Yesterday's Shadow Options

[Olen]

Its been a while since I wrote anything of length but, after a few false starts, I have churned out the first few thousand words of something which could get fairly large. I'm not totally happy with it (though I doubt I ever would be) but it should improve as I get back into writing, any comments et al would be appriciated.

1. Gold

I shivered as an icy breeze touched me. Was it real? Yes. I brushed aside my doubts. The Wolverine Hall was built by dunmer: of course it was dark, damp and cold. So cold. I pulled my cloak closer about me and looked around the gloomy room of the Mages Guild. A few guttering candles cast a sickly light on heaps of shadowy grimoires. Crazy reflections scattered from the grease-smeared tangles on an alchemy table. The creation of a deranged glassblower with hiccoughs. In spite of it being Evening Star there were still a couple of mages braving the winter on Azura’s Coast. They kept their rheumy eyes fixed on whatever devilry they were working on and ignored me. I waited idly and rubbed at my arms.

A door opened and I got a brief glance of a small room behind before it was shut again by the old Argonian who entered. A frown flickered over his features as he regarded me with sharp red eyes, “You must be the man from the Fighter’s Guild. Not what I expected, but no doubt Hrundi knows what he’s at,” Skink-in-Trees’-Shade smiled, his teeth were green from chewing hackle-lo, his sour breath twisted my stomach, “I have work for you.”

“I know. What I don’t know is why you couldn’t have left it with Hrundi like any normal contract, your demands are already weird enough.” My breath left a plume of steam in the air.

“I think eight thousand drakes is enough to allow me to make demands,” the lizard paused, I shivered but said nothing. I couldn’t afford not to get the contract. “I know well enough what is required and agreed it with Hrundi but the job itself requires discretion. Hrundi lacks discretion when he drinks…

“Three months ago I sent a group to investigate a ruin on the coast north of Firewatch, just south of Ilethi Point. The last report I received was dated late Frostfall, over six weeks ago. I want you to find out what happened.”

“What sort of ruin is this?” I said warily.

“Its… unusual. That’s why we want to investigate it and why this situation requires subtlety. I would send my own mages but it is deep in Telvanni lands.”

“Has it occurred to you that four men might be hard pressed to clear a ruin full of Telvanni?” I never understood why mages just didn’t get fighting. Another icy draught brushed me. I shivered and scratched an itchy patch on my arm.

“If it is then you will know what happened, investigate as far as you can and return. But I suspect that it is not. Most likely messages have just gone missing, as they do.” Argonians are hard to read but it didn’t take any guile to know Skink didn’t believe it. Neither did I, why spend eight thousand septims to get the best and go to such lengths of secrecy for missing reports.

I said nothing. Nothing I was likely to say would be helpful. I needed the job.

For a moment Skink was hesitant then he said, “If that is all you had best prepare. I will have a boatman waiting for you at dusk,” I nodded and turned to go but he continued, “A word of warning: do not use any teleportation near the ruin. We do not understand why but the only attempt to date prove quite… messy. If you do get into a tight spot read this,” he proffered a scroll and a money pouch, “I will know and do what I can. Otherwise do not rely on magic.”

He stopped abruptly and turned back towards his room. I was about to leave again when he called back, “And by the nine get yourself a fix with that gold. You scratch like a nix with mange.” He shut the door behind him.

For a moment I was too shocked to move. Was it that obvious? It was four days since my money had run out. I’d gone longer, but only once. Descending the dank spiral stair made my stomach shrivel and, backed up by the bag of gold, firmly killed any thoughts of going another hour without. I paused outside the fighter’s guild to fight down nausea before I went in.

Hrundi was waiting for me, “What did the old lizard want?” he asked.

“They’ve lost a bunch of folk investigating some ruin.” I wasn’t sure if Skink wanted Hrundi to know and I didn’t care.

“Same old,” Hrundi ran his fingers though his greying beard, “If I had a hundred drake for every mages’ guild expedition I’ve bailed out the mages would have paid me,” he rumbled a laugh, “So where’s the catch? You don’t give four folk a year’s wage for nowt.”

“He wouldn’t say but he wants us at the dock this evening.”

“Then Lysander won’t be joining you, news is his silt strider crashed, driver was probably pissed. I can’t see him arriving before tomorrow night.”

“Damn, that’s a problem,” it was too. Lysander was the only person I had directly asked for. The fighter’s guild in Morrowind was a shadow of what it had been before the oblivion crisis. “Are any of your local boys a quarter competent?”

Hrundi laughed mirthlessly, “You ain’t got a whole lot of choice. I’m too old, Sondryn’s already on a contract. That only leaves young Varnan.”

“There’s only three of you in the guildhall?”

“Yes. Who would want to be here? It shouldn’t matter though, the other two are good.”

“So you keep saying. Where are they?”

“Stocking up in town, I sent them to get the supply list you left.”

“Good,” I turned away from Hrundi. Now Skink had given me means to get it skooma was all I could think of. I hurried though the damp corridors and out into the squalid courtyards of the Wolverine Hall.

I kept close to the wall out of the wind-driven sheets of rain. The guard on the bridge looked as grey as the iron sky. The instant I stepped onto it I was soaked to the skin, to my left, and mercifully downwind, the giant fungus houses groaned in the storm. I turned away from them toward Muriel’s, golden light shone though the windows. I pushed the polished doorknob and stepped into the warm air of conversation and rich smell of roasting meat and beer.

However inviting I had no intention to take a seat in the common room. I hadn’t been in Muriel’s in years and didn’t remember the place. It didn’t matter. All corner clubs are essentially the same. I started upstairs and sure enough found a much smaller room full of distinctly shady characters. A grey-haired altmer looked at me as she would a gaur’s leavings on the street. I barely noticed, I could smell a sickly sweetness in the air. A dunmer opposite caught my eye and nodded. Apparently it was that obvious.

I wandered over to him. “You got skooma?”

“Yes, the finest in all Vvardenfell. You got money?” I hate pushers. There’s something about them which makes my fists itch. And they all claim to have the best.

“Let me see the goods,” I growled.

The dunmer paused to brush an imaginary piece of lint from his opulent, yet slightly too gaudy, clothes before reaching into a bag and withdrawing two vials. “This,” the dunmer gestured to the larger one with a bejewelled hand, “Is good stuff, Hlaalu import. Came in though Lake Hairan along with the standard stuff. This, on the other hand, is Tenmar white – costly but well worth it to the discerning palate.”

“How much?”

“Forty gold a quarter for the standard, sixty for the Tenmar.”

The bag had two hundred and fifty in it, even allowing for the high prices on Vvardenfell I expected more. “Half a bottle of the cheap for two hundred.”

“Not a chance. That should be five hundred.”

“I’m buying bulk. Two hundred.”

“Three hundred.”

“Ok two fifty and you’ll throw in a dash of that Tenmar white or I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

The dunmer scowled then got out his scales. I got out my pipe. His eyes widened momentarily as I measured out my dose.

[Olen]

10. Failed Divinity

“Welcome,” its voice had the sibilance of a crypt door, “To Arkyngisal.”

I backed away. Heart pounding.

“Come now, its been so long since I was trapped here. You would be impolite to go so soon,” it waved a hand and I was unable to move, “You wander how one as strong as I got trapped? Certainly stone cannot hold me,” it rasped another hacking laugh and waved a hand. The floor under and around it melted, brimstone cloyed in the air and haloed the figure in the lava’s hellish glow. It drew a series of abrupt breaths a grin covering its face, “Stone!” it spat, the lava hissed, “Not even death could hold me. But I am old, so old. This body wears out, I preserved life with magic but it takes so much, always more and always they must come. I outlived them though, here where the magic runs free, here I could endure.”

I couldn’t move my eyes to look at Varnan but I could hear his laboured breaths. He was stuck as surely as I.

It continued, “I so miss the moon, I used to throw fire at it you know? At first I was only here occasionally - to recharge as it were. But with the slow decay of time I needed longer and longer here beneath the earth. Now I must always draw from the source, hence my most lamentable display of magic for you. My humble apologies,” it paused for a moment and turned the ground beneath it back to stone. “It was a pity about the mages, they were all too paranoid or power obsessed or simply intelligent to be useful. Still we must settle for what we get yes? Yes. But I am talking to myself again, speak.”

I felt feeling return to my dry mouth but dared say nothing.

“Speak!” it screeched and danced in circles. The machines in the room scattered like toys. It focused on me.

I felt crushed but couldn’t move. Invisible bands of iron pressed in on me, I felt my skin bruise and bones bend. “Yes,” I gasped. The bands were gone, “You made this place?” It was spur of the moment but it played to the beast’s arrogance.

“Me?” it said in surprise, “No. It is older even than I. Such arts were lost with the races who created them. There is less magic than there was, I feel sure of it,” it coughed, a ribbon of phlegm escaped its mouth. Blood dyed it sanguine. The creature looked at it and then coughed again, it staggered but quickly recovered itself. The air between it and the pedestal where Thrya still lay swam and leapt with magic. “Hmmm,” it said, “I think it is time, most regrettable.” It looked straight at us again. “I suggest,” it said, “You run.”

The fear that had been building as it spoke reached a monumental crescendo as it dropped its hold on us. I fell flat on my face but felt nothing, my terror was complete. I scrabbled away and up, my fingernails tore and broke against the ground but I didn’t notice. I ran, not for a moment did I think of Varnan, or even the sudden sounds and lights and madness which came from the ancient creature behind me.

I crashed into the corner in the tunnel to the gallery and vomited but I ran on. I didn’t care that it covered me. I tore a knife from its sheath at my side and, still running, attacked the straps which held on my armour. The statues seemed alive, hands reached out and clawed, they howled in their eternal damnation. I fought free of my cuirass less than halfway though the gallery, it crashed to the ground behind me. Soon my greaves and remaining pauldron followed it. The dread which lay behind had become something more than death, a flawless fear of what might follow. Not for a moment did it cross my mind that had it wanted it could certainly have crushed me. I simply needed to be away.

In the shaft room I heard Varnan behind me. I stepped in front of him to reach the rope first and hauled myself up it with a strength born of terror. He grabbed my foot and I stamped on his hand. He screeched and let go. I pulled on up and vaulted over the top. My heart hammered. My vision blurred. I breathed in ragged gulps but I didn’t wait for Varnan. I sprinted though the ruin, my injuries irrelevant. Stream rose from the great pool in the first room, skipping wheels of light danced from its depths across the ceiling. I paid it no more attention than the rest of the darkling edifice.

The entrance was a square of golden light, I scrabbled up the rocky excavation and into the blessed open air. But still I ran. A short way past the expedition’s camp my toes caught in the loose earth and I fell. I crawled on a short way to tired to stand then was still. I hauled air into my burning lungs.

A short time later I heard Varnan run up behind me, his steps irregular. He looked down at me and collapsed. I looked over at him, his fingers were badly bruised. I grimaced and looked away.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked him, “We're leaving.”

He hadn't the breath to answer but nodded and stood. I got up and shook away the dizziness. With the ruin behind me I started down the valley. What had the thing been? Humanoid, certainly, but if it had ever been human that was long gone. What had happened as I ran? I shook my head; I would puzzle it once my fear abated. If it did. I still quivered with it.

Our meagre camp lay away to my right. We didn't make for it: getting away was in the forefront of my mind. But close behind my blanket of terror an old beast rose its head. I licked my chapped lips and realised I’d been scratching my arms since I'd left the ruin. The raw skin wept. It was so long since I'd had a fix. Even the thought of it released tension in my shoulders.

I could go to the camp and get it. Go to the camp. The thought echoed, the desire soured. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and the ruin as I could. Shadowy ghasts skipped though my thoughts, my mind juggled a circus of horrors which might be behind us. Mystery is so much more terrifying than the known peril. There was quite enough without me imagining more. I did anyway. I needed to get away.

I needed skooma.

A battle raged in my mind.

Ultimately the beast ripped though the shroud of fear. The addiction won. My feet veered towards where we had spent the previous night. Varnan shot me a reproachful look but followed.

I didn't mess about. I ripped my sack open and let its contents spill across the ground. I stuffed a knife into my trouser belt. For the first time I felt a stab of regret at discarding my armour, I still had the boots and bracers but the rest was gone with my weapons in the ruin. I brushed a sheet of parchment aside and scooped up the bag underneath. Inside was my liquid gold. I took a gulp. I stood to find Varnan staring down the valley.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

For a long moment he didn't answer, then he drew a sharp breath and shook himself. “Hmm? Sorry,” he said and looked down at himself. His armour was tattered, apparently he had tried to follow my example with less success. He searched quickly and got a knife which had belonged to Thyra and finished the job. “It's heavy and ruined anyway,” he muttered. I didn't hear him. The scroll I'd cast aside had caught my eye. Skink had given me it. Don't use teleportation, he'd said but we could contact him with it. Maybe. If I could work it.

Varnan fruitlessly raked though Keersk's possessions for any equipment he could use. Mainly he found cheap spirits. I puzzled the scroll, the script was one I barely knew. Trust a mage to give you help you can't use. Fetchers. Varnan stood and I waved him over.

“What do you make of this?” I asked.

“What, and can we walk while we do it.”

I started down the valley, “Skink gave me it. He said we could contact him with it.” I had expected an outburst from Varnan. Instead I got a preoccupied silence and he accepted it mutely. “Take a look,” I passed him the scroll.

He held it for a moment then passed it back, “Is that Cyrodiilic? Looks funny.”

I gave him an incredulous look, “No. Can't you recognise your own language?”

He didn't reply. He glare didn’t leave the dead ground for the next couple of miles.

There was a bit of ill scrub when I stopped again. Varnan stopped and looked up. “I'm going to see if I can read it, I know almost all the characters but not the language. Something might happen.” It was also an excuse for another dose of skooma.