Broken Vows
Chapter 4
According to Elam Andas, I had made quite an impression on the Grandmaster in the Library, and he was of the opinion that I would be better suited to the Order of War than the Order of the Watch. I was not sure if I completely agreed with him, but I had my orders and was not asked for my opinion. It was a trial task, of sorts, to see how well I might handle myself outside of the Holy City. I was a little interested in learning that myself; I had been born in Vivec, raised by the Order from infancy, and had never left the City.
So, it was an oddly discreet exit that I made off the Telvanni canton, setting foot on real grass for the first time in my life. No one was there to witness that rather momentous first, I thought, except a few mudcrabs.
Yet somehow I was not surprised to see Amurah leaning against a tree, arms folded, after I'd been walking only a few minutes. She eyed me wordlessly as I approached. "Meet many people with Guild Writs on their heads, out here?" I asked warily, wondering if I was her intended target.
She pushed herself off the tree with a shrug and fell into step beside me. "I have no Writs to fill right now. Just thought I'd get some fresh air. Where are you headed?"
As if she didn't know... why else would she be waiting on this very path for me to walk past? I played along, though. What else was I to do? "Ald Sotha. An errand for the Temple."
"All alone? You'd think the Temple would send more than one Ordinator to assault a Daedric shrine, wouldn't you? Especially one that's as well-known for bandits as Ald Sotha."
"If the Temple thought I needed help, they would have sent another with me."
"Here, this way, you'll get stuck in the mud if you go that way... That's a nice thought, Ordinator. Did you ever think that maybe they're trying to get rid of you? Or is the Temple's information really so bad that they don't know how many foes really lurk in the shrine these days?"
The very idea was ridiculous, and yet... a little tendril of doubt wormed its way into my mind. Could she be right? Maybe Elam Andas had seen an opportunity to rid the Order of a certain problematic brother, and....
"If that were true, I would have been sent somewhere more remote than a stone's throw away from the city, don't you think?" I asked coolly, wishing I could convince myself, much less Amurah.
She shrugged. "In any case, one might think you'd be glad of some company."
"I don't suppose I can stop you."
She let out a huff of laughter, and we strode on. A few minutes later, the strange architecture of the Daedric shrine came into view across a low valley. So different from the orderly layout of the Holy City, I thought. Slender towers and columned domes, placed seemingly at random, reached toward the sky, twisted and leaning, as if they'd once been fluid and suddenly froze while the wind was buffeting them. I had been told what to look for, but it was still difficult not to stop and stare. Amurah's long strides took her ahead when I slowed.
"Come on," she called over her shoulder. "The entrance is usually-- ah, here it is." I joined her at a half-submerged platform, where an egg-shaped door was set crookedly into the wall. She pushed it open and stepped inside, drawing a blade as she disappeared into the darkness. I paused, uneasy about entering a shrine dedicated to false gods, with a skilled assassin who seemed to be following me for her own unfathomable reasons.
"Come on," she called again, impatiently. I readied my mace and stepped inside. The door shut behind me with an echoing boom, and I blinked as my eyes began to adjust to the dimness. It was not as dark as it had looked from outside; after a few seconds, I could see Amurah clearly. She was already a few paces into the shrine without me, and I followed slowly, wanting to keep a safe distance between her and myself.
I needn't have worried, however; she proved to be a capable and helpful ally. Together, we fought our way through the Dremoras and bandits who inhabited the top level without much difficulty. As the last one fell, with a grunt and clang of armor on stone, Amurah stood blinking in the fading flash of light from the man's sparksword. "Well, this isn't so bad. Maybe you didn't need my help after all."
My hands fumbled clumsily as I searched the body; my arm still twitched with the after effects of the man's sword. I grimaced and pulled off my gauntlets to make better use of my hands, wondering how she had managed to avoid being shocked. "Not finished yet," I said shortly, finding no holy saint's shoes on the man's person. "There's a sacred artifact I am supposed to retrieve."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" She knelt across from me to wipe the blood from her blade onto the dead man's sleeve. "What is it? I'll keep my eyes open for it."
I glared at her, ignoring that energy that crackled between us when our eyes met. "You will not touch it, assassin. I will not have your bloodstained hands profaning the holy relics."
She rolled her eyes and rose gracefully, sheathing her blade. "As if you're so pure and untainted yourself," she scoffed, turning to leave the room.
She was correct, of course, but that didn't stop me as I shot to my feet in anger and snatched her arm, hauling her back to face me. Immediately, her other hand flashed up between us, and the point of the blade she held pricked against my skin; she'd found the gap under the jawline of my mask, where helm met cuirass. Then, we both froze, because the skin of her arm was more electrifying than that bandit's sword, and it was all I could do not to reach for more... imminent danger of being sliced open not withstanding.
Her eyes had darkened to a deep, fiery burgundy. She licked her lips, and I could feel the muscles of her arm, tensing under my hand. Her knifepoint bit deeper into my neck.
"Let. Me. Go." Her voice was low, and would have been threatening, except that I heard the tiniest tremor in it, and knew that she was just as overwhelmed by our strange connection as I was.
My eyes narrowed, and we stared at each other for a long moment. It took more effort than it should have to make myself let her go; we jerked away from each other, staring across the dead man who lay between us.
"Do not touch me again," she said, and this time her voice was more dangerous, the voice of an assassin who was more than ready to kill if necessary. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and stalked back up the stairs, out of sight. I watched her go, and then closed my eyes. What is happening to me? I thought, around the edge of worry that was beginning to press into my mind. I forced it back, and bent to retrieve my gauntlets, making a mental note to never take them off in Amurah's presence again.
I caught up with her just inside the lower level of the shrine, which surprised me-- I had thought she'd left Ald Sotha entirely. She glanced over her shoulder at me when I fell into step at her side, and said nothing. We emptied that portion of the shrine with hardly a word to each other. There were less bandits there, probably because of the several Daedroth that lurked in the shadows. I had read about such creatures, but never seen them; with their long-jawed reptilian heads mounted on hulking bipedal bodies, they were like something from a nightmare. I wondered, in between skirmishes, how much worse a Hunger or a Bonelord would be in person. The Temple trained its fighters well, but there were only so many foes a trainee could face without leaving the City.
The one bandit we did find, a pale woman with dark hair, fought fiercely enough that it took both of us to kill her. I don't remember who struck the final blow, but when she dropped to the ground, Amurah darted forward to stare at the woman's face.
"This is Severa Magia!" She exclaimed. She grinned up at me excitedly, forgetting that she'd been about to slit my throat not a quarter of an hour earlier. "The Night Mother of the Dark Brotherhood!"
I was still coughing from the effects of the last Daedroth's spell; I blinked watery eyes, watching Amurah remove a few small items from the dead woman's body. The Dark Brotherhood was a well-known group of assassins, but as illegal throughout the Empire as the Morag Tong was legal in Morrowind. The Brotherhood was also notoriously secretive and difficult to find.... and yet their leader now lay dead, by my hand and an assassin's. I felt lightheaded suddenly, as I perceived some god's hand in the events of the day.
I just wished I knew which god it was.
Amurah had left the corpse and was busily looting the scrolls and weapons that sat on a nearby dais. I watched her wrench a Daedric tanto from a grinning skull, slipping it into a sheath on her thigh and smiling to herself.
We found no sacred shoes there, though, and continued to a door at the bottom of yet another staircase. "This should be the shrine proper," Amurah said softly.
I nodded and stepped forward, pushing the door open myself. Almost immediately, I was met with a blast of fire from the sorceress who stood at the altar in the center of the room. I charged at her, snarling. Another cloud of poison erupted around me, cast by the Daedroth that crouched in the shadows. I heard it howl in bestial rage as Amurah attacked it, and then my mace slammed into the sorceress' shields. She was strong, strong enough to hold her shieldspell in place while still battering me with fire. This, however, was exactly what Ordinators are trained for. A few simple spells of my own, Reflect and Drain Magicka, sent the flames hurtling back at her. Her shields flickered and faltered, and my mace sank into the side of her head with a wet crunch. She dropped to the altar steps without a sound.
I knelt to search her body-- no holy shoes. When I stood up, Amurah was standing a few paces away, the carcass of the Daedroth at her feet. "Thank you," I said grudgingly, gesturing at the monster's body.
She gave a one-shouldered shrug and came over to rifle through the sorceress' robes herself, pocketing three enchanted rings. While she did so, I stared around at the Daedric shrine. It was a large space, full of angular corners and complicated geometric motifs. Blue smoke poured from large censers near the ceiling, sinking sinuously toward the floor. The room was dominated by the altar to the Daedra, of course: a statue that towered overhead, with four arms bearing an enormous war axe, and the skull of some strange, horned beast adorning its chest.
"Who is he?" I asked.
Amurah gave the statue a disinterested glance, and returned her attention to the sorceress. "Mehrunes Dagon."
The God of Destruction, I thought, remembering my studies. I stared up at the statue's face, fighting back a shiver at its furious countenance. How anyone could still choose, in this era, to follow such a horrible deity's teachings was beyond my understanding.
Amurah was watching me. "There's a few chests over there," she said, breaking into my thoughts with a gesture toward the rear of the altar. "If you still want to look for your relics."
I nodded, and made my way around the statue to the chests she indicated. Two held only a few books and magical scrolls, which I left. I frowned as I tried the third chest, and it did not open.
"It's locked," I said, wondering if I'd have to carry the entire chest back to the Temple.
"Oh, for the love of... Move over." Amurah brushed past me, exasperated, and crouched in front of the chest with a lockpick in her hand.
A moment later, the lid sprang open. She stood and moved aside, and I lifted off the lid, leaning it against the side of the chest.
Inside lay a pair of shoes, threadbare and obviously very old. They seemed to glimmer faintly with enchantment. I knelt reverently and said a brief prayer of thanks and praise to Vivec, and to St. Rilms, whose shoes they were. Then I unwound the pale blue scarf from my neck and carefully wrapped the shoes within.
"Finished here?" Amurah asked. I nodded, and we made our way back through the shrine's empty halls. While we walked, I couldn't shake the feeling that I should apologize to Amurah... yet another part of me refused to believe that I had done anything wrong. The awkwardness between us now would be better, after all. The last thing I needed was a friendship, however grudging, with an agent of the Morag Tong. But by the time we stepped out into the sunlight, I had decided that I should thank her properly, at least. She had been of some assistance, after all.
She brushed aside my thanks, though, with that same unconcerned shrug. "I'll be rewarded for the Threads I bring back to the Webspinner, and the news of Magia's death. That's all the thanks I need."
I checked that the shoes of St. Rilms were still securely wrapped, and fixed her with my sternest City guardsman look. "My earlier words still apply, assassin. I don't want to see you in the City." The words seemed hollow, now, especially after we'd just worked together.
Her lips quirked, one corner of her mouth twisting into a smile. With a flicker of her fingers, she faded from sight. "Don't worry," came her voice, with a hint of mocking laughter in it, fading as she moved away. "You won't see me, Ordinator."
Holding back a sigh, I tucked the holy relics under my arm, and began the walk back to the Temple.