The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl: Every Day a Walk In The Park... Options

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The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl: Part Seven

Darius, according to Master Demnevanni, ran his office out of the Madach Tradehouse in Gnisis. So, after translocating there after breaking my fast, I made my way into the lower half of the “shell” that comprised the Tradehouse. Darius was short, stocky, and clad in gorgeous armour – all gilded metal with a flowing red cape. He looked up at me and said, “So, you want to join the Legion do you Citizen Vahl? Well, it’s true that we have a shortage of Manpower ~ and Merpower for that matter. You look capable enough. Tell me, are you capable of following orders?”

“Excellent,” he said when I assured him I was. “It’s a Mer’s life in the Legion. Every day a walk in the park, every meal is a banquet, every pay check a fortune. It’ll make a Ma... Mer of you. Right, Recruit Vahl, here is your regulation-issue chain cuirass. You will wear it when you address a superior officer, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes… sir,” I replied.

Darius shook his head. “The first and last word I want to hear out of your mouth when you address me is ‘Sir’. Now sound out like you got a pair. Do you understand me?”

“Sir, yes Sir,” I said in a clear voice, desperately trying to ignore the sniggering Orc in the corner of the room.

“Outstanding,” he said. “Now get that cuirass on and I’ll give you your orders.

“You might be wondering,” he said once I’d got the chain cuirass in place, “why I am billeted in the Tradehouse? Well, it’s because we have no room to expand. The widow Vabdas has a parcel of land the Legion needs to expand. I want you to come back to me with the deeds as quickly as possible. Is that understood?”

“Sir, yes Sir,” I replied, turning to march out of the room. As I went up the stairs, I heard General Darius addressing the Orcish Trooper, “gro-Khazor, what is your major malfunction?”

Vabdas had a house just west of town, out past Arvs-Drelen, so it wasn’t difficult to get to. Her reaction, when I spoke to her about the land-deed was to slap me across the face ~ hard. I suppressed the spells that roared into my mind and, speaking carefully, said, “you would be wise not to do that again.”

“Why?” she snapped, and now I could see the tears in her eyes. “Because you’ll kill me like you did Mansilamat?”

“I assure you ma’am,” I told her, “I had no part in the death of Mansilamat. Tell me what happened…” Bit by patient bit, I dragged the story from her. It seems that her husband, the aforementioned Mansilamat, had gone to the Egg-Mine at Gnisis to get some eggs. There, according to the widow, the Legion had killed her husband.

As I walked back towards Gnisis, I reflected that whatever power controls my life has an infinite capacity for capriciousness. What should have been the simple acquisition of a deed to some land had now become a murder investigation. Of course, that was how General Darius saw it and he told me to obtain proof that the Legion had been involved. Fortunately, the guard at the door of the Egg-Mine proved amenable to my charming behaviour and, after checking that there was nobody watching, he gave me the key to the door.

There was a familiar stink about the mine, one that I remembered from the Mudan-Mul Mine. Drawing my sword, I advanced with some care. Fortunately, whatever was blighting the mine was confined to the lower quarters and the Scribs in the upper chambers were not aggressive. I wish the same could be said of Trooper gro-Ogdum. The Orc gave me a three count to get the Oblivion out of the area he was guarding. As quickly as I could, I chose one of the passages and headed off down it. From up ahead I could hear the drip-drip of water and a strange noise ~ like wind. As I rounded the corner, I came upon the source of the sound. There, in the middle of the passage, was an Ancestral Spirit.

“Hear me Mortal,” it moaned, as I made ready to swing my sword, “Stay your hand ~ I am Mansilamat Vabdas, I was murdered, most foully, by the Orc Lugrub gro-Ogdum. I beg you, avenge me…” The last syllable was drawn out as the spectre faded from view. I knew that the word of an apparition would carry no weight with General Darius: I needed more proof. I found it in the depth of the pool nearby ~ the corpse of Mansilamat and a notched Imperial axe.

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“Hmmm,” General Darius said when I showed him the axe and told him what I had seen. “I doubt the word of a spirit would have any validity in this case Recruit. However, the axe I do recognise. It belongs to Trooper gro-Ogdum all right. Further more, I recognise the marks on the blade ~ those are what you get when an axe strikes bone.

“Very well, there is little doubt that this Mansilamat was murdered and less doubt that Lugrub gro-Ogdum was the murderer. One thing I cannot abide is a rogue soldier: this gro-Ogdum will have to pay and pay dearly. Bring justice to his miserable Orcish hide Recruit Vahl, bring it swiftly.”

I returned to the mine and made my way to the chamber the Orc was using. Kicking the drunken form, I snapped, “on your feet soldier.”

Swaying slightly and blinking blearily, the Orcish Trooper stood in front of me. “You have been judged guilty of the murder of Mansilamat Vabdas. Do you have anything to say before you are brought to justice?”

“I suppose me saying ‘I didn’t do it’ wouldn’t work would it?” the Orc asked, his right hand sliding down towards the sword hanging from his belt. “No, didn’t think so,” he rumbled when I shook my head. With sudden speed, he grabbed the hilt of his sword and started to draw it.

Quick as he was, I was quicker. “Dywyll chymylau, yn nadu bwrw eira, angheuol brythwch,” I yelled, taking a step backwards as the Orc’s sword hissed through the air. The air darkened and flakes of frozen water swirled around the suddenly shivering Orc. As the temperature plummeted still further, a rime of frost appeared on Lugrub’s body. Even protected as I was by the powerful enchantments against cold that Jaron had woven into the gloves and robe I wore, I couldn’t suppress a shiver as a distinctive cracking sound issued forth from the swirling column of dark air that surrounded the Orc.

“Nasty business that,” General Darius said when I returned to the Tradehouse, “can’t have soldiers going round killing civilians during peacetime.” Then he surprised me. “Here’s a bag of gold and a letter for the widow of Mansilamat Vabdas. The letter tells her she’d entitled to a pension and the gold is that pension backdated to when Vabdas was murdered. I want you to deliver them.

“Oh, and here’s a little something from the Legion by way of a thank you,” he added as he handed me an Imperial broadsword. Shaking my head, I took the papers and money over to the widow’s hut. She was as surprised as I had been.

When I got back to the Madach Tradehouse, General Darius was standing by his desk, looking at several sheets of parchment. When I snapped to attention, he carefully rolled them up and returned them to his desk. “Seems strange to me,” he said carefully, “that Lugrub gro-Ogdum froze to death right there in the mine. I guess you might have had something to do with that. Anything you’d like to tell me Recruit?”

With equal care, I replied, “Sir, I have some training in the magical arts, sir.”

He nodded. Going to the large cupboard near his desk, he unlocked it and fetched out a large rectangular shield. Slightly curved, and made of metal-covered wood, I recognised it immediately as the standard Imperial Legion shield. “Legion needs people like you Recruit,” General Darius said. “You’ll find me not ungenerous when it comes to promotion. Effective immediately, you are given a field commission to the rank of Trooper. Here…” With that, he handed me the shield before returning to the desk.

“Now, this magical training of yours Trooper…” he said as he sat down, “…does it include any skills in the School of Restoration?”

“Sir, yes sir,” I replied, adding, “I have knowledge of several curative spells…”

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted. “Don’t understand all that mumbo-jumbo myself,” he said, “give me a decent sword and a charger ~ that’s the way to fight, not all this hand-waving stuff. Still, got to admit it comes in handy sometimes.

“Don’t know what you know about Gnisis,” he continued, “but the Egg-Mine here feeds a lot of people, keeps them in work too. Now the Mine has had to be locked up and the lower levels guarded…”

“Sir, because of the blight, sir,” I said.

“Right,” he said, looking surprised. “Since you know something about this magical stuff, I want you to go in there and cure the Kwama Queen. Head chappie in the village sells scrolls that cure blight; you can get one of those. Suppose you can draw funds from the contingency funds.”

“Sir, won’t need a scroll, sir,” I replied. He looked surprised again, and then nodded curtly. Taking that as a dismissal, I left his ‘office’ and made my way back up to the mine. Curing the Queen was a simple matter of ‘hand-waving mumbo-jumbo’ as Darius would have put it. There were far more interesting things down in the Egg-Mine than a blighted Queen. Off the Queen’s chamber ran a series of tunnels that dead-ended at a deep, underground stream. On the other side was a very familiar shape.

Levitating across the chasm, I made my way up to the Dwemeri door and traced the symbols that were embossed into the surface. If I was reading it correctly, the name of these ruins was Bethamez. The door hadn’t been opened for a while ~ possibly not since the disappearance of the Dwemer ~ but it creaked open when I pushed. Beyond the door was a ruin: in more senses than the usual.

At some point in the remote past, a massive cave-in had sealed all but a tiny proportion of Bethamez behind tonnes of impenetrable rock. Only the antechamber and a small area of the room beyond that were accessible: and even there rocks had crushed and covered much that might have been of value. The only thing I found was a book, protected from the ravages of time by the heavy metal table it lay under. The script inside the book was beyond anything I could translate but the title ~ ‘Divine Metaphysics’ ~ was written in Altmeric script.

General Darius gave me a hundred Septims when I reported back to him. Taking back the chain cuirass he’d given me that very morning, he presented me with a much better quality steel cuirass that was more befitting my rank as Trooper. The money, he explained, was the difference between my starting pay and the pay for my new rank ~ plus a little something extra for solving the problem at the mine.

It was in a very puzzled state of mind that I returned to Tel Vahl. Most military personnel that I’ve met have been complete and utter bastards, ruthless to the core. Yet General Darius seemed a genuinely pleasant Man ~ oh, he was a proper martinet but, underneath it all, he seemed was quite decent in his fumbling military way. The awarding of the pension to Vabdas’ widow had been a real revelation and I understood that was why his troops were so fanatically loyal to the Man. An object lesson ~ and one I intended to take fully to heart.