vosh-rakh

[vosh-rakh]

madstone, chapter 5

“I suppose that is my name,” the former god said with a tilt of his head. “I considered changing it, but the priests advised I didn’t. Would confuse the people more than necessary, they said. I suppose they’re right.”

He put a delicate hand on Kassur’s shoulder, who suddenly felt very small and embarrassed for his outburst. “You say my name with a curious accent. Are you Velothi, by chance?”

Kassur nodded. He didn’t think his accent was that strong. Maybe Vivec was just good at picking up on it.

Without removing his hand, Vivec looked up at Ku-vastei. “What brings you to my city, Hortator?”

“Trouble with the Ahemmusa,” Ku-vastei said. She raised and jingled the Madstone in the air. “We’re helping this lad get it sorted.”

Vivec leaned his face in to examine the amulet. “Interesting design. Dwemeri, I take it.”

Ku-vastei took a closer look at the Madstone. “Is it?”

“May I?” Vivec asked, hand outstretched. Ku-vastei tentatively handed the Madstone to him. “Yes, but of very ancient make. Likely fashioned prior to a law that standardized their more utilitarian style. A law passed long before even our war with the Nords.” He smiles sadly, his eyes seeming to look beyond the amulet and into the distant past. “This really brings me back.”

Kassur managed to catch a glimpse of the amulet in the god’s hand, his first real look at it since they retrieved it. It had a round blue stone engraved with a radiant eye, cradled in an inverted crimson crescent that looked like horns. 

Vivec then casually flicked the Madstone with his finger; a loud, clear tone rang out from the stone. Kassur instinctively covered his ears, even though the sound wasn’t necessarily painful. 

“Before they became atheists,” Vivec began when the sound diminished, “the Dwemer feared the Daedra. They lacked their later, more complete understanding of metaphysical tonality, but still vaguely knew the importance of fundamental tones. They crafted devices such as this to ‘scare away’ the influence of the Daedra.”

“Seems the Ahemmusa somehow obtained one and used it to keep Sheogorath away for generations,” Ku-vastei filled in. 

“Interesting,” Vivec mumbled, scratching his chin. “I wonder how it came into their hands. No matter, I suppose.” He looked again at Kassur. “I suspect whatever issue your tribe faces, this device is instrumental to its salvation.”

“We think so, Lord Vivec,” offered Aryon when Kassur didn’t reply. 

“Oh, please,” said Vivec with a dainty wave of his golden hand. “I’m barely a ‘Lord’ anymore. Call me a saint still, if you want. But I’m more part of the common rabble these days.”

Kassur somehow doubted this. How could a god become a mortal so easily? This was, of course, assuming he was ever truly a god in the first place, something Kassur’s people readily questioned. Regardless, there seemed something insincere, or at least unbefitting, in his stated humility. 

Moving right along, Vivec said, “Well, I suppose I’ll be coming with you.”

Ku-vastei barely suppressed a hiss. “That won’t be necessary, Vivec.”

“Oh, please,” Vivec said again, clasping his hands and stretching his arms in front of him. “I’m bored out of my mind here. Endless bureaucracy. And there’s only so many ways you can say, ‘Get rid of that rock in the sky.’” 

He cast a glance upwards at Baar Dau, which Kassur only just now noticed. It was indeed a giant rock in the sky, crawling with miners like kwama, bits of excavated stone falling into the water by the Temple canton. 

“Won’t leaving the city put its stasis in jeopardy?” Ku-vastei asked. 

“No, I can handle it from afar well enough, especially seeing as it’s quite a bit lighter these days.”

Ku-vastei swished her tail and scratched her chin. Finally, she acquiesced. “Fine. You can come. But not like that.” She made a gesture with her metal hand, dividing her face into two halves.

“Of course,” Vivec replied. “I can be discrete.” In an instant the gold faded from his right side, leaving him fully grey, like any other Dunmer. “Completely inconspicuous.”

“Fine,” Ku-vastei grunted. “Just don’t make any kind of scene. This doesn’t have to be a big ordeal.”

“As you wish, Hortator,” Vivec answered. Kassur was amazed by how easily Ku-vastei commanded the (former) god, and how readily he submitted to her whims.

“Let’s be on our way then, shall we?” asked Aryon. “We’ve got the better part of the island to cross.”

Ku-vastei shrugged. “We’ll just teleport to Sadrith Mora, take the boat to Vos, then walk the rest of the way to Ald Daedroth. Not too complicated.”

- - -

And it wasn’t too complicated. The teleport to Sadrith Mora (which Kassur handled even better than the last three, getting quite used to it), the walk across town, and boat ride to Vos, were mostly uneventful. But it was far from boring, as you might imagine, being a trip with a powerful wizard, the leader of a nation, and a god. To Kassur it went by in a blur; either Aryon and Vivec were in heated debate about the Dwarves, which Ku-vastei moderated, or the three discussed political matters so far over Kassur’s head in their import that he simply tuned it out and focused on not getting seasick. Gals Arethi kept a baleful eye on Kassur, but apparently the esteemed company Kassur traveled with kept him safe from the shipmaster’s wrath.

When they arrived, Sedyni the Vos shipmaster was not there. The four travelers stepped off the boat and glanced around. The nearby tradehouse seemed unusually quiet. Gals shrugged and sailed off back to Sadrith Mora.

“Where is everyone?” Kassur asked. At this time of early evening, the village was usually buzzing with activity.

Vivec closed his eyes. “The chapel is empty.”

“How could you possibly know that?” asked Ku-vastei, planting a metal hand on her hip. Kassur wondered about that brass gauntlet she wore – it was incredibly ornate, and had an air of being impossibly ancient and powerful. But he had no idea how to ask politely.

“I can still feel it,” Vivec said, opening his eyes again. “Most people still revere me as a god, especially this far removed from the official temple in my city. So the Tribunal holy places are still attuned to me.” Kassur had no idea what he was talking about.

Aryon was oddly quiet. In the short time Kassur had known him, he’d never acted like this; he was the type of consequential mer to always have something to contribute to a conversation. It was barely perceptible, but Kassur could swear he saw a slight tremor in Aryon’s hands. But Kassur couldn’t tell if it was fear…or rage.

“Aryon?” asked Ku-vastei. “Are you alright?” She seemed to notice the same thing Kassur had.

“Check on the village,” Aryon said, his voice dry. “I go to the tower.” And so he did, flying off fast through the air, much faster than they had in Vivec. As Kassur watched him disappear into the sky, he saw a dark cloud in front of the setting sun. Or…was it a pillar of smoke?

“This bodes ill,” Vivec said, frowning. “Kassur, stay close. It’s quiet, but I suspect danger.”

Kassur felt a sudden pang of guilt. He realized he was more like a liability to these powerful beings, someone they had to keep close and protected because he was so weak and helpless. He could barely conjure a flame, and didn’t know how to use a weapon. In a fight, he was worthless. He began to wonder why they’d brought him along at all. A sneaking suspicion told him they thought he would be useful only as a bargaining chip, of sorts. A sort of intermediary to help them accomplish…whatever grim task they meant to do.

The thought escaped his lips just as he thought it. “Don’t kill them,” he blurted. “If it is the Ahemmusa. Please.”

“Kassur…” Ku-vastei began, turning to face him. “That might not be –”

“You have our word,” Vivec interrupted, placing a delicate hand on Kassur’s shoulder. “No excessive harm shall come to your people.”

Ku-vastei scoffed, snapping her head towards Vivec to glare at him, but after a moment sighed and shrugged. Kassur wasn't sure if he could trust the word of the false god – or if the Nerevarine had any interest in going along with him. 

They proceeded towards the town walls, which were actually the backs of the tightly-crowded huts of the village, no space left between their rounded stucco corners. There were no guards posted at the gate, the town’s single entrance, and beyond them was still silent. Down the single street they could see that many of the doors were half-to-wide open, but there were no obvious signs of a struggle.

“Vivec,” said Ku-vastei, “take Kassur to check the chapel. I’ll check on the houses.” Vivec nodded and gently directed Kassur towards the chapel as Ku-vastei began picking her way from hut to hut.

Vivec and Kassur passed under the chapel gate into the meager courtyard. The small alchemical garden the two priests maintained there was not overgrown or choked with weeds. “They haven’t been gone long,” Kassur observed out loud. 

Vivec noticed Kassur examining the garden and nodded. “Good,” he said, smiling at Kassur. “Let’s check inside.”

The door was closed, and unlocked. But the chapel never locked its doors, not even when the priests were both asleep. Vivec cautiously pushed through the threshold, Kassur following close behind. “Hello?” called out Vivec. “It’s alright. We’re here to help.” 

There was no answer. The chamber within was nearly pitch-dark, only faint light coming through the stained glass domed ceiling. Vivec cast a Light spell for them to see by as they entered.

It was a mess. The Tribunal tapestries on the walls were torn to shreds, and the murals defaced with what Kassur hoped was paint; candles and torches were snuffed out; the prayer-stools were upturned and thrown about; loose ripped-out pages of books were fluttering in the breeze visiting from outside; ash and bones from the circular Waiting Door on the floor were spread across the room haphazardly. Kassur held no great faith in these things, but it still pained him to see such desecration of a holy place. 

“Be on your guard,” said Vivec stiffly. “In this state I fear I could not trust my divinity to tell if we’re alone. There is little holiness left here.”

Kassur’s muscles tightened. He still didn’t understand how Vivec could know such things. But if he truly was anything close to what he claimed – an ancient mortal-made-god, a living deity – then it was difficult to doubt him.

They slowly circled the Waiting Door, more carefully inspecting the scene, but there was no more evidence of exactly what had happened. At least there’s no blood, Kassur thought. He remembered his teacher, Yakin Bael, and said, “There’s a bedroom downstairs. We should probably check there, too.”

Vivec nodded in agreement, and led the way down the steps, his orb of magical light guiding the way. The priests’ bedroom was not saved from the sacking: pots and urns of various alchemical and cooking ingredients were overturned and cracked open; broken glass from shattered bottles littered the rug underfoot (Kassur was for once glad for his shoes, and Vivec hovered an inch above the ground); the desk had its drawers yanked out, scattering torn papers and writing implements, and its stool and tall candlestick were toppled; the privacy screen was ripped open; and the beds were torn apart, sheets and blankets strewn and split.

Vivec stopped to inspect some of the loose pages of sermons and notes on the floor. Kassur went up the short ramp to the beds to look more closely. He knew the bed on the left was Yakin’s – they had a few lessons down here, when the upstairs chapel was too busy and loud. He picked up a pillow from the floor, gashed open and spitting up dried wickwheat stuffing, and gently laid it back on the head of the bed. He knelt down, and quickly realized that under the pillow was Yakin’s spectacles, broken and bent at the nose and lenses shattered. He gently took them in his hands, careful of the jagged edges of glass, and stared at them.

Just as he was getting used to his new life in Vos, now it seemed to be ripped from him again. Even the only real friend he had among the housemer, his teacher Yakin Bael, seemed to be in some unknown peril. And, useless as always, Kassur could do nothing but follow along with the real heroes, who actually had power to do anything about it.

“Here,” said Vivec, startling Kassur from his misery. A second orb of light appeared, floating near Kassur by the beds. 

“Thanks,” said Kassur. Vivec smiled and kept reading a document in his hand.

Kassur looked back down, and something immediately caught his eye. Just under the edge of the bed was a bright gleam, reflecting the magical light above. Kassur slowly reached for the shining object and pulled it out. 

It was a short sword, still in its sheath; its metallic hilt had been catching the light. He removed the sheath noiselessly and beheld the glistening steel blade, sharp as the day it was forged. “Vivec,” he called, “he had a sword. Yakin, that is. And he didn’t use it.”

Vivec dropped what he was reading and floated up the ramp to Kassur, looking down at him and the sword. “Hm,” he pondered, tucking his legs up under him as he floated and placing his hands on his crossed knees. “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a struggle. Those spectacles are broken. No blood?”

Kassur looked around again. On a whim he grabbed the pillow he had adjusted earlier and turned it over; sure enough, a small bloodstain seeped through the cloth case.

“Punched in the face,” Kassur suggested. “Nose bled, maybe broken. No other signs of a struggle, that I can tell.”

“Fair analysis,” Vivec said. “I don’t think there’s any other clues here. Let’s go meet up with Ku-vastei.”

Ku-vastei had just come back from the end of the street to the chapel by the time Kassur and Vivec came out. She was alone.

“I see you didn’t find any survivors,” Vivec said, frowning. “Any dead?”

“No,” Ku-vastei said. “No sign of any struggle. Everyone is just gone. What of the chapel?”

“We found no one, but the chapel was desecrated. The homes were untouched?”

“That I could tell, yes. Some doors were left open, and the breeze disturbed some belongings, but that was it.”

“Hm,” Vivec said, stroking his solid grey chin. “Perhaps they’re sheltering at the tower?”

All three turned west towards Tel Vos. The pillar of smoke was rising higher, and blacker. Without a word they began at a quick pace towards it.

- - -

Aryon had put out most of the flames by the time they arrived, but the damage had been done. There was nothing left of the Telvanni fungal roots of the tower but ash, even Aryon’s personal pod at its peak. The tendrils which had so integrated themselves into the stonework of the Imperial fort no longer held it up, causing several portions to collapse into charred bricks.

Ku-vastei and Vivec readied their spears (Kassur hadn’t noticed the god had been carrying one until now) while Kassur cowered behind the two. But it made him feel like a coward, so he tried his best to straighten his back, puff out his chest bravely, and at least put his hand on the sheathed sword of Yakin Bael, even if he didn't have the nerve to actually draw it.

Aryon knelt in front of a smoldering pile of bodies. It was hard for Kassur to make out in the carnage, but it seemed like a mix of guards, tower servants, and Ahemmusa raiders. He might have recognized some of the latter, if they weren’t all so horrifically burned.

“Master Aryon?” asked Vivec. “Are you harmed?”

Aryon turned his head slowly. There was no evidence of weeping on his face, but he looked like a man completely exhausted. Kassur understood the feeling immediately. “No,” Aryon said. “They likely went north before I arrived.” He stood and wiped his hands on his robes. “To the old camp. What of Vos?”

He’s held together by a thread right now, thought Kassur. There was a haunted look in his eyes. He’d just lost everything. Kassur could relate – although he’d ran from his old life, instead of having it torn from him.

“There was no one there,” Ku-vastei said. “No sign of a struggle, except that the chapel was ransacked.” She took a cautious step forward towards Aryon. “Are you sure you’re –”

The wind changed suddenly, and Kassur caught a big whiff of the corpse-smoke. He gagged loudly, covered his mouth with the collar of his robes, and fled towards a nearby wall. He planted his free hand against the stone as he tried to calm his retching before it grew into something worse. He could feel three pairs of eyes on his back, and he resented it. He let go of the wall and looked at his hand; it was completely covered in soot. The wall now had a relatively clean handprint on it where he’d stolen the blackness. “I’m fine,” he shouted, although the act nearly made him gag again. “I’m –”

There was a loud crack somewhere above him. He only had time to look up at the top half of a tower rushing towards him, but not enough to move out of the way. He closed his eyes.

Something hit him hard, but not at the angle he was expecting. The collapse was deafening, its roar of crumbling stone erasing all other sounds. When the sound had settled, Kassur opened his eyes. Ku-vastei had him in her arms; he could feel the cold metal of her right hand pressing into his spine through his robes. 

Vivec and Aryon appeared in the air above them, their feet glowing with pink light. “Are you two alright?” Aryon asked.

Kassur felt a soothing energy enter his body from the gauntlet, and he felt less sore from the tackle. “Yes,” Ku-vastei said as she stood up, lifting Kassur with her. “I’m fine, and he will be.”

Kassur caught a glimpse of Aryon’s face, wrinkled with worry, before it relaxed into relief. Then he put on a new mask, a mask of cold wrath. A cascade of facades to make Mephala proud.

“Good,” Aryon asked. “We need to go to the old camp and see if they’ve taken the citizens there.”

Aryon turned, and with a mystical wave of his hand, buoyed up the rubble in mauve smoke and flung it aside. “Come,” he said once the crashing din faded. “We have work to do.”

Suddenly, Kassur was terrified of Aryon – and for the safety of his own people.

[vosh-rakh]

As the Hortator’s daughter, Hla-eix could always tell when she was being watched. Even in her sleep.

Her eyes shot open to see the (former) living god of the Tribunal, Vivec, leaning over her bed. She would have started if this wasn’t a regular occurrence. Mother Ayem had told Hla-eix that he had insomnia, something to do with not being a god anymore. His once-split face – now just a slightly discolored grey on his right side – hung over hers, his eyes bulging out of their sockets like a bug’s, his restless lids sagging underneath. “Hla. Wake up.”

“Vivi,” said Hla-eix, rubbing sleep from her eyes, “you’ve already woken me up.”

“I want to show you something.” Vivec stood up, but his sharp stare lingered on Hla-eix as she slowly shifted up out of her Daedra-silk sheets.

“Is it another prank?” That was usually what he was up to at this time of night. “We can’t spike the flin with bug musk again, the cooks are being extra cautious because of last month –”

“No, no,” said Vivec, flashing one of his rare smiles, his teeth glittering like pearls under starlight. “I told you. I want to show you something special. Can you fly?“

“What? No!” Hla-eix frowned. “What makes you think I could?”

“I’ve seen you in the apothecary, looking very closely at the Rising Force potions.”

Hla-eix blushed under the pale grey scales on her cheeks. “So? Knowing what potions do doesn’t mean I can fly.”

“Well,” Vivec said, smirking toothlessly, “You��re in luck. I can fly.” He threw a bundle of clothes at Hla-eix. “Put that on. The air is cold outside, especially as high as we’re going.”

Hla-eix beamed like crescent Secunda as she caught the heavy Skyrim-imported woolen robe. She finished kicking off the sheets and pulled the robe over her Daedra-silk sleeping gown. “Where are we going?” she asked, her hands on her hips like a true adventurer.

“Up, naturally,” crooned Vivec, chiming his glassy laugh. “Where else?”

Hla-eix frowned. “You’re being coy.”

Vivec offered his hand. “As is my nature. You’ll see.”

Hla-eix took the hand, his fully-grey one, and he led her to the window of her bedroom. With a conjured gust of wind the twin panes blew open, allowing the cold air of Vivec City to trickle in. Vivec the Saint picked up his legs into his floating lotus position and hovered outside. “Sit in my lap, Hla. I’ll show you. It’s not far.”

Hla-eix wasn’t particularly afraid of heights, but her room was high up in the Hortator’s palace. With great care she climbed into Vivec’s lap and sat facing forward, her back against his chest, her sharp nails gripping his thighs. It was wise of Vivec to have her wear the robes, she thought: nights in Sun’s Dawn – Mama said it was Xeech in Jel – were frigid, especially this high up.

Vivec slowly spun them around away from the palace, looking down upon the rest of the city as it crawled along the sea towards Vvardenfell proper, canton by canton. She’d had little opportunity to explore them on her own; it was difficult to escape your minders when you were the Hortator’s daughter. But she had a knack for fading like a shadow, and had explored some of St. Olms, and once watched a brutal fight in the Arena before being caught and brought home. Mother Ayem had scolded her, as had Mama, but secretly Mama praised her sneakiness when Mother Ayem was out of earshot. “You’d make an excellent assassin, like me, one day,” she had said, and it had excited Hla-eix, despite the fact that she was grounded for a month.

Hla-eix looked out upon the cantons, even this late skittering with lanterns crawling along the streets like ants. She longed for the secrets of those ants’ lives, locked away inside their skulls. What did they do day-to-day? How did they make their livings? What did they know of Love?

Love was a mystery to Hla-eix. She had read a copy of the thirty-fifth lesson of Vivec, the sermon on Love, but understood little. So she went to the source and asked Vivec directly. He had merely laughed and said, “You are barely eleven years old. You’ll know more about love when you’re older.”

This did not satisfy Hla-eix. Derelayn was scarcely older than her, and she could never shut up about boys. But it almost bored Hla-eix to tears every time. The most interest Hla-eix had in boys was to fight them, to cut their egos down to size – especially those annoying Nord boys in Ebonheart, who thought they were so important because their fathers were always jostling for the Duke’s favor. Hla-eix didn’t have enough fingers to count the times she’d been sent back across the bay after going to the castle to visit Derelayn, but getting into fights instead. (Again, while Mother Ayem chastised her, Mama secretly praised her.)

A chill ran down the back of her robes’ collar, tickling her spine and shaking her from her reminiscing. Vivec had brought her close – but not too close – to a strange sight: a small floating boulder. “You brought me to see that meteor?” she asked. “What for? I see it almost every day.”

“I brought you to see my hubris,” Vivec said softly. “Baar Dau.”

“Your hubris?” asked Hla-eix, looking up at Vivec. 

“Oh. Hubris means –”

“I know what hubris means, Vivi,” Hla-eix said, reaching up to pinch his nose. “I mean, how is Baar Dau your hubris?”

Vivec sighed. “It’s a long story. A version of which I’ve written in my sermons. The truth is a little more mundane, but…the point is, I should have dealt with it sooner. I was too proud. It took your mother’s decisiveness to finally put Baar Dau to rest.”

Hla-eix looked down at the canton below. A throng of priests and ordinators and various government officials and foreign dignitaries were looking expectantly up at the floating boulder that once was Baar Dau. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice Vivec and Hla-eix floating in the sky nearby.

She could hear the people on the canton chanting something. It seemed like a countdown of sorts, and she was able to pick out Mama’s voice rather clearly in the cacophony. She scanned the front of the crowd and was able to pick out the gleam of Wraithguard on her right hand. Just as the count reached “one” – 

A loud boom – a flash of light. Hla-eix’s head jerked up to see that the boulder was no more, just a fireball shooting fragments in all directions…

…including at her. She screamed.

The shrapnel bounced harmlessly off the thin violet surface of a Shield. “Don’t worry, Hla,” said Vivec. “You were never in any danger.”

There was now nothing at all left of Baar Dau but small rocks plummeting into the sea and pitifully crumbling onto the canton a safe distance away from the crowd. But Hla-eix’s scream had drawn their attention, and she looked down to see her Mama, the Hortator, glaring up at her and Vivec, as the crowd murmured and pointed.

Ku-vastei marched up towards Vivec, ascending the sky like stair-steps, fists clenched at her sides. Finally she stood in the air in front of Vivec and Hla-eix, her hands on her hips.

“Good evening, Hortator,” said Vivec, a shy, boyish smile on his face.

“Vehk,” Mama said, her voice like ice. Hla-eix had never heard her call him that before. “What are you thinking, stealing my daughter from sleep, and putting her in harm’s way right next to an explosion? In public?” Her face was expressionless, but Hla-eix knew there was rage hidden behind her scales in the way her tail stiffened.

“Well, Ku-vastei, you see…” Vivec stumbled over his words. Very uncharacteristic of him, thought Hla-eix; he always had something to say to any situation. “I just thought she would like to see –”

“He wanted to show me his ‘hubris,’” Hla-eix said. “I’m not sure what he meant, but it seemed important to him.”

Vivec flashed a guarish smile at Ku-vastei, hoping Hla-eix’s simple explanation would suffice.

Mama said nothing for a long time. Then she looked down at Hla-eix and said, “‘Hubris,’ huh? Damn dangerous foolishness, more like. And it’s no longer a problem. No thanks to him.” She suddenly hefted Hla-eix up and over her shoulder; Hla-eix yelped at the swift movement. “Go to bed, Vehk. And let my daughter get her rest. She’s a growing child, and needs it.”

“Yes,” Vivec said, nodding furiously. “Apologies, Hortator. Won’t happen again.” With a crack of the air, he was gone.

[vosh-rakh]

Tear was hot, but at least it wasn’t so dangerous. In Dres country there were always guards and soldiers around, usually to keep the slaves in line, and they scared away any wildlife from attacking the farmers and herders. But here in the West Gash of Vvardenfell, the protection was sparse. Drulene had had to petition the Redoran in Ald’ruhn the first time this happened. 

Today she hears that pair of footsteps and it all comes back to her:

She had been eating her midday saltrice porridge amidst her guar by her hut when she heard the skittering of many legs fast approaching. She turned towards the sound to ascertain the threat. Cresting a nearby hill came crawling two large mudcrabs, their pincers snapping hungrily. 

Drulene was accustomed to fighting off monsters like rats and foragers, who nibbled at her guar’s ankles like common pests. She went into her hut and fetched her chitin bow and quiver of corkbulb arrows. Once back outside, the mudcrabs were uncomfortably closer. 

She took aim and loosed towards the forward crab, but it bounced harmlessly off its rock-hard shell. She attempted a few other shots this way, all to the same effect. 

Panicking, she fled to her hut and slammed the door behind her, and sat back against the door, pressing it tightly closed. 

The skittering increased until it was terrifyingly close. She heard (and felt, the vibrations carrying through to her back) the mudcrabs clawing at the door for what felt like hours. She prayed to the Tribunal, and to Saint Llothis, for protection. Eventually, the mudcrabs abandoned the door, and she thanked the Crosier with tears streaking down her face. 

Then she heard her guar begin to cry. Judging by the high-pitched squealing voice it was her favorite, Demthi. She clutched her mouth with her shaking hands as she wept, while the cries grew louder and louder, and then quieter and quieter, until they croaked out completely. Then the skittering began to retreat, until it disappeared completely. 

She waited an hour before daring to move. Then she waited another hour before she opened the door. 

Outside the surviving guar were still huddled up against the hut as the sun descended through the evening mist. She squinted, as though seeing the corpse with half-closed eyes would spare her the gruesomeness of it. But all she found was a bloody patch, spotted with viscera, and a bloody trail leading southwest. 

The next day Drulene went to Ald’ruhn to inform her friend Neminda, who was a member of House Redoran. Neminda apologized and told her she’d have the mudcrabs taken care of. This excited Drulene more than she thought it would: she wanted vengeance for Demthi. 

A few days later a Redguard came and asked about the attack. Hearing her clinking armor approach had sounded almost like many skittering legs, and made Drulene panic, but the Redguard was kind and understanding, and made her feel at ease. Drulene showed her the trail and told her she thought they made for the coast that way. Not a few hours later the Redguard returned, two pairs of severed pincers in hand. 

Drulene thanked the Redguard profusely. “But what of Demthi?” she asked. 

“Your guar?” the Redguard asked in return. “It’s dead, I’m afraid. They probably killed it here and then dragged it away. I’m sorry.”

Drulene wiped a tear from her eye and nodded solemnly. There was nothing the Redguard could have done.

Now a pair of footsteps approaches again, and Drulene’s bowl of saltrice porridge falls from her hands onto the rough West Gash dirt. 

A Breton and Bosmer approach from the east. “Shit,” whispers the Breton just barely loud enough for Drulene to hear, “she’s here.”

“Hail, herder,” the Bosmer says, pushing the Breton aside and smiling wickedly as he draws a short sword. “We’ll be relieving you of your valuables, now.”

But Drulene has finally snapped out of her frozen stupor, and bolts for the door to her hut. Once inside she pushes the shelf in front of the door, sending a pot of saltrice crashing to the floor. With all her might she presses herself against the shelf, but she’s shaking like shivering Sheogorath. 

Through the sweaty pounding in her chest she could hear the sound of footsteps in the dirt outside. One of them banged on the door, and she jumped, pressing her back harder into the shelf. “C’mon, lady. Just give us what you got and we won’t even hurt you that much.”

“Gab, shut up and get out of the way.”

There was some shuffling on the other side of the door, and then a great bang, rattling the door and shelf. Drulene screamed.

The bandit tried to barge down the door for several minutes, but somehow it held firm. “Dammit,” gasped one. “Won’t…budge…”

“Let’s just grab a couple guar and be done with it,” Gab said. “Look healthy enough. Might be worth something down south.”

“Or at least we can feed the bastards to those tomb rats. Maybe then they’ll leave us alone.”

The two bandits laughed, an innocent sound like pranking schoolboys, that nevertheless struck Drulene as completely sinister. It hadn’t been a whole month since the mudcrab incident, and now, as she listened to the bandits lead the beasts away, she was down to just one guar. She somehow couldn’t tear herself away from Tear no matter how hard she tried.

Any other day, she would have chuckled at the accidental pun. But a deep weariness was seeping into her bones, just like the depths of southern Morrowind’s heat drenching one’s entire being.

Drulene waited in her hut an entire day, anxiously still watching the barricaded door, before she developed the nerve to saddle up her last guar and race to Ald’ruhn to beseech Neminda once again.

- - -

This poor guar herder just couldn’t catch a break, Qismehti thought as she followed the road from Ald’ruhn, trying to find her hut again. First mudcrabs, now bandits. Mehti kept an eye out as she approached, making sure neither beast nor guar-thief lingered nearby. It almost unsettled her, that they could be causing havoc so close to the city. But unless there were more than the reported two, they couldn’t possibly be an issue to the might of House Redoran.

There was only one guar left, tied to a post outside, chewing on muck. It regarded Mehti with a strange expression – apprehension, perhaps? The poor beast had been through a lot, as of late. But it returned to its meal after that brief glance, and so Mehti went up to the door and knocked. “Hello?”

There was a long, quiet waiting. Then Mehti heard something shifting inside, and the door opened a crack. “Who are…oh, thank the Three, it’s you. Come on in.” Drulene opened the door all the way and stood aside for Mehti to enter.

Mehti hadn’t been inside Drulene’s hut the first time she came. The interior was somewhat slovenly; just inside the door was a mess of potsherds and loose saltrice. “Qismehti gra-Lubakt, at your service, sera,” she said, stepping over the larger piles as she reintroduced herself with a bow.

“Yes, how could I forget you,” Drulene began, before stopping with a slight twist of her face. “You never told me your last name before. Is that…an Orcish name?”

“Yes,” said Mehti, a bit unsure why it mattered. “My da is an Orc. Ma is a Redguard.”

“Ah,” said Drulene. “Yes, that’s…wonderful, of course. That sort of thing isn’t very common in Vvardenfell, these days. But I guess in Hammerfell–”

“Blacklight,” Mehti interjected. “I grew up in Blacklight.”

“Oh, of course,” Drulene said, now looking away and scratching the back of her head. “You’re Redoran through and through, aren’t you?”

“My parents were just retainers to the House,” Mehti said. “But I’m an Oathman, now.”

“I see, I see,” said Drulene. She seemed to finally realize the state of her home, and covered her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry to invite you in, now. It’s such a mess. A woman of your stature shouldn’t have to bear this.”

“Don’t worry,” said Qismehti, putting on a polite smile not quite visible behind her helmet. “It’s not my job to criticize your living arrangements. I’m here to protect you, and your property.”

“Oh, yes,” Drulene said. Qismehti wondered if she had been intentionally avoiding the relevant subject, what had brought Mehti here in the first place. “Yes,” Drulene said again, “as I’m sure Neminda told you, there’s been another incident.”

“Go on,” Mehti invited after Drulene paused again, the guar herder’s cheek sucked in between her teeth. “Neminda told me some, but not much.”

“Well, two men came the other day, demanding my valuables,” Drulene began, sighing and collapsing onto the edge of her bed. “A Breton, I think. And a Bosmer. As soon as they called out to me, I ran inside and hid, and blocked the door with my shelf there. They couldn’t get in, so they took two of my guar instead.”

“Mhm,” said Mehti, trying to visualize the scene. “Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”

“I don’t know, I…” Drulene was shivering now, and Mehti felt a pang of guilt for making this woman relive her trauma. “They said…something about tomb rats? There is a tomb not far to the south. The inscription at the door says Telvayn, so I guess it’s the Telvayn ancestral tomb. Maybe they’re holed up in there.”

“Okay,” said Mehti. She slowly reached out a hand towards Drulene, gentle enough not to startle her. The soft padded palm of her gauntlet landed on Drulene’s shoulder, and Drulene’s shivering subsided a bit. “I will go take care of them, and return your guar to you.”

“Thank you, Qismehti, thank you,” Drulene said, her head tilting slightly towards Mehti’s hand as she placed her own over the steel gauntlet. “Be safe, sera.”

Mehti nodded, and took her leave, closing the door softly behind her.

- - -

The arched stone door to the tomb was nestled in a pile of boulders at the base of a hill. A well-weathered three-sided stone post etched with the name “Telvayn” in angular Daedric script stood to the side, its edges chipped and its once-sharp peak worn to a short round nub. This tomb was clearly many generations old. Qismehti didn’t recognize the family, but assumed they were Telvanni – the tell was the “Tel-”. She wondered when Telvanni ever had reach this far west on Vvardenfell.

There was no sign of any stolen guar. Mehti sighed and checked the door. She wasn’t a picklock or mechanist, but she didn’t see any obvious tripwires or other contraptions. She tried the handle and found it unlocked, although it turned roughly from its age. Slowly, she crept in, shutting out the light behind her.

The door opened into a short hall lined with plinths bearing ash-vases and offerings to the dead. As quietly as possible in heavy steel armor, Mehti reverently walked past the plinths. She could hear the faint whisperings of the Telvayn ancestors. That faraway sound still unsettled her somewhat, despite having visited the Gabinna family tomb by Blacklight several times as a child, and prayed to their waiting door thrice a week. Their wailing, chittering voices seemed to grate on the inside of her skull.

Mehti tried to put them out of her mind. Willpower wasn’t her greatest attribute, but she had the strength to endure it. She pressed on by the dim ghostlight clinging to the torches ensconced on the walls. 

At the end of the procession of ancestor plinths, the corridor opened into a larger chamber. In the heavy darkness Mehti could barely make out the hairy movements of some thick Vvardenfell rats. She drew her axe from her belt-loop, but they didn’t seem to take notice. She squinted in the dark, trying to see what distracted them. They were eating something, judging by the tugging of their necks and the fleshy sounds their mouths made. Oh no.

They were definitely eating the two guar, slaughtered and offered up whole to the little beasts. Poor Drulene.

“This Hallgerd doesn’t know shit!”

The shout nearly made Qismehti jump out of her greaves. One of the feasting rats even looked up towards its source, a doorway to the left leaking light. Mehti crept up to the side of the entry, out-of-sight, and listened in.

“How do you reckon?”

“What’s wearing armor got to do with killing blokes? Who gives a damn about this stupid old Hlaalu king?”

“Well, I mean…”

“Look. A true ‘greatest warrior’ wouldn’t even need armor. He could go to battle naked, because he’d never get hit, because his enemy would be dead before he could even draw a weapon!”

Qismehti peeked around the door, just enough to see inside but without being seen herself. Two men sat around a small fire inside, a man and a mer, both rather short and loosely armored, . The man, maybe a Breton, was holding a book open with one hand, while the elf gesticulated wildly with a short sword in his hand as he pontificated.

“So speed is all that matters to you?” asked the Breton with the book.

“Don’t be stupid, Gab,” said the elf. “A long weapon is important, too. A spear, or a longsword, or –”

“A bow?” Mehti could barely make out the shadow of a smile on Gab’s face by the firelight.

“Oh, so just because I’m a Bosmer –”

“Look, if you stick an arrow in somebody before they even see you, doesn’t that fit your criteria?”

“No! No, of course not. A warrior doesn’t hide in the shadows –”

“Besides, Glaum, you use a short sword. Where’s your reach advantage?”

“That’s just because it was all I could afford at the time! Just you wait, once we do a few more jobs –”

“Boys,” said Qismehti as she stepped into the light, “I don’t think that will be possible.”

Gab and Glaum jumped to their feet and readied their weapons: Glaum his iron short sword, and Gab a fistful of fire. “And who in Oblivion are you?” hissed Glaum.

“Why don’t we put it to the test?” Mehti asked, ignoring Glaum’s question. “Who’s the greatest warrior in this room?” She clanged her axe against her shield, a smile tucked away behind her helmet. “House Redoran sends its regards.”

Qismehti charged Gab headlong, turtling her entire body behind her shield. A burst of heat blasted her defense, tongues of flame reaching around to lick Mehti, but she kept up the kagouti-rush. The spells stopped right when she slammed into their caster, knocking him from his feet and laying him out on his back, breathless.

A shout from behind – what was this, amateur hour? – alerted her to an attack from Glaum. She spun out of her forward momentum axe-first, knocking aside the sword swinging at her. She finished her rotation just in time to block Glaum’s counterthrust with her shield. Glaum leapt backwards over the fire, separating the two. 

They circled the fire opposite from each other for a moment, their weapons out of reach without a risky lunge. Dammit, Mehti realized. He’s stalling. Gab’s about to –

Just as she made the connection, a fireball slapped her in the back. The impact hurt, but the flame couldn’t reach her through her steel cuirass – yet. Too many more of those and she’d start feeling the heat on her back. She took some quick steps back from the fire and turned to face Gab.

The Breton had retreated up several steps to a higher platform in the chamber, and he was preparing another fireball. She hated to turn her back to Glaum, but the mage was the more dangerous foe. She took the stairs two at a time, shield raised to swat away another fireball as she approached. He can’t keep casting forever…

Sure enough, his magicka ran dry after the next deflected fireball. As soon as he realized, he fumbled for a potion on his belt, but Mehti was faster. His last defense was to feebly raise his arms over his face. She took a bite out of his side with a swift chop, then, after he lowered his guard to grasp at the wound, she swung for his neck.

“Bastard!” The shout came at the same time as the pain in her shoulder. The s’wit had found a chink in her armor, in between the cuirass and pauldron. Thankfully, it wasn’t her axe-arm. She swung back around and caught him in the side of the head, albeit with an off-edge strike. The rush of pain added to the strength of the blow, knocking him sideways onto one knee. Making sure her axeblade was aligned, Mehti chopped straight down his tilted neck, mangling deep into his shoulder. She had to plant a foot on his corpse to wrench the axe out with a wild spurt of blood.

Certain they were dead, Mehti quickly turned her attention to her wound. Hurt like hell, but it wasn’t dire; her left shoulder would be tight for a while, but nothing she couldn’t heal with the spell the priest in Ald’ruhn had taught her. She chugged a healing potion she snagged from the bandits just in case.

As she rested by the fire, covered in blood and viscera, one of the rats from the adjacent room poked its nose in. It proceeded to saunter up to Qismehti. She almost reached for her axe, but all the beast did was start licking a smattering of flesh from her boot. She sighed, gave the rat a little kick to get its attention, and pointed at the corpse of Glaum nearby. Dutifully, the rat left to eat fresh mer-flesh.

- - - 

Drulene worked up the courage to peek outside after she heard her last guar baying at something. It was usually a rather tame beast, so she was afraid of whatever was making it wail so. But it was the Redguard Qismehti returning, her armor red in the dying light of day. But as she came closer, Drulene realized the redness was actually blood.

“Qismehti!” Drulene gasped as she stepped outside. “Are you okay? All that blood…Is it yours?”

“Some of it,” said Qismehti as she doffed her helmet. Her face was taut and grim, an expression Drulene had come to expect from the Redoran. Her short, curly hair sprung outwards after being held under tension from the helmet’s weight, but she ran a gauntlet through it to lay down some of the stragglers. Drulene hadn’t seen her face before; she’d never taken the helmet off the first time she saw her.

“By the Three, come inside. I’ll see to your wounds and clean your armor. Can’t have you returning to Ald’ruhn looking like that.” Her sudden shock at the sight of so much blood evaporated, and she remembered where Qismehti had gone in the first place. “Those bandits…are they…?”

“Yes, they’re dead,” said Qismehti as she stopped in front of Drulene. “But so are your guar. I’m sorry.”

Drulene bit her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. Of course things would turn out this way. What a foolish girl I was, to think…she pushed the thought away and resigned herself to helping Qismehti. “Come in. I’ll help you get your armor off.”

Drulene closed the door behind them and had Qismehti sit on the edge of the bed. Drulene’s father had been a Dres cavalrymer, and she knew at least how Dunmeri armor tended to fit together. The latches and belts on this western steel armor were a little different, but similar enough to work with. Qismehti pulled off her own gauntlets as Drulene fiddled with the belt for the pauldron wrapped under her arm. Qismehti hissed and reached around, blindly grasping at Drulene’s hand. “Careful. That’s where he got me.”

Frozen by the sudden touch, Drulene slowed down as Qismehti awkwardly unfastened the strap herself. Drulene proceeded to undo the latches on the sides of Qismehti’s cuirass. Now she could see the blood-blackened tear in her shirt where the sword had passed. “I’ll have to take off your shirt, okay?” 

Qismehti grunted but said nothing; Drulene figured that was a “yes.” She reached under the back hem of Qismehti’s shirt and began to pull up, revealing inch by inch the dark skin – and rippling muscles – beneath. Qismehti helped, pulling up on the front of the shirt as well. She wasn’t wearing any underclothes to cover her breasts, it seemed, and Drulene blushed.

Drulene placed her hand on the broad musculature of Qismehti’s back, her touch gentle. Her fingers ran spider-like over to the blood-caked wound. It seemed mostly healed now – she must have used some spell or potion – but it wasn’t cleanly done, and would leave a small scar. But it was in good company; her body seemed littered with old injuries, a warrior’s long history of combat.

“Let me wash the blood off,” Drulene said, her voice a little weak. She grabbed a rag from nearby, poured some water on it from a jug, and softly rubbed around the scar, scraping away the hard blood there. Every time she neared the edges of the wound, the muscles under Qismehti’s shoulder tensed, hard as steel under the skin. Drulene palmed her other hand against the small of Qismehti’s back, a gesture of both support and curiosity for the feeling of her spine’s ridges.

After she was satisfied the area was clean, she said, “I’ll disinfect with some hackle-lo.” Qismehti turned her head to watch as Drulene took a couple of leaves and put them in her own mouth to chew into a simple poultice. She spat the resultant pulp into her hand. “This might burn,” she said before she began to softly rub it into the wound. Qismehti’s entire body tensed up as she watched Drulene spread the salve. Drulene tried to focus on her work, but kept getting distracted by a muscle stretching Qismehti’s jaw taut. 

Qismehti turned then, revealing the gentle slope of her breasts in profile. But it was her eyes that arrested Drulene: light brown, the folds of her irises like soft rivulets in fertile mud. At the intense centers were the black storms of her pupils, drawing Drulene deeper and deeper into their maelstrom.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Hand still slathered in hackle-lo saliva, she reached up, grabbed the side of Qismehti’s face, and kissed her. Qismehti grabbed her wrist and pulled it from her face, but didn’t pull away, kissing back harder. Using that wrist, she dragged Drulene down onto the bed. Drulene yelped, but giggled as Qismehti reached back down to kiss her again.

It was going to be a long night. 

- - -

Qismehti lay on her side next to supine Drulene, running her fingers along the ridges of her ribs, and idly tapping on her sternum gently like a guarskin drum. Dunmer skin always delighted Mehti: a little coarser than the skin of men, like it was perpetually coated in ash. She rubbed Drulene’s chest above her breasts, closing her eyes to focus on the feeling, and the sound of Drulene’s long breaths.

Mehti peeked her eyes open again to look at Drulene. Her hands were clasped over her navel, and eyes fixed on the ceiling of the hut, peering past it, beyond even the stars. Qismehti smiled and waved her hand in front of Drulene’s face, her palm briefly brushing against Drulene’s lips, slightly parted. “Are you an astrologer as well as a herder?” Qismehti jested.

“What?” Drulene said, startled from her staring.

“And can you see through ceilings?”

“Oh,” Drulene said with a smiling sigh. “You’re a joker, Qismehti.” She reached up to flick Qismehti on the chin.

“Mehti,” said Mehti. “I think you’ve earned the privilege to call me that.”

“Well, Mehti,” Drulene said, her flick transferring into a gentle grip on Mehti’s chin, “I can see through you well enough. Another round?”

“No,” Mehti said, laughing and shaking her head. “I meant, you seem awful lost in thought. What are you thinking about?”

“Oh.” Drulene’s smile and hold on Mehti’s chin evaporated, her hand falling back to her navel. She was silent for a moment, but closed the gap with another sigh. “I can’t stay.”

“That’s okay,” Qismehti said. “This doesn’t have to be anything more than you want it to be.”

“I mean, I can’t stay in Vvardenfell.” Drulene covered her face with her hands, muffling her voice. “Those guar were all I had. I scraped together everything in Tear to buy them here. I can’t afford to stay.”

Mehti said nothing, her fingers returning to Drulene’s chest pensively. After much thought, she said, “I’m sorry.”

Drulene removed her hands from her face but turned her head away from Mehti. “It’s not your fault.” She turned back to Mehti with damp eyes, looking for the storm in Mehti’s pupils again. Then she rolled out of bed and began to dress herself. “Get dressed,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

Mehti propped herself up on her elbow, wincing a bit at the lingering stiffness in her shoulder. “More than you’ve already shown me?” she asked, smirking.

Drulene threw Mehti’s pants at her, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be a s’wit. Get dressed.”

After they were clothed, they went outside. Qismehti was glad they’d gotten dressed. Not because anyone would see them – there wasn’t another soul for miles – but because up here in the West Gash the nights were chilly. “What is it?” Mehti asked, rubbing her arms for warmth.

Drulene woke the last guar hitched to its post in the yard and bade it stand. “I’m giving you Ildy. A knight such as yourself needs a steed, and –”

“Ildy?” Mehti asked. Her eyes saw past Drulene and the guar, and at the girl she knew as a child. The dead girl. “Is it short for Ildeth?”

Drulene looked up from saddling the guar with a curious expression. “Hm? No, for Ildami. Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” said Mehti, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Nothing. Just curious.” She shook the vision from her head. “Drulene, I can’t take your last guar. You could sell it to make things easier in Tear.”

“Don’t try to turn this down,” Drulene said, frowning. “To tell you the truth, I’m sick and tired of guar. They stink and hardly ever listen to you. Except for Ildy. She’s very well-trained, you’ll get along great.”

“So you’ll try something else when you get back to Tear?”

“Sure. I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll become a kwama miner. Or a netchiman. Not much good for anything beyond working with animals, I’m afraid. But don’t worry about me. I’ve figured out worse situations.”

Qismehti frowned but said, “Okay.” She gave Drulene her second-to-last kiss. “Take care of yourself, muthsera.”

Drulene giggled. “Don’t you ‘muthsera’ me after all that. You can’t try to trick me that your mouth isn’t filthy.” She wrapped her arms around Qismehti tight, and Mehti suddenly remembered she probably lifted guar regularly. “Thank you for everything. And be safe, Mehti, you hear? This is a dangerous land. I’m sure you already know that, but don’t ever forget it. The next I hear from you better not be your obituary.”

“Fine,” Qismehti said with a smile and wink. “Why don’t you go inside and clean my armor like you said? Give me some time to bond with Ildy before sunrise.”

“Sure,” Drulene said, letting go. “I’d say don’t get used to me being your maid, but, well…I suppose just the one time won’t hurt.”

After Drulene shut the door behind her, Qismehti placed a gentle hand on Ildy’s flank. The beast made a purring noise at the touch, its eye staring straight into Mehti’s. 

“It’s good to see you again, Ildeth,” Mehti whispered as she rubbed its scales. Ildy lowed quietly. For the first time since coming to Vvardenfell, Mehti felt at home.

[vosh-rakh]

two rings in seyda neen

The eastern sun drew out aching morning shadows from the world’s weary bones as Ku-vastei stepped out again into the bright briny air of Seyda Neen – her first steps as a free woman in Morrowind since the Arnesian War.

It was a quaint seaside town. The main street was lined with Imperial-style houses wrought from stone and plaster, with one stuccoed two-story building near the bridge standing out on the edge of a hill. Down that hill were a spattering of thatched huts – barely a step up from the slave-shacks she had grown up in – in the low swamp of the coast. In the distance towered the lighthouse which had no doubt guided her ship to port as she slept and dreamed fitfully. The great beast she’d seen, like an armored netch with spindly shelled legs in the stream which cut the town from the rest of the island of Vvardenfell, was hidden behind the houses to her right. 

There must be little to do in Seyda Neen, she observed, because several of its citizens stood idly in the street, chatting with one another and with the Imperial guards keeping the peace. Few Dunmer, she noted also, with no small relief. The nearest to her was a Bosmer, in fact – a race the slavers were known to sometimes keep, despite being elves also.

He seemed to notice her noticing him, in fact. He approached with a smile. Ku-vastei frowned at having already drawn a local’s attention.

“Greetings, stranger!” exclaimed the Bosmer, his shrill voice a little louder than Ku-vastei’s dream-rattled head would have liked. “You come in on the ship? Welcome to Seyda Neen, then!” He extended an ecstatic hand, and Ku-vastei nearly recoiled completely from it. “My name’s Fargoth. What’s yours?”

Ku-vastei did not take his hand. “Ku-vastei,” she said, replying automatically, as the paperwork-filing of the Census Office had accustomed her.

“Ah,” said Fargoth awkwardly, dropping his hand to his side. “I suppose that’s a good name where you come from!” He glanced over Ku-vastei’s body, her ragged prison garb and heavily scarred scales. “Say, they didn’t rough you up too much in there, did they?”

Compared to when she’d been captured after the war, a few shoves off the ship had been nothing. She glanced at the docks behind her, but the vessel had already sailed off, barely a speck on the horizon now. “No,” she said, still looking south.

“Good, good,” Fargoth said with a sigh of relief. “Those Census and Excise blokes can be real bastards. Why, last week, in their weekly ‘Let’s shake down Fargoth’ ritual, I’m pretty sure they stole my ring!”

“Ring?” asked Ku-vastei, remembering. In the small courtyard between the Census office and the office of Sellus Gravius, there had been a ring sitting on a barrel by the door. A strange silver band, engraved with Daedric letters she couldn’t read, but she could sense power in it. She rubbed the sigils, trying to activate their enchantment, and after a moment the soreness in her bones – from sleeping on barrels and crates in the cargo hold of a ship over a long journey – lightened up a bit. She had glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pocketed the ring.

“Yes!” said Fargoth. “It’s an engraved silver ring, enchanted with a healing spell. Precious family heirloom. One of my ancestors had it enchanted for his ailing mother. You haven’t seen it by chance, have you?”

Ku-vastei fished in the pocket of her tunic and produced the ring she’d snagged. “Is this it?”

Fargoth snatched the ring from Ku-vastei’s claw and held it up to his eyes to inspect it. Then he whooped, clutching the ring close to his chest, and spun around, dancing like a fool in the street. No one seemed to pay him any mind, though – maybe this was normal for him. “Thank you, thank you! You are now my favorite friend!” He squeezed a sausage of a finger into the ring. “Come with me, Ku-vastei! My friend Arrille at the tradehouse will be pleased to hear you helped me! I can have him give you a discount, help you get on your feet here in Morrowind!” Fargoth turned to start leading Ku-vastei to the two-story stucco building she’d noticed earlier.

Ku-vastei rolled her eyes as soon as his face was turned away. Bosmer were so pointlessly excitable, and this one was one of the worst she’d met. But she couldn’t turn down his offer; Gravius hadn’t given her much gold, just eighty-seven septims to get by with. She followed after Fargoth.

On their way to the tradehouse, they passed by two civilians. An Imperial with a grim face scrunched up in deep thought, his hand over his mouth, glanced up at Fargoth and Ku-vastei as they passed, but then resumed his strained concentration. The other, a fair-haired Altmer with a proud, rigid posture, received a “Hail, Eldafire!” from Fargoth. Eldafire said nothing, but glared at them – and Ku-vastei felt that baleful gaze stronger on her scales. 

Fargoth led them up a handful of wooden steps past Eldafire, wrapping around a raised wooden platform to what seemed like the “back” of the tradehouse to Ku-vastei. Fargoth opened the door and held it open for her, but she couldn’t help but stare at the swamps past the creek north of town. Low branches of trees hung shade over shallow pools, darkening the marsh in a beautifully nostalgic way. She caught a glimpse of a dully glowing mottled-green mushroom cap huddled against the roots of a thick-trunked tree, and wondered what species it was. A mudcrab squatted by the creek, snapping at fish swimming up from the sea.

“Hideous things, aren’t they?” said Fargoth, tapping his foot on the wooden boards. “Come on in. Arrille pays a lot for the mage upstairs to keep the tradehouse cool, and we’re letting all that air out.”

Ku-vastei shook the reverie from her head and entered the tradehouse, Fargoth following and shutting the door tight behind him. “Arrille!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Please be extra generous with my new friend here, Ku-vastei!” He wrenched the heirloom ring from his finger and held it up to Arrille, an olive-skinned Altmer with crossed arms, to see. “She found my family ring for me!”

Arrille chortled. “Does that mean you’ll stop complaining?”

“No guarantees,” said Fargoth swiftly, matter-of-factly.

“Well,” Arrille said, ignoring Fargoth with a roll of his eyes. He looked towards Ku-vastei. “A friend of Fargoth’s is a friend of mine. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of. But you may not want to stay long, Fargoth.” He pointed a long finger up to the ceiling. “Hrisskar’s upstairs.”

Fargoth’s eyes widened and he bolted out the door, not bothering to close it all the way. A Dunmer woman to the left that Ku-vastei hadn’t noticed before approached and snapped the door shut with a sigh. Her presence set Ku-vastei immediately on edge, her natural rhythm of tail-swishing tightening.

Arrille rubbed his high, bony forehead. “Now that he’s gone,” he said, “how can I help you, Argonian?”

Ku-vastei’s tail resumed swishing slightly, but its quizzical tone was lost on a non-Saxhleel. “I thought you two were friends.”

Arrille sighed, leaning back against the wall behind his counter. “He’s sort of the village idiot,” he remarked with an abstract wave of his hand. “I’m basically the only one who tolerates him. So, about as close to a ‘friend’ as he gets.”

“Soulsick?” asked Ku-vastei.

“Maybe,” Arrille shrugged. “I can never tell. He’s just…different.”

Ku-vastei nodded. She, too, was different in many ways, so she felt some pity for the Bosmer.

“Anyways,” Arrille said, leaning forward and planting his palms on the counter. “How may I help you?”

Ku-vastei stood there idly for a moment, thinking. “I need a weapon. A spear. And some armor. Chainmail, if you have it.” She thought a moment more, then added, “A pack of some kind, as well.”

“And what is your budget, Ku-vastei?”

Ku-vastei sighed. She reached into her pocket and pulled from it the small sack of coin from Gravius. She set it down on the counter.

Arrille spilled the bag and counted. “Eighty-seven drakes,” he said. He ducked under the counter to consider his inventory. He retrieved an iron-tipped spear and a cuirass of Imperial ringmail and set them on the counter. “Weapon and armor. I’ll skew the prices a bit, since you helped Fargoth.” He went down again and grabbed a small knapsack and a bottle Ku-vastei didn’t recognize and offered them as well. “I’ll throw in the bag and some sujamma for free for all your coin.”

Ku-vastei was in no position to haggle, so she accepted the deal. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Arrille. “Adventure some with that weapon and armor, and bring me back some real money next time. I won’t go so easy on you.”

Ku-vastei slipped on the cuirass – it was a bit loose, but it would have to do for now – and gave the spear a few jabs into the air. Out of practice, but she’d get the hang of it again. Drills would help, but nothing trains like real combat. “Any work for an adventurer around here?” she asked. 

“Not much goes on in Seyda Neen,” interjected the Dunmer on the other side of the room. “But the Tax Collector, Processus Vitellius, has gone missing. There might be a reward for you if you can figure out where he went.”

“Probably ran off with everyone’s taxes!” groaned Arrille.

“Or got lost after too much shein, again,” offered the Dunmer.

“Any idea where he might have gone?” Ku-vastei asked Arrille, ignoring the Dunmer.

“Well, nowhere’s really safe for a tax-thief,” the Altmer replied. “Nowhere civilized, at least. There’s a village up north, Hla Oad, well known for its smugglers. Maybe he fled there.”

“Hm.” Ku-vastei wiped some dust from the tip of her new spear. “I’ll head north then, and see what I can find.”

“Take the road, if you can,” said the Dunmer. “The Bitter Coast is dangerous. There’s beasts, sure. But also smugglers, and even cultists, if you heed the rumors. Be safe, sera.”

Ku-vastei doubted the woman actually cared at all for her well-being, but she nodded vaguely in her direction anyway. She waved awkwardly at Arrille, who did not return the gesture, and then turned to walk out the door.

The humid heat of the coast hit her immediately as she stepped outside. She glanced up at the sky to ascertain her bearings from the early morning position of Magnus, then faced north, across the creek into the marsh beyond. The mudcrab had stopped fishing, and huddled inside its shell along the bank. 

Ku-vastei didn’t bother to take the stairs to the main street. She hopped down from the platform into the soft earth below and used her spear to vault across the creek a small distance from the mudcrab. It shifted slightly, but didn’t seem to take much notice of her. She quietly approached and gave it a mighty guar-kick – at least, as mighty as she could manage – and knocked it on its side. It shrieked, its legs and arms clawing at the air. She skewered it between its under-plates, her spear nearly cracking through the shell on the other side. It writhed in the air for a moment more before falling still.

Awkwardly with the sharp end of her spear, she pried the bottom of the mudcrab from its shell, revealing its juicy yellow meat. Carefully she carved out a few portions, wrapped them in wide leaves from a shrub nearby, and stowed them in her bag to cook later. Then she carried on northwards, loosely following the coast on her left.

Slowly, like a creaky cart-wheel struggling to roll apace, she felt her war-skills return. Here and there were patches of trampled grass, footfalls loosely printed in the soft bog-mud. She could smell, amidst the motley odors of the marsh, the faint fragrance of fermented comberry.

From around a boulder to the right traipsed a scrib. Instinctively Ku-vastei raised her spear, but gradually lowered it as she watched the scrib stumble once, then again, before crashing down to the ground and deciding it best just to lay there than try to walk anymore. Ku-vastei stepped over the fallen scrib and followed the scent of shein before finding its source around the corner: a smashed earthenware bottle of the comberry wine, its dark contents staining the earth. 

But the tracks ended here. She turned around to see if she had mistraced them, slowly scanning her surroundings. Just as she noticed the footsteps heading off behind another boulder towards the coast, she heard a sound: a sickening, crunching sound, followed by a satisfied squeal. She readied her spear again and slowly approached.

A kwama forager was feasting on something. Evidently it heard her, and wriggled around, its wide, toothy mouth filled with gore. As it launched itself through the air, she caught a glimpse of its meal: a bloodied corpse. 

She had no more time to inspect it. She quickly darted to the side, barely avoiding the lunge of the large larva. Her arm swung out defensively, and the upper haft of her spear slammed into the forager, forcing a scream from its long throat. She spun around on one foot, the other slamming down close to the battered worm. She upturned her spear, and thrust downwards.

Her aim was true. The forager was pierced – straight through its bile-spit sac. A long stream of the bile-spit arced upwards, coating the rings of Ku-vastei’s new cuirass, soaking through to her tunic, and then spraying down her pants as it emptied out. She gagged violently at the smell and the sticky-wet feeling clinging her clothes to her scales.

It was dead, but the burst bile-spit sac meant she couldn’t harvest any of the meat. Shame. She wiped her hands on the nearby boulder, and neared the corpse.

A Cyrod, by the looks of what was left of his relatively untouched face – only the nose and ears had been bitten off by passing critters. His clothes, torn and gnawed-through, were coated with his dried blood. His chest had been opened up, ribs revealed, organs half-missing. 

She decided that was enough inspection of the body. She was already nauseous from the bile-spit smell, and the putrid stench of a body half-decayed in a hot, humid climate was not helping. She breathed only through her mouth as she reached down and investigated his belongings. There was a coin-purse tied to his belt, which by her brief count held a remarkable two-hundred septims. She patted down his pockets, and pulled from one a small roll of paper. Opening it, she found some kind of list of names. At the top was a name she’d just heard: “Processus Vitellius.”

She glanced at the other names, each of which was associated with a tax amount, and whether or not that tax had been collected. Some names she’d heard already. Arrille, Eldafire, Fargoth. But nothing really stood out to her.

She forced herself to look over the body again. It was difficult to tell the cause of death. There were no obvious wounds beyond the obvious post-mortem scavenging. His face was seemingly bruised in some places, but it could be the discoloration of decay. She did notice, upon peeking into his collar, that his entire neck was ringed with a dark blue-purple. Strangulated?

Ku-vastei stored the coin-purse and tax record in her somehow clean bag. She walked to the coast just a few meters beyond the nearby boulder, set the sack in the sand, and went about trying to wash the bile-spit stink from her clothes and body.

- - -

Almost immediately after Ku-vastei closed the tradehouse door behind her, she heard a groaning gasp. She turned to see Arrille covering his face with his sleeve and his Dunmer companion pinching her nose. “By the gods, you smell like guar-shit,” said Arrille. “Er. Pardon my Bretic.”

“Here,” said the Dunmer woman. She picked a small glass vial from the wares-laden table behind her and offered it to Ku-vastei. 

Ku-vastei hesitated. “What is it?”

“Telvanni bug musk,” she replied. “Strong, potent stuff. But better than whatever you rolled in.”

“That stuff’s not cheap, Tolvise,” snipped Arrille. “Don’t get used to giving away my merchandise.”

Tolvise ignored him. “Dab some on your wrists, then rub it on your neck. Don’t be afraid to be…extra generous. And, I suppose, mind the gills. Burns enough if you get it in your eyes, I imagine breathing it would be worse.”

Ku-vastei delicately took the vial between fore-claw and thumb, and popped out the corkbulb stopper. She dripped a few drops onto her wrist. Tolvise shook her head. Ku-vastei added a few more drops. Tolvise held the vial as Ku-vastei rubbed her wrists together, then spread the powerful perfume carefully around her gills. The sharp smell of the bug musk seemed to completely envelop her.

Tolvise smiled and let go of her nose. “There. You’re more charming already.”

“Thank you,” said Ku-vastei, bowing her head slightly.

Tolvise leaned in conspiratorially, which Ku-vastei allowed. “A little secret, friend: people in Vvardenfell care a great deal about appearances. They’ll like you more if, for example, you smell nice. Or,” she stopped to give Ku-vastei’s outfit a once-over, “if you’re wearing fine clothes. A little advice, too: there’s a decent clothier a town over, in Pelagiad.” Ku-vastei, unsure whether to feel insulted or not, simply nodded.

“Now that you’re less…distracting,” chimed in Arrille, “what have you found out about Processus? I know you haven’t been all the way to Hla Oad yet, it’s barely midday.”

“Didn’t have to,” said Ku-vastei. “I found him just north of here. Murdered.”

Tolvise gasped, a shrill sound that embarrassed Ku-vastei for some reason. “Unlikely,” said Arrille, waving a quieting hand towards Tolvise. “Doesn’t happen here. He probably just ran afoul of a pack of wild nix, or something.”

“Do the nix hounds in Vvardenfell strangle their prey by the throat, leaving no bite-marks?”

Arrille fell silent. Tolvise turned away, her hand over her mouth.

“Gods,” whispered Arrille, finally breaking the silence.

“This doesn’t happen here,” muttered Tolvise indignantly, her fist balled at her side. “This isn’t a big city, like Vivec or Balmora. We’re a good, Imperial town. Where were the guards?”

“The guards!” cried Arrille, but lowered his voice after a quick glance upstairs. “You should report this to them. They will deal with it.”

Ku-vastei scratched her pale-scaled chin, her tail swinging pensively behind her. “No.”

Arrille and Tolvise’s heads jerked towards Ku-vastei. “What do you mean, ‘no?’” asked Tolvise.

“Guards are too slow and noisy,” began Ku-vastei. “If the murderer is still in town – I trust no one else has been missing lately?”

“No, just Processus.”

“Then we assume they’re still in Seyda Neen. If we tell the guards, word will get out. The killer will have a chance to flee.”

“Hm,” hummed Arrille. “That is likely, yes.”

“So I will investigate on my own, quietly. I’m a newcomer, an outlander. No one here knows me.” Ku-vastei shifted her weight to lean on her spear. “But I have no leads.”

“Nothing at all?” asked Tolvise.

“Well,” said Ku-vastei, remembering. She pulled her pack from her back and fished the crumpled roll of parchment from it. “I found this on him.” She extended her hand over the counter.

Arrille snatched the paper from her claw with one hand, and with the other he slipped a pair of cracked spectacles from his shirt-pocket. He rested them on the bridge of his aquiline nose and tilted his head, squinting through an unfractured pane of lens at the list on the paper. “Ah,” he said. “The tax record. Hm…”

After a moment of quiet reading, he glanced up at Tolvise over the rim of his glasses. “You’re not on the list, Tolvise. Do you not pay taxes?”

Tolvise pulled a strand of hair behind her sharp ear and looked away. “Well, you see…Look, that doesn’t really matter, does it? Are there any clues in there, or not?”

Arrille grumbled something unintelligible, then looked back at the list. “I don’t know. Maybe she could investigate anyone with unpaid taxes? That’s about half the town, though.”

“Was there anyone close to him?” asked Ku-vastei.

“Taxmen don’t easily make friends.”

“Well,” said Tolvise, “there is the lighthouse keeper, Thavere. He’d been spending a lot of time with her the past few months. I even saw them kiss once, so I suppose they were lovers.”

“A lover’s quarrel gone wrong?” asked Arrille with a slight smirk.

“No, Arrille,” said Tolvise with a roll of her crimson eyes. “Be serious. Ku-vastei, you should start by talking to Thavere. Be gentle when you tell her the news, though.”

Ku-vastei nodded, took the tax record back from Arrille, and left without another word.

- - -

Ku-vastei hiked through the marsh of the lower town, passing run-down shacks and shallow quagmires as she made her way towards the lighthouse, the most identifiable landmark of Seyda Neen. Naturally, it was a tall building, stone-built with rot-chewed wooden beams poking through on a few levels. It had a catawampus angle to it, its light-bearing top platform shifted to the side a bit to account for the outer staircase to reach it. 

At the top, leaning against a stone post, was a figure, staring out at the town. It seemed to take notice of Ku-vastei approaching, and disappeared into the lighthouse.

The ground-level door faced the sea to the south, so Ku-vastei had to wrap around and climb a few steps onto a wooden platform to reach it. Ku-vastei knocked and waited a moment, the idle swinging of her tail shifting her weight and creaking the boards under her feet. Finally the door cracked open, a pair of red eyes peering through. Then it swung wide open, straining squeaky hinges. There stood a Dunmer woman, pale and with graying brown hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, but with many unkempt stragglers flying loose about her head like a halo in the sunlight streaming in. 

She smiled wide, her lips parted as she panted from descending the stairs, her yellowed teeth on full display. “Hello, and welcome!” she said, her voice strained with excitement and exertion. “I saw you get off the boat this morning! From upstairs, of course.” She leaned on the door frame as she fired off each word erratically. “You know, not many ships come through here anymore. They either go to Ebonheart or further north. No love for little Seyda Neen. Some people like it to stay quiet here, but I miss the excitement of Imperial dignitaries passing through, you know?”

Ku-vastei did not know. Seeing the blank stare, the lighthouse keeper Thavere said, “Oh, sorry. I’m rambling. Don’t talk to people much these days. Here, come in. Let’s visit.” She stepped back, holding the door open for Ku-vastei to enter. Tentatively Ku-vastei took a step forward past the threshold. 

The first floor room of the lighthouse was cramped. There was a small candlestick on a table to the left dimly illuminating the space. Next to the table was a storage chest, and across from it was a stove by a narrow bed, neatly made. A teapot whistled away on the stovetop, flooding the room with wisps of steam. Under the stairwell across the chamber was a cluster of barrels and crates. 

“Tea?” asked Thavere, reaching for the teapot. Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed a loose redware cup from the table and filled it with some pale yellow brew. She offered it to Ku-vastei, who accepted it slowly. 

“What kind?” asked Ku-vastei, staring into the cup. It had a faint herbal scent.

“Mint chai, from Elsweyr,” said Thavere as she poured herself a cup. “Sorry, you probably expected something local. I’m a bit of a collector. Not a lot to do when cooped up in a lighthouse all day. So I order exotic teas and drink them. Helps me to keep awake at night, too. This chai is one of my favorites. Try it! Mind the heat, though.”

Ku-vastei blinked once, then twice. She gave the tea another sniff – so this was “mint?” She took a careful sip, fighting not to burn her mouth. It was good; the mint felt cool and tingly on her tongue, despite the heat of the tea. “Thank you,” she said before trying another sip.

“Don’t mention it!” said Thavere, her hands jittering as she held her own cup. “A lot of Dunmer here are quite rude to outlanders, but I find you all fascinating! Plus, I subscribe to the friendlier rules of Nordic hospitality.” She gasped and covered her mouth. “There I go again, forgetting my manners! I don’t even have your name! You can go ahead and sit down in that chair as well. What shall I call you?”

“Ku-vastei,” she answered as she tucked her tail to the side to sit down. “You’re Thavere, right?”

“Sure am!” the lighthouse keeper said as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Pleased to meet you, Ku-vastei! May I just call you Ku?”

“Sure,” Ku-vastei sighed. “Look, I came here to ask you some questions.”

“Oh?” Thavere said, tilting her head. “Go ahead, I’d love to help if you need any guidance or advice.”

Ku-vastei sighed again and looked away. “Actually, it’s about Processus.”

Some of Thavere’s bubbliness simmered down at the mention of his name. “Oh. Do you…well. He’s probably off to Ebonheart, if you’re looking for him. Maybe to see the Duke! Processus is a very important man.” She paused a moment, looking down at her cup. “Usually he tells me when he’s leaving. But he didn’t, this time.”

“You two were close?” Ku-vastei asked.

“Yes, I would say so! He’s too shy to admit it himself, but I think he’s the love of my life. I…what do you mean, ‘were’?”

“Thavere,” Ku-vastei said, “put your cup down.”

Slowly, with a hand shaky from both drink and anxiety, Thavere set her cup down on a nearby crate.

“I found Processus this morning, north of town. He’s been murdered.”

The only sound was the tea still whistling on the stove, and the faint creaking of the lighthouse above them.

“Are…are you sure? That it was him?”

“He had his tax records with him, with his name on it.”

Thavere’s eyes were fixed on the floor, unblinking. “Can you…” The words came out as half-sob, startling her from her trance. “Can you give me a moment, please.”

Ku-vastei nodded, stood, and walked outside, closing the door quietly behind her.

She sat down on the wooden boards and closed her eyes, pretending not to hear the muffled sobbing inside. Ku-vastei tried to push away old memories that were attempting to resurface upon hearing those sounds. She had locked them away deep in her soul when she herself was locked away in the Imperial Prison. In a new unfamiliar place like this was certainly not the best time for them to reemerge, so she stifled them again as best she could. 

After listening to the waves of pain behind her subside, she stood and went back inside. Thavere was half laid out on the bed, dark pools of tears staining the sheets. She looked up glumly at Ku-vastei.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need to ask you some questions.”

“Did…” Thavere began, before clearing her throat with a small cough, “did you find his ring?”

“No, I didn’t see any ring on his fingers,” Ku-vastei said.

“Oh…” Thavere said just before her face began to scrunch back up into the shape of weeping. She rubbed her eyes with her palms, seeming to press too hard into them. “I don’t…know what I’ll do without him. He was the…gentlest man I ever met. Never got angry at anyone, but once or twice, I guess. Never raised a hand to anyone, certainly not me.”

“Who did he get angry with?” Ku-vastei asked, sitting back down so as to be on her level. 

Thavere straightened her posture a bit and swept a tear from her face. “Oh, I don’t know…well. I did see him arguing with Foryn, Foryn Gilnith, a couple weeks ago. About his taxes. Foryn claimed he was cheating everyone. Levying too much, and skimming off the top for himself. Nonsense, of course, Processus is…was…an honest man.”

“Where could I find this Foryn?”

“Oh, he lives down the way.” Thavere pointed backwards through the walls. “The side of the lowtown closest to the coast. Last one down that way, on the left if you head out from here.”

“Okay,” said Ku-vastei. “I’ll go talk to him, and leave you alone. Take care of yourself.” 

Just as Ku-vastei was opening the door, Thavere said, “Wait. If you find Processus’ ring…please bring it to me. It’s silver, with a long shard of sard in it. It would…ease my heart, somewhat.”

Ku-vastei nodded and left the lighthouse and its grief behind. 

- - -

Ku-vastei knocked on the door to the last shack on the left, her spear held tightly in hand. The door slammed open, revealing a clearly half-drunk Dunmer man, disheveled of hair and dress, his red eyes narrowed in the light. “Whaddaya want, outlander?”

“To talk,” said Ku-vastei.

“Bah!” huffed the Dunmer, and he slammed the door shut –

– but it caught on the haft of Ku-vastei’s spear. “Didn’t ask,” she said, pushing the door open with a mighty fist.

The inside of the shack was small and filthy. Loose bottles – some empty, some half so – and piles of discarded bones – some picked clean, others half so – littered the floor. “Hey,” said Foryn, “you can’t do that. I’ll call the guards–”

“Tell me about Processus,” Ku-vastei said, closing the door behind her.

The Dunmer’s mouth snapped shut. After a tantalizing pause, he grabbed a bottle of mazte from the table behind him and took a swig, never turning away from Ku-vastei. “Yeah? What about the fetcher?”

“Did you know he’s dead?” Ku-vastei asked, her grip on her spear tightening.

“Yeah, I did. I’m the one what did the fetcher in,” Foryn said, slurring his words through the alcohol. “Good thing, too. Bastard was skimming off the top. Overcharging the taxes and keeping the extra for hisself. Always showing off, too. Flaunting his fancy clothes and jewels.” He flashed a ring on his finger at Ku-vastei, as if to prove his point. Long jewel, reddish-brown. Like sard. “So yeah, I killed him. Left his body – and his stolen money – to rot in the swamp.”

Ku-vastei tilted her head to the side. She hadn’t expected a straight-forward confession. This man really believed he was in the right to murder. Or he was just spectacularly drunk. Or both. But, a confession’s a confession. “That’s no excuse,” she said. “You killed a man in cold blood. You’re coming with me.”

“Like hell I am, n’wah! You’re another one of them, huh? Well, I got no problem spilling the blood of another Imperial lackey!”

Before Ku-vastei could ready her spear, a half-full jug of mazte was crashing into her face, burning her eyes with alcohol and snout with blunt trauma. She swiped blindly with her weapon, but only managed to thud against the wall of the shack. She was given no time to recover; evidently Foryn had ducked the spear swing and went straight for her waist, tackling her to the dirt floor. Her grip on her spear failed, and, mazte-fueled, he began striking her on the face and chest, punching the air from her lungs and the sense from her head. She tried to wriggle free, to retaliate, but her arms were pinned. Blow after blow she suffered, and she could feel blackness encroaching upon her mind.

There was, she remembered, a trick she’d half-learned in a book she read in prison, once. She’d never cast the spell before, nor even attempted it. She struggled to find the mental fortitude to reach across Oblivion to conjure…

Do you need my help, mortal? Very well. But you owe me, now.

No time to worry about the voice. The blade was now in her hand, and she jerked it sideways, cutting into Foryn’s leg. He howled like a mating kagouti, and fell off of her. She followed the momentum and rolled over, and the bound dagger was in his throat before either of them knew it. He gasped and choked, unsure whether to grasp his wounded hamstring or his spurting neck. Neither availed him, and he fell still.

Ku-vastei rolled over onto her back and gasped for air for several moments. She barely reacted to the banging on the door until it burst halfway open, blocked by Foryn’s corpse.

“What in…Truccius, help me with this, will you? There’s something in the…Nine, that’s blood. A lot of blood.”

As the guards tried to push open the door, Ku-vastei tried to pull Foryn’s body away from it to make room. Finally it was cleared wide enough to let in the late afternoon light, and the metal boots of the first guard. He pointed a sword at Ku-vastei’s black throat, who was now sitting up against a crate by Foryn’s hammock. “Argonian, what in Oblivion happened here?” 

“Attacked me,” Ku-vastei muttered, still trying to catch her breath, clutching her ribs. 

“Speak up,” said the second guard, Truccius, from behind the first. “Loud enough both of us can hear you, dammit.”

Ku-vastei inhaled deeply again, the air burning inside her lungs. “A moment, please.” She held up her bloody claws in a sign her naheesh had taught her long ago when she was not much older than a hatchling. 

“What are you doing? Stop!” commanded the first guard, pushing his sword closer to Ku-vastei’s neck. 

“Wait, I know that one,” said Truccius, placing a hand on his comrade’s shoulder. “Leave her be. She’s healing.”

Ku-vastei felt the warmth of the Hearth suffuse her, clearing up the already-bruising blows to her face and chest, and each breath thereafter became easier. When the aching in her throat was mostly gone, and her breathing relaxed, she spoke. “He attacked me after he confessed to murdering the taxman.”

“You can tell it to Socucius,” said the guard with the sword. “Truccius, guard the body. Keep onlookers away. I’m taking her in. Come with me, Argonian. No, leave the body alone! And leave the spear. This is a crime scene, now. If Socucius believes your story, you can have the spear back. Come along.”

- - - 

“So,” said Socucius Ergalla, “you found Processus’ corpse, and were able to track down his murderer, who you’ve just killed?”

“Yes,” Ku-vastei nodded. “Arrille and Tolvise, as well as the lighthouse keeper, helped me with the investigation.” Slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the guard who brought her in, she reached into her pack and pulled out the tax record. “This shows that Foryn has the highest unpaid tax in Seyda Neen, and Thavere told me that she had seen him and Processus arguing over his taxes several days ago.”

Socucius examined the tax record without taking it from Ku-vastei. “I see. So this, you believe, was Foryn’s motive?”

“Yes,” Ku-vastei said. “From what I could tell from Processus’ body, he was strangled to death. I have discovered in my experience with him that Foryn is a skilled martial artist. There was also a bottle of shein near the corpse; I believe Foryn got Processus drunk, led him into the wilderness, and killed him there.”

“Hm…” droned Socucius. “I have no reason to suspect you are lying to me, Ku-vastei. I will request that you stay in town, under watch, until we can verify your story with other witnesses and examine the scene of Processus’ death. Otherwise you are free to go. And,” he said, reaching into a nearby chest, “take this for your efforts. You’ve done the Empire a great service by delivering justice for the loss of one of its servants.”

He handed Ku-vastei a heavy burlap sack. She peeked inside to see the glimmer of hundreds of gold coins. “Five-hundred septims,” Socucius explains. “We keep rewards for those who serve the Empire. I hope you use them well. Ganerus, take her to Arrille’s tradehouse and begin your interviews.”

- - -

After speaking with Arrille and Tolvise in the tradehouse, as the sun was half-set, Ku-vastei convinced Ganerus to stay outside as she spoke to the lighthouse keeper on personal matters. There was no tea boiling on the stove. Thavere was laying on her back in the disheveled bed, but she sat up awkwardly as Ku-vastei entered. “Hello, Thavere,” said Ku-vastei.

“Ku,” Thavere groaned, rubbing her redder-than-usual eyes. “I’m glad to see you. What news?”

“Foryn confessed to the murder,” said Ku-vastei, sitting down in the chair. “He’s dead now.”

“Good,” Thavere said, crossing her arms and rubbing her shoulders. “Does…does it make me a bad person, to be glad to hear it?”

“No,” Ku-vastei says. “It makes you a grieving woman. Processus has his justice.”

“May he rest easy, now,” Thavere said, looking down. 

“There’s more,” Ku-vastei said. She slipped from her pocket something small and shining. She reached over to hand it to Thavere.

Thavere took the ring and gasped. “You found it! And not a scratch! Thank you, muthsera, thank you!” She slipped it on her middle finger and gazed lovingly at it. “It’s good to have something to remember him by, though I’ll never see him again. Oh!” She stood and reached into the chest by Ku-vastei. “Take these, Ku. Potions of healing. Processus always took a couple with him on his trips. If only he had this time…” She nearly fell to weeping again, but some spark of resolve steadied her. “Thank you, Ku, for everything. Will you stay in Seyda Neen?”

“No,” said Ku-vastei. “I have business in Balmora.”

“Oh…well. I hope the potions are of use to you in your travels, then. Be well, Ku-vastei.”

“And you, Thavere.” Ku-vastei considered saying more, but thought it unwise. So she stood, waved, and returned to Imperial custody.

[vosh-rakh]

“What is that?” asked the visitor, one of his dangling arms pointing at Spoons-her-Sugar, who crouched in a corner he had hoped was shadowed enough to conceal him. “One of the Akaviri monkey-men? You really are an eccentric one, Tevethri.”

Sugar shivered, his fur pricking and his tail, which had already been swishing back and forth in the library-dust, straightening out in mild panic as he was acknowledged by the odd stranger. The visitor was supposedly a dark elf, although Sugar couldn’t see much of him beyond his shriveled arms hanging from the insectoid mass that surrounded him. Heavy chitinous plates enveloped him completely, like the armor on a giant kwama warrior. Sugar had heard whispers that this wizard rarely left his shell-carriage in his old age, and that his legs had atrophied as a result. The entire assemblage of shells floated about a foot in the air, suspended by faintly-glowing runes etched deep into the rims of the chitin. It had been a struggle for him to squeeze into the doors of the library. 

Master Tevethri chuckled, glancing at Sugar. “No, Moldayn. That’s just Sugar. She’s my library assistant. My brother-in-law – yes, Sevasi married a Dres for some reason – sold her to me when the Pact formed and outlawed the old tradition.”

All things considered, it had been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Master Savethi was beyond cruel; a curse because, assuming Savethi hadn’t also sold the others to Telvanni, they had been freed by the Pact, either made citizens or sent home to Elsweyr or Black Marsh. Sugar missed most of them – especially Hears-No-Lies, an Argonian boy a few years his elder whom Sugar was very fond of – but things could be worse. Tending Master Tevethri’s library and fetching books for him wasn’t all bad, and Sugar was fed well enough, and Tevethri’s temper was much more manageable than Savethi’s.

“So it’s not a monkey-man?” Moldayn asked again, his weak, rattling voice magically amplified to be heard from within his shell.

“I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘Tang Mo.’ And no, she isn’t.” Tevethri waved Sugar over. “Come, Sugar. Out of the darkness, and by my side.” Sugar obeyed, slowly walking into the dim lamplight casting grotesque shadows across Moldayn’s shell. 

Tevethri laid a poorly-manicured hand on Sugar’s shoulder. “Savethi told me that she was a breed called…’dog,’ or something to that effect. Something about the moons, some astrological nonsense. She does favor an ape, though, doesn’t she? But rest assured, she is a cat. Smile for me, Sugar.”

Sugar obeyed, parting his lips wide and baring his fangs. No slave in Savethi’s plantation had good teeth, but Tevethri had different tastes. He had Sugar undergo more rigorous dental care and magical procedures to ensure healthy, white teeth.

“Impressive, impressive,” said Moldayn. “But you said she was your library assistant…how?”

“Well, you see, I taught her to read.”

Moldayn’s shell seemed to rattle in a terrible shiver. “What blasphemy, to teach a slave to read! Remember ye not of the Pocket Cabal and its wickedness?”

Tevethri scoffed. “You read too much Tribunal nonsense. There’s no harm in it. After all, she still bears a bracer. We as a race learned long ago to forbid magic to the enslaved.” He grabbed Sugar’s bracered wrist and held it high. “Besides, all she reads is book titles and authors. No harm in that.”

“Time will make a fool of you, Tevethri, I swear of it.”

“But see how useful she is! Sugar, fetch for me��hm…the ‘Compendium of Arcano-matrices,’ volume four, by Mistress Ghenima.”

Silently Sugar nodded and went about his work. With a long arm he reached up several rows of a nearby bookshelf and hoisted himself up. With simple fluid movements he shimmied across the arrayed books, stirring up dust as he scanned their spines. Dissatisfied, he lifted his tail to catch a horizontal rod hanging above the aisle, and swung backwards, letting go of the first bookshelf and catching the one behind. He followed the alphabet down to the geths and slowed down, hunting down his prey. Finally he found the set: an entire shelf lined with Ghenima’s Arcano-matrices, their dull-green leather spines etched with her name and the volume number. He plucked volume four from the row and hopped down to the soft fungal floor.

“Excellent!” said Tevethri as Sugar brought him the book. “Well done, Sugar.” Sugar, though not exactly pleased by the praise, smiled thinly with small satisfaction.

“Pah!” rattled out Moldayn from his floating shell. “Memorizing the arcano-matrices is child’s play, and Ghenima got half of them wrong.” He waved Sugar over. “Come, slave. Let’s test the limits of your master’s library, shall we?”

Sugar looked to Tevethri, the fur on his tail and neck standing on end. But Tevethri just smiled and nodded. So Sugar approached the levitating chitinous mass that was Moldayn and said, “Yes, muthsera?”

Moldayn clapped his frail hands together and chuckled. “She can speak! How delightful. See if you can find…Oh! This is a good one. ‘Daedron Field Fluctuations of the Lower Dragontails on the Second of Sun’s Dawn under Stormy Weather’ by Anonymous.”

Sugar paused to think, pressing his lips together. Had he seen that one before? Well, an order’s an order; he had to look.

The ayems were on the other side of the library, so Sugar scampered down an aisle a few shelves over before clambering up the shelves. There was an extensive section of books with anonymous authorship in the far corner of the room, stacked against the wall. He perused their spines, hoping such a lengthy title might stick out, but he struggled to find it. A rainbow of variously-dyed covers dazzled him as he shifted his eyes from volume to volume in his search, many faded from decades – no, centuries – from either constant use or simple abandonment.

One book struck him as odd. It was pitch black, the creases on its spine almost completely imperceptible in its darkness – and no letters were visible, either, neither title nor author. Sugar pulled it from the shelf to examine the front. No writing there, either. He flipped it over and found its black surface perfectly blank and unmarked. He hopped down for a moment, freeing up both hands so he could look inside for more information.

There seemed to be some mild resistance as Sugar tried to pull the pages apart, almost like it had been glued shut by its ink. Finally, he pried the papers apart and looked inside. He caught a brief glimpse of a densely-scrawled script he couldn’t recognize – no Cyrodiilic letters, no Daedric sigils. 

But then the runes started to glow a bright, garish green, sparking ever brighter, flooding the pages with a sickening vibrant light. Then tendrils of inky blackness swirled, flat on the pages at first, but then emerging into the third dimension and rising like smoke, like seaweed from the ocean floor, reaching upwards towards Sugar’s face until they completely blotted out all light and consciousness.

- - - - -

Sugar awoke standing upright, his eyes already open. Their pupils dilated immediately in the dim light, stretching from slits to wide circles. He was surrounded by books, but this wasn’t Master Tevethri’s library. The walls weren’t lined with bookshelves; the walls were books, bricked with tomes, running black ink their mortar, held down by the sheer weight of knowledge. They were crookedly assembled, the walls uneven and jutting with loose papers half-undone from their bindings. Some of the stacks reached upwards, tilting precariously as if to form a dome above his head, but never meeting in the middle. Yet somehow they didn’t collapse – something else stabilized them. Sugar couldn’t tell if the space above him was a distant, shadowed ceiling, or a dark sky, devoid of stars. 

Blast, she shouldn’t be taking that long. I was nearly certain I had that one. You win this time, Moldayn. Come back now, Sugar. No need to waste time searching.

On the floor – even this seemed to be made mostly of books – was a circular stone platform, ringed by a faintly-luminous green etching, surrounding complicated circuits of strange runes, each glowing and humming ominously. At the center stood a pedestal almost as tall as Sugar himself, and a single black-bound tome rested upon it…beckoning.

Sugar? I said you can come back now. Don’t keep us waiting overlong.

Strange, Sugar thought, that I’m not afraid. He began to approach the pedestal. 

Fine, I’ll just go and get her. She must have gotten distracted.

Just as his claws had almost captured the tome, there was a booming sound above, like a peal of thunder. Sugar looked up, expecting the half-arches of books to tumble down and drown him in paper. Instead he beheld dark masses undulating in the hollow above, barely visible against the blackness. They were moving, not just independently, but in a single direction collectively. Finally, the movement stopped. 

By the Three! She’s…Moldayn! It’s got her, the book, it…it’s in her eyes! It’s in her damn eyes!

Then an enormous eye, seemingly bigger than the world, opened, dull green but intense, its pupil dual-lobed. 

Don’t be silly, Tevethri. You can’t trick me. “In her eyes.” Come back now, you two.

The eye spoke directly into Sugar’s head. “Mortal. You have been summoned.” Sugar could feel something, like an inchworm, exploring the depths of his mind. “Yes…this curiosity without fear. A suitable trait for my purposes.”

Moldayn, for Mephala’s sake! This isn’t a game! I need her! It’s impossible to find good slaves anymore! Get out of that ridiculous thing and come help me! It’s in her…eyes, mouth, ears…By Azura…

“Who are you?” said Sugar.

“To your people I am Hermorah, the King of Tides…the Watcher.” A laugh reverberated throughout Sugar’s skull, like a hollow knocking at the gates. “But you know nothing of your people, of course. Wouldn’t you like to? To be free, to go home?”

You know I can’t leave this shell! Just…pull them out!

“I don’t have a home.” Sugar’s fingers still twitched in the air over the tome.

“Oh, but you could. A real home of your own. A people of your own. Wouldn’t you enjoy that? And more than that. Power. Dominion over those who seek to steal it. Wrath for the slavemasters.” A long black appendage descended, writhing in the air as it approached, until it rested above the tome under Sugar’s hands, pointing. “Within this tome is your freedom. Within it is your power. Within it…is a new service. Service to me.”

I’m trying…they’re too strong! What in Oblivion is this?

Sugar looked down at the black tome. He could see now that it wasn’t completely featureless – there was an implication of meaning, of runes etched for the sole purpose of each individual reading.

He looked back up to the eye. “Give me one more thing.”

The same laughter in his head, but there was a wicked angle to it. “You believe you have bargaining power. Interesting. But I shall entertain your request.”

“Make me a man.”

I think I almost have it…call the healer, Moldayn! She’ll need her!

Hermorah fell silent for a moment, the pointing tentacle stilling. The inchworm probed deeper. “You wish for a new body. One which suits your…disposition better.”

“Yes. I will serve you only as a man. Never a woman.”

“...Very well. When you awake, you shall be born anew in my service. Claim your tome, arcanist. Your new life begins now.”

Sugar’s fingers were aching to finally lay hands upon the book. He snatched it from the pedestal, and the darkness returned…

- - - - -

…and abated. Tevethri was looking up at Sugar, having fallen somehow. His eyes were wide as the moons.

“Sugar…Sugar, what has happened to you? Moldayn! Call the damn healer!”

Sugar looked at the book in his hands. It was no longer the book he had taken from Tevethri’s library, but the book he had claimed from Hermorah. He opened it again, and the runes on the page danced a moment before settling. Somehow, he knew their meaning.

He reached up an arm – larger and more muscular than before, he noticed – and pointed it towards Tevethri, uttering the incantation.

Sickly green eyes burst open across Sugar’s face, spreading down his neck and shoulder. Oily black growths rippled across his fur, surging down his arm until they came to his slave bracer. They pried underneath it until it shattered.

“Im…possible…” muttered Tevethri.

But the growths were hungry. They lurched forward as inky tentacles, and each impaled Tevethri, piercing through his feeble wizard’s body, and before he could so much as gasp, the light faded from his eyes.

“Tevethri!” called Moldayn from beyond the rows of shelves. “Tevethri, what in Oblivion is going on?”

Sugar emerged from the tangled aisles and confronted the chitinous monster. “Who…who in the blazes are you, cat?” bellowed Moldayn

Sugar smiled. “The cat who knows.”

The tentacles roiled forward again, tearing apart the floating shell piece by piece, until Moldayn, too slow in his old age to react, collapsed to the floor, helpless.

“Wait…wait…” Moldayn whispered, his voice no longer magically amplified. “I have…gold. Skooma. You like skooma, don’t you, Sugar?”

Sugar wrapped around Moldayn, straddling his decrepit form, and pulled his head up by his sparse white hairs. Without another word, he sliced Moldayn’s throat with a single extended claw.

[vosh-rakh]

Ku-vastei watched lazily as young Hla-eix and the Duke’s daughter, Derelayn, play-fought in the palace courtyard. Derelayn was bigger than Hla-eix, being a few years older, but Hla-eix kept pace with her. The clacks of their wooden toy swords clashing resonated throughout the empty space. Ku-vastei was proud of her daughter’s skill; she recognized several short blade maneuvers she had taught her herself.

Ku glanced at her wife lounging nearby, casually reading a book. Ku-vastei thought she must be very lucky to have such a lovely wife and daughter. (Being Hortator was a nice plus, too – at least when she had a moment to breathe like this.)

But the feeling was short-lived. A sudden jolt of pain spiked up her right hand, permanently encased in Wraithguard. With her left hand she reached for the glass of cold marshmerrow juice on the small table next to her, and took a mighty swig. No healing potion, but a decent analgesic. The pain slowly subsided in descending throbs until it was barely noticeable. She flexed her hand to make sure. A bit tight in the fingertips and crook of the thumb, but manageable. Watching the interlocking plates and joints shift, she had an idea.

“Girls!” she shouted across the courtyard. “Come here.”

Hla-eix and Derelayn dropped their swords and approached seated Ku-vastei.

“Yes, mama?” asked Hla-eix, expectant.

At the same time, Derelyan asked, “Yes, Hortator?” She seemed nervous, like she thought she was in trouble. And the fact that the girl still called Ku “Hortator” after all these years bothered her.

“Tell me,” Ku began, “What is on my right hand?”

The girls fell silent and thoughtful. After a moment, Derelayn offered, “Lord Vivec, Hortator?”

“No, Derry,” said Ku, patiently but without smiling. “Vivec is my left hand.”

Hla-eix lit up and suggested, “Oh! It’s Uncle Arry!”

“No, Eix,” said Ku again, shaking her head. “Aryon is my right hand, yes, but you’re not thinking literally enough.”

“Ohhh,” Hla-eix gasped, a long, drawn out sound. “You mean Wraithguard!”

“Yes, sweetheart,” said Ku, still not smiling. She raised her right hand, the back of Wraithguard facing the girls. “Eix, do you know what it does?”

“Yes, mama!” Hla-eix said, eager to show her knowledge. “It keeps you safe from the power of Sunder and Keening!”

“And what would happen if someone without Wraithguard on their hand attempted to wield Sunder or Keening?”

Hla-eix frowned and her voice became solemn. “They would die, mama.”

“Hm,” muttered Ku with a slight nod. With Wraithguard, she pulled Keening from its sheath on her hip. “This,” she said, brandishing the profane dagger, “is Keening, what laid low Dagoth Ur with its final sting to his heart.” (She was so used to the lie she had told Vivec after that fight that she told it everywhere – none but Azura could prove her wrong, and she didn’t seem interested.)

“Ah!” gasped Hla-eix, leaning in close.

“Wow!” added Derelayn, also leaning in. “It’s so pretty!”

“Don’t touch!” Ku warned suddenly, raising her voice. “You would die!”

The girls recoiled in fear from the blade, frightened by Ku’s volume.

“You mustn’t be careless with the profane tools,” admonished Ku. “One wrong move and –” She quickly tossed up Keening, catching it in her bare left hand.

“Mama, no!” cried Hla-eix, lunging forward to stop her mother’s apparent carelessness. Derelayn burst into tears immediately.

Ku-vastei pulled back Keening from Hla-eix’s reach, and burst into laughter. “You thought I was in danger!” She returned the dagger to its sheath. “It’s a neat trick I learned by accident once – the gauntlet protects my whole body!”

But now even Hla-eix was crying big, angry tears. From behind came a shout from Ashiri: “Ku-vastei! Stop frightening the children!”

“Oh, it was just a bit of fun, I didn’t mean to –”

“Girls, come to mommy. It’s okay, sweets. That’s right, come here and give me a big hug.”

Ku rolled her eyes. Kids these days. So sensitive.

[vosh-rakh]

Tevrelas, the best grocer in Vivec, was bored. His head was propped up on his elbows at his shop counter. It was a very slow day, and one can only check stock and straighten merchandise so many times before going mad. And if he didn’t get a customer soon, he was sure to come down with soulsickness.

The door suddenly opened. And, lucky Tevrelas, in walked the Hortator herself.

Tevrelas immediately stood up straight, his hands clasped in front of his waist, before bowing so low he hit his forehead on the counter. He glanced up from this position to see the Hortator in her intricate golden robes, gold-inlaid bonemold pauldrons extending from her shoulders like wings, sacred gauntlet Wraithguard on her right hand. In her scaled left claw she clutched a small piece of paper, held very close to her face as she squinted at the writing on it.

“My lord Hortator,” stumbled Tevrelas, “Your humble servant, Tevrelas Mothrim, at your most fervent service.”

“Stand,” grumbled the Hortator, not taking her eyes off of the list.

Tevrelas stood from his deep bow and noticed the Hortator was not alone. Behind her streamed in a throng of followers, seemingly random people off the streets of Vivec, a diverse group of men, mer, and beastfolk, each regarding the Hortator with feverish reverence and devotion.

“My lord,” asked Tevrelas, “who are they?”

“Who?” The Hortator finally lifted her head and looked around at all the people. “Oh. I don’t know.”

“W-well,” began Tevrelas, his whole body shaking, “…how may I…may I help you?”

“Hm…” muttered the Hortator, her sycophants hanging from every utterance with bated breath. She squinted hard at the paper again. “Do you have…twenty Daedra hearts?”

“Heavens, no!” exclaimed Tevrelas, before remembering who he was speaking to. “I mean…my apologies, my lord, but I do not carry Daedra hearts.”

“Alright,” said the Hortator. “What about…” She inspected the list closely again, muttering under her breath, “Damn her scrib-scratch!” Speaking at normal volume, she said, “Emeralds, sload soap, or vampire dust?”

Tevrelas’ eyes widened, straining his face. “Lord Hortator, I’m afraid you have me mistaken for an apothecary. I am but a simple grocer.” Desperate for a sale, he reached under his counter and retrieved a bundle of scrib jerky. “I have all manner of kwama and vegetable goods, if it please you. Eggs, wickwheat flour, saltrice, ashyams…”

“Ashyams?” the Hortator asked, suddenly interested again. “Do you also sell bloat?”

“Ah…no, I’m afraid.”

“Well, nevermind the ashyams, then.,” the Hortator said with a wave of Wraithguard. She took the scrib jerky from Tevrelas’ hand. “Sample?” she asked. Without waiting for a response, she took a bite, chewing quietly. “Hm. Well-seasoned. Tender,” she said after swallowing. “Good day, Devrala.” She turned and pushed her way through the crowd to leave.

Tevrelas buried his face in his hands. How can he be the best grocer in Vivec if he can’t cinch a deal with the Hortator?

“Sera Devrala?”

Tevrelas looked up. Several of the Hortator’s unexpected retinue had stayed behind and were standing before his counter. A young Dunmer woman asked, “May we have some of this jerky the Hortator favors?”

Tevrelas’ frown became a wide grin. “Yes, of course – but not for free!”

[vosh-rakh]

3e634 chapter 2

--chapter 1--

Master Kassur sat cross-legged at the peak of a hill in the Reach, hunched over a well-worn copy of The Four Suitors of Benitah, smiling. The wind whipped up the frayed corners of the pages, but he paid it no mind, enthralled as he was by the words. His husband sat a ways behind him on an elaborate conjured chair, fiddling with the runes carefully inscribed on a pair of spectacles. They sat in silence, kept busy by their respective businesses. 

The spectacles suddenly appeared held within the grasp of a well-manicured hand over Kassur’s shoulder. Without turning his gaze from the book, Kassur asked, “Have you finally finished with them?”

“I believe so,” Master Aryon answered. “Give them a whirl.” 

Kassur shifted his book to one hand and took the glasses with the spare. With a quick movement of his wrist he flicked open the arms and laid them over his ears, his eyes now covered with lenses of carefully polished glass. At first the world was awash with mauve smoke, but it quickly dissipated to reveal perfectly normal vision. “Is there nothing you can do about that startup period?” he asked, turning to face his husband. Aryon was not overlaid with magical smoke, which was a good first sign.

“I’ve tried,” Aryon said with a sigh. “Something about this particular enchantment, it would seem.” He laughed and adjusted the crooked glasses on Kassur’s nose. “There could be some sort of metaphysical implications, if I could be bothered to interrogate them. But I’m no philosopher or Psijic.”

“How shall we test them, then?” Kassur wrinkled his nose, and the glasses fell askew again.

“Well,” Aryon began, indicating one of his famous monologues was to follow, “All I’ve just done is fine-tune it for the drier climate this far west. During our audience with the master of the Greybeards, I discreetly tested it on him. He glowed very brightly.” 

“And does it verify me?” Kassur asked. He removed the glasses and handed them to Aryon.

Aryon carefully took the spectacles and placed them straight on his nose with both hands. He squinted for a moment as his vision adjusted, and then nodded. “You glow as brilliantly as Magnus himself.”

“I appreciate the compliment, my dear,” said Kassur with a crooked smile, “but do the glasses work?”

Aryon rolled his eyes behind the glasses and gave him a light shove on the shoulder. “Yes, you dolt. Don’t sweet-talk yourself too much, or Azura will get jealous.” Neither of them cared much for Azura, but it was a common phrase that even venerable Master Aryon had picked up. Aryon handed back the spectacles, and Kassur returned them to his face.

Aryon scratched his chin for a moment. “I suppose the next test would be on the latest Septim, but I doubt we could obtain an audience with him, even with the Hortator’s diplomatic assistance.”

“Are we even sure the Septims after Martin are still Dragonborn?” Kassur asked, scanning the horizon, as if Skyrim were somehow filled with dragon souls lurking around every corner, hiding in every nook and cranny of the cliffs and hills.

“The official Imperial line is that they are,” Aryon said. “Seeing as our device here is the first to accurately detect them, even our best spies couldn’t be sure.” He pondered for a moment. “The Dragonfires apparently remain lit, so we have to assume.”

“Mhm,” Kassur said.

“Are you reading again instead of listening to me?” Aryon snatched the book from Kassur’s hands. Kassur tried to snatch it back, but Aryon retreated. Kassur couldn’t be bothered to stand so gave up. “You’ve read this a thousand times. Why bother reading it again? You could recite it word-for-word from memory.” 

“I like reading more than reciting,” Kassur pouted.

Aryon flipped through a few pages. “What drivel. How can you stand this stuff?”

“It reminds me of where I’ve come from.”

“Why this, then?” Aryon waved the book about, not caring if Kassur kept his page. “Why not some, I don’t know, Ashlander tales or hymns?”

“You know why. I couldn’t go back to them if I wanted to, so why bother even thinking about it?”

“Hm. Fair enough, I suppose.” Aryon tucked the book back in Kassur’s bag. 

Kassur planted his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees, looking westward where the road meets the limited horizon of this rough place. Something vaguely purple seemed to rise over the edge and walk slowly down the trail. Kassur paid it no mind at first, but it grew closer and closer, and brighter and brighter, until it separated, as if by mitosis, into two distinct shapes of lavender light.

He blinked once, then twice. He removed the glasses, and saw the two traveling figures in true light. One shining-armored with a black cloak, the other in yellow robes behind. Kassur put the glasses back on and waited for the purple glare to recede. It finally resolved into just the overlay of the two travelers.

“Arrie.”

“Yes?”

“I think you still have some fine-tuning to do. They’re too sensitive.”

“I’ve done about all the fine-tuning I can,” Aryon said, coming back behind Kassur. “Let me see.”

Kassur handed Aryon the spectacles. He put them on, squinted until they calibrated, and looked to see what Kassur was making a fuss about. His eyes widened. “By Mephala’s…”

That was all Kassur needed. He jumped to his feet and started clambering, nearly rolling, down the side of the hill. He faintly heard Aryon shout “Kass!” behind him, but blood was roaring in his ears, drowning out even his awkward tumbling down the earth.

- - - - -

“N’chow,” whispered Dagoth Valer as she watched the wizard tumblr down the hill towards the road. She stopped in her tracks, considering her options. She almost reached for a weapon, but reasoned such a clumsy wizard couldn’t be much of a threat. Just play it - 

Before she could finish her thought, the sleeper walked right into her back. Valer had forgotten to will her body to stop when she did. This kind of control was taxing - she wondered how the other ash vampires had managed it, and across so many sleepers, for so long. 

Valer reined the sleeper back in and had her step back. Fortunately, the wizard didn’t seem to notice the collision. Unfortunately, he was soon accompanied by another wizard, this one gracefully levitating down from the hill behind the first.

The first wizard - blessedly a Dunmer - dusted off his robes and extended a hand. “Good afternoon!”

Valer did not take his hand, and in fact considered for a moment cutting it off. “Sera,” she began icily, “I trust you might understand how a traveling woman might feel, when suddenly accosted by two strange mer on the road.”

The first wizard’s face fell, and he lowered his hand. The second came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Apologies for my partner’s overeager behavior,” the second said. “We’re simply very excited to meet such an esteemed personage out here.”

N’chow. How could they know? She didn’t think she was that conspicuous. Without thinking, she tightened the hood around her face. She could feel her confidence waning, and so followed her grip on the sleeper. “I’m just a traveler.”

“Modest, I see,” said the first wizard, apparently recovered from his embarrassment. “And you, f’lah,” he said, addressing the sleeper, “are you also just…why are your eyes closed?”

“She’s deafblind,” lied Valer. “I’m delivering her to a friend of hers in Windhelm.”

“A deafblind dra-...” muttered the first wizard before interrupting himself. Under his breath, he wondered, “Could she even…hm…”

Valer began to quietly panic, her domination of the sleeper fading still further. What did these strangers know? Slowly, so as to not alarm the wizards, she began to reach for her nearest concealed sheath.

“Well, traveler,” the first wizard said, smiling as he took a dangerous step closer to Valer, “I think you’ll find that your modesty is misplaced, and that we shall soon become fast friends.”

Enough of this. In a heartbeat she withdrew her hidden blade of heartblight and stabbed the first wizard with it, leaving it embedded in his chest. Before either wizard could react, she also slipped her sacred hammer from its holster and swung at the second wizard. She felt her hold on the sleeper finally fail completely, but she paid it no mind; there was a much more present danger.

With a quick ward, the second wizard deflected her hammer strike. But the dagger had struck true, and the first wizard wobbled backwards before collapsing. 

The second wizard watched as his partner fell to the ground, and then turned his baleful gaze to Valer.

N’chow.

A moment after those eyes hit Valer, so did something else. Something cold. Something sharp. Something wide.

She glanced down at her chest. There she saw a massive shard of ice lodged in her breast plate. From the additional pain in her back, she knew it pierced her completely.

N’chow n’chow n’chow -

Instinct. Careful not to drop the sacred hammer, with her spare hand she conjured flame, both to melt the magical ice and cauterize her massive wound.

And she fled. The sleeper was lost. Her master would be displeased. But his displeasure she could weather. Death, not so much.

- - - - -

Malekaiah opened her eyes, and found she was already on her feet. First she saw a man fall, dagger in his chest. Then she saw the man beside him launch a great icicle into a woman’s chest, a woman Malekaiah vaguely recognized, but couldn’t remember why.

A terrible shriek filled the air, issuing from the woman’s throat, who then ran away into the hills.

The mage who attacked the woman did not pursue her. Instead he fell to his knees by the fallen man and held him close.

Instinct. Even without knowing any context, Malekaiah leapt into action, sliding down next to the wounded mer. The mage holding him held up a hand crackling with electricity, but Malekaiah held up her open hands. “I’m a healer,” she said.

“You’re not deafblind?” the mage asked, the lightning dissipating.

“No?” Malekaiah said as she looked over the wound. “Why would I be?”

“Nevermind,” the mage said, his spell completely fizzling. “We didn’t bring any potions, and I don’t know much Restoration.”

“Good thing I do, then,” Malekaiah said with a reassuring smile. Her hands glowed faintly pink as she probed around the wound with her Healer’s Sight.

The mage tried to mirror the expression, but failed. “Can you save him?”

She probed deeper, then nodded. “We can. Do as I say and he’ll survive.” The mage nodded, so Malekaiah continued. “He’s lucky. It seems the blade missed everything important. We need to keep it that way.”

She rubbed her hands together to warm them and get the magicka flowing. “Do you have steady hands?” she asked.

“Steady enough,” said the mage. “I’m an enchanter, after all.”

Malekaiah wasn’t sure how that was relevant, but nodded anyway. “Good. You’re going to - as straight as possible - pull out the blade while I try to stop the bleeding and close the wound.” She prepared by hovering her hands near the injury, already faintly glowing golden. “Be very careful. If you pull it out crooked you’ll risk damaging adjacent organs.”

“Okay,” the mage said, wiping sweat from his brow. 

“Before we start,” she said, eyes lifting to catch the mage’s, “Introductions are in order. What’s your name?”

“What does it matter?” snapped the mage. “Can’t this wait?”

Patiently, Malekaiah answered: “Healing works best with a personal connection. No time for chit-chat, so a name will have to do.”

“...I’m Aryon. His name is Kassur.”

“And I’m Malekaiah,” she said, smiling. “Extract the blade whenever you’re ready.”

Aryon wiped sweat-plastered black hair from his brow and slowly wrapped his fingers around the dagger’s handle, careful not to tilt it from its original angle of attack. But he hesitated. Blood slowly pooled around the wound, sticking Kassur’s robes to his skin.

“It’s okay,” Malekaiah said. “You can do this. But do it. Straight and swift, like peeling a plaster.”

After another breathless second, Aryon pulled the dagger free.

Immediately Malekaiah went about flowing magicka and Dibella’s grace into the wound, bidding it close behind the dagger’s tip, and staunching the stream of blood that erupted from the removal. Once she was satisfied, she probed the area again with her Healer’s Sight. 

“Good work, Aryon!” she exclaimed. “No organ damage. He’ll live, but he needs rest.

She noticed Aryon examining the bloodied blade in his hand. It looked exotic, sure, but she couldn’t tell if it was any special otherwise.

Suddenly, Kassur’s eyes fluttered open, and he grabbed Aryon by the arm. Aryon’s attention jolted from the dagger to his partner’s face.

“Arrie, Arrie,” Kassur slurred. “Did you see…that hammer…”

“Yes, dear,” Aryon whispered, just barely loud enough for Malekaiah to still hear. “Sunder. The last Dagoth yet lives, and she’s in Skyrim.”

“And,” Kassur coughed, “she’s Dragonborn.” With this final phrase, he lost consciousness again.

- - - - -

As night neared, they set up camp on the nearby hilltop. Malekaiah gathered scraps of wood for the fire, only for Aryon to light a magical flame upon the pile that could sustain itself all night without fuel.

Huffing and puffing from carrying the wood, Malekaiah asked, “Why’d you let me do all this, when you could’ve just cast the spell at any time?”

Aryon shrugged. “I thought you knew who I was.”

Malekaiah asked, “Is your name supposed to ring a bell?”

“I’m a Telvanni magelord, Master of Tel Vos, as well as a frequent confidant of the Hortator.”

Aside from vaguely knowing what a “hortator” was, Malekaiah didn’t understand any of those qualifications. “I’m from Cyrodiil,” she said. “I don’t know much about Morrowind politics.”

“Well,” Aryon said, crossing his arms indignantly, “my husband and I are what you youths might call ‘a pretty big deal.’”

Malekaiah glanced at Kassur, who was lying asleep near the fire. She had helped Aryon change him out of his torn and bloody silk robes into a spare set of clean ones. Both sets were so intricate and obviously delicately crafted - “Finest Daedra spider silk,” Aryon had said - that Malekaiah was certain she’d never laid eyes on a piece of clothing so expensive.

She took a look at Kassur’s face. Whereas Aryon had the signs of age clear upon him, looking rather middle-aged, Kassur looked as young as Malekaiah. She knew the aging of elves was slow and different, but the apparent age difference between these two made their apparent married status strike Malekaiah as odd.

She remembered a question she wanted to ask, and worked up the courage to pose it. “What was that about, what he said when he woke up?”

Aryon sighed. “I shouldn’t tell you. It’s technically a state secret.”

“I don’t know anyone from the Ebonheart Pact,” Malekaiah said. “Who would I tell?”

“That’s not a very good reason,” Aryon said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “but I will tell you anyway. Long ago, Morrowind was plagued by a corrupt House called Dagoth. The Hortator destroyed them two hundred years ago. But somehow, one escaped. She was your captor. Valer.”

Malekaiah remembered the razor-sharp yellow teeth lining the witch’s mouth, and the glowing crimson eye tattooed on her forehead, and shivered. “And the hammer? Kassur said it was special.”

“It’s really not important. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Aryon shook his head. “I’ll leave it at this: it’s a historical artifact of great significance. It was once in the possession of the Hortator. A few years ago, it was stolen, but we didn’t know by whom.” He tilted his head. “Although I suppose now we do.”

Aryon was right: Malekaiah didn’t really understand. But she nodded her head like she did. “And he said something else,” she said. “Something about dragons, I think. So did Valer, when she captured me. What does that -”

Kassur began coughing again. Malekaiah reached over to keep an eye on him. She was alarmed to notice blood around his mouth, so she rolled him over on his side so he wouldn’t choke. She placed her hand on his forehead - still feverish. To check his pulse, she placed two fingers on his neck. Slow. But more concerning was the lump there. It didn’t seem to be a swollen lymph node, but something else.

“Aryon,” she called. He came over, the Dagoth’s strange dagger still in his hand. “I know you’re not a physician or healer, but feel this.” She pointed at the growth on Kassur’s neck.

Aryon placed a few delicate fingers on his husband’s neck. “This feels like…” His eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“Do you recognize this?” Malekaiah asked, turning towards him.

He looked at the dagger in his hand again. “Could it be this…?”

“Was it poisoned?” Malekaiah asked.

Aryon shook his head. “I studied under Divayth Fyr, in his Corprusarium,” Aryon said, looking away. “This feels like that. Like Corprus.”

Corprus. The word terrified Malekaiah. An intense fear of the disease had been instilled in her by her Restoration tutors, an ailment as devastating as the Knahaten Flu, or the Thrassian Plague - but completely incurable.

“I’m so sorry,” Malekaiah said, placing a consoling hand on Aryon’s shoulder. But to her surprise, he seemed much less crestfallen than she expected. “You know what that means, right?”

“Of course,” Aryon said. “Fatal unless cured quickly.”

“Aryon,” Malekaiah said, her voice stern. “There is no cure for Corprus.”

Aryon laughed, but it was an empty, dry laugh. “Allow me to let you in on another secret, Malekaiah. Another state secret, one carefully guarded by the Temple in Morrowind.” Conspiratorially, he leaned in close. “There is a cure. Our Hortator was cured of Corprus, over two hundred years ago. After Divayth’s…unfortunate demise, I worked with his daughter Uupse Fyr on further developing the cure.” He looked back at the dagger in his hand. “There’s little need for a cure, since Dagoth Ur’s defeat by the Hortator, but I believe I can recall the formula we concocted.”

Malekaiah’s jaw dropped. “So it’s actually possible?”

“Yes,” Aryon said. “But the specific ingredients we used were mostly local to Vvardenfell, and are therefore out of our reach. But I believe there may be suitable substitutes to be found here in Skyrim.”

Aryon stood, dusting off his robes, and stepped away for a moment. With a click of his finger, a worktable appeared, faintly luminous and violet. He reached into his bag nearby and pulled out a couple parcels.

Malekaiah stood also, and marveled at the conjured worktable. It was kitted out with what seemed like delicate alchemical apparatuses, retorts and calcinators and alembics, and little tubes and pipes to feed them, and flames to heat them. She didn’t understand their purposes, but could imagine that a better alchemist than her could work wonders with them.

“On our way to Skyrim,” said Aryon, “we stopped in Solstheim.” He opened one of the parcels, a small jar. “We discovered strange beasts, reminiscent of ash creatures created by Dagoth Ur’s blight long ago. Upon their death they released a similar substance to the ash salts found in Vvardenfell.” Malekaiah peeked inside the jar; it seemed to contain a fine gray powder looking very much like ash, but somehow more crystalline. Aryon continued: “Uupse’s original recipe called for ash salts. This should serve as a substitute.”

“Okay,” Malekaiah said. “What else do we need?”

“A shoot of Nirnroot, and two hearts.”

Hearts? Malekaiah shivered. Hopefully he was being metaphorical. She decided to focus on the less scary part of that answer. “What’s Nirnroot?”

“It is a glowing, singing plant that grows by the water all across Tamriel. I don’t have any samples here, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find some. There’s a river on the other side of this hill, beyond a small copse of trees. You should be able to find some there. Go on ahead while I procure the Daedra heart.”

Malekaiah nodded. She checked on Kassur one last time before she began to slowly climb down the hill. It was still dark, but the cloud cover was bright, illuminated by the full moons behind, and her Orc eyes acclimated quickly. The copse Aryon mentioned was small but dense enough to obstruct the river she could hear on the other side. She had to move carefully through the trees, as their shadows kept the light of the heavens from reaching her. Finally, she reached the small river, and looked around.

Malekaiah could guess “glowing,” but what had Aryon meant by “singing?” She looked up and down the stream, trying to see any light along its course. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Frustrated, she picked a direction and started following the banks westwards. 

The white noise of the flowing river was making her ears ring, and it seemed to get worse the longer she was by it. She was just about to give up when she remembered what Aryon said. She backed up, retreating eastwards. The ringing seemed to get quieter. Eyes peeled, she kept heading west.

Finally, she saw a strange light peeking from behind a boulder. She wrapped around it and saw the plant, a spiky-leaved thing, luminous green, and chiming a sharp note. 

Using her hands (she didn’t want to get her dagger dirty), she gradually dug up the roots and pulled the entire plant from the earth. Once its roots were free, its noise died down to a whisper.

Something caught her attention in her peripheral vision. A small thing, alighting on the slow-moving surface of the river. It didn’t sink, but left a small impression on the water. Then she noticed another, and another. Then she felt something cold fall on her nose, and she looked up.

It was snowing. She had heard of snow before, but never seen it herself. She held out her empty hand and caught a falling flake, and quickly tried to inspect it before it melted from her body’s warmth. It was a beautiful, geometric crystal. It reminded her of the tattoos priests of Zenithar often wore, denoting their faith to the mathematical god of industry. Perhaps, Malekaiah wondered, during creation, Zenithar collaborated with Kynareth, the goddess of the rains, to create such beautiful frozen artifacts.

The falling snowflakes began to increase in volume, until so many landed on Malekaiah’s head it sent a shiver down her spine. She pulled her hood over her bare scalp, and began to head back east to the copse at the base of Aryon’s hill.

When she finished climbing the hill - a bit more difficult now, as the precipitation was making it icy and slick - Malekaiah greeted Aryon. Kassur didn’t seem to have moved from his position when she left, which she tentatively took as a good sign.

“Do we have all the ingredients now?” she asked, holding up the Nirnroot plant. 

Aryon, now hooded himself, glanced over from his work at his enchanted table. He seemed to be boiling down a dark red, almost black, organ she couldn’t identify. A Daedra heart? she wondered. “Ah, thank you,” Aryon said. “Although I didn’t require the entire plant. Just a sprig would do.” Malekaiah frowned. “But it never hurts to have extra,” Aryon added upon seeing her expression.

Malekaiah brought forth the Nirnroot. With magical shears Aryon cut a leaf from the plant and had her set the rest aside for now. Then he cut the leaf into small strips and added them to the boiling heart’s juices.

“But do we have all the ingredients now?” Malekaiah repeated.

“Oh, not yet,” Aryon said. “We still require a Briarheart. Specifically, one taken from a living subject’s chest.”

“Okay,” Malekaiah said. Her conscience couldn’t help but butt in. “So, does that require murder?”

“That depends,” Aryon said, “on if you consider the destruction of a necromantic beast murder. Frankly, Briarheart warriors are not human anymore. They make pacts with hagravens and the Daedra Lord Hircine to become what they are.”

Malekaiah considered it. If it’s necromancy, it can’t be murder, right? She nodded. “Okay. So how are we going to get one?”

“It will take some time to find and obtain one,” Aryon began. “And one of us must stay with Kassur. Seeing as I am not a healer, that must fall to you. I will go, by stealth, to tear the heart from a sleeping warrior. I believe the Forsworn have a camp not far from here. If I’m not back in three hours -” Aryon started to say, but he looked at Kassur and reconsidered. “No. I’ll be back in about three hours.”

“Okay,” Malekaiah said. She took a seat next to Kassur and waved Aryon off as he swiftly departed.

- - - - -

With great effort, the Emperor sloughed off his regal fur-lined coat before his attendant had a chance to offer his assistance. Unburdened, he spun around to see Merculus frowning.

“You know, Your Highness, that I’m here to assist you,” Merculus, an old white-haired geezer of a Cyrod, said.

“Oh, brighten up, will you?” the Emperor said with a bright grin. “It’s a beautiful day in…er…”

“Helgen, Sire.”

“Of course,” said the Emperor with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I was only feigning ignorance.”

It was, of course, not a beautiful day. The young Emperor was known for embellishment. The sky in southern Skyrim was a dreary gray, and the ground here in the fort sucked at your boots like it wanted you to stand there forever. His two Blades in his entourage, both Nords, had told him this was fairly usual.

“You’re lucky if you see the sun once a year in this shithole of a province,” the tall, shaggy blonde Fjulgur had said.

Thargun, the shorter, ruddy-complexioned one, sighed. “Your tongue, Fjully.”

“Sorry,” said Fjulgur, covering his mouth. But the Emperor could tell he was smiling underneath his hands.

Now, Merculus asked, “Is there anything you’ll allow me to do for you, Your Highness?”

The Emperor rubbed his throat. “You know, Merculus, I could go for a drink before bed. What do the locals have here?”

“I believe Helgen is known for its juniper berry mead, Your Highness. I could procure for you a bottle.”

“No, just a glass will do. Or a mug. Do they drink it hot up here? Surely they do.”

“Yes, Your Highness. I will return as swiftly as possible.” With this, Merculus, in his usual way, glided out the door, which closed behind him with a soft click.

The Emperor turned to inspect the room. For a “shithole province,” they certainly knew how to furnish a chamber for royalty. The bed had four tall posts, supporting a frame from which hung a black curtain, sporting on all sides the Imperial insignia, a diamond with a dragon at its center, in red. In the corner by the window sat a similarly red-upholstered armchair, the cushions of which looked like they could swallow even a Nord or an Orc in their depths. The crimson curtains on the far-side window, which stood a few stories high over the fort’s courtyard, were pulled open for the Emperor to look out upon his subjects. The two nightstands on either side of the bed were of dark spruce, as were the massive dresser and desk across from the bed’s foot.

The Emperor hesitated; he felt his neck warming up. He glanced down at the Amulet of Kings, and felt a voice ring out in his head: BEWARE.

He glanced around, letting his peripheral vision do the heavy-lifting for him. But he saw nothing.

“Come out, assassin,” the Emperor commanded, just quietly enough that no one outside could hear.

“How did you know?” whispered a voice that seemed to come from every corner of the room at once.

The Emperor flashed his teeth, part smile, part threat-display. “Magic has an odor. Especially Illusion magic.”

There was a long pause. Then: “You just made that up. It was a lucky guess.”

“It was a lucky guess,” the Emperor admitted, keeping his volume even. “But I had you going, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t,” said the voice, who suddenly revealed herself, the figure in the plush corner chair appearing piece-by-piece of vanishing invisibility. “Uriel Septim.” She tilted her head. “Are you the seventh, or the eighth?”

“The ninth, Hla-eix,” he said. The Hortator of the Ebonheart Pact’s daughter was unmistakable: a Dunmer by almost all features, save for side-slitted lizard eyes and patches of pale, ephemeral scales on her skin. 

“Ah,” she hissed, wrapping her thin fingers around the delicate point of her chin. “You humans take so many lifetimes to accomplish so little.”

Uriel ignored her and asked, “How did you get in here? The window?” Even as he asked, he doubted it; the dust on the windowsill looked completely undisturbed.

“Who’s to say I haven’t been here the whole time?”

Uriel smiled. Fair enough. He decided not to think about the worrying implications for his security. “We’re not meant to meet until tomorrow. What are you doing here now?”

“I wanted to appraise you,” Hla-eix said simply.

“Like a piece of jewelry? A ring to wrap around your finger?”

She smiled, her lips barely parting to reveal razor-sharp teeth. “You have a sharp tongue. Expected for a Cyrod, an Emperor no less.” She planted her hands on the arms of the chair and pushed herself out of the deep seat, landing on her toes. “But is it as sharp as the blade at your throat?”

Reflexively Uriel swallowed deeply, but hoped it was mostly imperceptible; he never let down his smile. “And here I thought this was just a friendly visit. Are you sure you’re not an assassin?”

“I’m not one anymore,” she said, stepping even closer. “The Shadowscales and the Morag Tong both answer to me. But they’re not the ones you should worry about.”

“And who, praytell, should I worry about?” He resisted the urge to step back.

“There are snakes in the lion’s den.” She was now so close Uriel could feel her breath on his cheek. “And venom is indiscriminate.”

“And how, praytell, would you know such a thing?”

“Simple. Assassins make good spies.” She shot a glance at the door behind him. “And Blades make weak ones.”

“I don’t understand your motive, Hla-eix. Our peoples’ are on the precipice of war. Why should you concern yourself with the strength of my Empire?”

“That’s not for you to know.” She leaned in close to his ear, and he couldn’t help but flinch this time. “Keep your wits about you…Emperor.”

There was a loud crack, and she was gone. The air left behind seemed to pull at the folds of Uriel’s robes for a moment before it settled again.

The door behind him burst open. He turned to see Fjulgur and Thargun pushing through the threshold, katanas in hand. “Sire!” Thargun shouted. “Are you alright? What was that noise?”

“Stubbed my toe on the bed, dammit,” lied Uriel. “Everything’s alright. Calm down.”

Thargun tilted his head, but said, “As you wish, Sire.” The Nords scanned the room through the eye slits of their helmets before sheathing their swords and leaving, the door closing softly behind them. Uriel sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his forehead. Nine-damned dark elves, he thought. Oblivion take them and their schemes.

[vosh-rakh]

3e634, chapter 1

"I'm sorry, the Temple of Dibella is closed,” the priestess said. “You can receive your blessing, if you wish, but the other sisters are in seclusion."

Malekaiah frowned. She looked around anxiously at the alien masonry of the temple’s interior. The four statues of nude Dibella resting against the pillars kept their gazes resolutely forward, ignoring Malekaiah’s plight. She pressed her fingertip hard against the point of her tusk, a bad anxious habit she’d long ago acquired. The tusk was too dull to draw blood, but one could hope.

Finally, her eyes alighted on the shrine against the wall, its points rising like flower petals towards a central space, and she was given the courage to look back at the priestess. “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice quavering, but somehow she pushed on. “I’ve been an acolyte of Dibella all my life. I’m on an important mission to spread her love to those who have never known it.”

“I’m sorry, sister.” The priestess offered a small smile as compensation. “The sisters cannot be disturbed.”

Malekaiah looked up at the brass chandelier on the ceiling, and closed her eyes briefly. “Okay,” she said, nodding, but avoided the priestess’s pitying gaze.

The priestess nodded, and returned to her cleaning.

Malekaiah approached the shrine to Dibella. She gently placed a hand on one of its dull red wings, trying to feel for Dibella’s energies. Then she knelt, clasped her hands, bowed her head, and prayed.

Please, sweet Dibella, I beseech thee: grant me the power and wisdom to see thy love and beauty in every facet of this world, so that I may spread the knowing to those who know only sorrow and ugliness. Let thy kiss become my kiss, lips sweet enough to embrace the world.

Malekaiah couldn’t remember how the prayer was supposed to end, so awkwardly she cut it short there. Unclasping her hands, she rubbed her face, trying to bring some heat to her cheeks, and rub some wakefulness into her eyes. It was so cold here, in Skyrim, and she had barely slept on the long carriage ride from Anvil to Markarth. She had a long journey ahead of her, and she needed to be prepared.

Almost on instinct she quickly felt for the short steel hiding under her ochre robes. Yes, Da’s dagger was still there. Even in this foreign place, it brought her a strange sense of safety.

Malekaiah rose and walked out the temple door. She was immediately faced with the western mountain enclosing the city, waterfalls cascading down the cliff with a deafening roar, flowing into the waterways that ran down the city’s streets. Behind those falls stood proud and ancient the bizarre stone-and-brass architecture of the dwarves, yet as ordinary to the people here as timber and brick.

After a moment of awe, Malekaiah drifted left along the stone walkway, skirting south around the pillar which the temple of Dibella crowned. Down a level of the city, straddling one of the rivulets, was a small smithy, jarringly built of wood. Over the roar of the waterfalls rang out the sharp clang of hammer on metal, and a woman shouting at her apprentice with very colorful language. Turning her head to the left, Malekaiah saw the distant silver mines, crawling with hard-at-work miners, seeming from this far away like ants carrying their burdens of ore.

Malekaiah descended the stairs, making her way down from the temple. They led her closer to the smithy, where she caught a glimpse of the smith. She was an Orc, which stopped Malekaiah in her tracks. There were very few Orcs in Anvil; most had left for bustling Orsinium about a decade or two ago. Despite going to their homeland to proselytize, she didn’t know much about her race. She had read as much as she could about them and their history and ways before leaving, but most of the sources she was able to get her hands on were outdated and often very bigoted.

The smith must have felt Malekaiah’s gaze, and she looked up at her with a scowl. She waved her off with a hand holding an unfinished sword.

Malekaiah quickly turned to continue on her way, but in so doing she ran straight into one of the city guards. He reached for the sword on his hip. “Watch where you’re going, outsider!” he shouted.

“Sorry,” Malekaiah quickly mumbled. The guard, seemingly dissatisfied but uninterested in an actual confrontation, pushed Malekaiah aside and continued on his way.

Malekaiah rubbed her shoulder where the guard had pushed her and looked again at the smith, who had apparently seen the whole thing. She shook her head at Malekaiah and went back to her work.

A bit shaken, Malekaiah continued descending the stairs, following one of the rivulets. She reached for the talismans around her neck. First, the amulet of Dibella: she rubbed the violet stone in the center of the metal flower. It was cold, but it gave her some comfort, anyway. Her hand roamed across her neck to the other talisman, the strange icon left in her swaddling cloth when her parents abandoned her in Cyrodiil. She could feel its rageful face, teeth and tusks bared, and a fuming heat flooded her face. She let go, shook her head, and tried to forget about the encounter with the guard.

Malekaiah continued along the stone path through the city, hoping to find an inn where she could stay the night. Instead, she found herself at the front gate again, faced with the small market situated there.

The square was bustling with activity, a dense crowd - surely half the city - swarming from stall to stall, gawking at and haggling for the goods on display. The few children who could pry themselves from their mothers’ watchful eyes ran through the forest of legs, squealing like pigs.

Something caught Malekaiah’s eye. A gleam of silver, or steel. Her vision snapped to the stall on the far end of the market, selling jewelry. A woman was trying on a prospective purchase.

But there was something else, a man pushing through the crowd, the sun shining in his hand.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The woman removed the necklace. The man grabbed her mouth from behind. He raised his shining hand and jerked it across her neck, right where the necklace was a moment ago. Blood sprayed on the silver on the stall’s counter. The woman behind it, her face also spattered with red, covered her mouth and screamed.

Just as the crowd began to react to the shriek, the assassin turned around, still holding up the now-mute and struggling woman by her chin. Her head was nearly severed, so vicious and deep was the spurting gash.

“The Reach belongs to the Forsworn!”

The throng devolved into chaos, women and children screaming, men shouting and shoving to escape. There was only one guard nearby, somehow, and he was slow to react, ineffectually trying to push his way through the crowd.

Malekaiah was frozen, staring at the gore of the wound. The man dropped the woman after she stopped moving, and turned back to the stall. The jeweler had fallen to the ground in shock. The assassin vaulted the counter, sending rings and necklaces and torcs to the ground with a tinkling sound that Malekaiah shouldn’t have been able to hear over the din, but could have sworn she did.

He advanced upon the jeweler, dagger in hand, blade under fist. She extended an arm to protect herself, and the assassin’s blade pierced her hand, stabbing all the way through. Her pained scream pierced the sky. The assassin inverted his grip, blade over fist, and began slashing. The jeweler took a cut to the stomach before raising her arms to defend again. The steel tore through the sleeves of her dress as well as the flesh of her forearms.

A fire ignited in Malekaiah’s throat, melting her freeze and compelling her move. She hiked up her robes and withdrew her dagger from the sheath fastened around her thigh, and she advanced through the dissipating crowd. She vaulted over the counter, knocking off yet more jewelry, and approached the assassin’s back.

Firmly gripping the dagger’s hilt, in one simple motion, she thrust the blade deep into his back, sliding effortlessly between two ribs.

Poppies bloomed around the wound, soaking into his shirt.

The assassin exhaled sharply as his lung collapsed, and stopped attacking the jeweler. His weapon clattered to the ground, and he slowly turned to face Malekaiah. With shaky breath, and through bloody coughs, he mustered, “I die for my people,” and then collapsed, dead.

Slowly, shakily, Malekaiah bent down to pull the dagger from the assassin’s back. Once the blade was free of his flesh, there was an upwelling of blood, painting his tunic a deeper black.

She looked across at the jeweler, who stared at her, frightened, tears streaking down her face. Malekaiah took a step forward, causing the jeweler to squirm backwards with a squeal.

“P-please…don’t…” mumbled the jeweler.

Malekaiah glanced at the bloody blade in her hand. Some portions were untouched, clean steel, and she could see her reflection clearly in it. But in the bloody bits, the wet gore reflected a demented distortion of her face. She screamed, too, and tried to wipe the blood from the blade with her cuff. But all she accomplished was staining her sleeve.

Malekaiah returned the dagger to its sheath on her thigh, struggling to keep her hand steady. She tried to approach the jeweler again, with open hands. “I won’t hurt you,” she assured. “I’m a healer.”

The jeweler hesitated, but nodded, letting Malekaiah come forward. Malekaiah knelt next to her and channeled Dibella’s grace to her hands, which glowed with a golden light. She began to hover them over the jeweler’s wounds, slowly bidding them close.

Suddenly, something cold and sharp lifted Malekaiah’s head by the chin. Forcibly she looked up to see one of Markarth’s guards pointing a sword at her throat.

“What are you doing, murderer?” the guard spat from beneath his helmet.

“I…” Malekaiah quavered, blinking rapidly.

“You idiot,” shouted the jeweler at the guard. “She saved my life!”

The guard seemed to finally take full stock of the situation, seeing the woman’s slit-throat corpse, the assassin’s face-down body, and his bloody blade discarded at his side.

In the meanwhile, Malekaiah continued healing the jeweler, starting with the slashes on her arms and the thankfully superficial cut on her abdomen. Malekaiah looked at the stab-wound through the jeweler’s hand with dismay. “I can’t heal this on my own,” she told the jeweler, who had mostly calmed down.

Malekaiah turned to the corpse and dagger behind her. She wiped as much blood from the blade as she could, and used it as a tool to cut a relatively clean strip of the assassin’s tunic. She turned back to the jeweler and apologized. “This will hurt.” The jeweler nodded and offered her injured hand. Malekaiah delicately wrapped the strip of cloth around her palm, tying it tightly. The jeweler groaned at the final tug but otherwise didn’t complain.

“She needs a more experienced healer for her hand,” Malekaiah said, looking up at the guard, who had withdrawn his sword to its sheath.

“I’ll take her to the temple,” the guard growled. Taking her unhurt hand, he helped the jeweler stand. As they began to walk off, he turned his head and said, “Keep your nose clean, orc.”

Malekaiah knelt there numbly for a moment. But eventually her close proximity to two corpses and so much blood became too much, and she forced herself to stand. She examined her robes, and found them surprisingly spared, save for the cuff she used to wipe the blades clean.

The market was almost completely empty now, save for a few late-arriving guards come to gather the bodies. But there was another man, fast approaching Malekaiah. His smile did nothing to disarm her anxiety after the preceding harrowing events, and she reached instinctively for the dagger through her robes.

“Easy there, friend,” said the stranger. “I’m not here to hurt you.” He glanced at the dead woman being carried off by a couple of guards. “Gods. A woman attacked, right in the streets.” He seemed to notice the blood on Malekaiah’s cuffs, and asked, “Are you alright? Did you see what happened?”

“I was right there,” Malekaiah answered. She ran her hand across her bare scalp and looked away. “He killed that woman, and then…tried to kill the jeweler.” Her words felt like lead dropping from her tongue, seeming to almost hang from her lips, not wishing to be said. Her voice didn’t feel her own. “So I…I…I killed him.” She covered her face so the stranger wouldn’t see the unbidden tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” the stranger said. “I hope the Nine give you more peace in the future.” Malekaiah lowered her hands to look at him, just as his expression suddenly changed. He quickly reached out his hand, shoving something into Malekaiah’s. “Oh, by the way, I think you dropped this.”

Malekaiah jumped at the sudden movement, but calmed a bit when she realized it was just a piece of folded paper. “Is this…yours?” she asked, confused.

“Mine? No, yours. Must have fallen out of your pocket in the commotion.” He offered a little wave and then turned to leave.

Malekaiah was positive she didn’t have any parchment on her before this man gave her this note. She unfolded and read the brief note scrawled in an uneven hand: “Meet me at the Shrine of Talos.”

Malekaiah looked back up at the man, who was now halfway across the square. “Shrine of Talos?” she hollered. “Where’s that?”

He stopped in his tracks and half turned towards her. “Huh?” He scratched his chin. “Not sure. I don’t worship Talos, myself. I think I heard someone mention it was underneath the Temple of Dibella, in the big crag in the center of the city.” Then he turned and walked away.

Malekaiah’s eyes followed him until he was out of sight. Then she glanced at the note again, and sighed. She folded the paper back up and slipped it into a pocket in her robes.

She looked up toward the center of town, at the crag where she had just come from the Temple. It truly was an enormous feature, dominating the city’s skyline.

She checked for her dagger again, and against her better judgment, she made her way towards the Shrine of Talos.

-----

It took some walking around the crag to find the correct path to the shrine, as well as walking past its unmarked doors on accident several times. The doors were large and notable: huge brass double doors twice her height, surrounded by ornate ancient masonry. But there was no indication they belonged to the shrine of a Cyrodiilic war god.

Malekaiah pushed open the heavy doors with some effort, and stepped into the dark corridor, faintly candlelit and sloping downwards. She narrowed her eyes in the darkness, but her Orcish vision quickly acclimated. At the bottom of the slope she could make out two figures: one, surely a statue of Tiber Septim, stoically leaning on a sword; the other, a man kneeling before the altar, head bowed.

Malekaiah slowly descended the corridor towards the shrine’s sanctum. She tried to be quiet so as not to disturb the man’s prayer, but despite her best efforts he still somehow noticed her approach as she neared the end of the ramp.

The stranger from the market quickly stood and turned to face Malekaiah. “You came,” he whispered. “Thank you. I’m sorry to drag you into Markarth’s problems, but after that attack in the market, I’m running out of time.”

Malekaiah blinked rapidly. “What?”

Breathlessly, the stranger continued, “You want answers? Well, so do I. So does everyone in the city. A man goes crazy in the market. Everyone knows he’s a Forsworn agent. Guards do nothing. Nothing but clean up the mess.”

Unbidden, images flash into Malekaiah’s mind: a torn open throat, poppies, and a demon staring back at her in the bloody blade.

It was as if her head detached from her neck, and began to float away. She responded numbly to the stranger in an automatic process seemingly devoid of any conscious intention. Her conscious attention was no longer in the room.

The entire conversation grazed past her like a breeze. She may have agreed to something, but the memory of precisely what was slippery. She was vaguely aware that at some point, the man - suddenly she remembered he called himself Eltrys - left the shrine. But she remained, standing before the altar, invisible to herself.

Malekaiah returned to her body, and found herself kneeling at the altar, hands clasped, muttering an unintelligible half-prayer to - presumably - Talos. She stopped herself. She had never worshiped Talos; it struck her as odd that Skyrim had shrines at all, as he was chiefly a Cyrod’s god. She felt nothing stirring in her heart from the attempt. Oddly enough, though, she felt something stirring in her gut.

Oh. She was hungry. She stood, dusted off her knees, and left the shrine.

———

Not even the warmth of the inn could take the chill from Malekaiah’s bones. She shuffled into the threshold, and suddenly all of the many eyes of the crowded tavern were on her. Whispers accompanied them:

“Is that…”

“Did she really…”

“She really is a…”

Malekaiah pressed her thumb into her tusk hard as she shambled towards the bar. She vaguely recognized that she was falling into her old bad habit, but it seemed to keep her head screwed onto her neck, so she allowed it this time.

She clambered onto a stool at the far end of the bar. She knew she needed to order dinner, and rent a room for the night, but she was an immobile statue, unable to speak. So she folded her arms on the counter and buried her face in them.

After a moment, a gentle male voice reverberated, “Hey, lass.”

Malekaiah lifted her head to see the barkeep looking at her.

“You’re the Orc who killed Weylin, right? Saved Kerah’s life?” He didn’t look angry, but it felt like an accusation to Malekaiah nonetheless.

Without speaking, Malekaiah nodded slowly.

The barkeep reached underneath his side of the counter and placed something on top of it. Malekaiah recoiled immediately, but her alarm softened as she saw what it was: a tray filled with food. A bowl of steaming potato cabbage soup; a thick rye-bread trencher, topped with a hefty slice of goat cheese and an entire roasted goat shank; on the side, some kind of dark-berried pie, and a large mug of what smelled like mead.

“You did good, lass,” said the barkeep with a smile. “Food’s on the house. Bed too, if you need one for the night.”

A holler went up through the room, all the whispering mouths turned to joyous raucous. A nearby Nord reached over with his mug. It took a moment, but Malekaiah realized she needed to lift her own and clank it against his. Both cups overflowed, and the coolness of the splashed mead felt good on Malekaiah’s hand.

Malekaiah was afraid to eat at first, not sure her appetite would be up to the massive challenge. But she didn’t miss a bite. She even drank the whole mug of mead, despite never having had alcohol in her life. The barkeep, whose name was Kleppr, led her to her room after the festivities became too much for her. It wasn’t long after her head hit the pillow that she fell into a deep sleep.

-----

It was early morning, and the sun was yet to peek through the window into their home. All that lit the room was a small candle on the table between them. Its flame flickered across her father’s dark face, dancing across his features: his round spectacles and the dull brown eyes behind; his large, bulbous nose, a mountain dividing his face into two separate landmasses; and underneath, the thick mustache covering his upper lip completely, a dense dark broom of hair. His clean-shaven scalp even caught the light, casting vague orange smears across his head.

She admired his looks. He looked like a father ought, she thought. She pitied her childhood friends and their imperfectly paternal fathers.

Sometimes, at night when she couldn’t sleep, she tried to imagine what her “true” father looked like. Would he measure up at all? Surely he was greener, and with prominent tusks, but what of the mustache? The spectacles? It was usually at this stage that she began to feel intensely ashamed for considering it at all. Da was her father, and that was that…

Da slapped her hand away from her mouth – she had been pressing her fingertip into her tusk again. “Stop that,” he muttered sternly.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Lost in thought, again.”

Da huffed. “Don’t think so much.” Pivoting quickly, he said, “Don’t be afraid.” From the satchel leaning against the legs of his chair he pulled out two items. She squinted to make them out in the darkness: one seemed to be metal, gleaming in the candlelight; the other was some loose assemblage of leather strips.

“A parting gift?” she asked, incredulous.

“No, Kaiah.” (She loved it when he called her that.) “Nine forbid you ever need to use this.” He delicately handed her the objects; as the metal one passed nearer to the flame, she recognized it as a dagger.

“What is this?” she asked, startled.

“I said don’t be afraid,” he rebuked. “It’s protection. You go alone into dangerous lands. Nine forbid you ever need it, but…just in case.”

She slowly reached for the blade’s grip, her hand shaking ever so slightly. As her fingers wrapped around the hilt, Da let go. She was surprised by the lightness of it; she had expected heavier.

“And this,” Da said, holding up the tied leather strips, “is your sheath. It will tie around your thigh. Keep it concealed beneath your robes.”

She nodded numbly as he gave her the sheath. The leather was soft under her fingertips.

“How will I know when to use it?” she asked.

“You’re a grown woman now, Kaiah,” answered Da. He began to rise from his chair. “I trust your judgment.”

She began to rise as well, expecting an embrace. But he turned his back to her, and approached the smoldering ashes of last night’s fire in the furnace. There he stood, quiet, hands clasped behind his back.

She wanted to hug Da, for him to tell her she was doing the right thing, that she would be okay. She started to slowly shuffle up behind him –

But the dagger was still in her hand, and her fingers tightened around it. She surged forward, blade first.

His lungs deflated with a sudden gasp, and poppies welled around the wound in his back, piercing right between his ribs.

She cried out, “Da!” She let go of the dagger and tried to back away from this murder.

But his hands unclasped themselves, and reached up to grab her arms – joints popped and bones cracked from the unnatural extension required. He began to turn his head back, further and further, vertebrae shattering as it swiveled to face her. But it wasn’t his face.

The candle on the table behind her seemed to roar into a conflagration, fully illuminating his hideous visage, a demented ashen demon, teeth glistening with gore, lips spread wide with malice and rage. It shouted, “Killer! Killer! Killer! Killer! Killer!”

-----

She woke up screaming, “I’m sorry!”

She grabbed the burning hot talisman hanging from her throat and, through her tears, saw Da’s twisted, angry face in the icon. She ripped it from her neck and threw it across the rented room, and wept.

-----

Blessedly, the ancient stone walls of the inn seemed to be thick enough to stifle her screaming and sobbing. At least, no one came knocking on her door to get her to shut up.

Malekaiah knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep; she was too afraid of further nightmares. She decided to get dressed and go for a walk.

Before she left the room, she glanced back at its dark corner. A faint gleam caught her eye; the demon talisman from her swaddling cloth. She approached it and retrieved it; it was still slightly warm. She reasoned she couldn’t blame it entirely for the dream, and after all, it could prove useful in Wrothgar - it could open some doors. She tied it back around her neck.

Malekaiah quietly left her room and passed through the stone corridor into the inn’s main chamber. Although packed and active last night, in these early hours before dawn it was dead. Everyone had retired to their beds, except for a single drunkard passed out in the corner.

In the lingering light from the fires, she caught a glimpse of the bloodstains on her cuffs. She decided on where her walk would take her.

The air outside was near freezing. Malekaiah wished she’d packed a pair of gloves. She pulled up the hood on her robes in an effort to protect her cheeks from the chill.

It seemed the guards of Markarth kept the streets lit overnight; she saw one a ways down who was tending to a brazier with her torch. Malekaiah considered asking the guard if she had a torch to spare, but she wasn’t brave enough. So she carried on by the occasional light of braziers, hoping she remembered her way back to her destination.

After some searching, Malekaiah arrived: the small stream by the blacksmith’s. (The old Orc woman didn’t seem to be there yet.) She wasted no time undoing the red sash around her waist, and then pulling her ochre robes off and over her head. All that remained was her woolen underclothes, but they still covered her neck-to-ankle.

“Pretty wiry for an Orc, aren’t you?”

Malekaiah jumped and dropped her robes into the stream. She tried to snatch them out, but the flow was too strong. She turned to try to make out who had addressed her in the dark.

“Sorry,” the voice said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Just wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t alone, so you didn’t strip all the way down.”

Malekaiah strained to focus her eyes. The woman a ways down the stream had a crate of objects that glimmered in the moonslight, and a bandage wrapped around her waving hand.

“Oh,” Malekaiah said. “You’re…”

“My name’s Kerah,” answered the woman in the darkness. “I figure the least I owe you for saving my life is my name.” She waved her hand again. “Can I have yours?”

“Malekaiah.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Kerah said. She reached out with her uninjured hand and grabbed Malekaiah’s robes as they passed by her in the stream. “Come here, Malekaiah. You might want these.”

Malekaiah slowly obliged, drawing closer to Kerah. As she did, she noticed the box was filled with blood-spattered silver jewelry.

“Cleaning the merchandise before we open,” smiled Kerah as she handed Malekaiah the robes. “It needs to be presentable, of course.

Malekaiah knelt beside Kerah and furrowed her brow. “Are you okay?”

Kerah tilted her head slightly. “Oh, it doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said with a light wave of her bandaged hand.

“No,” Malekaiah said, “I mean…” She gestured vaguely at her own shaved head.

Kerah’s face hardened a bit. “It’s fine. Such is life in Skyrim. Especially the Reach.” She pointed at the bloodstains on Malekaiah’s robes. “Not the first time blood’s been shed in this city, and it won’t be the last.”

“Oh,” Malekaiah said. Attention having been drawn to the bloodstains, she began to scrub futilely at them in the stream.

Kerah idly watched Malekaiah’s attempts to clean her robes while fiddling with a necklace from her crate. Finally she said, “That’s not going to work. Here.” She reached beside her and offered Malekaiah a small round object.

Malekaiah took it gently, and her fingers brushed against Kerah’s. She had expected them to be soft, but the tips were rough and calloused. Malekaiah realized Kerah wasn’t just a jeweler - she was a silversmith. The sensation sent a shiver down her spine.

It took a moment for Malekaiah to return to her senses. She examined the smooth object in her hand. It was yellowish-white, with darker flecks throughout. “What is -”

“Soap,” Kerah interjected. “Goat tallow, potash, and a little lavender imported from Whiterun for the scent.” She waved towards the robes. “Give it a try.”

Malekaiah gave the bar of soap a sniff - it did smell faintly of lavender. She began to scrub at the blood stains with it, and gradually they began to fade until all that was left were patches of slightly darker ochre.

“Thank you,” Malekaiah whispered when she was done. She tried to hand back the soap, but Kerah pushed it away.

“No, keep it,” Kerah said. “I have plenty. Margret taught me how to make it a while back.”

“Margret?” Malekaiah asked.

Kerah winced. “She is…was…a customer of mine. She was…the one at my stall this morning. When you were there.”

It took Malekaiah a moment to piece it together. Then the image of the woman’s bleeding throat flashed before her eyes, and she quickly shut them tight. But it didn’t help.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

Kerah wiped a moonslit tear from her eye. “It’s okay.” She sighed, her entire body shuddering. “I don’t know about where you’re from, but in Skyrim, we celebrate our dead. Even when they’re taken from us.”

“Anvil,” whispered Malekaiah.

“Hm?” replied Kerah, tilting her head.

“I’m from Anvil. In Cyrodiil.”

“Oh. So was Margret. From Cyrodiil, I mean. Not Anvil.” Kerah smiled. “She was here to buy a pendant for her sister in the Imperial City. Have you ever been there?”

Malekaiah shook her head. “Never left Anvil county. Not until I came here.”

Kerah reached out her hands. Malekaiah accepted the offer with some hesitation, placing her hands in Kerah’s. They certainly weren’t the pampered hands of a merchant; this woman worked a forge. And judging by the quality of her wares, she was good at it.

“So what brings you to Markarth, Malekaiah?” asked Kerah.

“I’m an acolyte of Dibella,” Malekaiah answered. “I’m on my way to Orsinium to proselytize.”

“Hm,” Kerah said. “That must be a tough crowd.” Malekaiah’s face fell a bit, so Kerah added, “But maybe they’ll listen to you, since you’re an Orc and all.”

Malekaiah smiled slightly. “Maybe.”

The sun was beginning to rise now, Kerah’s crate of silver dazzling in the early dawn light. “Damn,” she blurted, pulling her hands away from Malekaiah’s and burying them in the assorted jewelry. “Sorry, I really need to finish this and get ready to open.” She smiled again, wide and sparkling in the sun’s golden glow. “It was lovely getting to know you, Malekaiah. Be safe in your travels, and good luck.”

Without the warmth of Kerah’s hands, Malekaiah’s fingers felt lonely in the cold Skyrim air. “Thank you for the soap,” Malekaiah said as she gathered her wet robes and began to stand.

“You saved my life,” Kerah said as she scraped hard blood from a sapphire. “It’s the least I can do.”

Malekaiah waved awkwardly with the hand holding the soap, but Kerah was now fully engrossed in cleaning her merchandise. Malekaiah nodded and walked away.

The robes tucked under Malekaiah’s arm were dripping wet. Looking up the stream, she saw the blacksmith’s forge again, situated on an island in the center of the flow. She squinted at it in the dull morning light, and could just make out a couple of aprons hanging from a line strung between two of the hut’s posts. She still didn’t see the Orc there, so she approached.

Malekaiah had to ascend a level of the tiered city to find the stone bridge crossing the stream. At the smithy, she glanced around. On a table near the anvil she found a pair of small iron clamps. She took them and used them to hang up her robes on the line with the aprons.

Exhausted from her short sleep that night, she sat at the stool by the table. She pulled her hands in her sleeves to keep them warm, and laid down her head on the table…

-----

Malekaiah was pulled awake by a firm hand wrapping around the back of her neck and yanking up her head. She yelped and reached up her hands, but her assailant slapped them down.

“What are you doing in my workshop, whelp?”

Malekaiah was just barely able to turn her head to see the fuming Orc smith gripping her nape. “I…I…I…” Malekaiah’s sudden rip from sleep kept her from forming a sentence.

“Not thieving, I hope?” continued the Orc woman. “You know what we do to thieves in the strongholds? We take their hands, whelp.” Suddenly, Malekaiah noticed a flash of light on the steel axe in the woman’s other hand.

“Uh, Ghorza?” It was a man’s voice, albeit a timid one, coming from behind the furious woman.

“Not the time, Tacitus,” growled the woman, presumably Ghorza.

“Look,” Tacitus continued anyway. He must have pointed, because Ghorza turned. She moved her whole body to look, letting Malekaiah see Tacitus was gesturing at her hanging robes. “She’s just drying her clothes,” Tacitus laughed.

Ghorza dropped Malekaiah and moved over to the robes. Malekaiah scurried into the corner.

Ghorza plucked the clamps from the line, causing the mostly-dry robes to fall to the floor. “These aren’t clothespins, girl,” she growled. “I’ll have your hide if these rust.”

Tacitus, a soot-faced young Cyrod, bent down to look at Malekaiah - he seemed to take notice of the sheath on her thigh. “Wait, Ghorza. I know this one! She was the one at the market yesterday, who killed the Forsworn!”

Ghorza huffed wordlessly. “Stand up and let me have a look at you, girl.”

Malekaiah felt heat rush to her cheeks as she slowly obeyed, keeping a hand hovering near the sheath just in case. Ghorza towered over her, but Tacitus in the corner was about Malekaiah’s height. Malekaiah began to wonder if she was short for an Orc.

Ghorza placed her rough smith’s hands on Malekaiah’s shoulders, squeezing as she moved down to feel her biceps. “Pretty scrawny,” she said before grabbing Malekaiah’s chin and tilting her head this way and that. “And maybe not so bright - no common sense, at least - but you know how to kill. A decent sign.” She let go and turned around. She pulled something from a rack and turned back to brandish it before Malekaiah. “Here. See how this feels.”

It was a sword - Malekaiah guessed it was made of iron. She took it by the offered handle from Ghorza and waggled it around a bit. It was lighter than it looked.

Ghorza stepped back. “Give it a few swings.”

Malekaiah looked up at Ghorza’s eyes, anxious. But she did as she was told, and swung at the air a few times. They were clumsy swipes, and the sword nearly fell from her hand at the end of the last.

“Stop,” ordered Ghorza. “No training. Shouldn’t be surprised.”

Malekaiah laid the blade across both hands and inspected it. The metal was dull, without the sharp gleam of her Da’s dagger. She asked, “Is this…a gift?”

“No. It wasn’t going to be free, at least.” Ghorza retrieved the sword from Malekaiah with a delicate touch that betrayed a great respect for the iron. “But it wouldn’t do you any good without any skill. Swinging it wildly is ineffective, at best. Get you killed, at worst.” She pointed the sword at Malekaiah’s sheathed dagger. “Better off with something smaller. And staying out of trouble in the first place.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Malekaiah as she watched Ghorza return the sword to its rack. She took the opportunity to retrieve her robes from the floor.

Ghorza turned back and looked Malekaiah up and down for a moment, arms crossed. Finally she said, “You did good in the market yesterday. Take care of yourself.”

“Thank you,” Malekaiah said.

“Get out of my sight.”

“Yes m-” Malekaiah began, but Ghorza’s eyes flared up, and so she hurried away, nearly tripping over her dangling robes in the process.

-----

Unlike in Anvil, the sun in Skyrim never seemed to rise very high in the sky, even by midday. But Malekaiah knew she’d be mostly keeping to this same northerly latitude for her journey, so she figured she’d have to get used to it.

Malekaiah had stocked up on food and supplies this morning, spending almost all of her remaining gold, before leaving the city about an hour ago. She followed the main road west as it faded from paved to dirt to cleared to tracks to footprints to complete obscurity. Now she and Magnus faced the same direction, the latter sure of his path over the mountains, but Malekaiah much less so. She knelt in the dirt and puzzled.

When overwhelmed, Da always taught her to take things one step at a time. She scanned the jagged horizon of slate-gray peaks, and looked for low passages between the rising slopes and cliffs. She followed a trail of them closer and closer until a nearby path emerged.

She stood and dusted off her knees. She was ready to keep walking, but then she heard footsteps behind her. She turned back to see a woman there she hadn’t noticed before. She was a dark elf, a Dunmer, wearing shiny brass armor and a deep black cloak with red trim. Her hood shrouded her face in darkness, but two locks of white hair spilled out from underneath onto her shoulders.

“Muthsera?” croaked the Dunmer, betraying what Malekaiah understood as the accent natural to residents of the volcanic island of Vvardenfell, in the Ebonheart Pact.

Tentatively, Malekaiah responded, “Yes? How can I help you?”

The dark elf said, “I’m lost. Which way to Solstheim?”

“Oh, I’m not from here,” Malekaiah said with an apologetic smile. But she wracked her brain for memories from her geography lessons. “Solstheim…that’s an island, isn’t it? In the Sea of Ghosts?” She pointed east, behind the Dunmer.

The dark elf didn’t so much as turn her head to acknowledge the gesture. “Oh,” she said, staring exclusively at Malekaiah. “Thank you.” She broke eye contact briefly to glance up at the skies as she asked, “Seen any dragons lately?”

“Sorry? Malekaiah said, looking up where the dark elf did. She didn’t see anything, so she looked back down. “Dragons aren’t real, are they?”

The Dunmer’s lips spread open wide, revealing two rows of yellow, viciously sharp teeth in a wicked grin. “Oh, yes,” she said, her teeth not separating as she spoke, “Of course they’re real.” Her red-nailed fingers wrapped around the corners of her hood and peeled it from her face, the shadows receding to reveal her eyes, blood-red and wide, and the third, tattooed on her forehead, crimson ink glowing brightly. “You’ve just met one.” She rushed forward, grabbing Malekaiah by the face and pressing her thumb into her forehead.

“Praan.”

And nothing but thick blackness remained.

[vosh-rakh]

(late) wip wednesday! thanks to @arcturite for tagging me! i’ll tag……..anybody who sees this who wants to be late with me!

a little snippet from my malekaiah wip under the cut:

It was as if her head detached from her neck, and began to float away. She responded numbly to the stranger in an automatic process seemingly devoid of any conscious intention. Her conscious attention was no longer in the room.

The entire conversation grazed past her like a breeze. She may have agreed to something, but the memory of precisely what was slippery. She was vaguely aware that at some point, the man - suddenly she remembered he called himself Eltrys - left the shrine. But she remained, standing before the altar, invisible to herself.

Malekaiah returned to her body, and found herself kneeling at the altar, hands clasped, muttering an unintelligible half-prayer to - presumably - Talos. She stopped herself. She had never worshiped Talos; it was illegal to do so throughout the Empire. And she felt nothing stirring in her heart from the attempt. Oddly enough, though, she felt something stirring in her gut.

Oh. She was hungry. She stood, dusted off her knees, and left the shrine.

[vosh-rakh]

madstone: chapter 4

-previous part-

The Archmagister looked up through the parted fingers of the brass gauntlet clutching her head. When she saw who it was she removed the gauntlet from her face. “Aryon. What are you doing here?” She glanced over at Kassur, who suddenly felt very small. “Oh. Right. Forgot about him.”

“You seem to have a lot going on,” Aryon said, observing the scorch marks all around the small office. 

“Just leftover business from dealing with Galmis.” She stopped to gaze at the scorch marks herself. “He’s not going to be a problem anymore.”

“I suppose that’s a good thing,” Aryon said. Kassur was confused but couldn’t tear his attention from the Archmagister.

The Archmagister stretched her digitigrade Argonian legs and then stood. She approached Kassur and held out her brass hand. 

Kassur slowly took it, his small hand engulfed in the massive ornate gauntlet. She gave his hand a tight squeeze that hurt for a second before relaxing her grip. “What was your name, again?”

“Kassur, Archmagister. Uh. Nerevarine. Uh…”

She laughed, a deep, throaty laugh. “Call me Ku-vastei.”

“Okay,” Kassur said. He didn’t know what kind of name that was, but it didn’t sound like Velothi to him. Of course it didn’t, she was an Argonian. For some reason he expected the Nerevarine to have at least a Dunmeri name.

“What was your complaint?” Ku-vastei asked. “Something about your tribe? Erabenimsun? Your scouts didn’t report anything the other day.”

“No,” Kassur said, shaking his head. “Ahemmusa.”

“Did someone take Ald Daedroth again?”

Something about the question irked Kassur, but he couldn’t place a finger on why. Besides, he was too wrapped in awe to display any displeasure. “No, Ku-vastei,” he said. “They’ve gone mad. They’re holed up in Ald Daedroth.”

“And they might be building an army,” Aryon interjected politely after Kassur paused to look for words.

“An army. The Ahemmusa? Are you sure?”

Aryon smiled. “That’s why I said might, Ku-vastei. Kassur left months ago, but indications seem to suggest they could be. Which would put Vos and Tel Vos at risk, potentially even the rest of the eastern coast.”

Ku-vastei glanced at Kassur. “Is that so?” Kassur nodded solemnly. “Explain what you mean by ‘gone mad,’ Kassur. Do you think this is the doing of Sheogorath, perhaps?”

Kassur nodded again. “Yes, Ku-vastei. He has long antagonized our people. His presence is strongest in Ald Daedroth. And without the Madstone…” Kassur again struggled to find words.

“The Madstone?” Ku-vastei asked, tilting her head. “The trinket the Wise Woman gave me when she declared me Nerevarine?”

“No mere trinket, it seems,” said Aryon. “It appears to hold back Sheogorath’s influence.”

“We need it back,” said Kassur.

“Hm,” said Ku-vastei, rubbing her chin in thought.

“Please,” Kassur said, not well hiding the desperation in his voice.

“Oh, no,” Ku-vastei said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll give it back. I’m trying to remember where I left it.”

Aryon groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “In a Mage’s Guild Hall, perhaps?”

“Yessssss,” hissed Ku-vastei. “Balmora, I think. Let’s go.” She briskly set off past Aryon and Kassur, and the Ordinator at the door.

“Bye, then,” said Llethym, who had seemed to meld into the shadows as the others conversed. The sudden reminder of his presence made Kassur jump. Aryon pulled on Kassur’s hand as he followed swiftly behind Ku-vastei. Kassur found it nearly impossible to keep up without almost running.

- - - - -

Ku-vastei was fast. She pushed her way through the crowd in the Hlaalu plaza like she owned the place, and nobody seemed to mind. Once they slipped through the open plaza doors, they squinted in the morning light as they identified their destination canton. Again they skywalked across the air to the Foreign Quarter, Kassur a little more confident this time, but still holding Aryon’s hand. Inside the Foreign Quarter plaza Ku-vastei was just as to-the-point and forceful, like a hammer on the anvil that is her destination: the Mage’s Guild.

They descended into the structure until they returned to the Guild Guide. “Flacassia,” Ku-vastei said abruptly as she nearly bumped into her. “Take us to Balmora, please.”

“Where is Balmora?” Kassur asked Aryon as they stepped onto the platform.

“Northwest of here, southwest corner of the island,” Aryon said. “Big Hlaalu town. I’m not looking forward to this.”

Before Kassur could interrogate Aryon further, Flacassia’s casting completed, sending them through Oblivion to the Balmora Mage’s Guild.

This time the sudden jolt nearly took Kassur down, but Ku-vastei caught him in her surprisingly strong arms, hidden under the folds of her robes. “Alright?” she asked him as she set him on his feet.

“A-alright,” Kassur mumbled, blushing again.

“Mhm,” Ku-vastei muttered before letting go. “Ajira,” she said with a quick wave, and a Khajiit - or so Kassur has heard the cat-men are called - in the corner waved back with what Kassur guessed was a smile. 

“Have you had a chance to search for the ring this one mentioned to you, Archmagister?” the Khajiit - apparently Ajira - asked.

“No,” Ku-vastei said. “I’ve been busy.”

“Ah,” Ajira replied. “No rush. Artifacts don’t tend to wander too much.”

Ku-vastei nodded and swiftly went into the next room. In the far corner by the opposite corridor was a small screened-off section. When Kassur approached he saw benches laden with hundreds of glowing, shining objects - rings, amulets, weapons, pieces of armor, rare books, and more. 

Ku-vastei perused the items on display, searching bench by bench from one end to the other. Then she started over from the beginning and searched again. Then another time. Finally she gave up and stuck her head out of the enclosed space. “Sharn?”

“Yes?” A robed figure in the far corner opposite the corridor turned around, revealing a rough green face, sprouting two white tusks from the corners of its mouth. “Ah, Archmagister, hello.” Her voice was as aggressive as her visage.

“Sharn, where are my artifacts?” Ku-vastei asked calmly. But Kassur noticed a twitch in her tail, and some instinct told him this was not a good sign.

“They’re all right there, aren’t they?” Sharn asked, clutching a book to her chest tightly.

“No,” Ku-vastei insisted, her voice raised slightly. “I’m missing an important amulet, and several other things besides. What happened to them?”

Sharn seemed to look around nervously before settling her gaze on the Archmage’s bare reptilian feet. “I…let Galbedir borrow them. For experiments.”

Ku-vastei ran a hand down the side of her face in ill-hidden exasperation. She spoke again, her composure barely maintained, and patience fading, as indicated by the erratic movements of her tail: “Why, exactly?”

“Well, you see…” Sharn began to explain, “She kind of just came up, took them, saw that I saw her taking them, and told me they were for experiments. And not to tell you.”

“You’ve done well to tell me anyway,” Ku-vastei said, “albeit a bit late.” She glanced around the room. “Where is Galbedir?”

“She took them to some ruins nearby, I think. Dwemer if I recall. Ark…Arkung…”

“Arkngthand?” Ku-vastei groaned.

“Yes!” Sharn said, excited. “Precisely the place.”

“Well,” Ku-vastei said, turning to Aryon. “I suppose we have another detour to make.” She turned back again towards the adjacent corridor, but stopped for a moment. She looked around the room again before spotting someone, a Dunmer in an opposite alcove. She swiftly approached him, nearly startling a book out of his hands. “Marayn?” she inquired forcefully.

After regaining his composure, Marayn answered, “Yes, Archmage?”

“You’re a Dren, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Marayn, offering a shy smile. “Marayn Dren, at your service.”

“Do you know of a Galmis Dren? Distant relative, perhaps?”

“Not so distant,” Marayn said. “He’s my older brother.”

“Were you aware your older brother was a slave smuggler?”

Kassur felt a bit left out of the loop, here. This conversation wasn’t for him to observe, it seemed. He glanced at Aryon, who smiled and shook his head pointedly. Let it happen, that gesture seemed to suggest.

“Well,” Marayn said, looking away. “If you know who our father was, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

“I hope you won’t give me any problems, either, Marayn,” Ku-vastei said, the young Dunmer’s name passing almost like a curse from her lips.

“I was…disowned long ago, you could say,” Marayn replied. “It’s won’t be an issue, Archmage.” He looked back up at her. “But what of Galmis?”

“He’s dead,” Ku-vastei answered. “Executed for the crime of slave trafficking in Telvanni territory. And for trying to assassinate me and the Grandmaster of House Hlaalu.”

“O-oh.” Marayn seemed to look through Ku-vastei for a moment. Finally his eyes snapped back to reality. “I suppose it’s for the best.”

“Quite,” Ku-vastei said. “Good day.” She turned to leave, and Aryon and Kassur followed her out of the Mage’s Guild. 

Just as they had descended into the Mage’s Guild in Vivec, they ascended out of Balmora’s. Kassur expected them to arrive at the top of a towering canton again. But when they emerged from its front door they were at street level, under a stone awning lit by a blue lantern. 

Balmora seemed to be a city of smooth rectangular mudbrick structures, an architectural style wholly unfamiliar to Kassur. His people used simple yurts made from wood, corkbulb, and guarhides; the Telvanni used fungal pods and towers, and at Tel Vos adopted the stone-wrought architecture of the Imperials. He supposed these buildings were most similar to the smaller houses of Vos proper, although the corners of these were notably curved so as to avoid true angles. These Hlaalu must be a superstitious lot, fearful of their Four Corners. Many of these buildings rose into the air two or three stories, and if the rest were anything like the Mage’s Guild, they likely descended into the earth a few levels, as well.

Before he could investigate the city any more, Kassur was swept swiftly along by Ku-vastei and Aryon down a main street to the city’s gates. Outside he was faced with a high-cliffed canyon with a mighty river flowing through it, which the city seemed to straddle as it flowed out to the coast to the south. This land was similar to the land he’d glimpsed from afar from the dizzying heights of Vivec’s Foreign Quarter, green and dotted with trees and Emperor Parasols, littered with corkbulb shrubs and flowering bushes of golds and purples and blues. It felt so different from the Grazelands of his home somehow, although that place had almost all the same things. The colors were all darker, more vibrant here; the sky felt bluer and the grass greener. It almost felt like too much for his unadjusted eyes, so he narrowed them to limit his sensory intake.

They crossed the river via two bridges meeting on a small island in the middle, and then they carried on into a darker place. The foliage seemed scarcer and scarcer as they delved into the mountains, and the color faded into a myriad of grays and blacks. In the distance Kassur could see what looked like the Imperial part of Tel Vos, a gray-stone fortress wreathed with red banners. But before they arrived, they took a left, and the dismal environment swallowed them up.

“What is this place?” Kassur asked.

“Foyada,” Ku-vastei said before Aryon could answer. “Mamaea, to be precise. Old lava flow from Red Mountain. You’ve never seen one?”

“This is the first time I’ve come this far from the Grazelands,” Kassur admitted shyly. 

“Hm,” Ku-vastei said, never once stopping her advance. 

They climbed a steep hill until they reached the top, where an ancient-seeming bridge of stone and brass railings crossed a terrifying gap. On the far side emerged from the earth a series of spires of the same brass, which had been obfuscated by cloud cover along the way. Now that they had risen above the cloudline, they could see it in all its abandoned glory: Arkngthand.

The main structure didn’t seem to have a door; there was just a brass sphere jutting out from where the door might have been. Nearby was a brass post rising from the ground. There was a strangle semi-circular handle of some sort hanging from it. 

“Kassur,” Aryon said, “if you would be so kind as to turn the crank for us.”

Kassur obliged, approaching the strange post. He tentatively reached for the horizontal protruding rod of the crank, and looked to Aryon for affirmation. Aryon simply nodded, and gestured vaguely to continue. Kassur expected the crank to turn slowly, based on its apparent age, but its movement was smooth, as if well-oiled. As the crank turned, the sphere on the wall opened up from a vertical seam in its center, revealing a pair of matching doors within its recesses. 

“Very good,” said Aryon. “Let’s go.”

Kassur let go of the crank, which earned him a scathing glance from Ku-vastei as the sphere began to close again. “No,” she said. “You can’t come.”

“The Dwemer had door-guards, you see,” Aryon explained, “whose job was to open the doors to strongholds when people needed to enter or exit. You’re going to be our door-guard.”

“Plus,” Ku-vastei added, “it’s for your safety. We don’t know what’s in there.”

Sighing, Kassur grabbed the crank again and turned it back to its fully open position. 

“We’ll be back with the Madstone shortly,” Aryon said. Then he and Ku-vastei disappeared into the tower, the stone doors closing behind them with a loud thud. 

Thankfully the crank wasn’t difficult to hold open, but Kassur couldn’t sit down while keeping it turned. Even if he could, he didn’t want to get the pretty robes Aryon had given him dirty on the ashy stone ground. So he stood there, awkwardly, bored, for several minutes. 

Then he heard a sound. It was a low, rumbling sound, very distant. But it began to grow louder. And louder. Until it was almost deafening - and that was when he felt the wind pick up. And with the wind came ash, brushing against his skin roughly, like a thousand tiny pumices. Visibility began to diminish until he could barely see the open sphere in front of him.

That’s when he abandoned the crank and ran for the doors. 

He barely made it inside before the sphere closed shut behind him. There was barely enough space in the sphere for two people to be squeezed up against the stone doors. He pushed one open and slid inside, glad to be free of the ashstorm. 

Inside was dimly lit by giant but guttering Dwemeri torches ensconced on the walls; Kassur’s eyes had to strain to see. He was on a brass platform that seemed to end not far from the doors, but as he approached he noticed a crumbling stone ramp that led down into the depths of this massive chamber. He stumbled through the shadows at the edges of the pathway, taking each tentative step down until he trusted the walkway would be stable enough.

About halfway down he found a small outcropping which opened up onto the scene below. On the left were two more brass platforms stacked on top of the other, the upper story accessible only by another stone ramp. At this top platform was a short woman, some foreign kind of mer, standing in front of a table laden with arcane implements Kassur didn’t recognize at all. She was surrounded by men of various races, all heavily armored and armed to the teeth. She shouted across the way at Ku-vastei and Aryon, who stood at the base of the semi-circular stone ramp Kassur found himself on.

“You always favored that nasty cat, Ajira,” the short woman yelled. “Helped her to advance, even though I was more qualified! Nepotism, pure nepotism.”

“Irrelevant, Galbedir” Ku-vastei called back. “Give me back my artifacts and I won’t kill you.”

“No!” screamed the woman, evidently Galbedir. “This is how I’ll make my mark on the Guild, earn my rank as Wizard! You’ll all see how powerful I truly am!” She raised a wicked curved dagger into the air - Kassur faintly recognized it as one of the feared Daedric weapons.

“You’re a fool of an enchanter,” Ku-vastei said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Galbedir whispered something to the nearest guard, who nodded, shouting something to the others which prompted them all to advance on Ku-vastei and Aryon. Ku-vastei readied her spear and snarled.

“This is a mistake, Galbedir,” said Aryon, raising his own hands, preparing to cast. “You can still get out of this clean. We can help you work on your advancement another way.”

“Oh, and now I’m supposed to take the advice of some Telvanni?” Galbedir scoffed, before screaming, “I need more time! Kill them!”

The guards charged at her command; Kassur guessed there were six of them. There was no way his companions could -

It all happened in a blur, before Kassur could even finish the thought. Aryon lobbed a fireball, taking out two of the guards instantly. Ku-vastei lunged forward with a yell, skewering straight through the heavy armor of another. Lightning burst forth from Aryon’s fingertips, chaining between the remaining three; two of them fell, but the last persisted. Ku-vastei slashed from a distance, extending her spear as far as it would go, slicing the final man’s throat. He fell to the ground, clutching his neck and spasming.

Just then, a gray hand covered Kassur’s mouth, smelling of ashyams. A gruff voice whispered into his ear, “Scream and I’ll cut your throat.”

Kassur felt the sound rising, but he killed it in his throat before it cost him his life.

Something sharp at his back prodded Kassur forward, down the shadows of the stone ramp and behind Ku-vastei and Aryon, who were still negotiating with Galbedir. Kassur stumbled a few times, both on juts of rock and with his captor’s feet kicking into his heels from behind, but they still didn’t seem to make a sound.

Galbedir saw all this and smiled. After coaxing Ku-vastei and Aryon closer to her with her words, she inquired, “And is this a pet of yours? Perhaps a slave?”

The two turned around to see Kassur emerge from the shadows, the dagger now at his neck. 

“N’chow,” swore Ku-vastei. “We told you -”

“A slave then,” said Galbedir, laughing. “Those hardliners were right, weren’t they? All this ‘abolition’ business was just so you could turn the tables on the Dunmer.”

Ku-vastei turned her head to glare at Galbedir, but quickly returned her gaze to captured Kassur. She took a step forward, but the Dunmer holding the dagger wagged a finger and dug the blade closer to Kassur’s skin, almost drawing blood.

But Aryon reached out his glowing gloved left hand to stop her, twitching his fingers in a strange way. “You’ll let him go now, won’t you?”

Something changed in the captor’s stance, and his eyes seemed to flicker yellow. His head twitched slightly, and then he let go of Kassur. Kassur ran towards Aryon and nearly fell down at his feet.

“Very good,” said Aryon, grabbing Kassur by the shoulders. “Now, cut your own throat.”

The captor’s dagger-hand shakily rose to his neck, and in one swift motion, he sliced open his neck, sputtering blood everywhere. He fell to his knees, then all the way to the floor, motionless.

Ku-vastei looked impressed. “I thought you couldn’t Command someone to hurt themselves.”

Aryon smiled as he inspected Kassur’s neck for wounds. “I went above and beyond with my Dominator, all those years ago.”

Galbedir screamed incoherently from behind them. “No, no, no! It will not end this way!”

The three turned to face her, just as she stabbed her Daedric dagger into her own hand. Daedric runes formed out of the blood, floating in the air, and an ominous shrieking filled the chamber. Her body began to stretch and mutate, her arms becoming wings, her feet becoming talons, and her form becoming massive. Kassur knew this monster could be only one thing: some sort of gigantic Winged Twilight.

What was once Galbedir screeched, splitting Kassur’s ears. It lunged forwards, clawing with one its wings, straight for Kassur -

When he looked up from bracing for impact, he found he was safe and sound. Her claws had collided with some purple barrier that Ku-vastei put up, protecting him from harm. 

Then Aryon raised his gloved right hand, which glowed brilliantly gold. A cloud of smoke appeared between the Twilight and the three, and from the mist appeared three figures: a Flame Atronach, feminine form burning bright; a Frost Atronach, an ice-spiked soldier; and a Storm Atronach, bundle of rocks held together by lightning. At once they assaulted Galbedir, their elements colliding and fusing into pure magic, a concentrated attack of unrelenting power. 

She shrieked from the burns, the freezes, and the shocks, and her Daedric form was ripped apart until nothing remained but ash.

Ku-vastei slapped Aryon on the back. “Very well done, Master Aryon. Those gloves sure do come in handy.” She began to climb the stone ramp to where Galbedir had stood to collect her artifacts.

“Quite,” Aryon said, before turning back to a stunned Kassur. “Now, why exactly did you abandon your post outside?”

“Ashstorm,” Kassur said, forgetting to speak Dunmeris for a moment.

“Ah,” replied Aryon, stroking his chin. “Very well, I suppose.”

“Found it!” Ku-vastei shouted from above, raising an amulet over her head in triumph.

“The Madstone?” Kassur asked.

“Yes,” Ku-vastei answered after she returned to the two. “We’ll have to teleport out since we’ve no one to open the door. Almsivi, Aryon?”

“Seems appropriate enough,” Aryon said.

“Here,” Ku-vastei said, offering Kassur one of her rescued artifacts, some kind of necklace. “Enchanted with Almsivi Intervention. It’ll take you where we’re going, too.”

“How do I use it?” Kassur asked, accepting the amulet.

“Rub the stone and think of a Tribunal Temple,” Ku-vastei said. “Doesn’t have to be a specific one; it’ll take us to the same place regardless. Works on proximity.”

“Okay,” Kassur said. 

Ku-vastei popped out first with a spell, then Aryon. Kassur rubbed the amulet, closed his eyes, and thought as hard as he could of the chapel in Vos. Which reminded him: he still had his Dunmeris lessons to think about. But before he could think any more on that topic, he was whisked away through Oblivion.

- - - - -

Before he opened his eyes again, he was immediately hit by the smell of the sea. But it was different from that of the northern coast by his home. It was almost like -

“Aryon,” Ku-vastei asked, “Why are we in Vivec?”

Kassur opened his eyes, and sure enough, they were on one of the many floating cantons of the great city of Vivec. 

Aryon looked around and scratched his head. “I’m not sure. We were closer to Balmora’s temple. Maybe the ashstorm sent us off course?”

“Can they do that?” asked Ku-vastei.

“Theoretically,” Aryon said, “if the storm contains some residual Blight. The Blight is known to affect magic in strange ways.”

“It is a byproduct of the Divine Disease, after all.”

Ku-vastei, Aryon, and Kassur turned to see who had spoken. Kassur had never met him before, but he knew from his skin that he was -

The name escaped his lips before he could control it.

“Vivec.”

[vosh-rakh]

tes summerfest - august 10th - "in bloom / blood"

cw: intense gore/body horror/insects

The Flower King Nilichi stood in the barren center of a circle of flowers. Scorching yellows, burning reds, and raging oranges were tempered with aqueous blues and royal purples, spreading outwards for about a yard from the inner circle. 

In the centerline of this row of flowers wrapped a chain of bound slaves. They were men, the men-of-ge, docile creatures. They stared intently at Nilichi, waiting. 

“I have planted the flowers and arranged the slaves as you asked,” Nilichi said to the witch, who stood away outside the circle of flowers. “Show me what your god can do.”

“Very well,” said the cloaked woman, raising her arms towards the nearest slave.  “Do not step outside of your circle there. It would be…inadvisable.”

It started with that nearest slave. First an expression of intense exertion entered his face, before contorting into a writhing mass of pain. His flesh pricked and bulged before bursting in so many small pinpricks of blood in bloom. Like poppies, Nilichi thought. 

It spread to the others, and they all screamed as so many black insects broke through their skin, tearing their bodies to shreds as they emerged, and took flight. They all gathered over Nilichi’s head in a dark cloud that blotted out Magnus himself, swarming and buzzing above. 

Nilichi glanced nervously at the witch, who pressed a finger to her smiling lips. As if Nilichi could have made himself heard at all - the droning of the insects was deafening. 

The witch raised her arms over her head, seeming to wrangle with the insects, before they dove into the flowers below, several fighting over each individual bloom in a disconcertingly uncoordinated manner. Then they spread out from the circle, and in their wake they left behind fresh growths, each rapidly emerging from the soil and blooming before Nilichi’s very eyes. They were resplendent, even more beautiful than the ones Nilichi had planted himself, and in a dizzying array of colors and shapes. 

Finally, the insects dispersed, seemingly evaporating into thin air. But the buzzing lingered in Nilichi’s ears for the several awed moments that followed. 

“This is the power of your god?” Nilichi stammered, stunned. 

“Nay,” said the witch, leaning down to pluck a scarlet blossom. “This is my power.”

Nilichi dropped to his knees and prostrated himself before her. “How many more sacrifices will you require?”

The witch blew on the flower, dispersing its petals to the wind. One landed on the shredded remains of a slave’s lips. “As many as you can offer.”

[vosh-rakh]

tes summerfest 2023 - august 7th - "teeth"

cw: mild nsfw, some blood and gore

-

“They’re growing back.”

The room was cast in a thick twilight gloom, the floor strewn with discarded pieces of armor. Trinimac stood mostly naked in front of a mirror, inspecting his mouth, while Boethiah sat on the edge of the massive bed, pulling on his ebon boots. He barely looked up from what he was doing as he asked, “What?”

“My lower teeth.” Trinimac rubbed the supernaturally growing nubs of his lower canines, which were almost long enough to peek over his lips. “I used to file them down. But I haven’t in a while. Should I?”

“Hm,” Boethiah grunted. He finished fastening his boots and stood, approaching the mirror. He looked into it for a moment before turning to look at the man himself. “No. They’re…handsome.”

Trinimac turned his head towards his lover. “You think so? Auri-el said they made me look like a savage beast.” 

“Damn what Auri-el thinks!” Boethiah grabbed Trinimac by the jaw, forcing the other god to turn his entire body to face him. “Worry about what I think.”

Despite the black gauntlet wrapped around his mouth, Trinimac managed to garble, “And what do you think?”

“I think,” Boethiah said with a smirk, “that the sun has barely risen. Why should we leave yet?”

Trinimac smiled also, and grabbed Boethiah’s wrist, removing his hand from his jaw. He pushed Boethiah back, sending him tumbling into the bed, which creaked and groaned under the weight of the armor. Trinimac lunged at Boethiah, mounting him in one swift leap, and began to tear away at his armor with animalistic need, clawing at pieces of plate, peeling the dense black mail from Boethiah’s wiry, ashen body. Boethiah grunted, but was not only accustomed to this type of behavior from his lover, but relished watching the noble knight disintegrate into a howling beast.

Boethiah reached up with bare grey hands and pulled Trinimac into a kiss. It only lasted a moment, as Trinimac pulled away and pinned Boethiah’s wrists to the bed. Then he leaned his head back in, and Boethiah, expectant, tilted his head away for access. Trinimac wrapped his teeth around Boethiah’s neck, scraping gently at the skin there in the way he himself enjoyed most.

“No,” Boethiah moaned. “Harder.”

Trinimac obliged, clamping down with his mouth. Sure to leave a bruise, he thought, but that’s the way Boethiah likes it.

“Harder,” Boethiah gasped, squirming underneath Trinimac’s weight.

Trinimac obliged, digging his teeth and growing tusks into the skin, and he tasted blood. Something was coming, he could feel it as he pressed himself against Boethiah’s body. But he had to resist.

“Harder!” Boethiah screamed, his knee rising to rub between Trinimac’s legs.

Trinimac bit at full force, tearing through the skin and muscle, and instinctively he tore his head away, ripping away a mouth-sized chunk of flesh.

“Son of a bitch!” Boethiah shouted, his knee crashing hard between Trinimac’s legs. He tore his wrists from Trinimac’s now loosened grip and shoved him away off the bed before clutching at the bleeding wound on his neck. “What the fuck!”

Trinimac spat out the pulsing chunk of flesh and said, “You said -”

“Fuck what I said! Give it back!”

“What?”

“I want it back! Give it to me!” Boethiah reached out his other hand expectantly.

Trinimac quickly searched the area around the bed, finding the piece of shorn god-meat resting between a bedpost and the nightstand. He grabbed it frantically and handed it to Boethiah.

Boethiah snatched the chunk from Trinimac’s hand and quickly slapped it back on his neck. He held it there for a moment before letting go, satisfied it would reconstitute itself to his body. “Don’t you ever steal from me again,” he admonished, turning away from kneeling Trinimac with crossed arms.

“I’m sorry,” Trinimac stammered. “You said you - I thought - so I - nevermind. I’ll just go.” He swiftly gathered together his armor in his arms without putting it on and left the room.

Boethiah tenderly picked at the disappearing seams of the wound. Regret tried to well up within him, but he pushed it away, and sulked.

[vosh-rakh]

(a late day 1 for @tes-summer-fest: "arcane")

A cool Grazelands wind weaved its way between the stone towers of Tel Vos, cycling lazily through the courtyard in the center, where two wizards stood apart by several yards, their voices raised slightly as they converse.

“Tell me,” Aryon began, “How do you cast a spell, such as your famous Bound Spear? What is your process?”

Ku-vastei shrugged. “I just visualize the spear coming to my hands, and concentrate, and it does.”

Aryon smiled. “You’re something of a savant, you know? Most people lack the intense imagination required for such intuitive casting, especially for complicated Conjuration spells.”

Ku-vastei scoffed and looked away. “It’s just how I learned it.”

Aryon’s demeanor shifted slightly. Ku-vastei could tell this meant he was about to pontificate. “Most wizards concentrate their focus on preselected symbols and incantations,” he started. “We call these, broadly, ‘arcane anchors.’ These anchors are proven receptacles for, and directors of, magicka for specific purposes.

“For example, how do you go about healing yourself? I’m sure you’re familiar with Restoration as a school.”

“I use the Hearth, usually,” Ku-vastei answered. Without devoting any magicka to the cast, she gestured with her left hand the sign of the Hearth to demonstrate.

“Very good,” Aryon said with the distant smile of a pleased educator. “That’s an efficient and useful spell. But you probably understand the Hearth from the perspective of an old hedge magic remedy, rather than as an official institutionalized spell.”

“I guess?” Ku-vastei offered. “My naheesh taught me a simple variation once, and I learned the Dunmeri style when I came to Vvardenfell.”

“I want you to keep in mind that feeling of ‘pocketing’ magicka into a symbol as we continue,” Aryon said. “It may seem alien to you at first, but you’ll find it radically simplifies the casting of a great deal of complex spells.”

“Okay,” Ku-vastei said, tapping her foot. “When are you going to teach me to teleport?”

“Now, if you’ll be patient,” Aryon said, his smile fading a bit. “The spells ‘Mark’ and ‘Recall’ which I’ll be teaching you have somatic, or gestural, and verbal, or incantational, components, although the verbal component is but a whispered word in both cases. Follow my lead, as I demonstrate the somatic component of ‘Mark.’” 

Aryon kicked out a foot and drew a small circle in a dance-like motion, his hands clasped in a specific gesture, and whispered something. As he returned to facing Ku-vastei, he watched as she tried to match the motion somewhat clumsily. “No, no,” he said, watching her hands. “Wrong mudra.”

“‘Mudra?’” Ku-vastei asked.

“The part of the somatic you do with your hands.” He approached and cautiously took Ku-vastei’s hands, manipulating her fingers into position. She barely tolerated the touch. “Now, I’ll have you try again in a moment. But first, let me tell you the verbal component.” He began to lean in towards Ku-vastei’s ear, but she recoiled from the advance. “It’s tradition,” Aryon said with a frown, “for masters to secretly transmit verbal components to their students. The Telvanni hold very fast to this tradition. Please, let me whisper in your ear.”

Ku-vastei hesitated but nodded. Aryon leaned in again, and whispered in her ear a foreign word, clearly enunciating to make sure she understands the pronunciation. “That,” he said after pulling back, “is for ‘Mark.’ Allow me to go ahead and tell you the verbal component of ‘Recall.’” 

Aryon did so, but after he finished whispering, there was a small crack, and he disappeared. Ku-vastei looked up to find him back where he set his Mark.

“Now,” Aryon said, smiling at her short-lived confusion. “Cast ‘Mark’ with the somatic and verbal components together, and concentrate a moderate amount of magicka to the anchor.”

Ku-vastei attempted the circular casting again, whispering the word Aryon taught her as he did so; the movement came a little more naturally this time, and she felt some magicka leave her reserves as bidden.

“Now,” Aryon said again, “Come closer and I will teach you the somatic component for ‘Recall.’”

Ku-vastei followed his directions, walking up closer to Aryon and standing before him expectantly.

“‘Recall’ is simple. Whisper the word I taught you and tap your chest in this rhythm.” Aryon tapped his sternum with a simple four-beat rhythm. “Go ahead and try returning to your ‘Mark.’”

Ku-vastei nodded, and, whispering the secret word and allocating some magicka to the anchor, tapped the beat on her chest. 

She had teleported before, but doing it yourself was different. It seemed to be more controlled, a simple straight-line through the blackness and you were back in an instant. The mild disorientation the Guild Guides usually gave her was almost completely absent, and she immediately felt as though she was meant to be in her new location.

Aryon looked up at Ku-vastei’s destination and beamed. “Very well done. A lot of students struggle with that spell, but you seem to have caught on instantly. Very well done.”

Ku-vastei grinned and rubbed her hands together. “Alright. What’s next?”

[vosh-rakh]

31 for the numbers post

31. breeze

One thing all Ahemmusa children are taught early is this simple rule: “Don’t follow the breeze.”

The vast grassy landscape of the Grazelands has blades higher than your waist, and sometimes higher in places, so high it’s impossible to see over them, like a forest of grass. But the cool air blows in from the Sea of Ghosts to the north, bending the golden stalks of wickwheat down like supplicants and coating them in sea-salt dew. This is the normal climate of the region; warm and cool at the same time, land and sea at the same time. 

But sometimes a warm wind pulls you in a new direction. Long, long ago, hunters swore by these odd breezes, telling them how to find prey and avoid predators in the thick grass. But the land is a wild land, gone mad with growth, or so they say in the tribes without such dense foliage surrounding their encampments. They say one day Sheogorath descended upon the Grazelands, bringing with him a piece of his Isles, and the land has never been the same since. Now the wandering breeze is an omen, a threat.

The child knew this, or most of it. But the heart of a child is curiosity, and so he heeded it not. His friend, a young girl named Minabibi, was poking at a long-dead shalk shell with one of its old legs. But he wasn’t as interested in the bug.

“Kass,” she said, still kneeling, “What are you looking at?” Minabibi’s eyes followed the trajectory of Kassur’s. The grass seemed to bend away at the edge of the small clearing, like the open flaps of a yurt. Its maw beckoned Kassur to take a step forward. 

“Kass,” Minabibi said again. “Where are you going?”

But before she could finish her question, he disappeared into the grass. The breeze seemed to follow, the stalks rising again to close the door.

“Kass!” Minabibi ran into the dense grass, pushing blades aside to dig for Kassur. She followed by the sound of wickwheat under his feet, since they stood straight again after he passed, blocking her sight. His name never left her lips, raising her voice to a strained wail. She was a wise woman in-training; she knew better than to trust a breeze. But she had to follow him.

Finally the grass opened on a new clearing, and there stood Kassur, next to a great beast with a mighty mouth, pale as the lesser moon. Kassur reached out a hand to touch it, and Minabibi screamed, “Stop!”

Kassur’s hand landed on the white guar, and it cooed at him peacefully as he rubbed its flank. He turned his head and said, “It’s okay, Mina. He’s friendly, see?”

“Kass!” Minabibi grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away, towards the camp. “Don’t you ever do that again! Stick with me when we go out like this!”

Kassur frowned, but nodded silently. Minabibi dragged him all the way back home, unsure if she should tell someone what happened. Probably best not to, she decided; they’d think he’d gone mad. And despite his foolishness, he was her best friend.

[vosh-rakh]

madstone: chapter 3

- previous part - 

Kassur didn’t say goodbye to Gals as he departed the ship, and received no farewell either. He carried his aching body down the road and around the hill to his yurt. He barely remembered to feed Jerky before he threw himself onto the bed and slept. He had barely slept last night at Sadrith Mora, owing to the smell of ozone and the otherwise uneasy feeling of the room - not to mention his mind’s preoccupation with matters other than sleep. 

When he woke it was noon the next day. He fed Jerky again and sat on his bed for a long time after feeding himself, trying to keep everything that had happened in the past couple days straight in his head. He was a member of Telvanni now, but couldn’t show his face at the Council House after failing his first chore so miserably. He was broke. The Mage’s Guild - even Minabibi - wouldn’t do anything to help his people. But maybe this Aryon at Tel Vos would. 

Kassur still couldn’t believe Minabibi wouldn’t even try to help. That she would even insinuate that it was their fault, or that they deserved it. That wasn’t the Mina he knew as a child, when they would play together climbing up and down the long dead silt strider shell in the camp. That felt like a completely different person from who he’d met just the other day. The House mer and Imperials had really gotten to her. 

Kassur wished he still had that amulet. It was warm around his neck, like a hug. And he wouldn’t mind being invisible all the time. Then no one could see him, no one could expect anything from him. 

Why did it have to fall on him to save the tribe? Why had the ancestors chosen him? He wasn’t very good at anything except for wishing he was good at something. He never learned to hunt, or fight, or fish, or anything. He wasn’t good at singing or dancing or magic or telling stories. He was a slow learner, taking too long to learn Dunmeris, and neglecting to learn any Cyrodiilic. Why did they choose someone as awful as him?

He had to stop himself from hitting his head again. It was an awful, painful habit when he got upset. He’d really mess up his brain like that eventually. And he needed his brain as intact as possible - if only to be the last sane Ahemmusa. 

He stood up and reached for his shoes. They were tight on his feet, but Yakin was right about them. He needed to be as presentable as possible to meet the wizard. Jerky watched curiously as Kassur struggled into the shoes. Kassur wasn’t sure how the House mer laced them up, so he just made sure they were tight enough to stay on but loose enough he could get in and out of them without much bother. Evidently he’d tied them too tightly last time, though. He had to pick at the knot in the laces to loosen them. 

Kassur put out the fire, gave Jerky a scratch behind the horns, and headed out. He shielded his eyes from the sun as the yurt’s door-flap fell behind him. He’d slept too long. Hopefully Aryon would still be at Tel Vos. 

Kassur began to make his way, somewhat hesitantly, towards Tel Vos. Its stone-brick architecture stood tall, but the corrupting fungal growths stood taller. It was a large compound, growing larger and larger in his sight as he approached, almost bigger than Vos itself. How was he supposed to find one wizard in such a massive place?

The answer seemed simple, actually: find the top of the tower. 

Kassur passed under a stonewrought arch as Telvanni banners fluttered in the wind overhead. This place was a mess of Imperial and Telvanni architecture, tangled fungal roots interpenetrating the stone towers. There were a couple of guards with red cephalopod helmets stalking the grounds. Kassur swallowed and approached one. 

“Aryon?” Kassur asked, his Dunmeris dry as his throat.

The guard sighed, the sound resonating behind the strange helmet. “There’s a new staircase up to the Master’s abode, if you go up these stairs and keep heading west.”

“Thank you,” Kassur barely remembered to say before following the instructions. 

Indeed, there was a fungal helical staircase poking straight up from the ground into the sky, landing at some pod far above. It had no railings to speak of. Kassur cautiously climbed, nearly crawling up each step, trying to keep steady footing on the organic matter. He tried very hard not to look down.

Finally he came to a landing at the top, green and biological. There was a circular double door, like the one to the Sadrith Mora Council House, and Kassur knocked. There seemed to be no response. He tried one of the handles, and found it unlocked. He slowly opened the door, saying in his most polite Dunmeris, “Hello?”

“Come in,” came a man’s voice, different from the one Kassur had expected. It was gruff and Western, Imperial. He seemed to struggle with Dunmeris, as well. “We’ll see what to do with you once I can see you fully.”

Kassur came in, closing the door behind him. There was a heavily armored man across the room, looking Kassur up and down from behind the visor of his helmet. “Hm,” he grunted. “An Ashlander? I suppose we’ve been expecting such a person…”

“Here to see Master Aryon,” Kassur said. 

“Coming!” came a more familiar voice from upstairs. His accent was strange, Kassur realized. He didn’t speak Dunmeris like most people on the island. His dialect seemed more…polite? Elaborate? Soft? Kassur couldn’t pinpoint the distinction.

Aryon came shuffling down the stairs, careful to avoid tripping on his robes. “Yes, this is the young man I was expecting, Turedas.”

“Hm. Very well then,” said Turedas, stepping aside. 

Aryon stepped forward and offered a gloved hand to Kassur. Kassur took it after some hesitation, still unfamiliar with this practice. Aryon shook Kassur’s hand firmly, firmer than Kassur had expected. 

“Let’s meet upstairs,” Aryon said. “We’ve business to discuss, haven’t we?”

Kassur nodded, and the two made their way up the short flight of stairs. When Kassur was through with this place, he didn’t want to climb a single step again for at least a month.

Passing by a large empty dinner table, they entered into another chamber of the mushroom. There was a large seat situated under a red banner, depicting some strange kind of cliff racer. Another Telvanni guard, armored like the ones in the courtyard below, stood silent at the far side. 

Aryon took a seat at the chair, crossing a leg over the other, his blue robes pulling up slightly to show his ankles peeking up over the rims of his shoes. Kassur felt a bit awkward; should he bow, or kneel? He didn’t know the proper Telvanni etiquette for an official meeting with a magelord. 

Aryon seemed to sense Kassur’s discomfort. “Be at ease, friend,” he said in overly-polite Velothi. “You’re a guest, not a supplicant. Tell me what ails you.”

Kassur was grateful he could speak his native language again. “My tribe needs your help. They’ve gone mad, touched by Sheogorath.”

“Ah,” said Aryon with a smile, “but aren’t we all? You’ll have to be more specific.”

Kassur squirmed. He seemed to have trouble finding the words, even in Velothi. “The ashkhan…well, she’s not the ashkhan, she’s just a wisewoman, we haven’t had an ashkhan in a long time…her name is Sinnammu Mirpal. She believes she’s…well…the Good Daedra.”

Aryon scratched his bare chin and looked up past Kassur. “I see. It is said Talos Stormcrown fell under a similar delusion near the end of his life, believing himself to be the lost god Lorkhan incarnate. Which of the Daedra does she claim to be?”

“All three, sir.”

Aryon’s scarlet eyes sharply returned to Kassur’s. “What?”

Kassur looked away. Why must he repeat himself? “She thinks she’s Azura, Boethiah, and Mephala.”

“Hm,” muttered Aryon. “That is interesting.” He leans forward. “I take it that the tribe believes her?”

“Yes,” said Kassur, nodding. “Like they’re in a trance, they follow her whims. I don’t know what she’s planning, if anything. They say Sheogorath -”

“- doesn’t make plans,” finished Aryon. “Yes, I know the old adage.” He wagged a gloved finger. “But under his influence, she’s volatile. She could do anything.”

Kassur bit his lip. Should he tell him?

“Spit it out, boy,” said Aryon. “I can tell you’ve something to say.”

“I think…” Kassur started softly. “I think she’s arming the Ahemmusa again.”

“Hm.” Aryon shot up from his chair and began to pace. “This doesn’t bode well. An armed Ahemmusa - not seen in many years - and led by a fanatic, no less. That might pose a threat to Vos. My tower will be secure, of course. But the townsfolk will suffer if there is an attack.”

Kassur didn’t know what to say. He pressed his palms into his eyes, hoping to drown out this reality he lived in now. 

Aryon stopped pacing right in front of Kassur, forcing him to uncover his eyes. “What caused this? When did it start?”

“She began to claim this about three months ago, after the Nerevarine came. Not long after.”

Aryon leaned in closer. “The Nerevarine?”

“Yes,” said Kassur, leaning away. “Sinnammu gave her the Madstone. Minabibi says we need it to withstand Sheogorath’s influence from Ald Daedroth.”

“Ah,” Aryon said, his shoulders relaxing. “So we just need to return the stone. Simple enough.”

“How? I don’t know where the Nerevarine is.”

“Well,” said Aryon, “I know someone who does. We leave tomorrow for Vivec City, to see the Archmagister.” He looked Kassur up and down. “But you’ll need better clothes. I may have a spare robe or two. You’re about my size, aren’t you?” He lowered a hand from his brow to Kassur’s. “Maybe a little shorter.”

“I guess,” Kassur said, a little confused. 

Aryon descended a short flight of stairs past the guard. Kassur could hear him rummaging in dresser drawers down there. “Blue or yellow?” Aryon called.

Kassur was baffled. Did it really matter? “Blue,” he called back.

Aryon came back upstairs, a little winded, carrying ornate blue robes in his hands. He handed them to Kassur, who cautiously accepted. He examined the gilt on the soft silk fabric - it was the fanciest thing he’d ever seen. 

“Go ahead,” Aryon said. “Try it on.”

Kassur frowned but did as he was told. He awkwardly pulled the robes over his head and pushed his arms through the sleeves. It didn’t itch as horribly as the other House mer clothes he’d worn. But it hung from his body like a drape.

“Cinch the sash,” Aryon insisted.

Kassur nodded, and awkwardly fiddled with the silk belt around the waist until Aryon, impatient, reached across to cinch it for him.

“Thank you,” Kassur said, blushing. 

“Think nothing of it,” Aryon returned with a smile. “I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow, by the docks.”

“But I still don’t understand,” Kassur said. “How does the Archmagister know the Nerevarine?”

Aryon laughed. “The Archmagister knows the Nerevarine, because they’re the same person.”

- - - - -

Kassur barely awoke in time the next day, being risen by another paralyzing bite from Jerky. He cursed the little scrib, but thanked him silently for getting him up. He hastened into his shirt and robes, yanked on his shoes, and ate an untoasted flatbread before heading out.

He was anxious - when hadn’t he been, in the past few days? - about what was to come. He’d never been to a city as big as he’d heard Vivec was. He’d only just the other day been to a city of any size in Sadrith Mora, but now he was going to the capital of the province itself. At least he’d have Master Aryon to guide him, so he wouldn’t get lost, or swallowed up by bandits, or something. 

For a moment, he worried he might meet Vivec hirself. But he’d been told all his life that Vivec was not only a false god, but an absent one as well, secluding hirself in hir palace at all times. Kassur wasn’t sure what he would do if he did meet hir, so he tried not to worry about it. It was enough to concern himself with meeting the Nerevarine, even if he had just met her the other day, under less auspicious circumstances. 

Aryon was waiting by the ship, conversing with the shipmaster Sedyni Veran. He turned to greet Kassur as he heard him coming. “You’ve made it, good,” Aryon said in Dunmeris.

Sedyni squinted her eyes at Kassur. “Oh, it’s you, the ashlander. This is your companion, Master?”

“Yes,” Aryon said with a mystical wave of his hand. “We’re going to meet with the Archmagister about business concerning his tribe.”

“Now, since I’ve seen you,” Sedyni said, putting her hands on her hips, “I’ve heard that you’ve built a reputation for being a stowaway, a freeloader.” She turned her head towards Aryon without averting her eyes from Kassur. “Are you certain, my lord, that you want to travel with him?”

“Yes,” Aryon said. “That earlier incident was a misunderstanding, and little more.”

“As you say, Master,” Sedyni said, winking at Kassur. “Well, if you two are ready to depart, go ahead and climb aboard.”

Aryon casually stepped from dock to deck as if he’d done it a thousand times. Kassur tried to emulate his confidence, and mostly succeeded, only wobbling a little as he stood on the ship. Aryon placed a gentle hand on Kassur’s back. “Let’s have a seat,” he said in quiet Velothi, “It’s quite a ways to Sadrith Mora, although I suspect you’re already well aware.”

“Sadrith Mora?” Kassur asked. “I thought we were going to Vivec.”

“In due time, dear boy. In due time.”

- - - - -

Kassur didn’t pay any attention to the sights along the way, this time. Mostly, he was dreading meeting Gals Arethi again.

As he should have. When they came into port at Sadrith Mora, Gals Arethi saw Kassur first and snarled, crossing his arms. “You again,” he said as Kassur and Aryon disembarked.

“Yes,” Aryon interjected, “it’s me again, Muthsera.”

“I meant the Ashlander scamp, Master,” Gals said, with a tone to imply an appended “obviously.”

“We won’t be needing your services this time, Gals. So don’t you worry about it.”

Gals grunted but stood aside for Kassur and Aryon to proceed into town.

The guards at the gate, apparently recognizing Aryon, didn’t ask Kassur for papers as he went through. It was a good thing, too - he’d left them at home. 

They followed the ring of the town to the right, towards Wolverine Hall. Kassur frowned and tugged at his collar. “Master Aryon,” he said, “Do we have business there?”

“We’ll be stopping by the Mage’s Guild to teleport to Vivec,” Aryon confirmed.

Kassur sighed and said, “As you wish.” On top of potentially seeing Minabibi again, he had another thing to worry about: teleporting. It was something else he’d never done before. He wasn’t exactly keen on being ripped through Oblivion to Vivec.

Their trip across town and up to the Mage’s Guild was uneventful. Aryon opened the door into the small room the Guild occupied and Kassur held his breath. But Minabibi wasn’t there.

“Iniel,” Aryon said in Dunmeris, addressing a tall, yellow-skinned mer in the front-left corner, “I’d like for you to transport me and my companion here to Vivec.” He offered up a handful of coins.

“Oh, please, Aryon,” the tall mer said in obviously well-practiced Dunmeris. “Such distinguished personages such as yourself need not debase yourself to paying such simple fares. I’ll gladly send you and your friend along at no cost.” The Argonian Kassur had met (and spied on) before, Skink, glanced askew at Iniel, but said nothing.

“Thank you, Iniel,” Aryon said, bowing deep. He patted Kassur on the back. “Step onto the transportation platform,” he instructed in Velothi. “I’d recommend you stay inside its bounds at all times. Would hate to lose you somewhere in Oblivion.”

“What?” Kassur said, his face paling.

Aryon chuckled. “Nothing, nothing. A jest. That barely ever happens anymore.”

Not feeling much assured, Kassur tentatively stepped foot on the platform, with Aryon following suit. Once they were both situated, Iniel began to cast, her arms gesticulating in the air, leaving trails of pink vapors and sparks as she traced their path through Oblivion. Finally, with a tremendous crack, the two were yanked through the void instantaneously to Vivec.

“Bucket, please,” Aryon said to the nearby human woman, who swiftly grabbed the object and handed it to Aryon, who pushed it towards Kassur. But Kassur didn’t take it; he clutched his stomach for a moment, covered his mouth, and then finally exhaled loudly.

“Are you sure this is your first time?” Aryon asked, slowly giving the bucket back to the woman. Kassur nodded but didn’t say anything out loud, still fearful of getting sick.

Aryon turned towards the woman. “Is the Archmage in at the moment?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “She stopped by temporarily, but said she had business with the Hlaalu Grandmaster. You might try his office in the Hlaalu canton, if she’s still there.”

“Thank you,” Aryon said. He led Kassur out of the labyrinthine Mage’s Guild, much more expansive than the single room in Wolverine Hall. They climbed up through the rooms until they reached the canton’s plaza. 

Kassur had never seen this many people in one place in his life. The plaza was bustling with activity, merchants shouting at passersby to sell their wares, children running and playing, their parents trying and failing to wrangle them into orderliness. And no two of them were the same - they were tall and short, thin and fat, light- and dark-skinned, mer and men and beast. They seemed to hail from all over the world, a wider world Kassur was only beginning to suspect existed at all. 

Aryon pulled Kassur by the wrist through the crowd, heading out of a pair of massive doors that were barely cracked to let people slip through, letting in a sliver of natural light drowned out by the colorful lanterns inside. 

Outside the day was strong, the sun beating down on the cantons of Vivec. Kassur pulled away from Aryon to approach the railing at the edge of the walkway. His vision extended for miles from up here, trees and Emperor Parasols and rolling mountains as far as he could see. He’d never seen this part of the island before, this much life outside the dull plains of the Grazelands.

Bordering this view on the left was another canton, this one shorter than the one he was on, topped with a massive dome. It bore banners depicting a merchant’s scales. Aryon noticed Kassur looking at it and said, “That’s where we need to go.”

Kassur made the mistake of looking directly down. He began to feel nauseous, worse than when he was on the ship. On the rolling plains of the Grazelands, he’d never been anywhere near this high up. It turned out that he didn’t like it very much.

“How do we get across?” Kassur asked queasily, noticing the lack of bridges at this level.

“Well,” Aryon said, “we could take the stairs down, cross the bridge to the Redoran canton, then cross another bridge to the Hlaalu canton.” He turned and smiled at Kassur. “But that’s rather dull. Let’s have a little fun.”

Aryon placed a gentle hand on Kassur’s shoulder, and Kassur felt a jolt of magicka surge through him. He recoiled from the sudden feeling, but he noticed he felt lighter somehow. “What was that?” Kassur asked.

“I just built us a bridge,” Aryon answered, briefly illuminating himself in a purple glow which quickly dissipated. “Don’t you see it?”

Kassur looked out over the edge of the railing, confused. “No?”

“Ah, but you must see with more than eyes, dear boy.” Aryon climbed on top of the railing and stood on it. 

“Master Aryon!” Kassur shouted. Had he gone mad too?

“Watch, and have faith,” Aryon said. Then he took a step off the edge. 

Kassur lurched forward to grab him by his robes, but didn’t make it. He didn’t need to; Aryon fell down a single step, then followed with his other foot, descending the air like stairs. He turned to extend a hand to Kassur, and said, “Have faith, and trust in your footfalls. It’s just like going down stairs.”

Kassur hesitated for a long moment before awkwardly climbing the railing and standing on it. He took Aryon’s hand, hesitated again, then closed his eyes and put his foot in front of him, half-expecting to fall off. But he found a surface to plant his foot on, the air seeming to come together to hold him up. 

“Good,” Aryon said, smiling. “Now take a step down. Imagine the step there.”

Kassur, a little more confidently, took another step, this time imagining a descent before him. His foot fell a few inches before landing again on solid air. Aryon said, “Now follow me down to the Hlaalu canton.”

He tried to disengage his hand from Kassur’s, but Kassur held on tight. “Please don’t let go,” Kassur said. He was trying very hard not to look straight down. 

Aryon smiled. “Of course.” And they walked, their fingers tangled, all the way down the sky to the Hlaalu canton’s upper level. 

“You’ll feel light for a few minutes,” Aryon said as Kassur finally took away his hand, who felt somewhat childish now that he had landed. Aryon winked. “Try not to float away.”

Aryon led Kassur inside the plaza, and through the busy corridors of people. This time it seemed less diverse than the Foreign Quarter, and less friendly, with many Dunmer snarling at Kassur as he passed. They seemed to give about as much respect to Aryon, as well. Kassur heard some recognizable snippets of Dunmeris in the commotion, but many spoke the unfamiliar Cyrodiilic as well. Only Aryon’s gentle voice calling after him in Velothi gave Kassur any assurance.

They came upon a building (within a building, Kassur noted; how strange!) and Aryon beckoned Kassur to enter with him. “This manor used to belong to Crassius Curio, a former councilman of House Hlaalu. Rather heinous man, if I’m honest.” Aryon twisted his face into a grimace. “But thankfully, Curio is no longer an issue. The Hortator killed him to secure her place within House Hlaalu. This manor now belongs to Llethym Hlaarothan, the Grandmaster of the Hlaalu.”

Kassur entered, marveling at the ornate furnishings. “Hortator…” he said. “This is what House mer call the Nerevarine?”

Aryon smiles at one of the manor’s attendants, busy mopping a floor, as he replies. “Yes. She is the wartime leader of both the Ashlander tribes and the Great Houses of Vvardenfell.” He scratches his chin as he begins to descend a flight of stairs, Kassur following. “If she is to remain in power now that the war with Dagoth Ur is over, time will tell.”

At the bottom of the stairs Aryon approaches an open door, outside of which stands an Ordinator, one of the gruff, heavily armored guards of the city. “Halt,” barked the Ordinator. “This is a crime scene.”

“Is self-defense a crime, now?” called a voice from beyond the door. A Dunmer appeared there behind the Ordinator, his red beard tied with glass beads. “Ah. Master…Aryon, is it? And a friend. How lovely. Here to see the Archmagister, no doubt?”

“Of course, Grandmaster Llethym,” said Aryon. 

“She’s a bit…indisposed,” Llethym said, his words all a rush. “We had an incident in my office, you see. No, she’s fine, don’t look so worried. Just a lunatic tried to assassinate us, but she fought them off. To the death, you see. She killed him.”

“Ah,” Aryon said, looking relieved. “May we see her?” He glanced at the Ordinator, who shrugged.

“Of course,” Llethym answered. “Right inside here.”

The Ordinator stepped aside and allowed Aryon and Kassur entry. 

Inside sat the Archmagister, Nerevarine, and Hortator, all in a single person, in a single seat.

[vosh-rakh]

madstone: chapter 2

- previous part -

Kassur at least made it out of the city before he fell apart.

Just outside the gates, he finally collapsed to his knees, and wept, and beat his head with his fists. He sat like that for what felt like hours, letting his rage run through him like a kagouti. 

Eventually, he started to recover himself. In the Mephalan tradition, he began to plot. Plots required steps. So he began to figure out his next steps.

First, he needed to stop hitting himself. Then, he needed to stop weeping. Then he needed to stand up. Then he needed to turn around. Then he needed to head back into the city.

Then he needed to join House Telvanni.

- - - - -

Kassur crossed the large fungal-root bridge leading to the Telvanni Council House, passed through a circular root gate like the one at the entrance to Vos, and went inside the large mushroom building. 

A Dunmer woman stood in the foyer, leaning against the opposite wall. She glanced up from a book at Kassur as he entered. She looked back down to continue reading as she asked, “What do you want?”

Kassur swallowed heavily before speaking. “Work,” he said. 

The woman swore under her breath. “Gotta be Telvanni to get work, ashlander.”

Kassur ignored the intended insult and persisted. “I’ll join.”

The woman lowered the book to evaluate Kassur completely. “And why would we take you?”

Kassur didn’t know. He thought for a minute before snapping a small flame onto his fingertips. 

“Parlor trick,” the woman scoffed. “Anyone can light a small fire.”

“I can learn,” said Kassur, desperate. 

“Whatever. Your funeral. Go in and talk to one of the Mouths.”

Kassur walked past the woman, making sure to keep a wide berth around her, and went through the next circular door. 

The ensuing chamber was massive, and interpenetrated with giant, azure-violet crystal growths. Seven raised platforms ringed around a larger central crystal, smoking from within its fungal sconce. Some of the platforms were empty, but mer stood on the central five. 

Kassur took the steps down to the walkable platform around the central crystal, by which one could access the people on the platforms. He started on his right and addressed the first mer he came across, the only one in mostly plain dress rather than elaborate robes. “Hello.”

The mer seemed distracted by the wisps of smoke hissing from the central crystal. He looked down at Kassur and said, “Hello. Archmagister’s Mouth, Edd Theman, at your service. How can I help you?”

Kassur tried to twist the Dunmeris from his dry tongue, but to little avail. So all he said, again, was, “Join Telvanni.”

“Ah,” Edd said. “That can be arranged.” He pulled out a small book from a back pocket and flipped through it. “I hope I don’t need to give you the whole spiel about rules.” Kassur looked blankly up at him; he was speaking too fast, and he barely could make out what Edd was saying. 

“Ah, here,” Edd said, pulling a pen from another pocket. “Your name, son?”

“Kassur,” Kassur answered.

“Uhhhhh-huh.” Edd started writing some sloppy Daedric, and then showed it to Kassur. “Did I spell it right?”

From what Kassur could tell - it was very sloppy Daedric, and he struggled enough to read proper Daedric - Edd had written “Casser.” Kassur closed his eyes and nodded. Maybe the curse he was bringing upon himself by joining this House wouldn’t take effect if they got his name wrong.

“Alright,” Edd said, putting away the pen and book. “You’re now a hireling of House Telvanni.”

“Work?” Kassur said.

“Ah, you require a chore,” Edd said. He pulled out another book from another pocket and started flipping through it. “Well, there is something I need somebody to do. I was going to get somebody higher-ranked to do it, but you seem capable enough. Plus I’m running out of time.” From yet another pocket he pulled out some kind of amulet. “In an hour or so on the east end of town, down the road past the cornerclub, there’s going to be a little meeting between a couple of important people. I want you to wear this, hide nearby, and report back to me on what they talk about. Understood?”

Kassur took the amulet from Edd’s hands. It had an ordinary leather strap but a rather enormous sapphire embedded in the six-pointed talisman. He wrapped it around his throat and clasped it behind his neck. It felt warm to the touch as it activated.

“Well then! Where’d Casser go?” Edd said. “Haha! I know you’re still there. It’s quite an exceptional necklace, so do bring it back. Archmagister’s property.”

Kassur looked at his hands and could barely see them. All that remained of his body was a faint shimmer, like a mirage on a hot ashland day. He took off the amulet, and his form returned to normal. He put it in his pocket, waved Edd goodbye, and left to cross town again. 

- - - - -

The sun was hanging low when Kassur hid behind a rock, put on the necklace, and waited. This side of the island was devoid of civilization, besides an abandoned ancient Daedric ruin like the one Kassur had passed on the ship. The boulder he chose to hide behind was large and mossy and covered in racer droppings.

Eventually, two people did show up. One was Helende, the enormous mer from the cornerclub, armored with netch leather. The other was the Mage’s Guild Argonian, Skink, who wore commoners clothing, but had a glass dagger on his belt. Kassur leaned in slightly to listen to what was said. 

They were speaking Cyrodiilic. 

Kassur pressed his palms into his eyes and suppressed a sigh. This obviously wasn’t going to work. He waited for the two to leave before he removed the amulet. 

What was he going to do? He had nothing to report to Edd, because he didn’t understand a word that was said. He needed to get the hell out of this town.

But right now, he was exhausted and needed a bed to sleep in. He pulled out his coinpurse and counted out his seven coins. Suddenly, he remembered the small book in his other pocket, the one Yakin had given him, and he had an idea.

Kassur crossed the town again and made for the market. There was the strange short mer from earlier, seemingly closing up shop. Kassur approached, but the mer saw and shook his head. “Closed for the day,” he said in shaky Dunmeris.

“Just want to sell something,” Kassur said.

“Too bad. Wait until morning.” The little mer finished packing up his goods and left for his home.

Kassur sighed. He decided to make his way to the inn where he’d purchased his Hospitality Papers, and hoped he could beg his way into getting a room for the night.

He went up the spiral stairs to reach the front door of the inn and went inside. There he saw the Prefect again, dozing at his desk. “Hello,” Kassur said, carefully shaking the Prefect from his tenuous slumber.

The Prefect straightened his back and looked up at Kassur. “Ah, need Papers?…Oh, of course not. What can I do for you?”

“Bed?” Kassur asked.

“Ah,” the Prefect said. “Talk to the publican, Ery, two stories up. She can get you signed in.” He waved Kassur off, presumably so he could resume his half-sleep at his desk uninterrupted.

Kassur went up the spiral stairs, first passing a floor with a couple of empty but candlelit tables, then up another flight to a bar. At the center was a dark-skinned woman in a brownish-green robe. “Ery?” Kassur asked tentatively.

“The one and only,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Bed?” 

“Ah. That’ll be ten gold.” 

Kassur frowned and held out his hand, filled with his last seven coins. “Enough?”

Ery took the coins and counted them out. “No, not enough. It’s ten gold.”

Kassur rubbed his forehead. She was really going to make him do it, huh…He pulled his book from his pocket and handed it over as well. “Enough?”

Ery took the book and flipped through it. “I don’t buy books, sera.”

“Please,” Kassur said.

“Don’t look so desperate, sera,” Ery said. “I’ll take it, and your coin. I happen to like books like these. But you’re getting the shit room, just to let you know.”

She took down his name in a logbook and gave him directions to his room, and he followed them. He probably could have gotten more for the book than three drakes at an actual bookshop, but he didn’t have the luxury of selling it at one at the moment. He closed the door to his room behind him, and, having nothing to put away, he simply threw himself on the bed, and tried not to fall apart again. He was completely out of gold, stuck in a foreign town, with no way home. And this room reeked, like the smell of burning shock magic. It gave him a very uneasy feeling. He didn’t know how he was ever going to sleep here. Much less how he was ever going to get home, and even much less how he was going to save his tribe.

As he stared at the high ceiling, tied up with fungal roots, he was unable to close his eyes for sleep. But suddenly, he had an idea.

Tomorrow morning, he was going to go back to the docks.

- - - - -

Kassur made sure Gals Arethi wasn’t around before he carefully stepped onto the boat, warmly magical amulet around his neck. He made an effort to do it more gracefully than he had yesterday. Crouched low, he nearly crawled upon the planks, trying to be both steady and unseen. Of course, with this necklace, no one was going to see him, anyway.

Thankfully, the hatch to below the deck was propped open. Kassur approached and was just about to make his way down when Gals Arethi’s head poked out of the trapdoor and looked around. Kassur crouched even lower, sitting perfectly still.

But Gals didn’t seem to see him. He went back down the stairs into the ship.

Kassur waited for a moment before following him down. This level of the boat was stocked with barrels and crates and chests and sacks. He decided to take a spot behind the stairs to hide, and hoped Gals had no reason to come down there to that particular place. Anxiously he waited for Gals to go back up the stairs and close the hatch behind him before he began to relax.

Eventually Kassur heard some creaking of the deck above him - had Gals heard that when Kassur boarded? - and soon felt that uneasy feeling of movement through the water. Gals should be busy above-deck until they arrive in Vos, and then Kassur could sneak back out when they get there.

Suddenly, the trap door opened again, and Kassur saw two furry feet descending the stairs. It was one of the cat-men, which he’d never seen before. He took a look around, and, seeing something nearby Kassur, his feline eyes lit up. He came behind the stairs - Kassur held his breath and stayed perfectly still - and picked up a lute leaning against the hull of the ship. He gave it a strum, adjusted the pegs on the head of the instrument, and took a seat on a nearby stool.

He was just about to start playing when he said, in strangely-accented Dunmeris, “Do you have any requests, invisible man?”

Kassur’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He held up a finger to his lips and shook his head.

“Ah,” the cat-man said, “S’Bakha sees. Or, doesn’t see. Maybe you will like this song, anyways.”

Then he began to play. He didn’t strum the entire collection of strings, but instead plucked them in a style of claw-picking Kassur had never seen or heard before. The instrument, although somewhat ill-tempered by the salty sea-air, still produced a beautiful sound with every note, playing a foreign song. Eventually S’Bakha began to sing, which wasn’t as good as the lute-playing, and Kassur didn’t understand the words. But Kassur relaxed as he listened. It helped to keep his mind off of things, such as his people’s plight, and more presently, the rocking of the ship.

It barely registered to him that the amulet was growing colder and colder.

- - - - -

They finally arrived, but seemingly much too soon. Did Gals take a shorter route? Or did the cat-man’s music just make the time seem to go by faster? S’Bakha set down the lute and rose to make for the deck. Kassur quietly followed after a moment or two.

The morning mist had mostly cleared, and the sun hung high in the sky. Crouched low on the deck, Kassur saw Gals conversing with his legitimate passengers. To Kassur’s surprise, it was the Argonian from Sadrith Mora’s market the day before, and one of their earlier compatriots, a Dunmer man. S’Bakha went to join them, which caused Gals to turn his head. 

He saw Kassur.

“You!” he said, marching up towards Kassur, who stood up straight, knowing there was no escape now. “Ashlander! What are you doing on my ship?”

Kassur was too paralyzed to speak. 

“What’s going on here?” asked the imposing Argonian.

“It seems to me,” Gals said, “that this low-life has stowed away on my ship without paying fare!”

“Gals,” the robed Dunmer next to the Argonian said, “if that is the worst thing that happens to you today, consider yourself very lucky. Young man,” he said, addressing Kassur now, “Where were you hoping to go?”

“V-Vos,” Kassur managed through trembling lips.

“The poor chap didn’t even get where he wanted to go. Shame.” The Dunmer turned back to Gals. “Let him go. See if he finds Tel Aruhn any better a place than Sadrith Mora.”

“Wait,” the Argonian said, sauntering up to Kassur. They took hold of the amulet around his neck and plucked it off forcefully. “This is mine. How did you get it?”

“Edd gave it to me,” Kassur croaked. “For a chore.”

“Typical,” the Argonian said, pocketing the amulet. “And you’ve drained it, too.”

“Wait,” Kassur said, realizing. “You’re the Archmagister? He said it was hers.”

“Yes, despite all challenges,” she said. 

“I need your aid,” Kassur said. “Ahemmusa needs your aid.”

“Again?” the Archmagister laughed. “Do they need me to clear out another shrine?”

“No,” Kassur said. “They’ve gone mad. They need help.”

“Aryon’s jurisdiction,” she said, glancing at the Dunmer at her side. “And we’re both busy at the moment.”

“Meet me at Tel Vos tomorrow,” Aryon said with a polite smile. “We’ll see what can be done.”

“I can’t get there,” Kassur said. “No money.”

The cat-man, S’Bakha, stepped in. “Gracious Archmagister, S’Bakha believes there is the small matter of payment for his humble aid in your recent quest?”

“Hmph,” said the Archmagister. She fumbled around in a pocket of her robes - which Kassur just now noticed had a great gash in it, which hadn’t been present yesterday, revealing her armor underneath - and handed S’Bakha a bag full of coins. “Not sure how much that is. But you can have it.”

The cat-man, shrewd as Kassur had heard his kind to be, opened the bag and started counting. “Most gracious Archmagister,” he exclaimed, “this is nearly a thousand drakes! Are you sure?”

“Take it,” the Archmagister said with a nod. “You’ve earned it.”

“Well,” S’Bakha said, turning to Gals, “How much fare for a mer to get to Vos?”

Gals grumbled. “Fifty septims.”

S’Bakha casually grabbed a hearty handful of coins and handed them to Gals. “That should be enough, plus a tip, for you being such a compassionate man. Take this young man home.”

Kassur stared at S’Bakha, wide-eyed. “But…I barely know you.”

“You were a good sport, listening to S’Bakha play and sing,” S’Bakha said. “A good audience, even when you were invisible. Usually the performer is paid by the audience, but, well. The performer has suddenly encountered a great windfall.”

“Thank you,” said Kassur. 

“Archmagister,” Aryon said, placing a gentle gloved hand on her armored shoulder, “We have our…bloody business to attend to.”

“Yes,” she said, and the three turned to depart the ship, leaving behind Gals and Kassur.

“You’re lucky the Archmagister’s pet intervened,” Gals said. “Now get below deck. I don’t want to see you until we get to Vos, or I’ll throw you overboard.”

Kassur smiled and nodded. He was just glad to go home.