The Battlemage's Tale
After finally succeeding in interviewing Frisar Fire-keeper and hearing her uncle's story through the veil of her words, I spent the next several days reworking and rereading my notes, playing with the details in my mind until a tentative hypothesis emerged. It wasn't a particularly complimentary or comfortable one. I'd begun the investigation by jumping to conclusions from the first evidence I found, evidence that seemed to highlight the Dragonborn's empathy. That hasty assumption was in tatters now. A truly empathic person could hardly have feasted with Namira's coven, or fought with the Dragonborn's signature ruthlessness on the battlefield.
Then what of the self-hatred and obsessive self-blame that lay in wait to ambush the Dragonborn the moment she stepped out of the public eye? That was just as well attested, her private collapses into the arms of Serana, or later Shahvee, her secret insecurity and hidden self-hatred. I toyed with the idea of her empathy being eclipsed by action, only to return to accuse her after the fact, but that seemed closer to an excuse than an explanation. It seemed more likely that what I had first read as empathy might have been no more than a querulous self-doubt, a milder version of what came upon her with full force when she was alone or with her lover. The scavengers had seen it in an impromptu setting, free from any social framework, where her mask had slipped due to shock and exhaustion. But when there was a full context available that could guide her and give her cues, she seemed to have blindly embraced the behavior she thought was expected of her, whether before a coven or on the field of battle. Like an over-enthusiastic actor, she was apt to lose herself in her role of the moment, any role, and the role became her, with no hard core of personality or ethics for the flow of events to break against and be turned.
Maybe that was it – she had just been a very weak person, a shell, a dead leaf blown here and there by whatever winds were the strongest. That conclusion will win me no friends in the Synod, where many of the more devout members will certainly claim that my viewpoint has been distorted by my realist bias. They will demand to know why, if I were correct, the dragon blood had been granted her by the gods, and I will have no adequate response. I need a better explanation for her behavior than mere moral weakness.
Two days before I finally left Dawnstar, I went up to the Jarl's hall to talk to her Court Wizard, who had been off in Riften when I arrived and had just that day returned. Court Wizard is a largely honorary title now, since its military role, once central to the position, hardly exists any more. There have been no big set-piece battles for many years, and ordinary troops are far more useful than mages in rooting out the few bandits and pirates that remain. Thus, at many of the smaller courts, the position has attracted the contemplative sort of magic user, those who appreciate the peace and quiet of a sinecure and have research to keep themselves occupied.
The research specialty of Dawnstar's court wizard, Herric Spark-striker, is Falmer/Snow Elf magic, in particular the way in which the Dwemer spiritually crippled the Snow Elves by stealing part of their souls. Much still remains unclear about these techniques, in particular how the Dwemer managed to make the loss hereditary, transmitted by blood, rather than having to inflict it on each new generation separately. It is a delicate area – of course the Falmer/Snow Elves are nervous about the subject, afraid that anything discovered might one day be used against them – but fascinating, related to the technique of partial soul-capture that is necessary before mortals can enter the Soul Cairn. It is also a natural subject for a mage at the Dawnstar court to pursue, given the central role that Madina the Breton, Dawnstar court wizard during the Dragonborn's time, played in the renaissance of the Snow Elves.
While still in Cyrodiil, I had been told that quite a few notes and manuscripts remained in the local archives from Madina's tenure as Court Wizard, though she had released almost nothing to the public. Was there anything on the Dragonborn? No one seemed to know. Given the contrast between the Dragonborn's aggressiveness and Madina's pacifism, a product of her gruesome battlefield experience during the Great War against the elves, there might well be nothing at all. I had put off following up the lead for weeks not. But it would be foolish to leave Dawnstar without checking. Foolish, and a little cowardly as well, since I was sure anything that I did find would be on the negative side of the scale.
Herric Spark-striker is one of a group still relatively small in number, native Nord mages. Magic as a vocation has become more respectable to the Nords than it was in the Dragonborn's time, and the majority of students at the College of Winterhold are now from Skyrim, but apart from the school of Restoration, basic to the healer's art, the average Nord still thinks of Illusion, Conjuration, Alteration, and the rest as almost indistinguishable from necromancy and demon worship. Nord mages thus tend to be reserved, even reclusive. But there are a number of exceptions to this rule, and Chief Battlemage Herric, as he likes to call himself in particularly expansive moments, is one of the most conspicuous.
I encountered Herric on the steps of the White Hall, seeing off a delegation of Falmer that had just visited the Jarl to resolve some minor jurisdictional dispute. As is usually the case when they venture into human or elven society, each of the adult Falmer was accompanied by a child to act as a guide, since the eyesight of the children is so much better than that of their seniors. It has been more than fifty years now since Madina and Erandur of Dawnstar, the former Falmer thrall Elisenne Bloodaxe, and Knight-Paladin Gelebor of the Chantry of Auriel discovered the cause of the mutations that had deformed the minds and bodies of the Falmer and disabled the dwarven mechanisms designed to keep them enslaved for all time. Unfortunately, the accumulated damage of centuries cannot be set right in an instant, or even a generation. Still, the youngest of the Falmer can now see almost as well as humans can, and their Snow Elf ancestry emerges more clearly in each succeeding generation, in their straighter carriage, paler skin, and less distorted facial features. In another century or so, at the present rate of change, few physical traces will remain of their long bondage. Most important of all, now that their souls are free from being systematically farmed and harvested by the infernal machinery of the Dwemer, their mindless hostility and subnormal intelligence have become things of the past, and relations with them are similar to those with any other of the mortal races.
"Where is that lot from?" I asked Herric, as soon as I could be sure they were out of earshot.
"The Frostflow Lighthouse warren. Look at how things have changed. First we heard of them was nearly a century ago, when their tunneling broke through a cellar wall and they murdered the lighthouse keeper and his family. After which the Dragonborn paid them a visit, and sent just about every resident of the warren to the Dread Lord in short order. It took them decades to recover. Now the Falmer are maintaining the lighthouse for the Jarl, and doing a decent job of it too. As well as managing a brisk wholesale trade in bulk chaurus chitin. I wonder what the Dragonborn would have said about that."
"Absolutely nothing, or at least nothing negative," I replied. "Remember, she was the one who turned the dragons from foes into friends, or at least harmless neutrals. Flipping the Falmer wouldn't have struck her as a bad thing. Unlike some others, she doesn't seem to have clung to her hates for very long."
"She was ardent enough while they lasted, I understand. There was usually nothing much left to hold on to..." Herric's voice trailed off as he assumed a martial stance and scanned the horizon for threats only he could see. More than one of the people I had met in Dawnstar had hinted that they were happier to see him off on his travels than play-acting the vigilant defender from his post in the Jarl's longhouse. I found his affectations tedious but harmless, though I couldn't help wondering how well he would do if a real challenge ever rose into view over the horizon, rather than just ice-glare, blowing spray, and sleepy horkers.
I left him at his game a few moments, long enough to preserve his dignity, and then reminded him of why I was here.
"I wonder if you've had the time to look through the manuscripts..."
"Oh." He blinked at me for a moment, and then returned his vigilance to the empty vista in front of him. "Oh, that. I did find a few things from Madina's tenure that might be relevant. Nothing very long, nothing very connected. But there's a bit there. I don't know how much use it will be to you, though. It's pretty much a jumble."
"Can I look over what's there now? I'll be leaving in a few days."
After a long pause to examine some vaguely suspicious cloud formations on the northwest horizon, Herric waved me his permission, without deigning to glance in my direction again.
"Of course. It's all in a box on the table in my workroom. Don't wander off with any of it, though. The files are in enough of a mess as it is. And drop me a note when you're finished the whole study, please. The Dragonborn was a genuine hero. I'd like to know what all the fuss was about."
About something real, I'm sure, not just striking theatrical poses, I thought to myself. But of course I wasn't tactless enough to say it out loud.
I had been made lazy by my success in unearthing complete narratives. Every major advance in the story so far had come in the form of a connected narrative. The various narratives didn't fit together properly – yet – but all of them had context, detail, information in them to suggest further lines of inquiry. They disagreed with each other, often, but usually not with themselves.
The bundle of miscellaneous manuscripts, notes, and scraps that Herric had unearthed for me did not constitute a narrative. It shared no whole, not even a contradictory whole. It was an assortment of memoranda, by and large, the sort of disorganized, private notes that most people push to the back of a drawer, undated and unpolished, forgotten as soon as the memory that they document fades from the writer's mind.
Shards and fragments. A few of them glittered in the afternoon sun coming down through the vents in the longhouse roof, but most were dull and unresponsive. The most rewarding were the most focused, highlighting a single phenomena or issue, something that had caught Madina's eye.
She says she never runs away, but she is always running. The Dragonborn never walks. She says it is because her tasks are urgent, but I wonder, is she running to or running from? Is there something that would catch up to her if she moved more slowly and thoughtfully?
Everyone had remarked on that habit at one time or another. The Dragonborn never walked, even when she was going nowhere, scheduled to arrive at no particular time. Or at least she never walked when she was in public view, perhaps because moving slowly contradicted the persona she had crafted for herself. True, the scavengers had seen her come stumbling out of that tomb, but that was when her mask had slipped for a moment. By the time she left them, she was master of herself again, and running.
Another observation, this one new to me.
D. stayed here for two nights. I gave her the spare bed opposite mine. She's a very light sleeper. Tossing and turning constantly, and muttering words that I can't understand. Sometimes it sounds as if she were pleading with someone. Sometimes she clenches her fists and pulls at the covers. This goes on most of the night. Just as dawn is about to break, she falls into a deep sleep for an hour or so. Does she have to wait for Azura's coming to give her enough peace to relax and truly sleep? I have asked her some cautious questions and it doesn't seem that she remembers when she is awake that she is that restless when asleep.
I discussed it with Erandur. He is afraid that Vaermina is involved, but I doubt it. The Dragonborn's own memories are quite enough without the intervention of the Lady of Nightmares.
Perhaps, perhaps not. I wondered about her last remark. Vaermina had been the only one of the Daedric Lords that the Dragonborn had flatly defied, when she refused to kill Erandur and allowed him to complete Mara's ritual to banish the Skull of Corruption back to Oblivion. It wasn't hard to see that Vaermina might have held a grudge against her for the unique experience of being slighted. Would she have dared move against someone who had been the obedient servant of so many of her fellow Lords? Was she driven off every night, at the very end of the night, by the power of Azura?
While Madina and most of her contemporaries believed that the appearance of a Dragonborn was a good omen, indicating the watchful concern of the gods, the Dragonborn herself was never quite sure. She cited her predecessor Miraak, the first Dragonborn, whose lust for power had led him to betray his superiors not once but twice.
The gifts of the gods, just like those of the daedra, are expressed in terms of power, not morality. She brings up the name of Miraak over and over again to remind me of this, and it is a telling point. Miraak the Dragonborn. Miraak the Traitor. Traitor to everyone and everything in the end. She too will betray, she fears. But what? Whom?
Perhaps herself? Being true to the role seemed to demand that she warp her personality to its needs. Anything that got in the way had to be dismissed, silenced, driven away, at least temporarily.
She becomes warrior by blocking out everything but the kill. The role she has been gifted demands it. The role has decided. "The first person I kill in battle is always myself," she said to me once, in a reflective moment. Too true, and after each battle, the resurrection is a bit harder, the Dragonborn that rises again more draugr-like.
Sooner or later, she knew, she would have to adapt to peace. But could she?
To make war, the enemy must be monsters; to make peace, they must be as human and as deserving as you are. She is worried that she will not be able to manage this reversal when the time comes. Or even recognize that the time for it has come.
When it did come, she managed it well, even settling some of Tamriel's most persistent hostilities in the process, reconciling dragons and vampires with the mortal races. But mere success would not have been enough; nothing ever was, as Serana had reminded me. The Dragonborn failed to make one of her key transitions, just as she had feared, but it was not that between the hatred of war and the harmony of peace. It was one within herself, the one between the crushing weight of responsibility that came with her role, and the inner assurance that she had done her duty. That was the betrayal that mattered most in the end: her emotional self-robbery, her betrayal of her own record of success.
That night I finally packed up my things and left for Windhelm, taking everything with me with the exception of some of the heavier books, which I sent to be stored in Riften until I settled down again. Herric Spark-striker had given me the name of a colleague of his in Windhelm whom he claimed had some information on the Dragonborn's private life. All grist for the mill; it would make an interesting comparison with what Serana had told me.
So the Dragonborn might have been daedra-haunted as well...how could I find out more about that? Erandur, the former priest of Vaermina who had purified Vaermina's old temple above Dawnstar in the name of Mara, with the Dragonborn's assistance, was long dead, and he seems to have left no records of any sort. But there would be others, somewhere; perhaps local cult worshipers of Vaermina, if any could be found that were willing to talk, which was doubtful. The Nords didn't exactly see the Lady of Nightmares in a friendly light.
Apart from that, I had found more evidence to indicate what a crushing weight Dragonborn could be for its luckless bearer. Perhaps a person didn't need to be weak to be taken over by it. Perhaps she hadn't been as lightweight and helpless as the leaf blowing in the wind that I had visualized earlier. And there was the paradox of the dragon blood as well – granted by the gods to be used for good, but never withdrawn even if employed solely for evil – an open invitation to arrogance, always tempting those who wielded it to go too far.
Was this one of its functions? A test as much as a tool? Miraak had failed, that was clear. Who had passed? And what did it mean to pass? The power had already been granted, and it would never be taken back. Was there something else?
Those questions would have to wait. For now, it was a beautiful sunny day, and I was on my way to Windhelm, blinking at the gleam of the sun off the crystal surface of the snow, on an expedition into the Dragonborn's heart.