Shades of Ending, set after the oblivion MQ Options

[Olen]

Well it’s been a while, a long while, since I posted anything. I have been writing, some stuff which was non-TES, a false start which I spent too long fighting… There’s also another ~80k piece which I’ve left on a hard drive in Scotland so I’m taking a hiatus. Anyway I decided I fancied posting something.

This is unplanned and unfinished. I prefer to write all of something with a lot of planning and then post, but this time I thought I’d just let it flow and see what comes. Hopefully it won’t be too unpolished and I intend to make it more episodic so if I do lose interest for a bit it shouldn’t matter so much. The plan is to post one section while I write another, that way any criticisms can be addressed as I go.

Anyway without any more waffle a short intro.

Shades of Ending

1.1 Questioning

The prisoner met Verus’s eye across the scarred table. The watchman swallowed. “It does not look good for you,” his voice was quiet. He knew he should feel disgust, hatred even for what the man had done. But it was tempered. Perhaps it was because the man had more brain than most of the scum they dragged into the Cheydinhal prison. Or perhaps it was because he understood why, though he’d never admit it. Or it could just have been the passing resemblance to his son. Same dark hair and eyes, and not so different features.

Damn he hated this place, the sooner the investigation was over the sooner he could go and see the real thing back in the Imperial City. Not that distraction like this helped.

The prisoner looked back, “I’m fetched aren’t I?”

Verus winced at the tone and nodded. “Ferir,” he said the man’s name, gave him that much respect, “double murder of Imperial guards only leads to the gallows.”

“And it doesn’t matter that it was self defence, that they were trying to kill me? Had already killed my friends. We didn’t attack them.”

“It doesn’t matter. And even if it did you’re guilty of enough else to string you up. Possession with intent to supply – don’t tell me that much skooma was for personal use, our mage says you’re clean anyway. Bootlegging. Smuggling. As little as I like it you had it coming.”

Ferir nodded.

Verus could hardly believe it, they were always full of guar apples. Fake bravado to start with which slowly decayed into pleading. There was fear there certainly, he reeked of it, it was in the way he sat and moved. There was pain too, but mainly Verus thought it was resignation in the prisoner’s voice when he spoke. “Can you at least tell me who you killed?”

“I’m not meant to.” The gaze from the dark eyes flashed fierce like glowdust on a fire. It was the same spark which had cost the lives of two of the Imperial Legionaries who had raided the smugglers cavern, and it caught Verus off guard.

“You have a family.” It was a statement. “The people in that cave were as close to family as I’d found. You come and kill them, and within the next couple of days…” His gaze dipped to the scored boards of the table in the interrogation room. It slid uneasily round the manacles which held him. “I just want to know if any of them lived.”

“The patrol killed five. A two humans, a man and a woman, two khajit and a dunmer male.” If you had better luck you’d have been in that list. Verus didn’t add the thought, its truth was too bitter.

The eyes screwed closed. “The dunmer, what colour was his hair?”

“Red.” Verus watched Ferir deflate. His eyes shut and he thumped his wrists against the table, the chain which held them didn’t allow space for it to make more than a dull thud. He muttered something Verus didn’t catch, and decided not to press.

When Ferir finally opened his eyes again they were bloodshot. “Have you got what you want now?” There was anger in his voice, but also sadness, enough to suppress the flames, if not entirely quench them. “You know someone got away, you’ve got our contacts. I’m in pain, several of my closest friends are dead. Have you done enough?”

Verus frowned, it wasn’t something he was used to. Lines about choosing this fate when he chose crime seemed flimsy, paper props for the tragicomedy which passed as justice in this town. Ferir hadn’t lied about the pain either, the man was a mass of bruises. The legionaries had worked him over, and who could blame them? He wasn’t the only one to lose friends. Occasionally his hands would sneak towards the lower ribs on one side only to be rudely stopped by the chain.

Not that they’d waste healing on a condemned prisoner. You should have died in that cave. Verus shook his head, trying to dislodge the malaise which had built. He stood, this was too discomfiting. For a moment he struggled for words, then gave up and offered Ferir a single nod before leaving.

[Olen]

McBadgere - Thanks for reading, glad you're enjoying it. The nit - I agree the grammar is wrong but as it was in dialogue and I think it's closer to how people talk (here at least) I've left it. Thanks for making me try to remember why I left that though.

SubRosa - Aegnoth was a throw away character really. He appeared in Morrowind but comes across as out if his depth, I just imagined that things got too hot for him and he ran. He might reappear later, or not. And yes there is history with Relthas.

HER - Nit is fixed, it's probably a typo as its/it's is grammar which I can do, it's spelling which bothers me. Glad the PoV hopping is working, that's the reason why I abandoned 1st person for this piece, as good as it is for immediacy and focus it makes it harder to build other characters. Back to Ferir for this bit though.

All - A longer part this time, but there wasn't a convenient place to cut it.

The last part saw them enter Carbo's Camp to a not wholly friendly welcome. Ferir had enough history with the man he owed to smooth it over and shift blame elsewhere though.

2.2 Tashba's

Ferir stepped out of Relthas’s house and looked around. Carbo’s camp was the same as ever. People came and went, shelters were dismantled and rebuilt. But between the few old stalwarts, like Relthas, nothing ever really changed. You could get anything here. Anything. If it wasn’t available someone could source it, or knew who could. In many ways he liked it, it was freedom, but in others it bothered him. Much in the way Relthas had always bothered him. The dunmer was unpredictable. He would be true to his word and would put a hit out on Raj’arn, he’d had enough killed, but it could have been them. Ferir supposed you didn’t get to his position any other way.

Where would he buy the hit? Ferir didn’t much care, but there were some things he thought money shouldn’t buy. All of them were available in the camp, and if you went digging there was plenty he hadn’t imagined no doubt.

“What was that all about?” Ruben stepped alongside him. The former guard’s gaze hopped around like a strung-out khajit.

He might have seen near everything as a guard, and done enough most likely. But he looks green here, thought Ferir. “Stop looking around so much, you’ll attract attention you don’t want.” Ruben’s gaze slowed, but he continued waiting. Ferir filled the silence. “We... go back I suppose, but things change. People age, well some do. More recently he was our main buyer. We had a big deal with him but our supplier vanished, I suspect to the commona.”

“Not the guard? We catch some people you know.”

Ferir winced and glanced around. It was early evening and quiet, here at least. “Make that slip up again and you might not survive,” he said it plainly. If Ruben was too stupid to hide who he’d been he’d get what was coming. “And no, I asked someone who knows what goes on in the guard and it wasn’t them. He wanted his first payment back but he's being okay, and as I said we go back a fair way.”

“He deals in death happily enough.”

Ferir nodded, “He does. I didn’t say he was nice and I wouldn’t get on his bad side. But he also gave us some money which we desperately need.”

Ruben opened his mouth then closed it for which Ferir was glad. The former guard frowned then said, “Alright, what’s the plan?”

“I’m going for a drink with some acquaintances-"

“That crazy bark biter?”

Ferir snorted, “No.”

“You told him where you were going.”

“And Ulgaf, his guard, overheard. He’s got the brain of a tree but he’ll let his sister know.”

“Ah.” Ruben nodded in a way Ferir couldn’t be bothered to correct.

He dug into the coin bag and pulled out a couple of handfuls. “I need a strong drink, and to find out what’s going on. In that order.” He passed the coins to Ruben. “Go do whatever you do and try not to get killed.”

The man looked taken aback. The surprise made a scar which ran across his right cheek stand out like a plough track. “Oh… right.”

“Shouldn’t be hard to have fun. Just remember two things, don’t let anyone know what you were, no one here will ask much anyway, and don’t frek with Jerine.”

“Jerine?”

Ferir shook his head. “She only runs the place. See the big house in the middle? It’s hers. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“But where are we staying?”

Ferir gave a shrug and wandered off into the labyrinthine streets.

***

Tashba’s was one of the few constants in Carbo’s ever-changing camp in much the same way as a bone in a maggot filled corpse. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but compared to some of the other bits there it was fantastic. Ferir hurried towards it. Usually he would drink the atmosphere in with a sort of fascination. Here in this place where people could do more or less anything it was fascinating that it ended closer to a cesspit than utopia. But it was a glittering cesspit of wonders.

There were a couple of men in loose jackets wandering in seemingly aimless circles. Dealers. He was half tempted, but nothing flirted with his mood, it was morbid, all the pleasures his mind could imagine, and many he wished he hadn't, were available. But they were grey ashes, pointless fleeting things more akin to butterflies to be smashed apart in a hurricane. They were tragic in their brevity. In a land where one portion of the populace measured their lives in decades and the other centuries wasn’t that always the case?

He shook the thought away. Drinking in this mood was a terrible idea. He knew it fine, but he also knew it would help in the long run. He could feel the loss pushing at the walls his mind had erected round it, a pressure waiting to burst. Alcohol eroded those walls, and dulled the pain when the miasma behind escaped. More correctly it dulled the memory of the pain, but he didn’t care.

Neither did he care for the occasional person who recognised him and waved, or the imperial recruiting for something. The noisy display, complete with scantily clad woman, was an art-form in persuasion. He walked past it, his eyes trying to find somewhere to look and avoid the unpleasant gazes of the whores who would be clustering in the rose glow of the brothel on the corner. As always their heavy perfume failed to quite disguise the stench from within.

What’s wrong with me, he thought. Normally he liked the camp for its deranged freedom which flapped wildly to the four winds. I don’t know who I am now. It wasn’t quite right. He was still who he’d been, but the anchors were torn. Tomorrow didn’t know and as much as he longed for it when direction was taken away it was disconcerting until he had the tiller again. Like being in a ship drifting blindly in a rocky bay.

The coloured awnings of Tashba’s brightened his mood a shade. But as he passed through the batwing doors into the marquee which housed the tavern he still had one intention. He saw Senril at the bar, the dunmer had his usual herbal liqueur, the bright green twinkled in the multitude of lanterns. He was dragging on a rollie with smoke just a little too white.

“I thought you’d given that stuff up,” said Ferir as he approached.

Senril shrugged. “Have a drink,” he gestured to a very generous measure of something dark and cloudy which sat by an empty barstool. Ferir took a sip and sat. It tasted of aniseed and fire, the water added had been enough to make it louche and no more. Senril met his eye. “Are you alright?” His tone told that he’d heard.

“I’m alive.” It came out bitterer than Ferir intended. “You?”

“Yeah," Senril shrugged, a lump of ash fell from the rollie, "money comes money goes. Bit of a rough patch but it’ll pass.”

“Don’t know why you stay,” Ferir took a generous gulp of the spirit and winced.

The dunmer man shrugged, then grinned. “I like being in one place, we’re not all like you. What will you do now?”

Ferir took another swig. “Drift I suppose. Even here might not be safe enough, and I’ve no intention of staying anyway.”

“You’re going back to Sundew.”

Ferir shrugged. The accusation had been in the tone, and yes it was stupid. But he needed to. The deaths sat heavy, not crushing like they had been but when he considered them... He turned away from the thought’s sting. It was a thousand times more bitter than the spirit he washed it away with.

“They’ll expect it.”

“I know.”

“Then why go? What draws you back there above anywhere else? Above here?”

“I need to see it.”

Senril shook his head. Ferir noticed that he’d made a greater then usual effort with his hair, it was cut into a stripe again. Freshly too. He was not the only one drawn to a dead past.

He drained his glass then thumped it down on the bar and nodded to the khajit serving it. She raised her ears.

“A whisky,” said a voice behind him, “Make that two. Doubles.”

“Holga,” he said turning. “How are you?”

She nodded and gave a half smile. “Alright,” the smile melted. “More to the point how are you?”

Ferir shrugged. “Not great. Not dead. I’m coming to be glad of that much.”

Holga nodded and took two glasses from the khajit. “Here, you need spirits at a time like this.”

“Thanks,” Ferir took a sip. It was cheap stuff, but they didn’t water them at Tashba’s which was more than plenty of places in Carbo’s Camp could claim.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not much.”

“Well if you change your mind after a few drinks, or tomorrow I’m here.”

“Likewise,” said Senril pushing himself back in.

“Thanks.”

A silence opened. Ferir filled it with a sip which went on slightly longer than was pleasant. The stuff wasn’t smoky enough for his tastes. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but under the gaze of companionship a chasm yawned.

“Been some strange stuff going down here recently,” said Senril.

Ferir caught the glance which passed between him and Holga. “Yes," the nord woman continued, “rumours of rogue mages and sightings of zombies to the east.”

“And the lights.”

“The lights?” asked Ferir. Carbo’s Camp was always full of tall tales, but this one wasn’t like most.

“We see them from camp,” said Senril. “At night when Masser is just past half full, there’s a violet glow to the east. I went to take a look the second time it happened, over a month ago now. Got scared though,” he gave a laugh that tried to be self mocking but ended unpleasant, “and turned back.”

Ferir’s interest was piqued. The sip he took before speaking was cursory. “What is it?”

“No one knows. No one’s found anything, well no one who’s returned anyway.”

Holga made a hissing sound and rolled her eyes. “Yes, there’s no chance a few disappearances, at night, in the backcountry, from Carbo's weren’t something unnatural. I’d be more surprised if they had all returned.”

There was more gossip, Ferir could see it dancing in Senril’s red eyes. “What else?” he obliged.

“There was a damned strange woman passed through here day before yesterday. The sort who puts you a bit on edge you know. A mage I reckon.”

“Off to join whatever cult is responsible for the lights?”

“Who knows.”

“Men,” Holga shook her head. “You’re no better than a sewing circle. All dramatic stories. Now you know Elsen Roleen down by the southstream?”

Ferir let the mingled gossip wash over him. They were friendly faces, and by the gods he’d needed some. The following day would bring what came, for now there was company. And there was drink.

The company I want though?

This post has been edited by Olen: Dec 22 2011, 05:37 PM