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dissuade, or defeat the creature. Dougal closed his eyes and knew that it was over. He could do no more than hold on until his arm gave out or Blimm’s beast killed the asura and sylvari and hauled him in after them.
    He couldn’t help them. He could only die with them. One hand went to his chest; beneath his shirt, he could feel the cold metal of his locket, a reminder of the last time he had failed this badly, when he had stumbled out of a haunted city alone. When he had left friends behind.
    He knew what had to be done. His hand kept moving now, almost of its own volition, and fumbled to unbutton his shirt pocket.
    A deafening crack sounded in the chamber below, echoing like thunder and accompanied by the sound of hailstones clattering on the stone floor. Dougal wrenched open his eyes to see that the half-shattered Breaker had stumped forward on what was left of its legs to smash its fractured arms into the tomb guardian’s chest. Blimm’s creature let go of Killeen’s leg and turned to face this new threat, leaving the sylvari and asura to dangle over its head. The guardian turned to the task of reducing Breaker to gravel.
    “Haul us up!” Clagg said.
    Dougal tried, but his aching arms would not comply. He’d already put every ounce of his strength into trying to save the others, and he didn’t have anything left. It was all he could do simply to keep himself from letting go. “It’s no good. I can’t!”
    “You humans!” Clagg barked. “What good are you?”
    Dougal closed his eyes again and strained with all his might. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t bring the end of the rope up an inch. He bellowed in frustration with the effort, but nothing he did made any difference. He felt the end of the rope begin to wobble like mad and realized that if he didn’t release it soon, he’d only wind up dead with the others.
    The instant before he could finally allow himself to let go of the line, though, delicate fingers grasped his wrist. Then a sweet, desperate voice said in a ghostlywhisper, “Dougal, help me up!”
    Dougal almost dropped the rope in surprise. While what was left of Breaker had kept the tomb guardian busy, Killeen had climbed all the way up the rope, with Clagg’s arms clamped around her neck.
    Dougal moved his numbed fingers from the rope to Killeen’s arm and then fell backward, letting his weight haul Killeen and Clagg up over the lip of the hole to land upon him.
    Blushing just a little, Dougal and Killeen disentangled themselves from each other and stood up. As one, the three of them leaned over and peered into the pit.
    The tomb guardian gave Breaker one last stomp, and the blue glow in its central arcane motivator crystal faded and died.
    Clagg howled in despair. “Do you know how much of my life that represents?”
    As if to answer, the composite tomb guardian turned and stretched its arms up at them. Clagg leaped back, but Dougal stood his ground, confident that they were well beyond the creature’s reach.
    “I hate magic,” Dougal said. “I mean, sure, we
knew
that grabbing the Eye was going to make something happen—an asura like Blimm wouldn’t just leave it there unguarded—but with magic, you can’t ever know what it’s going to be.”
    Killeen leaned up against a wall of the bone-lined corridor, trying to restore the circulation to her legs. She looked like a newborn colt struggling to its feet for the first time. “Blimm must have been very determined to protect his crypt. Guarding a tomb with a beast likethat strikes me as overkill.”
    Clagg snorted at them both. “You idiots. The Golem’s Eye isn’t just a pretty rock. It is an ambient thaumaturgic construct. It contains the construct’s mind. That tomb guardian didn’t even exist until we showed up to disturb it.” He glared at Dougal. “When you touched the ruby, you
activated
the Eye. The Eye in turn
created
the guardian.”
    The tomb guardian slammed its limbs into the side of the chamber directly