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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After quite a bit of searching through various shelves, cupboards, and boxes, I found the skull that I had picked up so long ago. Wrapping it in cloth, I spoke the words of the spell that would transport me to Balmora, “Ex hic absum, ut, Balmora.”

Sharn gra-Muzgob took the skull from me with trembling hands, examining it minutely before locking it into a chest that stood near her desk. Then, turning to me, she said, “you wanted to know something about the Nerevarine Cult?”

I nodded, taking a roll of parchment from my pack and uncorking the travelling inkwell. Dipping my quill in the ink, I transcribed the information the Orc gave me. “Nerevar was a Dunmeri hero, many, many years ago,” she began. “He was a powerful and charismatic leader who forged peace between the Dunmer and the Dwemer. When he died, he was canonised and revered as a saint by the Temple.

“However the Cult that bears Nerevar’s name believes that he will return in the hour of Morrowind’s greatest need. The Temple views this as heresy, believing that the Tribunal have no need of a resurrected hero to protect Morrowind. The Temple calls those who claim to be the Nerevarine (as the Dunmeri call the Nerevar Reborn) ‘False Incarnates’ and prosecutes them with all its might…” there was more to what gra-Muzgob told me but, like Hasphat’s information, much of what she told me was hearsay and supposition. Her final words on the subject, however, were of interest. “The last ‘False Incarnate’ was a Dunmeri woman by the name of Peakstar. She raised quite a commotion among the Ashlanders but vanished ~ presumably the Temple had a hand in that.”

Caius Cosades was pleased to see me and even more pleased with the notes I brought him. “I need some time to consider how this information fits in with what the Emperor has planned for you,” he said, “so I have no other tasks for you at the moment. However, as soon as I have a clearer picture, I will have new orders for you.

“Now, before you go, I have a few things that you might find useful and a little surprise. These scrolls are Divine Intervention scrolls, I assume you know how those work?” I nodded, and he continued, “and the little surprise is a promotion. Effective immediately, you are raised to the rank of Apprentice.”

Thanking Cosades, I took my leave of his hovel and ~ in a very pensive mood ~ made my way back up towards Fort Moonmoth. I hadn’t liked his comment about having more orders for me, although it didn’t surprise me. What was really weighing on my mind was his comment: how this information fits in with what the Emperor has planned for you. That I really didn’t like. What possible connection could there be between a cult that worshipped some long-dead hero, a second cult that planned to overthrow Imperial rule in Morrowind, and a twenty-five year old Dunmeri exile that had never known her real parents? I tried fitting the pieces together as I walked along but really couldn’t see how they would go together.

Moonmoth had all the scurrying business of an anthill that someone has poked with a stick a few times. Several of the guards were hammering on the door to the Arkay Shrine, others were doing that popular impersonation of a headless Scrib ~ running around but not actually accomplishing anything. “What,” I yelled above the din, “is going on here?”

“Someone broke into the Shrine ma’am,” one of the guards hammering on the door called back. “Now the blasted door is stuck and we can’t get it open.” I walked over and examined the door. It was jammed all right. My guess is that someone had braced the door from the inside with a bench or something.

“How important is it that we get inside?” I asked.

The incredulous look the guard gave me was sufficient answer to that question. Moving all the guards back into the courtyard, I concentrated as hard as I could before launching a fireball at the door. The effects were rather more spectacular than I’d anticipated ~ fragments of wood whickered softly as they whipped across the courtyard in a deadly horizontal hail. “By the Emperor’s Balls,” the guard next to me breathed, taking a step away from me, “nobody said nothing about you being a Battle-Mage ma’am.”

“I’m not,” I snapped curtly as I drew my sword, “and that’s something you’d do well to remember Trooper.”

I barely heard his whispered “Yes ma’am” as I advanced, kicking several smouldering chunks of wood out of the doorframe so I could enter the Shrine. In the antechamber were two dead bodies. The first was that of a priest ~ the front of his long dark robe sodden with blood from the cut that stretched clean across his throat. The second body was clad in dark armour of a design I’d not seen before ~ blackened iron covered with silver metal studs. The cause of death was pretty self-evidence ~ a shard of wood jutted from the centre of the corpse’s chest. Warily, I advanced further into the shine.

The rest of the main shrine was deserted, if you don’t count the slaughtered priests. I got a really bad feeling right about then: all this death and destruction yet, on the shelves of the shrine stood many valuable items. None of which had been taken. If simple theft wasn’t the reason for the slaughter then what was? With a final look around, I moved deeper into the shrine.

The vault behind the shrine was unlocked and, as I slipped through the door, I could hear two things. The first was the crackle of flames, the second was the sound of an aggrieved voice demanding, “where is the hidden chamber, the switch must be here somewhere?”

I strained to hear if there was any reply, perhaps some priest had survived the slaughter in the shrine and was being interrogated. There was no sound. So, someone was talking to a companion, or had the very bad habit of talking out loud to themselves. Either way, if I wished to discover what was going on here, I would need to talk to whoever was in the vaults.

Sword in hand, I advanced into the main room. There stood a Man in a dark green robe and a figure clad in the same studded iron armour as the Man upstairs. Both saw me at the same time. With a bestial roar, the armour-clad figure raced towards me while the robed Man began muttering some arcane cantrip. The disgusting form of a Bone-Walker materialised near him, blank eyes burning in my direction as my sword crashed into the blade the armoured figure was wielding. Ducking under a fierce slicing cut, I planted a foot in the middle of the fighter’s chest and shoved as hard as I could. As he crashed to the floor, I extended my right hand and concentrated on Aryon’s Dominator.

As the Bone-Walker turned on the robed Man, I turned my attention back to the armoured figure ~ now clambering to his feet again. There is a simple rule to combat: magic-users, archers, melee-fighters ~ the Legion drills that into you again and again. Closing my ears to the Man’s pitiful screams as the Bone-Walker tore into him, I hammered my blade down onto the armoured figure’s shoulders as he finally stood upright. With a grunt, the figure stepped back and readied his sword.

I swayed backwards, narrowly avoiding a powerful blow that would have dented my armour at the very least. My retaliatory blow slid past the figure’s defences ~ crashing into his helm and tearing the visor clean off its mountings. No Man this, nor yet a beast ~ some obscene melding of the two. Feral yellow eyes glared at me from a whiskered face as the beastling tore off its helm and readied another blow. Not that I planned to give this creature a chance: stepping back I spoke the words, “Chyffyrddiad chan rhew.”

As shards of ice tore at its now exposed face, I calmly drove the point of my sword into its breast, the heavy iron armour parting like butter before the keen edge of the Ebony blade.

I squatted next to the robed figure and demanded, “What are you doing here?” the Man looked up at me, an already vacant look in his eyes. With an effort, he shook his head, and then closed his eyes. “Don’t you die on me yet,” I snapped, punching him in the ribs. When that had no effect, I drew my dagger from its (very) non-regulation hiding place in my boot, “you and me still need to talk.”

His eyes snapped open as I applied the point of my dagger to the gaping wound in his chest, a wheezing moan coming from him as I felt the point scrape along a rib. He shook his head, blood frothing on his lips as he tried to scream. I can be very persistent and, despite the distasteful task, I had no qualms about torturing this Man ~ he had, after all, been responsible for the death of a number of unarmed priests. I must have stroked something that really, really hurt ~ despite his wounds and his near-death state, he let out quite an energetic scream. I poked whatever it was a couple more times, encouraging him to talk. Turning his head, he spat out “Crn spas osim ako mene,” and then died. I had heard those words before and, after a moment’s thought, it came back to me: the woman in the shrine to Kynareth had spoken those very same words.