vosh-rakh

[vosh-rakh]

chapter 7 of madstone is up!

[vosh-rakh]

posted my martin+olof/baurus fic on ao3! it's called dragonlorn

[vosh-rakh]

Martin didn’t lack for company. The Blades insisted upon him at every moment: to guard him, to quiz him, to dote and serve and sometimes just loiter nearby, reverently soaking in the presence of a new Emperor. And Jauffre insisted on constant lessons in royal etiquette, political education, and the history of the lineage. But all this did not satisfy what company Martin truly wanted: absent Olof’s.

Cloud Ruler was an expansive compound, but Martin felt chained there with his longing. The time he’d spent with Olof (and to a lesser extent, Jauffre) traveling the Colovian countryside towards Bruma and Cloud Ruler felt like a torturous memory — far removed from this hazy dream of boring mundanity — that he struggled to cling to amidst the constant influx of new expectations. Sometimes he swore he could barely remember Olof’s face, just a grey oval with two bright rubies embedded therein like embers. 

Jauffre — curse him — had sent Olof away to rendezvous with Baurus in the Imperial City for some clandestine investigation into the Mythic Dawn and the whereabouts of the Amulet of Kings. It had only been a couple of weeks at most, but to Martin it felt like an agonizing eternity. 

Finally, he couldn’t handle being cooped up any longer. Slipping past the night guards in the early morning, he descended the hilltop and wandered the snowy Bruma county, night after night. He wore heavy enough clothes — he wasn’t that soulsick over Olof — but he enjoyed the cold’s sting on his fingers and cheeks. It returned an intimate feeling of real immediacy to his life that he’d been missing during this long sleep. He always made sure to return to the temple before his absence was noticed, cutting this time outside woefully short, but he didn’t want a chastening from Captain Steffan, or worse, Grandmaster Jauffre. 

It was the 20th of Frostfall (Jauffre impressed upon Martin the importance of paying close attention to dates) when Martin went out for his fifth and final night.

Martin stared in the distance at the crooked tower to the east. The Blades had called it “Frostcrag Spire,” but none knew much else about it. Martin had only had time to examine a paltry few books from the temple’s libraries, and none had mentioned this place.

He sighed, his breath forming a crystalline vapor in front of his face. He pulled down his hood and shook out his hair, hoping to catch some snow in it. The frigid flakes would melt by the blazing braziers of Cloud Ruler, and it would only seem as though he had just taken a bath. But he cherished them, Zenithar’s beautiful collaboration with Kynareth, while they lasted.

“Lady Kalthav?”

Martin froze. That was his traveling pseudonym, from when Olof and Jauffre were transporting him to Cloud Ruler. But he didn’t recognize the voice that called it.

“Yes, surely you’re Lady Kalthav,” continued the voice. “Your beautiful shoulders give it away.”

Martin slowly turned, his feet shuffling in the snow. “Look, friend, I’m not sure who you think I am, but —”

“Ah!” said the man, a Dunmer in red robes. “What a wonderful beard you have, Lady Kalthav.” Martin hadn’t shaved in several days, and sported a dense stubble on his face. “Why, I’d say it makes you look quite a bit like our late Emperor, don’t you think?”

Martin’s eyes widened, but he answered genuinely: “I can’t say I’ve ever heard that before, no.”

The Dunmer smiled, a wicked splitting of his lips, baring teeth like from a wolf’s maw. “A shame. How handsome you are, Lady Kalthav. Truly a royal visage you possess.” The Dunmer made a show of looking around at the fields of white around them. “Another shame that your…kindly entourage isn’t here to look upon it with me, isn’t it?”

Jauffre had insisted Martin keep a dagger on his person at all times. Martin thought it pointless; he was a rather skilled mage, and didn’t need a weapon beyond his wits to defend himself. So he left it behind tonight. He began to quietly channel fire into his fingertips, ready for a fight.

“Yes,” continued the Dunmer. “A shame no one is here to guard you. Your Blades are quite useless, aren’t they? First your father, and now you. It’s almost as if they never wanted to protect you in the first place.” He cast a spell, and heavy Daedric armor molded itself around him in a red haze like blood, a spiked mace appearing in his hand to accompany it. “Know that this is the will of Mankar Camoran, of Mehrunes Dagon; that Paradise shall overtake this cursed world; that —”

His voice was cut off by an arrow to the throat.

The Dunmer collapsed, his conjured armor and weapon fading away into the cold night air, his jugular blood painting the snow red.

Martin spun around again, in the direction of the arrow’s arrival. At first he saw nothing but a sea of white under a span of stars. Then a figure rose from a crouch, bow in hand.

“Olof!” Martin ran to Olof — as fast as he could in several inches of snow, at least — and embraced him. “You’re back!”

“Aye, Martin,” said Olof with a smile. “But what are you doing out here? He could have killed you.”

“I could have handled him. I’m not helpless.”

“You only know touch spells.” Olof wriggled out of Martin’s arms to properly scold him. “You would have had a hard time getting close with that mace threatening you.”

“You sound like Jauffre.” This realization depressed Martin more than he thought it would.

“Whatever. Come along; Baurus is waiting at Cloud Ruler. We’ve news about the Mythic Dawn.”

Martin wanted so desperately for him to take his shivering hand, to lead him back to the temple with that warmth. But Olof suddenly seemed as cold and distant as the ice in the sky. Martin sighed and simply followed.

[vosh-rakh]

The Elven Gardens District was much less filthy than the Market District, but it was annoyingly pompous. Olof was not unaccustomed to a little grime, but being free of it was nice; what he was less used to, however, was the kind of stuck-up citizens that called the Elven Gardens home. At least he was meant to meet Baurus at a boarding house, Luther Broad’s to be specific. Olof hoped the clientele there would be a bit less uppity. He kept his hand close to his concealed dagger, just in case.

He opened the door and saw three men present. One, presumably Luther Broad himself, stood behind a bar; another, perhaps a Breton, sat at a chair by a window, reading lazily from a small red book with no discernible title on the cover. Not a Redguard, so not Baurus. The last sat at a stool across from Luther, his head hooded and lowered over a still-mostly-full glass of mead. 

Olof took a seat next to the hooded man. “Baurus?” he whispered.

Olof caught a glimpse of Baurus’s beard, disheveled and unkempt, as he turned his head nearly imperceptibly towards him. “Look away from me,” he hissed back. Olof obeyed. “I’m about to stand up and go downstairs,” Baurus said. “I think that man reading in the corner will follow me. Follow him when he does. Don’t let him see you.”

Olof almost spoke assent, but kept his lips shut. Baurus waited a beat, then stood. Luther Broad glanced suspiciously at the full glass, but said nothing. Baurus walked around the bar and headed towards a basement door around the corner.

Sure enough, after the door closed behind Baurus, the reading man closed his book, pocketed it, and followed after him. Just the same, as the door closed shut, Olof followed suit. Once the door closed behind him, he pulled his dagger from its sheath.

Swiftly yet softly Olof descended the stairs after seeing the stranger’s heel turn the corner. He peeked his head around the corner to watch.

“Do we have an issue?” asked Baurus of the man confronting him.

“Stupid question,” snarled the assassin. “Of course we do.” With a wave of his hand, he was wrapped in the Daedric armor typical of the Mythic Dawn, and his hand was wrapped around a wicked weapon aimed for Baurus’s heart. 

Baurus drew his own katana with a trained ease and deflected the sudden strike in a single stroke. But the assassin had the advantage of a smaller, faster weapon, and immediately struck again, cutting through Baurus’s shirt and leaving a bloody — if shallow — gash across his chest. Baurus fell back, and just as the assassin was about to strike again —

Olof slit the assassin’s neck from behind — a move he learned from watching Uriel’s murder. Immediately the assassin perished, the armor and weapon evaporating into the air in crimson sparks, returning to Oblivion for future reuse by a more successful cultist.

Olof threw the body to the side and leapt towards Baurus. “Are you alright?”

“Just a flesh wound,” Baurus said, clutching the cut on his chest. 

Baurus attempted to stand, but Olof pushed him down. “Stop,” Olof commanded. “Standing will make it bleed more. Let me heal you.” Baurus sighed and nodded. 

Olof softly pressed his hand against the wound, both to stifle the flow and to pour magicka into patching it up. Baurus flinched and grabbed Olof by the wrist.

“It’s alright,” Olof said. But he was blushing, too — he felt the strength of Baurus’s heart pushing blood out, slower and slower, until Olof only felt the beat beneath his mended skin. 

There was a silence, which took too long for either man to realize was a bit embarrassing. Finally Olof looked away and wiped his bloodied hand on his trousers. “You shouldn’t walk around with that sword.”

“What?” Baurus asked. He allowed Olof to help him stand.

“I don’t think anyone in Tamriel uses Akaviri katanas besides the Blades. Makes you an easy mark for the Mythic Dawn.”

“What would you know about the Mythic Dawn?” asked Baurus.

“You still doubt my allegiance?”

“...No. But I’m the one who’s been researching them. Not you, to my knowledge.”

“I just have common sense.” Olof kicked the corpse on the floor, his neck still spurting, but barely. He squatted and dug his hands through the man’s pockets. A few septims, and that strange red book. He opened the cover and found the title, reading it aloud: “Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, Book One. By…Mankar Camoran.” He showed Baurus, who had stepped forward to see. “Ring a bell?”

“A very quiet bell,” Baurus said. “This is a Mythic Dawn book. There’s supposed to be several books of the Commentaries. I don’t know how many.”

“Would anyone?”

“Well, I can’t just go up to a cultist and ask, you know.”

“Hm…” Olof opened the tap on a nearby keg and poured out some ale, washing more blood from his hands.

“Well,” Baurus said, thinking. “I have a contact with the Arcane University. Tar-Meena. She might know.”

Olof closed the tap and started drying his hands on the bloodstain on his trousers. “Let’s go see her, then.”

“You will,” Baurus said. “I have other leads to follow.”

“So you’re still bossing me around?” Olof smirked to soften the accusation.

“Might as well,” said Baurus, returning the smile. “I have seniority.”

“Is that so?” said Olof. “Have you ever rescued a lost Imperial heir?”

“He’s safe?” Baurus gasped, his eyes wide.

“Yes. His name is Martin. Jauffre and I took him to Cloud Ruler Temple.”

“Thank the Nine. Now we just need to —”

“— but we’ve lost the Amulet of Kings to the Mythic Dawn.” It took a lot of effort to not blame Jauffre out loud.

“Dammit!” said Baurus. “At least Martin is safe. We can work towards recovering the Amulet. We just need to find the cult’s headquarters and leader, I’m sure. I’ve already been working towards that end.”

“Good. Let’s get busy, then.”

“Yes. Let’s.”

[vosh-rakh]

Cloud Ruler Temple seemed less a temple, more a fortress. Its massive, ancient stone fortifications rose high on a Jerall peak, looming over Bruma like a staunch sentinel. Its halls stretched from wing-to-wing, and secret passageways channeled into the mountain spiraled deep within. The only thing resembling a traditional “temple” here was a shrine to Akatosh Martin would later discover deep within those winding tunnels. After intensive study and prayer, he discovered it had some sort of abjurative properties, warding off evil from the surrounding area. Truly, Cloud Ruler seemed impenetrable; surely no Oblivion Gate could open here, perhaps not even anywhere near Bruma.

After Martin, Olof, and Jauffre finally arrived, and Martin was coaxed into his improvised first speech as hidden Emperor, he was shown his room in the Temple by one of the Blades, Captain Steffan. At Kvatch he’d lived rather modestly as a priest. Skipping to his earliest days as a farmer’s son, he’d lived even more modestly. But this bedroom was huge, and ornate, and luxurious — and dusty. Clearly no Emperor had stayed here in ages, and at some point in those long years the Blades had given up on sweeping or otherwise keeping tidy. Steffan apologized profusely, and went to fetch a younger Blade to attend to the cleaning at once. Martin almost apologized for Steffan putting them through all the trouble, but realized that this was just his life now. No point in denying it — he was heir to the throne, and had better start acting like it.

Martin had Steffan show him to the library in the meantime. Evidently there was no library as such; simply walls lined with shelves in some of the major rooms of the temple. Steffan took him first to the Great Hall, where he imagined the most pertinent tomes to his search could be found. The large fireplace crackled surprisingly gently, fighting the cold northern air trying to creep in through every crack. Swords hung from the walls and columns supporting the ceiling. (“These,” Steffan had said, pointing to a pair in esteemed position, “were Captain Renault’s and Agent Glenroy’s. They died trying to protect your father. Baurus brought them to us. Evidently your friend Olof was the one who recovered them.”) 

After Steffan had left, and the admiration and anxious glances of the other Blades had disappeared into the barracks, Martin was alone in the Great Hall. Well, nearly so. Olof volunteered to keep an eye on him so as to keep the other Blades off Martin’s back. Jauffre vouched for his trustworthiness, so they permitted it. Olof had doffed his armor and even discarded his sword leaning against a table across the room. He sat across from Martin, legs crossed and feet propped up on the table, his arms crossed over his chest, his chair tipped delicately back as he dozed.

His chest. He was wearing, for the first time since Martin had met him, a clean shirt, but it was half-unbuttoned. Martin was constantly distracted by the thick grey muscles buried under heavy black hair, the jagged scars under his pectorals. He had selected, seemingly by providence, to read a book entitled simply “The Amulet of Kings,” but couldn’t keep his eyes off of Olof, his chest, his hairy arms half-sleeved flexing in his half-sleep. 

“Whatcha reading?”

Martin nearly jumped out of his seat. He hadn’t expected Olof to speak, his lips seeming barely to move under his pitch-black mustache as he did so. Martin quickly returned his gaze to the dense blocks of text on the page, hoping to disguise his blush. “It’s a book about the Amulet. Appropriately called ‘The Amulet of Kings.’”

“Find anything interesting yet?” Olof’s eyes fluttered half-open, glancing at Martin.

“Well…” said Martin, trying to formulate a coherent thought. “I had already known a little about it. How Akatosh gave it to Saint Alessia in the First Era.” He flipped back a page, running his finger across the lines until he found what he was looking for. “But here it says that ‘so long as Alessia's generations were true to the dragon blood, Akatosh would endeavor to seal tight the Gates of Oblivion, and to deny the armies of daedra and undead to their enemies, the Daedra-loving Ayleids.’ And, later,” Martin flipped forward a few pages, “‘In token of this Covenant, Akatosh gave to Alessia and her descendants the Amulet of Kings and the Eternal Dragonfires of the Imperial City.’” He closed the book shut on a finger to keep his place. “So there’s a connection to the Dragonfires, and the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion…”

Olof nodded, seemingly lost in thought. “‘Close shut the jaws of Oblivion…’”

“Hm?” Martin tilted his head.

“It was something Uriel told me, right before he died. ‘Close shut the jaws of Oblivion.’ It just reminded me of that.”

“Ah,” said Martin. “He knew more than anyone else, it seems. If only I could…What was he like?”

“Uriel?” asked Olof. “I’m not really the person to ask. I only knew him for an hour or so. You’d be better off asking Jauffre.”

“But from what time you did know him,” Martin pushed. “What was he like?”

Olof paused for a moment. “Weird,” he said. Martin frowned, so Olof continued. “And mysterious. Always talking about prophecy and…dreams. How he’d seen me in a dream. How he knew he was going to die that day. And he was terribly sad when Captain Renault died. He knew he was meant to die, but not her.”

Before he realized what he was asking, Martin said, “What about your father?”

Olof’s eyes shot fully open, and his hand gripped his arm tight for a split second. “Sorry,” Martin said. “I didn’t — I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s…it’s alright. He was a good man. A kind father. Taught me a lot, even some magic.” To demonstrate, he held up two fingers and shot a spark of electricity between them. But the sudden movement upset his balance in the chair, and he fell backwards with a loud bang.

Martin jumped up out of his seat just as the door to the Great Hall opened, the guard Roliand appearing with his katana in hand. “Your Majesty…!”

“It’s alright!” said Martin. “Olof just fell in his chair. We’re alright.”

“Ah,” Roliand said, sheathing his sword. “Be more careful, Olof.”

“Aye, aye,” said Olof as Martin helped him to his feet. He righted his chair and sat back down with all four legs touching the floor. Roliand saluted Martin and closed the door behind him as he left.

Martin sat back down on the other side of the table with a quiet huff, and they were silent for a few moments. Martin almost reached for the book again to continue his study, but the thought just wouldn’t leave his brain. He had to ask. “Can you tell me what happened with your father?”

Olof softened a grimace but nodded. “I suppose.

“I’m from Solstheim, you see. It’s a small island in the Sea of Ghosts, sort of between Skyrim and Morrowind. Mostly Nords and Dunmer there, as you might expect. So my da, a Dunmer, met my ma, a Nord, and had me. No, don’t interrupt. I’m getting there.

“One day a Redguard woman — she was half-Orc, actually — came by Solstheim, shipwrecked. Her name was Qismehti, and my da knew her from when she was a kid. And in Morrowind, she was something of a big deal, politically. You probably don’t know much about Morrowind politics, so you wouldn’t understand. My da always droned on and on about the Redorans back home, in Blacklight, where he was from. Anyways — don’t interrupt.

“Okay, let me go back a bit. That year on Solstheim a lot was going on. There was a storm that kept a lot of people trapped there, unable to leave, and nobody from the mainland could visit, either. Qismehti got lucky she survived. But there was also this…thing with Hircine. Hircine is one of the — Oh, you know about him? Okay. Well, he had spread a curse of lycanthropy — that’s what makes people into werewolves, if you’ve ever heard of those — across the island. Lots of people got infected. 

“I was about nineteen then. And I was out one day, fishing, and I got attacked and bit by one of them. I barely made it out alive. But…different. I tried to hide it, but one day Qismehti found me out…’hunting’ — yes, as a wolf-man — and managed to knock some sense into me until I changed back. She wanted to help me, for my da’s sake, since they knew each other so well. So she tried to find a cure for it.

“She managed it. But she was too late. Before she could give me the cure, I’d…changed…and. Well. I was at home, you see, with ma and da, and…No, it’s okay. I can finish.

“I woke up in chains. Qismehti came and told me what happened. That…beast, inside of me. It killed my da. And my ma almost killed it — and me — until Qismehti came in and forced the cure on it. But my ma…I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me. She had me arrested, and they sent me off to the Imperial City’s Prison, and…well. Here I am.”

Martin sat quietly for a while. He wished he hadn’t asked. But he also felt an upwelling of intense sympathy for the man across from him. “It’s not your fault,” Martin said after a few moments of silence. “That wasn’t you.”

Olof rubbed his sharp and angular nose. “I know. But…well. Here I am. It is what it is.”

Martin reached across to touch Olof’s worn and calloused hand. “It doesn’t change my estimation of you, at all. You’re still a good man, Olof.”

“Thank you.”

The door to the West Wing creaked open. The Blade Arcturus entered and bowed to Martin. “Your Majesty. I’ve prepared your room for you, as befits an Emperor. Terribly sorry for the wait.”

“Go get some sleep, Martin,” said Olof. 

“Only if you do the same,” countered Martin with a sly smile.

Olof returned the smile. “I’ll try. Good night, Martin.”

“Good night, Olof.”

[vosh-rakh]

Daevos hated it here, this far up the Orange Road. This close to Bruma you started to see snow on the ground year-round. Daevos was from Cheydinhal, blissfully temperate, a proper place where it snowed only in winter. He shivered in his cult-appointed red robes (although these lacked the Dawn’s insignias, for incognito purposes). At least he was on a sacred mission for Lord Camoran, he thought — to find and destroy the final Septim.

Daevos and his cult-appointed partner, Talieron, a rather obnoxious Cyrod from Anvil who at least hated this weather as much as he did, were tracking north. They’d personally discovered the Mythic Dawn’s failure at Kvatch to dispatch the bastard Septim — damn Daedra couldn’t keep up their end of the bargain — and were chasing up the province to seek him out. So far, no luck; just a few random travelers, merchant caravans, pilgrims, and Imperial Soldiers — these latter they gave wide berth, despite their hidden natures. None of the others reported seeing anything unusual from the other direction, except the occasional report of an odd red glow in the distance seen from the road. At least the Daedra were making the most of the situation.

It was near dusk when they came upon a strange trio. Two armed guards accompanied a third unarmed in exquisite finery, their head draped with a thick hood. Daevos greeted them: “Hail, travelers. What news?”

The three stopped. One of the guards turned his head. By flesh and eye he was another Dunmer, like Daevos, but by ear he was a man. Strange. “Can’t say I’ve heard much, stranger,” said the guard. “Wolves about, and Daedra, if you heed the stories. Watch yourselves.”

A normal enough response, thought Daevos. He pushed further. “Are you a noble entourage, by chance?” He nodded at the third, by her dress a woman, but by shoulder a man. Perhaps a woman by choice, rather than by birth, Daevos thought. Or perhaps truly a man in disguise. 

“Aye,” said the strangely-eared Dunmer. “Lady Kalthav of Skingrad. But if you’ve a liking for wealth, I’d advise adventuring instead, lad. Many abandoned ruins to be found along these roads.”

Daevos had never heard of any noble Kalthav family, but then again, he wasn’t familiar with Colovia much. He glanced at Talieron. He shrugged. “No,” said Daevos. “We’ve no interest in your Lady. We’re just lost, you see. Which way to Chorrol?”

“Not this way,” said the other guard, not turning his head. “Follow the road south where you came, and mind the crossroad signs. You’ll find it.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” said Daevos. “We’ll be on our way, then.” 

Once Daevos and Talieron were out of earshot, Talieron said, “They were very suspicious. Why didn’t we accost them further?”

“Because we’re not idiots, Tal,” said Daevos. “Let’s pass into the woods once they can’t see us and follow them in secret.”

“Aye,” said Talieron. 

Daevos was very curious about this “Lady Kalthav.” Perhaps not their mark. But perhaps an interesting target regardless. They would follow her north to her destination, wherever it lay.

[vosh-rakh]

They stopped to camp a safe distance from the Orange Road. Jauffre had finished his watch, and closed his eyes to leave Olof to his. Olof hadn’t rested well, but kept a sharp eye out for assassins — or more likely, more wolves.

Olof glanced at Martin, who sat against a tree. His eyes were closed, but he was thumbing through a rosary, his lips mouthing prayers to Akatosh. 

“Can’t sleep?” Olof asked.

Martin paused in his count. “No,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I don’t particularly want to. I haven’t slept well since…you know.”

“I understand,” Olof said. Martin suspected he actually meant it. “Do you want to talk about it, Martin?”

Martin sighed and dropped the beads on his lap. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about, honestly. You were there, you know what happened.”

“Yes,” nodded Olof. “I’m sorry.”

Martin thought about Weynon, and the journey so far. “I almost didn’t feel anything when I saw Prior Maborel. I felt even less about the Mythic Dawn we slew in defense of the Priory, or the bandits we’ve run into along the way.”

“I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do, Olof,” snapped Martin quietly, so as not to wake Jauffre. “I was a farmer’s son, and then…a priest. I hadn’t seen many dead bodies before, much less killed anyone. You’re an adventurer, you’re already used to it.” Olof said nothing. “I feel so numb to it all. Does that make me a monster?”

“No,” said Olof. “Even if I don’t understand what it’s like for you, I know that you’re not a monster. Would you call me a monster?”

“Well…no, of course not. You’re more like a hero.”

Martin saw red under Olof’s sharp grey cheeks, and felt it heat up his own as well. “It’s just…” Martin struggled to find adequate words. “I’ve been through a lot the past few days, is all.”

“You’ll go through more, Your Highness, before all is said and done.”

Olof and Martin looked up at Jauffre, who had spoken. He continued: “You’ll be responsible for all of Tamriel soon as their Emperor. You must develop thicker skin to survive.”

“With all due respect —” Martin began.

“Leave him be, Jauffre!” said Olof, nearly shouting. “He’s just a man. And by no means a child, so don’t scold him like one.”

“Am I to care for what a murderer thinks of my abilities as Grandmaster of the Blades?” Olof fell silent. Martin glanced at him, confused. “Oh yes,” continued Jauffre. “I looked into you while you were gone. Only truly serious crimes are punished in the Imperial Prison. Patricide among them.”

“At least I’ve retrieved the Emperor!” Olof spat. “You lost the Amulet because you kept it in your bloody sock drawer!”

“Olof, Jauffre, please!” cried Martin. “That’s quite enough. Jauffre was only doing the best he could on short notice. And I’m sure Olof…regrets what happened with his father.” Martin didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He certainly didn’t want to pry right now.

The two men simmered down a bit. Olof crossed his arms and tilted his head back, glancing at the stars through the leaves above, and asked, “Why did they come after the Amulet of Kings, anyway?”

Jauffre became suddenly thoughtful. “I’m not sure. Of course Uriel had enemies, and this was only the first successful assassination attempt on him and his sons. But how could they have known about Martin for the Kvatch attack? Or that we would bring him to Weynon? Perhaps they sought to kill me, instead.”

“Maybe,” said Martin, “there’s more importance to the Amulet than we realize.”

The conversation paused. Martin thought it disconcerting that not even Jauffre knew the answers to this mystery. “When we arrive at Cloud Ruler,” Martin said, breaking the silence, “I will study this. I’ve been a scholar before. Perhaps I can discover something in the library of the Blades.”

Jauffre and Olof both nodded. “Yes,” said Jauffre. “Perhaps.”

“Try to sleep, both of you,” said Olof. “I’ll keep watch, don’t worry.”

The rest of the night was uneventful, save for Martin’s fitful, restless sleep.

[vosh-rakh]

The Hero of Kvatch and the bastard heir to the Empire winded their way down the hillside path from Kvatch’s refugee camp, to where the former had parked his horse on loan from Prior Maborel. The horrid blood-red cracked-and-crackling sky had now faded into the peaceful blue of late morning, and most of the fires of the city had been put out by the survivors. But Martin would not be there to help rebuild, to soothe the traumas of the few living, to give last rites to the countless dead. He had a purpose much more urgent, one he still did not understand.

Itching to break the silence populated only sparsely by their crunching footsteps on the gravelly road, Martin spoke. “Olof…that’s what you said, right?”

Olof spasmed momentarily, caught off guard. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, glancing back again — as he was anxiously doing every minute or so — “Olof Gabinna, at your service.”

“Olof doesn’t sound like a Dunmer name. I’ve never met a Dark Elf named anything like that.”

Olof chuckled, his goatee bristling with the movement of his lips. “I suppose you haven’t. That’s because I’m a Nord.”

“Right…you haven’t the knife-ears of an elf, have you?” Becoming aware of a faux pas, he added, “Sorry, that must come off as terribly rude, mustn’t it?”

“No, I understand,” Olof said, returning his eyes to the downhill slope to watch his footing. “I get it a lot. My da was a Dunmer, you see, but my ma was a Nord. So by Imperial law, a Nord I am.”

“Hm.” Martin looked up at the azure sky above. Secunda was still hanging blearily there, opposite Magnus. It had looked so dire, an evil portent, when the sky was blazing crimson. Now it was the same serene body it had always been, every night and day he’d seen it —

Martin tripped on his priestly robes, almost falling headlong onto his face. But OIof spun around and caught him by the shoulders and hoisted him back up. 

“Thank you,” muttered Martin, blushing. Olof was strong, and quick, too – Martin couldn’t believe how fast he’d turned, how rapid his reaction was.

“It’s alright,” said Olof with a smile. “Just be careful, alright? You’re our last hope for Tamriel, after all.”

“Is there really nothing more you can tell me about…all that?” Martin asked, dusting off his knees. 

“I’m afraid not,” said Olof, offering a pitying smile. “You’ll have to talk to Jauffre. All I know is, you’re Uriel Septim’s son. Jauffre said so, and the Emperor said so himself.”

“The Emperor…my father. I can’t believe it.”

“I suppose it’s rather fantastical. But I trust Jauffre, and Uriel.” Olof omitted saying that he had no choice but to — it was the only chance he had at freedom. He could just as easily be locked back up if he didn’t serve the Blades in this capacity. “I hope you can at least trust me until we arrive at Weynon Priory.” Olof turned and continued their descent.

“Weynon?” Martin asked as he followed after Olof, more careful of his footing now. “That’s by Chorrol, yes? Dedicated to Talos?”

“Aye. It’s evidently a safehouse for the Blades -– the Emperor’s sworn bodyguards. Jauffre himself is the Grandmaster of the Blades.”

“I see,” Martin said. There was so much new information to process in such a short span of time. He had just been a priest. Then Daedra poured over the walls of his city, killing so many so fast, nearly shattering his faith. But he had to be strong for his flock as they hid within the chapel. Then their salvation came, a grey-skinned, red-eyed Nord, claiming Martin was the son of the assassinated Emperor. It was so much. Too much. He feared he’d never take it all in properly.

They arrived at Olof’s borrowed horse, brown splotched with white. “We must ride to Weynon,” Olof said, “to reach Jauffre as quickly as possible. There’s room enough on the saddle for you to sit behind me. Is that alright, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, but OIof — I’m not Emperor yet, am I?”

“I…suppose not,” Olof said, scratching the back of his neck.

“Then call me Martin, please.”

“Alright, Martin.” Olof smiled, the faint-yellow of his teeth splitting his black goatee in an irresistibly charming way. 

Olof climbed into the saddle, and then extended a hand to Martin to help him up as well. Martin took it and allowed Olof’s Nord muscles to hoist him onto the horse. “Hold on tight,” said Olof. “We’ll need to travel swiftly.”

Martin wrapped his arms around Olof’s chest, the steel cuirass there. Olof hesitated to kick the horse into motion. Even through the steel he could feel the warmth and tightness of Martin’s embrace, and he felt something he’d never felt before, but couldn’t identify. He shook his head to clear it, leaving it for another day to ponder. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides, and they took off.

[vosh-rakh]

Malcius winced as do’Matthri pressed an alcohol-soaked sponge against the long cut running down his forearm. “Abbess,” he groaned, “can’t you just use a spell?”

Do’Matthri glanced her feline eyes up at Malcius before returning her attention to her wound-tending. “Pain teaches lessons,” she said, her old voice a chiding half-purr. “Lessons you sorely need to learn.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Malcius, nearly stumbling over his words as he lied.

“Then how did you get so roughed up?” asked do’Matthri as she began to suture up the gash, pulling the string tight after each puncture; Malcius winced again with each stab of the needle and yank of the thread.

“I, er…fell off a cliff,” lied Malcius again. Mara forgive my deceit…

Do’Matthri stopped and looked up at Malcius, locking eyes with him. “And do’Matthri supposes,” she began slowly, “that the stones at the bottom were shaped like fists, and wielded swords.”

Malcius looked away. “But I won.”

“It is never about simply winning,” sighed do’Matthri, “if your ambitions are misaligned.” She grabbed Malcius by the chin and forced him to look at her. “Are your goals pure?” 

Resolutely, Malcius instantly said, “Yes.”

“Hm,” do’Matthri said, looking down at her half-finished suturing. “Do’Matthri hopes you are right. She cannot stop your foolishness.” She returned to her stitching, more gently this time. Malcius watched her finish closing the wound, his face expressionless.

After she tied the thread and cut the excess with a pair of scissors, she set them down and sighed. “Malcius…” She gently tilted his head up with her sheathed claws to meet his gaze again. “Do not get yourself killed. For my sake. You are…” 

Do’Matthri hesitated, her voice drifting into a sad purr. But Malcius understood. 

“Just don’t,” she finally finished.

Malcius smiled. He was nearly forty-one now, but he had a youthful face, his cheeks round and red. The only sign of his age was the beginning of crows’ feet around his eyes, and hearty laugh-lines around his mouth. “I won’t, Abbess,” he said, taking her hand, fur thin and grey with age. “I can protect myself, and others. I learned from the best.”

Do’Matthri flashed a small smile and nodded, but her eyes fluttered away from Malcius’. She pulled down his sleeve over the closed wound and patted him on the knee. “Get some rest, Brother Malcius. Prayer starts at sunrise.”

“Yes, Abbess,” said Malcius, standing and scurrying away. But he doubted he’d get much sleep tonight. 

- - -

Masser and Secunda shone bright over Kvatch, watching the night as God’s eyes. But there was another Watcher.

A young Breton woman was winding her way through the streets, drunk and despondent – an easy target. The Watcher had been following her from the rooftops over the past few hours. She had gone to Pinder’s dressed up for a date, but was evidently stood up. The Watcher couldn’t see into the tavern, but she left after a couple of hours, her makeup smeared under her eyes, corkless bottle of Surilie in hand. The Watcher didn’t know where she lived, but she didn’t act like she did, either. She made strange circles of the streets of Kvatch, singing sad songs, seemingly disinterested in arriving anywhere. The Watcher pitied her; lost love is indeed hard to swallow. Wine, less so.

She cut off her song as she realized she’d stumbled into yet another dead-end alley. She stomped her foot petulantly and took another swig from the bottle. She turned to see she was not alone, but she was too intoxicated to scream in fright.

“Not right to…hic…sneak up on a girl at night, y’know,” she slurred at the three cloaked gentlemen at the mouth of the alley. 

“Yeah,” said the man in the middle, “it sure ain’t.”

His tone straightened the woman’s back and widened her eyes. She dropped the nearly empty bottle of wine, which shattered on the brickwork under her feet. 

The three men snickered and approached. The man in the center – clearly the leader – said, “Look. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want that pretty necklace you got,” he said, pointing a suddenly-materialized club at her throat. He looked at her shaking hands and smiled, the moonlight illuminating his face with a sinister glow. “Maybe those rings, too. And any coin you got.”

“No,” said the woman, scared sober. “You won’t. I’ll scream.”

The man on the left, larger than the other two, laughed. “Oh no, fellas. She’ll scream. What’ll we do?” He pulled out his own club, and with the leader rushed the woman, grabbing her by each arm. She tried to scream, but the leader clubbed her in the belly, cutting off the sound.

The third man, a bit shorter than the leader, stepped up casually. He reached for the silver necklace around the woman’s throat and admired it. “Ah. Pretty amethyst here. Where’d you get the piece? Hundar’s on Aquilarios?” The woman nodded slowly. “Good. We’ll pass that on to the fence. Now be a good girl and hush while we rob you.”

That was enough. The Watcher descended in a series of quick bounds down the nearby buildings before landing in a clumsy roll behind the robbers. The sound of his heft bouncing against the cobbles turned them around. 

“And who in Oblivion are you, falling from the sky?” asked the man closest to the woman, his spin having torn the amulet from the woman’s throat.

The first man shivered visibly. “Boss, that’s…”

“The Watcher,” finished the burly man with the club. He pounded his palm with his club.

“So?” hissed the true leader, the man with the necklace. “Take care of him!”

The burly man marched towards the Watcher, raising his club overhead with one meaty arm – 

The Watcher dodged to the right and snuck in a jab to the side. Missed the kidney; not enough to take him down yet, not a big man like him. The thug made a blind swing. The Watcher ducked under it, then lunged forward past him, chopping hard behind his knee on his way, buckling it. The thug came down hard on one side, barely supporting himself with his other bent leg. The Watcher wrapped around, grabbing him tight by the neck, and pinning the thug’s club-bearing wrist down with his foot. The thug clawed helplessly at the Watcher’s arm.

Footsteps behind. The Watcher let go of the thug and swept to the side. 

The center man’s club came down hard on the back of his friend’s head. The burly thug fell over with a gasp, knocked out. 

The Watcher spun to take care of the new thug. Smaller, but no less dangerous; in some ways, moreso. 

The Watcher ducked a swipe at his head before hopping backwards for some space. He tried to remember what his master had taught him, about how to analyze patterns and weaknesses in his opponent. 

The thug seemed to favor his left foot, stepping forward only lightly on his right when he went for a strike. It reduced his power and reach, so it must be a compensation. 

As good an exploit as any. The Watcher leapt forward at just the right time during the thug’s next attack to catch his elbow and slam his heel into his toes. The thug yelped, but didn’t let go of the club like the Watcher had hoped. Desperately the Watcher held his lock on the thug’s arm, weathering the punches from his offhand. 

With all his strength, the Watcher leveraged their locked arms to throw the thug’s back against the wall of the alley. This was enough; the club clattered to the stones below. The Watcher slammed his knee into the thug’s gut, then slammed his head back again with his palm as he began to double over. The thug slumped down, unconscious. 

“Bastard!” 

The Watcher heard the word and the sound of a rattling sheathe at the same time. He whirled around to see the last thug bolting towards him, short sword in hand. He barely had time to throw up his arms before the thug made an overhead cut. 

The Watcher thanked Mara for the steel-studded leather bracers that deflected the blow. He jumped back a step to keep some distance. Maybe his legs were longer than the blade’s reach? If he was wrong, he’d risk a cut achilles or hamstring, which would quickly get him killed. But he had little choice; not only his, but that woman’s life, too, was on the line. 

The Watcher baited another overhead slice by feigning getting too close again, then went in for a high kick, aiming for the thug’s chin.

But the thug ducked, the Watcher’s foot connecting with thin air. The thug transferred his overhead momentum into a swipe at the Watcher’s stabilizing shin. It was a deep gash, cutting nearly to bone, the sudden pain bringing the Watcher down facefirst. 

It was all he could do to roll over to avoid the blade stabbing down into him, clattering off the cobbles instead. He tried kicking at the thug’s feet and ankles to no avail. The thug lunged and mounted the Watcher, trying again to plunge the sword into his chest. The Watcher desperately grabbed the blade close to the hilt, thankful for his gloves to keep them from being sliced up. But he was bleeding, and his strength was fading. The tip of the steel edged closer and closer to his throat. 

Then the thug gasped, a violent sucking of air through his gnashed teeth. They parted to allow a bloody cough to spray onto the Watcher’s face. His grip failed, and the Watcher was able to wrench the blade from him and toss it aside. The thug collapsed on top of him, dead.

The Watcher, with great difficulty, pushed the thug’s corpse off of himself. Behind the thug he saw the woman, bloody bottle-shard in hand.

“No,” said the Watcher. He rolled the thug over to inspect the wound. “No, no, no.” He rose to his feet, then collapsed to his knees, forgetting his injury. He spun a quick prayer to Mara, and the wound started to close. “Girl, what have you done?”

The woman dropped the broken bottle, her face a wound in and of itself, a grimace of horror and shock. “I killed him. You were – He was going to kill you!”

“No!” screamed the Watcher. “I could’ve…I would have…You…dammit!”

The Watcher ripped off his mask and threw it to the ground, clutching his face with the other hand. But the woman saw.

“Brother Malcius?”

“Aye…No concealing it now. It’s over.”

“What do you mean?” the woman asked. “It’s…Mara, it’s over for me. I just killed a man.”

Malcius sighed. “No. I did.”

“That’s not –”

“The Watcher, Malcius Maralius, finally got carried away tonight, and killed a man. You weren’t even here.”

The woman ran to Malcius, wiping blood from his face. “Brother Malcius, no. Don’t do this. I’ll…it’s my fault. I shouldn’t’ve –”

“Run, dammit!” he roared, pushing her away as he stood. “Go home. It’s over.”

The woman sobbed. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“Mara forgives all,” Malcius muttered. “Go. Don’t run. Just walk. Like you were never here.”

She did. But once she figured she was out of earshot – she wasn’t – she started running anyway. 

Malcius picked up his mask, his eyes matching with the crudely painted red eye covering the cloth. I was wrong to tell her that, he thought, that Mara forgives all. Mara will never forgive me.

[vosh-rakh]

The trek from Maar Gan, traveling the treacherous Foyada Bani-Dad up to the northern ashlands of Vvardenfell, was long and arduous, and cliff racers hounded Ku-vastei like flies. Some she could swat away; others, the truly hungry, she had to impale on her spear. She found that a quick swipe, her hands on the far end of the haft for extra reach, could rip open one of their wings. From there, finishing off the creature was a simple task, albeit annoying. She ended up covered in their black blood, staining her robes.

Once she found a gap in the Foyada’s eastern peaks, she found herself in a wide grey expanse of ash and dust. It was different from the ashlands near Ald’ruhn, and the hell-pits of Molag Amur. The air was calm, the atmosphere tranquil. Her scaled feet sank comfortably into the bed of ash, squeezing in between her clawed toes like sand. It seemed like the northern winds from the Sea of Ghosts kept away the ashstorms, and for this, she was immensely glad.

Ku-vastei could see nearby along the coast the distinctive shapes and spires of a Daedric ruin. None of the guides she consulted in Maar Gan mentioned this; she hadn’t thought to prepare for fighting Daedra. She gave it a wide berth as she traveled parallel to the shore, seeking the Urshilaku camp.

She caught the scent of the smoke before she saw it rising into the night sky, obscuring the stars. Tentatively she approached; eventually she saw the source casting warm light on patchwork guar and kagouti hides, silhouettes dancing like a shadowplay against their canvas.

The camp was small. She counted maybe twenty round tents erected around a smoothed plot of ashland, each scarcely adorned with hints of color in small tapestries and hanging rugs. A large silt strider shell, greyed from its many years of disuse, seemed to anchor the little village; a nearby small well surrounded by short black spires of igneous rock centered the huts around it. 

Ku-vastei realized she was being watched. A nearby Ashlander had stopped in his tracks, staring at her without expression. 

“Hail,” said Ku-vastei, breaking the uncomfortable silence. 

The Dunmer only grunted in response, his red eyes still trained on her scales.

Most other times, Ku-vastei might have taken offense. But way out here, in the middle of nowhere, she doubted this Dunmer had ever seen an Argonian in his life – maybe not even heard of such a person. She tried again. “Hail. I wish to speak to your…leader. Ashkhan. And your Wise Woman.”

The Ashlander scoffed. “And who are you,” he said, his voice somehow even more gravelly than the typical Vvardenfeller, “that you should ask for an audience with the great Sul-Matuul?” He spoke Dunmeris well enough, but it was clearly not his first language, judging by his intonation.

“I am Ku-vastei. I wish to learn about the Nerevarine prophecies.”

“You are an outlander,” corrected the Ashlander, “and not of the Velothi, much less our tribe. You will not receive audience.”

Ku-vastei’s tail swept through the ash behind her angrily. The Ashlander noticed, but didn’t seem to understand, his tired gaze unchanging. He began to turn around.

Ku-vastei took a deep breath to calm herself, and thought back to what Hassour had told her in Ald’ruhn about Ashlander customs. “Wait,” she said, calling back to the Ashlander as he started to walk away. He turned back. “Muthsera,” Ku-vastei said, “is there anything I can do for you? Is there something I could give to you, to earn your respect?”

The Ashlander cocked an eyebrow. “Hm. Maybe you do know our ways.” He paused to think for a moment. “Trama root. I need some for brewing Rising Force. I hunt in the foyada to the west for our tribe. It helps me to take flight to chase the racers when they flee.”

Ku-vastei reflected on her inventory, and begged for a moment from the Ashlander. She swung her pack from her shoulders, set it in the ash, and began to dig through her belongings. Eventually she pulled from it a nub of trama root, wrapped in paper to keep it from reacting with her other ingredients, and offered it to the hunter. “This will help you. I offer it freely, as a gift, muthsera.”

The hunter took the parcel and unfolded the paper to inspect the sample. “Yes, this will do. A large root, too. I can make several potions from just this.”

The camp was silent for a moment, its other denizens asleep, as the hunter quietly pocketed the trama root. Ku-vastei was unsure it had worked, and nearly spoke again, but the hunter cut her off. “Zabamund. You will speak with him, with my blessing. He is gulakhan, and the closest to Sul-Matuul. You can try to convince him to give you his blessing to speak with the ashkhan. Make sure to tell Zabamund that Shabinbael sent you. That is my name, and he will know it.”

“Where can I find Zabamund?”

“The ashkhan and gulakhan yurts are five yurts under one canopy, with Sul-Matuul’s at the center. The yurt to the right of his is Zabamund’s.”

Ku-vastei nodded, and said, “Thank you, muthsera.” Begrudgingly, she decided to add, “Blessings of Azura upon you.”

Never in the entire exchange did Shabinbael’s expression change, and it did not now. “Hmph,” he grumbled, before disappearing into a nearby tent.

Ku-vastei clasped her pack and returned it to her back, taking note of the nearby tents – “yurts,” Shabinbael called them – as she did. She took her small journal from a pocket in her robes, and jotted something down with her charcoal pencil about the layout of the camp before closing the book and pocketing it again. Then she headed for the largest complex of yurts, which housed the ashkhan and his gulakhans. Following Shabinbael’s directions, she cautiously entered the yurt right-of-center.

It was clearly the abode of a warrior. Chitin weapons and beast trophies hung from the kagouti-skin walls, leaning inwards towards the fire like individual threats. It put Ku-vastei’s tail on edge, as if she were personally under attack. 

Zabamund sat behind the fire, every inch of his body covered with chitin armor, his war-axe laying by his side inches from his resting hands. His eyes burned like burning coals, piercing the hearth’s flame, and Ku-vastei’s face.

“Outlander,” he spoke, his voice low and threatening. “Why do you think it proper to enter my home, during my time of rest?”

Ku-vastei set her jaw tight, the words barely passing through her teeth: “I am Ku-vastei, sent by Shabinbael. I wish to learn of the Nerevarine prophecies from your ashkhan and wise woman.”

Zabamund did not move; only the dancing of the flame, and the fluttering of the shadows of weapons and trophies on the walls. “And why should Sul-Matuul or Nibani Maesa speak with you on these things? Who are you, that they should trust you?”

Ku-vastei nearly rolled her eyes before catching herself. This old song and dance, again. She considered digging out her coinpurse, but she changed her mind with a glance at Zabamund’s war-axe, the only weapon in the room not flickering in the light. “I will fight you for the honor of Sul-Matuul’s ear. To the death, if need be, but I see you are an honorable man, of great accomplishment, and it would be a pity for your tribe to lose you.”

All was silent save the crackling of flame for a scant moment. But then a surprising thing happened, which caught Ku-vastei off-guard: Zabamund smiled, his teeth shining through the rising fire. “You are not an unworthy opponent,” he said. “I hear honor in your words, and courage in your heart. I would regret killing you. But regret even more should you kill me.” He paused a moment, considering carefully. “Very well. Perhaps Sul-Matuul will be angry with me. But I think I can bear that. Go to the ashkhan's yurt and speak with Sul-Matuul. Ask him your questions, and tell him I have sent you.”

Ku-vastei bowed, and ducked out of the tent. The warm light from the gulakhan’s hearthfire flickered away to nothing with each rhythmic shutter of the door-flap until it fell closed completely.

She turned one yurt to the left, towards Sul-Matuul’s tent. She took a deep breath of the cold night air before pushing the door-flap aside to enter.

The ashkhan’s walls were not covered with weapons, nor hunting- and war-trophies. They seemed bare at first, but then Ku-vastei slowly noticed they were lined with hanging scrolls, their strange lettering faint in the dim candlelight. The space was warm despite the lack of a true fire. Sul-Matuul stood stoic facing one such scroll, his eyes racing down its lines of script.

Ku-vastei made to speak, but Sul-Matuul spoke first. “My champion Zabamund has sent you. This is good. You wish to speak with me about the Nerevarine prophecies.” He turned his head towards Ku-vastei, still standing in the open door-flap. “Come in…Argonian. We may discuss this only in private.”

Ku-vastei couldn’t tell through his Velothi accent whether the tone of “Argonian” betrayed bigotry, or merely neutral surprise. Nevertheless she finished entering, letting the flap fall closed behind her. “Sul-Matuul,” she said, “I am Ku-vastei. I come to you and your people to learn of these prophecies.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “I believe I may fulfill them.”

Sul-Matuul scoffed. “You are an outlander. You are not Urshilaku; you are not Velothi; you are not even Dunmer. You are a fool for believing this, and anyone would be a fool to believe you.”

Ku-vastei’s tail swung viciously, audibly hitting the yurt’s door-flap with a slap. Her jaw barely opening, she hissed, “Test me against the prophecies. Test me by truth, not by assumption. By my claws, not by my scales.”

A flash in Sul-Matuul’s eyes suggested both fury and laughter at the same time. “You are a bold fool, then. No outlander can join the Nerevarine cult.” He scratched under his chin. “But if one were adopted to the tribe as Clanfriend…”

“How must I do this?”

Sul-Matuul finally turned to face Ku-vastei directly. “I have an initiation rite in mind. A harrowing. In a harrowing, you will be judged by the spirits and ancestors to see if you are worthy.” He stepped towards Ku-vastei. “Go to the Urshilaku Burial Caverns. Fetch me Sul-Senipul’s Bonebiter Bow. Sul-Senipul was my father, and his spirit yet defends the caverns, and his bow. Enter deep within the caverns and seek out this artifact. Do not return to me without it.”

“How may I find this place?”

“Ask one of our hunters. Seek Shabinbael. He knows the region well.”

Ku-vastei nodded, and with nothing left to say, she left.

- - - 

By the same time the next evening, Ku-vastei had returned. Exhausted, she barged into Sul-Matuul’s yurt without caution. “Sul-Matuul,” she said. “I bring you your father’s bow.” She grasped its taut chitin length tightly in her claws.

(Sul-Senipul’s bow was not the only thing Ku-vastei claimed from the Burial Caverns to make the adventure worth all the trouble. Among the honored dead she found a staff she knew would prove beneficial to her career with the Mage’s Guild, an enchanted helm of the Telvanni Dust Adepts, a magical glass greatsword, and a poison-tipped silver spear. These she concealed in the ash nearby the Urshilaku camp to retrieve later; another item, a Dreugh-shell cuirass, she wore concealed under her robes.)

Sul-Matuul was sitting against one of the walls, his head lowered either in repose or meditation, she could not tell. He raised his bright red eyes to see. “You return, covered in bone dust and ectoplasm. Interesting. And with the Bonebiter. Bring it here.”

Ku-vastei did as bidden, stepping forward to offer the bow. As she extended her hands towards Sul-Matuul, she noticed some kind of resistance or friction, as if her arms were unwilling to give it away. A curse on the bow, as some kind of final challenge? No, she thought, as she focused her eyes. Sul-Matuul had a vague violet aura about him. Some kind of Shield, either freshly applied in suspicion of her intent, or else a paranoid perpetual one on his person.

Regardless, she forced the bow into Sul-Matuul’s hands and quickly retracted her arms from the Shield. The Ashkhan inspected the bow, his hands tenderly running down its length, fingers testing the tautness of the string. “Yes,” he said. “It is dusty, but in good shape. Sul-Senipul has maintained it, all these years, even in death.” He held it back out to Ku-vastei. “Here. Take it. I have no need for it.”

Ku-vastei struggled against the Shield again to retrieve the bow. “And as for your promise?”

“Yes. Somehow you completed the initiation rite.” He rose to his feet. “I name you Clanfriend of the Velothi. Respect fellow members of the Urshilaku, their health, safety, and property, and they shall respect you also.” 

He walked towards the opposite wall, littered with scrolls. “Now that you are Clanfriend, I will speak plainly. I find your claim hard to believe. You are an outlander. The Nerevarine is to drive the outlanders from Morrowind. How could an outlander be the incarnate?” He turned his head back swiftly. “The Great Houses have stolen everything from us, the true Velothi, and mock us with false gods. They steal our land, and our dignity. The Nerevarine is the last hope of the Velothi to survive. No outlander will steal this hope from us.”

Ku-vastei didn’t know what to say. She knew little of the ashlanders, but what Sul-Matuul said sounded familiar. “My own people have had everything stolen from them by the Houses,” she said. “The Saxhleel have had our lands stolen, our Hist trees burned, our bodies enslaved and beaten.” She sighed. “Once, I raised an army to take back what was ours, many years ago.”

“You live,” Sul-Matuul observed, “yet clearly you failed.”

Her grip tightened on the Bonebiter, her tail straightening rigid. “I have learned much in the last twenty years. I will not fail again.”

Sul-Matuul said nothing, but nodded after a moment. “Perhaps. Go. Speak with Nibani Maesa. She will put you to the true tests.”

- - -

The wise woman's hair was intricately braided and decorated with racer plumes and glass beads. Not just glass beads, Ku-vastei realized, but glass beads, the volcanic material smoothed into small milky-green pebbles. This valuable stuff, which could have been wrought into an axe or spear for a gulakhan, was instead lovingly crafted to beautify the wise woman. This reverence humbled Ku-vastei, who remembered bringing useless but pretty stones found at the bottom of saltrice paddies to her naheesh long ago. She would sit and listen to more stories from the Marsh as her elder drilled quiet holes into them.

The sharp click of a snap stole Ku from her reverie, and she came back to the wise woman’s yurt. Nibani Maesa studied her guest’s face. “Did you hear me, outlander? You are not the Nerevarine.”

Ku-vastei blinked away surprise and grounded herself by listening to the windchimes outside. “Okay,” she said.

Nibani frowned. “‘Okay’?”

“Am I supposed to feel like the Nerevarine?” Ku’s tail swished restlessly behind her in the ash as she sat on her knees atop the rug the wise woman had laid out for her.

“Ku-vastei. You come to us, to the great Urshilaku, to our great ashkhan Sul-Matuul, and claim to be the Nerevarine.” Nibani closed her eyes and shook her head. “You even go on his suicide-quest, and return triumphant.”

Ku-vastei’s eyes widened. “Suicide-quest?”

Nibani opened her eyes again. “Never mind that. You do all this, then you meet the slightest resistance from me, of all people, and you decide you have done enough? You will forfeit your claim so easily?”

“But I’m only doing what I was told.” Ku realized how this must sound, so quickly elaborated. “I mean, I’ve been told I might be the Nerevarine. But I don’t feel like it.”

“A hero never feels like a hero,” said Nibani Maesa, pointing at Ku-vastei’s heart. 

“I thought you said I wasn’t the Nerevarine?” Ku asked, her mouth not closing after the last syllable.

“Yes, I said you are not the Nerevarine. But you could yet become the Nerevarine.”

Ku-vastei clenched her jaw shut. “That makes no sense. I either am or I’m not.”

“Such is the way of prophecy. Azura rarely makes her intentions fully known all at once.”

“Azura,” Ku-vastei breathed, “Azura, Azura. I’ve had enough of Azura.”

Nibani either didn’t hear or pretended not to. “There are conditions you haven’t met. Some you have. You were born under the Steed, which is auspicious. So was Nerevar. Your parents are unknown. So were Nerevar’s.” Nibani took a sip of her trama root tea. “But as for the conditions you haven’t met, perhaps you still may. In time.”

Ku-vastei gulped down some of her own tea. Maybe this won’t have been a wasted effort after all. “What must I do to meet them?”

“Not all is known to me. Many things we Wise Women once knew have been lost. But surely, somewhere, they were written. Find the Lost Prophecies, if you can. Then I can be your guide. Until then, go. Reflect on what you have learned. And take these to study.” Nibani handed Ku-vastei the two scrolls of riddle-like prophecies she had been consulting. 

Ku-vastei carefully tucked the scrolls into her bag and stood to leave. “Thank you, naheesh.”

“Nibani.”

“Yes. Sorry.” Ku-vastei didn’t realize she’d called her “naheesh.” She felt an old sense of peace and comfort around this old woman that reminded her of the matronly elder on the plantation where she was born. 

“Go. Come back when you are ready.”

Ku-vastei left Nibani Maesa’s yurt, and looked up at the moons and stars above her as she stood on the intricate rug outside. She hoped this would be enough for Caius, for now.

[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!”