Chapter 1

Alone, alone, all all alone
Alone on a wide, wide sea

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Trembling, he took a huge bite out of the shapeless mass fetched up by his fishing rod. In just moments the realisation dawned that it was, in fact, the most disgusting thing he'd ever tasted.

"Ack! Squid!"

He spat the mouthful out overboard and tossed the rest of the squid as far out to sea as possible. There was a satisfying splash as it hit the water and disappeared beneath the waves. Exhausted from that slight effort, he collapsed back into the boat.

There was, he thought listlessly, little point in laying the fishing rod out for another go, as the largest thing he had caught so far had been an old boot and he'd been trying since yesterday evening. At least, he thought it was yesterday evening. He couldn't tell whether it was just one day he had spent alone on this vast ocean…after being abandoned by his shipmates in this accursed coracle.

Weakly he splashed at the water with a limp hand. In the beginning he'd been angry; he screamed and shouted and cursed away to the sky, finally breaking down and weeping in anguish. He'd thought about using the sword that lay across his knees in the tiny boat, the only thing apart from his rod that he'd been allowed to take; thought about using it to kill himself quickly, instead of waiting for the slow, torturous death that he knew awaited a marooned sailor.

Wearily, Valerio wondered if he was going mad. There was a dark smudge across the edge of the horizon. He tried moving his head to see if it would go away, but it remained, growing, if anything, clearer and clearer. Eventually he began to see tall shapes that looked like trees sticking out of the dark mass, and later on other things that looked like rocks, or maybe cliffs.

With a sigh, Valerio realised it was land he was approaching. He didn't much care. He would die out here all alone…no food, no water…just trees, and rocks, and land…

The coracle fetched up against the beach with the slightest of exclamations. Through a dim haze, Valerio registered the impact, but did not react. He lay there in a stupor as the sun began to sink in the sky and a deep twilight invaded the beach. Suddenly his eyes shot open. There was a curious scratching noise coming from off to his right, coming closer with each passing second. He tried to stand, but his weak legs twitched and crumpled under him and he toppled with a splash into the sea.

Arms were grabbing at him, and he found himself being pulled like a dead weight from the water and heaved onto the sand. Another push and he had been rolled over to lie staring up at the stars. The Little Moon winked down from the sky in a wreath of clouds, and by its dim glow he saw a face peering carefully over him. The face was strange. In his half-dead state he was sure there was something wrong with it, but couldn't have said what exactly. Then something was being pushed into his lips and the cool, flowing sensation of water trickled over his swollen tongue and down his parched throat. For the longest time he lay motionless, in ecstasy, wishing the flow would never stop, but after a while it did and the thing was removed from his mouth.

He licked his lips slowly, savouring the new energy flowing through his body, and in dry, hoarse tones he whispered: "Where am I?"

There was a long pause, and he thought no-one else was there and he was still back on the boat, waiting to die on the endless sea, playing out his last few moments in some dreamy hallucination.

"On a beach." The reply came suddenly out of the darkness. "In the land of Vardenfell."

He came awake slowly. There was a light breeze playing across the sand, and it ruffled his hair gently as he sat up. The sun was high in the sky; in was morning, and he was hungry. A groan burst from his lips. His stomach was on fire; he put a hand over it gingerly and groaned again. Food. He looked around desperately.

From the high rock cliffs on one side to the gravelly spit that stuck out like a giant finger into the sea, the beach was stretched for only a hundred metres or so between the two. A little further in and the sand began to slope before it hit a line of tall, windswept trees, crouched over like old men, their branches gnarled and twisted. In the other direction the sea lay calm and unending till it blurred into the sky on the outermost edges of vision.

And there, fetched up against the shore, was the little coracle. It was tied with a piece of rope to a short wooden pole sticking out of the sand, and it rolled back and forth in the tide.

Valerio stood up so quickly his head swam and he tottered for a few seconds on the verge of falling over. There was someone in his coracle. His hand went to his belt, before realising his sword was in the little boat. Making up his mind he grabbed the rope that was tied to the stick, and like a blind man stumbled along it out to the coracle. The waves, although gentle, slapped at his legs and threatened to knock him over. Finally his hands clutched wood and threw himself over the side of the boat, whereupon he let out a loud exclamation of shock.

In the tiny, cramped space, Valerio found himself pushed up against the strangest face he could have imagined. He tried to scramble away but the boat rocked dangerously and he kept still, breathing heavily. The someone looked perfectly calm and was crouched over his fishing rod, examining it closely, unsurprised by Valerio's sudden arrival.

"You are very weak." It was a female voice, but with deep purring undertones. "Go back to shore and I will get you food. Damn!" she hissed, throwing the rod down before fixing him with a beady gaze. "You are strange to me. Your clothes, your tools, I have never seen the like. Who are you?"

Again, he looked at her face. Slowly, the pieces came together in his mind; the long ears, the furry muzzle, the amber eyes…then the realization dawned. "You're a Khajit!" he exclaimed excitedly. "But…you were supposed to have died out centuries ago…since before the fall of the empire."

She tossed her long braided hair angrily. "Well, I am still alive, aren't I? And now, I think, you will tell me where you come from." She pulled a small knife from her belt and with lightning speed placed the point under Valerio's chin. He swallowed a shout. A trickle of blood ran down the knife.

"Steady on," he choked. "I'm not an enemy."

"Then what are you?"

"A sailor. I was abandoned out on the sea in a boat."

The Khajit waited as if for more of this story. When none was forthcoming, she slowly withdrew the dagger and sat back in the coracle. "So why have you come here?"

Valerio didn't dare put a hand to his chin; she still looked ready to spring at him if he moved too soon. But he felt a flush of anger at her words.

"I didn't want to, did I? I didn't even have a paddle, I just drifted here."

She still looked wary. "You are…all alone?"

"Of course I'm alone. Can you see anyone else on this beach?"

This finally seemed to satisfy her, and the knife was returned to her belt with an audible sigh of relief from Valerio.

"My name is Catchut." she said.

"Esset Valerio," he replied.

"Come. You must be very hungry." They waded along the rope back to the beach, then she led the way as they trudged up the hot sand to the line of trees. It was noon and the sun was blazing overhead, but a cool wind was blowing off the sea and helped cool them down. When they reached the treeline Valerio collapsed onto the thin khaki soil. His companion produced two strips of dry meat from somewhere (he didn't see where) and handed the first to him. He tore a long piece off and chewed it vigorously, letting the raw salty taste fill his mouth. He ripped off another bit, then ate the last piece whole. Wordlessly, she handed him the second and watched as he devoured it - slower this time – before smacking his lips and sitting back against a tree. There was silence for a few minutes as Valerio savoured the feeling of a full stomach. With food out of the way, the next problem presented itself to his mind: where in the Nine was he? Sneaking a sideways glance at his companion confirmed that she was indeed a Khajit; at least, she conformed to everything Valerio had ever heard about them. He tried to recall those old stories about the 'cat-people', as they were often called. Usually they were tricksters and thieves, cunning, sneaky and always untrustworthy. He sneaked another glance at her. She was sharpening her knife on a small rock, darting quick glances here and there and sniffing the wind.

A branch cracked somewhere in the trees. Instantly she leapt up and snarled, her beady eyes now buzzing and her head twisting as she tried to look in all directions at once, an expression of fear etched into her features.

"What - " he began

"Quiet!" she hissed, and continued to gaze round as if expecting an attack. The day seemed to acquire an ominous feel; the wind picked up and rustled the trees around them as a cloud drifted over the sun. In the sudden gloom, Valerio strained with his ears to here some sound that shouldn't be there. Catchut was now completely still.

A squirrel jumped from the treetops a couple of paces away, landed lightly on the ground and scampered away. Valerio gave a hoarse laugh that quickly faded under a quailing look from the Khajit.

"Think it's funny, eh?" she growled. "The beach is a dangerous place during the day. We must not stay here."

"Where would we go?"

Catchut opened her mouth, then closed it slowly. A sly look stole over her face. "Back to the camp," she said. "It is not far. Just a short walk through the trees and over the Highroad. We can be there before dusk."

Valerio frowned. It wasn't as though he was ungrateful to Catchut for her help; without her, he would have surely died, but when he looked into her cat-like face and heavily lidded eyes, it was hard to trust her. She seemed to sense his reluctance.

"Do you think you will survive here alone? You fool. You think you can somehow cross the sea and go back where you came from?" She saw the uncomfortable look on Valerio's face and knew her guess had been correct. "We do not go out on the sea. Ever. To do so is death."

"I came over it well enough, didn't I?" said Valerio, annoyed.

"Then you had Grimfire's own luck, and much good it did you, starving and thirsty."

There was silence for a while. Valerio shut his eyes against the burning sun and played with some of the grass stalks at his feet. The burr-burr of an insect started up behind them. Eventually he said:

"At the camp…is there more of your kind. More Khajit?"

"Yes," she said, shortly.

He had been toying with the notion that she was the last of her kind, but this wrecked that theory and raised more questions.

"Is everyone here a Khajite? I don't even know where here is."

"We are on the island of Vardenfell, and there are many Khajit here." She looked round at him, a stab of curiosity in her voice. "You say the other Khajit have died out. How is this?"

He thought for a moment. "I…I'm not sure." It wasn't the truth exactly, but she might not handle the truth to well, and he needed every friend he could find here.

The Sun began to sink in the sky and the shadows lengthened. Valerio woke up suddenly, his face pressed close to the ground, and realised he must have dozed off. Catchut hadn't moved from where she had been sitting earlier.

She saw him wake, and lithely stood up. "Come. You have slept long enough and the day is almost gone. We should make it to the camp before sunset."

Valerio groaned and pressed a hand to his temple; he could feel the beginnings of a pounding headache. Catchut was adamant, though, and hauled him roughly to his feet. "If we stay here we will be dead by morning," she said with deathly calm. He longed to ask what was so dangerous about the beach, but before long the walk began to exhaust him. They were walking through endless trees. Strange trees with grey bark and star-shaped leaves that were totally silent in the still air. Valerio started to think that the whole forest was dead, the undergrowth was bones beneath his feet…crunching…crunching…

And suddenly there were no more trees, and they were looking up at a sharply-sloping embankment that reared up across there path and extended both left and right as far as they could see. They picked there way slowly up it. At the top was a thin stretch of flat land, and Valerio found himself standing on a cobblestone path that snaked across the top of the embankment.

"The Highroad," said Catchut without pause, continuing across and starting to descend the other side. "It runs unbroken almost the whole length of the Isle, or so I am told." Valerio stopped to look in the direction they were going, but the light was now so dim he could only make out a vague hilly landscape below the bright red smudge of horizon.

A short time later, when darkness had really fallen and the night air had quickly chilled to a biting cold, they came across a group of standing stones. Valerio was completely blind in the darkness and had to grasp tight to Catchut's hand as she led them carefully through the stones.

"We're nearly there," came the voice from somewhere in front. "Can you not see the lights?"

And indeed, he thought he could see a vague blur approaching slowly. Finally the blur materialised into a figure standing upright against one of the stones with a torch held in one hand. A breeze whipped the torch's flame around wildly, and by its light Valerio could see that the figure was Khajit, dressed in some sort of pale leather armour and helmet. The figure raised a hand and spoke.

"Welcome to those who come unannounced in the dark."

Catchut, in turn, held out her palm and replied.

"Gladness to those who welcome nightly wanderers."

This ritual being done the figure turned and walked away. Catchut followed, and Valerio quickly fell in behind. They passed through two large stones with lit torches in brackets and patterned by strange markings. It was the first sign of any sort of civilisation Valerio had seen on the island, and it relieved some of his tension.

There was more to come, however. Beyond the gateway stones was a clearing of dead shrubs and dry soil. Broken rocks cracked underfoot. The clearing was sparsely populated by small Yurts, which looked like dim squatting beasts, and the occasional campfire, around which were crouched more Khajit. They looked up as he entered, but apart from a few whispers that the wind quickly snatched away the place was completely silent. He stood, swaying slightly from exhaustion, while Catchut held a whispered conversation with some of the others, who threw unreadable looks at him every now and again. He was not invited to join the discussion.

He faded out for a moment, then realised someone was speaking.

"…Yurt at the Western entrance you can use. Come on," said Catchut, taking him by the arm and quickly hurrying him along past more of the strange tents. He longed to lie down and sleep, but someone kept insisting on holding him upright. All he wanted to do was sleep…sleep for a long time.

"Here we are," said a voice, and then he was inside a dark space, and there was a thick bedding of wool that stretched across the floor. He collapsed onto it.

He woke to the sound of screaming. It was still dark and for a few moments he forgot where he was, thinking he was still in the cabin aboard ship during a storm, and that he had fallen out of his hammock. The screaming stopped abruptly.

He found his way out through the tent's entry flap and stumbled out into the darkness. A pale streak along the Eastern sky signalled the approach of dawn. Seemingly all was calm; the camp lay quiet.

He stood there, trying not to breath, desperately listening for some sound that shouldn't be there. As he listened, the deep silence grew eerie, then disturbing, and finally terrifying when Valerio realised there were not even any of the usual sounds that accompanied daybreak; the sound of birds, or animals, or of the camp beginning to wake.

WHOOSH. There! He saw it. A shadow had detached itself from one of the standing stones that surrounded the tents.

WHOOSH. Something flew past his head with a rush of air. He started to run towards the shadow.

This time he heard the air move and felt something sting him on the leg. He batted it away and kept running.

The air turned suddenly thick; it was like trying to wade through mud. The edges of his vision went dim, a flickering darkness that spread across his eyes. Slowly, he began to fall. This time when unconsciousness came, it hurt.