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]

Ok sorry for the long wait, its all still there, well a lot is so it will keep coming. A combination of christmas, a hard drive disaster and too much time spent seeing people I haven't seen in too long got in the way.

Thanks for the comments, yes there is the odd bit of possibly malapropos humor in this though it receeds somewhat.

11. Another Man’s Dream

I'd been though it a couple of times within my head, it was time to try the magic. I stood straight and held the unfurled scroll before me. Then I lowered it to loosen the bracer which had been slightly too tight. I rolled my shoulders and breathed out. Here we go. Roll up, roll up. Come and see the exploding man.

I read. The words came hesitantly and without rhythm, more a series of sounds. I felt a little power stir. I read on. The final line was more complex, I had fought my way though the first half when I faltered, trying to decipher a bizarre compound symbol.

“Chignyee Nga,” prompted Varnan.

With astonishment I realised that the symbol could be read as such. I repeated his words.

The crack was deafening. A hissing whine followed it, like a union of wind in ships rigging and the pipes of the devil. It ululated round the valley then as suddenly as it had started it was gone. The ashes of the scroll crumbled in my hands.

I turned to Varnan, “How in hell did you know that? Don't tell me you recognised that symbol set.”

He shrugged, “I wasn't even looking at the scroll. It just seemed to... fit.” He shrugged again.

“But you couldn't read the thing. How could you know that?”

“I don't know. Its enough that I did,” his tone sealed the subject, “I don't think it worked anyway.”

I didn't answer. I had read it well enough, but almost certainly soured some phrases of it. It probably hadn't worked, not fully anyway. I was too relieved not to be laminated over the hillside to care too much.

Before we continued down the valley I filled my pipe. Its calming bubbling accompanied us down the valley. At first Varnan shot me disapproving glances but they became less frequent. It was a generous bowlful. With the hill and without the bags we travelled fast, by the time I had taken the last draw we were near the mouth of the valley. I wandered at how bleak it had seemed on the way up, it was as verdant as Pelagiad in spring compared to the top.

I put away the pipe. “Have you ever tried giving up?” Varnan asked.

I laughed humourlessly. “Every time I empty a bottle.”

“You could have been great you know, when I joined up you were moderately known.”

I stepped over a fallen tree. “Great,” I spooned sarcasm onto the word, “I could be known throughout Morrowind as a killer, people could sing songs of all the lives I've ended.”

“Yes,” Varnan sounded a little unsure.

“Firen: most prolific murderer in Morrowind,” I muttered to myself, “Amazing what skooma can do to you.”

“They say you were good when you were in your prime, you did more contacts than almost anyone.”

I glared at him. “I am still in my prime,” I said flatly.

“Are you trying to say a Kagouti would ever have gotten you five years back?”

I breathed deeply. I knew I was as good as I'd ever been. Knew it. “Luck doesn't change with age, and luck that was.”

He had the sense not to answer directly. My irritation at the subject couldn't have been less veiled. “One day I will do as many contracts as you did in your prime.”

I let the implication go. I was fairly sure it was incidental. I stopped and turned to face him, “Ever wandered what drove me to do so many contracts - why I still do so many? Why only a very few do so many? There is a good reason.” I paused to breathe, “You've not done many have you?”

Varnan's reply was awkward, “I've done a few... Not so many though.”

“You can remember them all I dare say. Maybe even remember everyone you've killed-”

“I've killed more animals than I can remember.”

“I was talking about people. People with lives, loves, family. I can remember the first couple but after that...” I started walking again, the path was a bit further inland than the one we had taken on the way in.

“If they are evil-”

I cut through that drivel, “Evil? I'd like to think true sadistic evil is rare. Most are just doing a job like me. They need to make bread money. Is that evil. What happens to anyone who depends on them after they’re gone?” I laughed blackly, “Don't expect to keep your soul in this job.”

Varnan didn't reply. We walked on south along the narrow path. For the first time I was calm enough to ponder not just where we were fleeing from but where we were running to. Firewatch was nearest. It was a Telvanni town but there was transport from there. The guild wouldn't like the result of this job but it was too late to worry about that.

It wasn't long before the sun was nearing the hazy skyline of Vvardenfell in the west.

“If you hate this job why do you stay in it?” Varnan asked.

I rubbed my forehead. Part of me wasn't going to answer but I did, “I'm stuck. Skooma is expensive, can't save money and killing is the only trade I know. Maybe I could set up and settle down but I doubt it. I've been in this business too long, I have tastes to go with the money...” Another silence yawned, long buried memories stirred from their graves. Another man's hopes and fears. When I spoke again my voice was low, “Get out while you still can. You're young enough.”

“And be what? A farmer in some incestuous nowhere village?”

“If only,” I said to myself. “If only.”

The sun boiled red, igniting the dusty horizon the colour hot iron, or blood. The path was treacherous in the half light, and doubly so once the sun had drowned in the western sea but we pushed on for a full two hours past sundown before collapsing exhausted.

We had no tent, I had not even a cloak but was pleased to see Varnan had taken two from our camp. I stripped and flopped into one exhausted and waited for sleep.

“Being a farmer isn't so great,” Varnan said. I rose from a half doze. I pushed aside my irritation, he'd listened to my talk. Now it was his turn. Not that his timing overjoyed me. I waited for him to continue and said nothing, as is often best, “I could have been, I suppose I was really but that I ever saw it that way. I was better than them, I wanted more, needed more.”

I suspected there was more to it. I didn't push, if he wanted to talk he would. “But why the guild?” I asked.

“The excitement, bard’s songs, to see the world. Surely that’s more than being a nobody peasant in a non-place.”

“I'll bet you had something there. Have something there.”

“Had,” he muttered, “I wouldn't be welcome back. They needed me but they didn't care what I wanted. I had to get out, I was better than them...”

I waited for more but none came. Slowly the soft fingers of sleep dragged me into darkness.

***

That night I dreamed. I always did when I took too much skooma. I was in Cyrodiil again. It was a confused selection of images and faces I barely remembered. Memories I'd spent a life forgetting so that dreams were the only time they could haunt me. The small village burned, the faces burned, faces of family and friends I couldn't put names to. They faded into the smoke and fear and flames. Next a huge city, at least it seemed so. Hunger. Cold. Loss.

Then heat. This one was more coherent, I wore armour. The armour of the legion and was marching to Morrowind in the aftermath of the crisis which ended the third era. The memory was less buried, it was far from fond but there was more than pain to it. I hated the legion. But I was glad to leave my homeland and all the pain it represented. A new life. In the dream I was eyeing up one of the company mages who marched a few ranks ahead. Reneria. In the dream I knew the future, the pain to come, but to my surprise I intended to change nothing.

This post has been edited by Olen: Jan 4 2009, 06:04 PM