killeen.

Having dismembered the pig, Doomforge stuffed it into her mouth. Piece by piece, its pink flesh disappeared into her maw. The way Doomforge's jaws and teeth worked in concert to annihilate the pig fascinated Dougal. He could not look away, no matter how much Doomforge glared at him over the bones she picked clean.

"All right," said Killeen. "Not a family. We can at least be a team."

Doomforge scowled as she reached for a goblet of ale a servant had brought her while she consumed her meal. "You forget that I am to enter Ebonhawke not as a friend but as a prisoner."

The charr looked as though she wished she could hack up that last word, spit it on the floor, and grind it under her boot. "This is not a wandering adventure. It is not a battle in some arena, for the sake of glory and recognition. It is a mission. I neither want nor need friends nor a family nor a team. I need only to follow my orders, and this I will do."

"I see," said Dougal. "And have you spent enough time with us to have fulfilled your orders?"

"No," said the charr, and for a moment Dougal swore Doomforge's features softened for a moment. "There is another matter. I came to apologize as well. To you, Dougal Keane."

Dougal's eyebrows rose but the charr just took a deep breath and pressed on.

Doomforge stared at the table as she spoke. "I acted rashly in the general's presence, and I am to convey to you my apologies for doing so. As long as you do not provoke me, it will not happen again.

"Further"-Doomforge's brows furrowed-"to allow a norn-even one as notorious as Gullik Oddsson-to slip past our guards is inexcusable. He apparently scaled the building and broke in through a window in broad daylight. Were he more competent, or less inebriated, he would have succeeded, and our mission would have become doubly impossible. I have spoken with the guards and it will not happen again. Oddsson has been sobered up, and I understand that he is facing General Soulkeeper's wrath as we speak."

Dougal waved off her apology. They were not going to be here long enough for any security changes to matter. "All I care about, Doomforge, is getting on our way before something like this happens again."

Doomforge reached for her gla.s.s but did not pick it up. "Ember."

"Excuse me?"

"Call me Ember."

"Seriously?" said Dougal, trying not to smile at the uncomfortable charr. He tried to remember when he had ever been on a first-name basis with a charr, and came up empty.

"The general suggested I request it."

"Are we supposed to be friends, then?"

"Not at all," she said, and Dougal was certain that the charr smiled as she said it.

Dougal nodded. "Then call me Dougal."

"I only have my one name," Killeen put in with a helpful smile.

Riona scowled. "Call me Crusader, charr, and I will call you the same, out of respect for our order. But it is good to see you kids playing nice."

"Just as long as we make it through Ebonhawke," said Dougal. To Ember Doomforge he said, "I have been trying to come up with a better plan but, short of a potion of invisibility, I am at a loss."

Killeen put a hand on Ember's free paw. "Are you going to be all right about wearing the chains?"

Ember bared her teeth for a moment before she spoke. "I hate it. I hate the very idea of it. But the general is correct that there is no other way, so I will do it."

"It's just a ruse," said Killeen. "It doesn't mean anything."

"If you believe that," Ember snarled, "then you know nothing of the charr."

Dougal tossed back another gulp of the liquor. "It's about Scorchrazor, isn't it?"

Ember started at the mention of the name. She cast Dougal an angry look, then nodded.

"Scorchrazor?" asked Killeen.

"Kalla Scorchrazor," said Dougal. "Even the humans in Ebonhawke know about her. One of the most famous charr since the time of the Searing. Back in the day, when the shamans of the Flame Legion commanded the charr armies, female charr didn't have much status among their people. They never went to war and were relegated to subordinate positions. Many of them served in chains. Scorchrazor changed all that. She destroyed the charr shamans and nearly took down an entire legion of them."

"How typically human," Ember said, "blathering on about things you know very little about. Your race has just enough knowledge to be dangerous."

"All right," Dougal said, his own curiosity rising. "Enlighten us."

Ember pulled a tuft of fur from her arm and held it over a candle flickering in the center of the table. The hair ignited, and Ember dropped it into her gla.s.s. The liquor in it burst into a bluish flame.

Lit by the flame in her gla.s.s, Ember spoke, her voice no longer carrying its usual menace. "In the days when humans still presented a challenge for the charr, we did something terribly foolish that we have long since sworn never to do again: we wors.h.i.+pped G.o.ds.

"Before humans came to Tyria, we had no G.o.ds. We knew about creatures with power we could barely comprehend, but we thought of them as foes to be defeated, not G.o.ds to be placated. When we suffered our first defeats at the hairless hands of humans, though, many charr blamed this on the fact that they could plead to their G.o.ds for help while we fought alone, relying only on ourselves.

"A warband from the Flame Legion came to the rest of the charr one day and announced that they had found G.o.ds for us to wors.h.i.+p. These were creatures later called t.i.tans, but they were powerful enough that such labels mattered little. The shamans who led their wors.h.i.+p used braziers of fire as icons of their newfound G.o.ds. The other legions hesitated to follow their lead, but the Flame Legion had so much success at converting others-often by force-that many a.s.sumed that they must have G.o.ds on their side. It was the t.i.tans that gave us the cauldrons that allowed us to breach the Great Northern Wall.

"One famous charr stood against them: Bathea Havocbringer of the Blood Legion. She sniffed out the foul plans of the Flame Legion and their new shamans, who directed the wors.h.i.+p of their G.o.ds in ways that brought themselves power and profit. She said, 'I will bow before no one and nothing, be it mortal or G.o.d,' and she persuaded many other charr to follow her lead.

"Because of this, the shamans gathered in the night to plot against her. They captured her and made a blood sacrifice of her to their new G.o.ds. They declared her a traitor and accused her of using her s.e.xuality to tempt the males from the true path of the G.o.ds. To prevent any more such treachery, they marked all females with the same brand of deceit and banned them from serving in the legions, where they would mix with the males.

"Many females objected to this, as did some males. Several shared Havocbringer's fate, and eventually the others saw no choice but to submit themselves to their new G.o.ds' will. We lived like this for centuries, long enough that most of us could not remember there ever having been another way."

Ember put her paw over her gla.s.s of lit liquor. The flames had burned low, and her paw sealing off the gla.s.s from the surrounding air soon snuffed them out entirely. If the heat from the fire hurt her, she did not show it.

"After the Searing, some charr realized that the shamans of the Flame Legion-who had long abused their powers-had tricked us. A warrior named Pyre Fierceshot helped spur the rest of us to stand up to the Flame Legion, but we did not triumph until his granddaughter, Kalla Scorchrazor, led a rebellion that restored female charr to their rightful place."

"How did she manage that?" asked Killeen.

Ember chuckled at this. "Males who think females are beneath them are poor at keeping secrets from them. The females watched the shamans and learned that they were cheating the charr of their right to chart their own destiny. Armed with that knowledge, they spread it far and wide throughout the charr lands, until most charr females-and many of their chosen males-sided with Scorchrazor.

"Before Scorchrazor entered the rebellion, plenty of other charr had already lined up to be counted against the shamans of the Flame Legion, following in the tracks of Pyre Fierceshot. As their numbers grew, so did the ferocity with which the shamans tried to keep them down. With Scorchrazor's help, though, the rebels finally had a chance at winning.

"Scorchrazor pointed out that the shamans of the Flame Legion lacked one thing the rebels had: open minds. If the rebels could see their way fit to allowing the females to fight beside them, they could effectively double their numbers overnight. This would give them the soldiers they needed to be able to overwhelm the shamans and their magic. And, eventually, the human kingdoms as well.

"Having grown up with their females in servitude to them for centuries, though, many of the male charr were reluctant to go against this 'tradition.' They argued that the females had stayed at home for too long and were no longer suited for the battlefield-if they had ever been.

"To counter this argument, Scorchrazor threw down a challenge before her detractors. The most important of these was Forge Ironstrike, imperator of the Iron Legion, and he agreed to meet her in single combat. If she could defeat him, he would acknowledge that female charr were just as qualified to become soldiers as the males. Otherwise, he would kill her as an example to the other females who were confused about their places.

"The battle took place in the ruins of Rin, the old human capital of Ascalon, which we have now restored as the Black Citadel. The imperators of the Blood and Ash Legions stood as seconds. Blood backed its daughter Scorchrazor, while Ash sided with Iron. Scores of others watched, from the highest tribune all the way down to the lowliest gladium."

Ember knocked back a bit more of her drink, thought for a moment, and then spoke. She was warming to both the spirits and to her tale. "Scores of charr came to watch the battle in the ruined arena in Rin. The two warriors were well matched. As a male of our race, Ironstrike was the larger and stronger of the two, but Scorchrazor was by far the faster and more skilled.

"Time after time Ironstrike charged, his claws stretching for Scorchrazor's throat, but each time she dodged him and sliced him with her own claws as he pa.s.sed her by. Eventually, the frustration and the loss of blood took its toll, and Ironstrike grew tired. Then Scorchrazor switched to the attack.

"She drove the battered Ironstrike back until he ran out of room to retreat. He summoned the last of his strength for one last charge, but she dodged that, too, and knocked him flat. She pounced on him as he sprawled on the arena's dusty floor and forced his surrender from him.

"Released, Ironstrike honored the terms of their deal. He acknowledged her right to battle alongside him, and he welcomed the rest of the female charr to join their rebellion. Even the shamans from the Iron, Blood, and Ash Legions rallied to their cause.

"The forces of the Flame Legion and its shamans met those arrayed against them in final battle on the Plains of Golghein. Because the Flame Legion had told their females to 'stay home where they belonged,' they were so outnumbered that they surrendered rather than be slaughtered.

"To her credit, Scorchrazor accepted the surrender, but only so that the charr would not be stripped of the power of the Flame Legion, which had more shamans than all of the other legions combined. Even without G.o.ds behind it-perhaps especially-magic has its uses.

"The imperator of the Flame Legion was so shamed by his surrender that when he finally met Scorchrazor, he stabbed her with a poisoned dagger. Charr may do anything to win a battle, but only the worst cowards would violate a surrender so. His treachery cost Scorchrazor her life, but her last words were 'At least I die knowing my sisters are free.' "

"Which is why you had such a strong reaction against wearing chains," said Riona.

Ember pressed her lips together so hard, they paled. Then she polished off the rest of the liquor in her gla.s.s in a single swallow.