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]

14. Shelter

The yurt lay amid a mass of crates and barrels. I had little doubt that every one was stuffed with contraband; smugglers always try their luck just beyond the reach of law. Renera led us down the narrow path to the camp, I followed with Varnan behind. It looked peaceful against the gently rolling sea. A single masted boat bobbed in the sheltered cove. The sound of a lute drifted fitfully on the breeze. I put the likely fate of its inhabitants from my mind – they would only be natives after all.

The sentries were either dozy or as drugged as myself for we were less than a hundred yards from the camp when the music stopped mid-line and a lone dunmer appeared. His chitin bow and lean figure confirmed my guess that ashlanders worked these coasts.

“Turn back,” he called. His accent thick.

“We are but simple travellers,” Renera didn’t even try to make it believable, “We seek shelter and food for the night.”

“This is no inn, swits,” said the ashlander, he had an arrow notched to his bow, “Begone.”

I knew he wouldn’t back down. I also knew Renera wouldn’t, unless she had changed beyond recognition.

“We will have shelter in your camp tonight,” she had not, “and food.”

A second smuggler appeared. Renera took a step forward but I did not. It was not that I was in any way afraid of them – far from it; armed I would have taken them both alone. But they reminded me of too many others like them. At first it had been glorious, then necessary but with every one I killed I saw more background. Wives, family, children. One leads to the next, I’d never married and thoughts of any offspring I may have spawned were banished to my darkest nightmares. Even so I know all too well what drives men, and all too well what every death leaves behind.

I looked away.

“You will have no such thing,” the second mer said, “Turn back.”

“Or what?”

“Or you will die human,” Ashland diplomacy never ceases to amaze me.

“Thank you.” Renera’s tone made me look. That was a mistake.

A mighty flash burned itself onto my eyes. I dropped and turned away covering them. They felt full of salt. A glowing image of the magical lightning burned in their lids. I shook my head and eased them back open, through the blazing after-images I saw two corpses. I had known I would. One was still smoked.

Renera already strode towards them. In spite of my profession I do not care for killing. But they were outlaws, it was merely justice. Behind me Varnan was looking in shock. I ignored him and continued after Renera, there would be another inside the yurt no doubt, and he would also have to die. The second ashlander bore horrific burns, he also had a dagger in one hand. I took it form him.

Renera waited for me outside the yurt, I offered her a smile, “It been a long time,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered.

“There’ll be another inside.”

“Yes.”

I nodded then took a deep breath. I hadn’t used a short blade in a long while and my hand wasn’t as steady as it had been. I breathed again then swept the curtain door of the yurt aside.

A fire in the middle, burned to embers. Clutter round the walls. A single dunmer. All the impression I got before he screamed and pulled a dirk. He ran towards me and took a wild lunge at my face. A clumsy strike. I turned sideways and planted my blade into his throat. His own momentum drove it home and warm blood ran over my hand. He was dead before he could cry out. Renera entered behind me. She looked at the corpse and nodded.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“Maybe too long,” she answered.

I bent to the corpse, he wore native armour. They made it from the shells of some of the weirder fauna which afflicts Morrowind. I had tried a couple of pieces of it before, it hadn't impressed. I dragged the corpse outside, the mere act brought back more memories of the past. It was not the first time I had cleaned the mess Renera and I had made. She stayed inside; just as the dead chief had. I wandered what she would do now. Sell us out? Help us? Go back to that cursed ruin? I doubt the gods knew.

Outside I lay him by a small chest round the back of the yurt. The dead eyes glowered an accusation. I closed them. I could never have taken his armour under that empty stare. With them shut I could forget that the wearer had lived and loved but moments before, I could forget that others had loved him. I shut off the layers of pain my actions had caused and stripped him of weapons and armour. They were still warm as I strapped them on.

I straightened from the black work. The chest caught my eye. Probably because most of the goods were in crates, but maybe just fate punishing me. Or rewarding. It was full of small vials sealed with a crescent moon. Skooma.

Sweet white smoke wreathed me when Varnan approached, he glanced about him as if in a surreal nightmare. I looked up at him though eyes blinded by the golden tint of bottled peace, dressed in the bloodied armour of a foe, pipe in hand. His eyes didn’t meet mine. He was fixed upon the corpse propped next to me.

“There was no contract on them,” he murmured.

“But they were outlaws were they not? Evil men: they deserved it.” I gave him his own words back.

He frowned, for a moment I thought he would walk away but then he said, “You told me-“

My laughter cut him off. The skooma lent it a maniacal edge.

“I don’t understand,” he said and sat next to me, “Why?”

Such a question. I took another draw and ignored it.

“Does it give you such relief?”

Don’t ask me. Please don’t get into this.

My prayers were answered, he scowled and left. I took another deep draw and stared at the eternal sea. I didn’t see the waves, questions filled my mind. Why did I so fervently not want Varnan to ask for a draw? Was it refusing or allowing which terrified me? Admitting fault or leading?

Below those questions more writhed like worms at the heart of a rotten apple. No matter how common I still wandered at the morality of killing smugglers. Crusaders, the Temple and Cult called them; killers who hunt outlaws to make a living. I avoided that train of thought, I couldn’t blame Renera, I couldn't wander if we might be her pray.

I looked at the dead ashlander. “What am I?” I asked the corpse. “Who have I become?”

***

That night we sat around a fire outside the yurt. Both the past hours and the skeletons of a past decade were obscured by the same sickly pall of white smoke which maintained my sanity. Renera alternately scowled and smiled at me. We had taken the best of the yurt’s food and I was stirring a cauldron of soup with a rather unsteady hand.

“Smells like that scrib jerky has seen better days,” said Varnan without taking his gaze from the spot on the horizon it had been fixed on for the past hour, “Some alleron might help disguise it.”

“Alleron?” I looked at him blankly, it was the first time he'd spoken since the afternoon.

“It’s the aldmeri word for thyme,” said Renera, “Where did you grow up to use it?”

Varnan shook himself. “Yes,” he said, “Thyme. I meant thyme.”

Renera shot him a quizzical look but didn’t press him. “Is that stew ready?” she asked.

“It needs a few minutes yet.”

“Fine, just time for you to tell me again of this man you met in the ruin.”

I grimaced. We were far enough away that I could half bury the memory but it still scared me. “It was no man,” I said.

“What was it then?”

“I don’t know. Terrifying.”

Renera thought for a moment, her gaze wandering into the distance. A mirror of Varnan’s. “Have you ever come across demoralisation magic? It’s a branch of illusion.”

“No,” I answered flatly.

“I wander how much of the fear was… enhanced.”

“Would I know?”

“Probably not, it does feel different – so I’m told – but not so as you’d notice, unless you knew what to look for.”

“What do you make of what it said to us?” I didn’t doubt that she remembered every word I’d said.

“Its hard to say. It seemed to say it required a great deal of external magic, certainly your description suggests the place didn’t want for it. But how much was mad ranting or simple lies I have no idea.”

“One of the dead mages had a tome in sloadic, using the old runes,” Varnan said musingly. His brown eyes flickered from the distance and pierced into me.

It took me a moment to recover. “What,” I spluttered, “How in oblivion would you know?”

His stone gaze lasted another moment before he dropped his eyes and put a hand to his forehead, “Sorry.. I feel a bit off,” he said and paused. “Perhaps a bowl of stew would help.”

I ladled him a bowl. Renera frowned but kept her own council.