A/N: One book ingame does indicate that the word "demon" is an incorrect term for daedra, but the book itself is academic and dry enough that everyone in the Imperial Legion probably hasn't read it. Previous chapters are now corrected to reflect that "kynaz" is the correct singular of "kyn." Oops.
Chapter Four
Merodach was busy for some time after that, in the sense that time has any meaning to Dremora. The kynreeve was not pleased to hear his news, but was not really surprised either. The balance of these two things left Ebel-Merodach guarding a Reaper's Sprawl for a while, a tall, narrow tower with a caged human at the top of it. This was fairly dull. Merodach was not yet of a rank where torture was required of him, and he did not for the most part relish it as a pastime in its own right.
The mortal was of some passing interest. Merodach had seen the species a few times before, among other races of Nirn, but most of them had already been dead and dismembered. He had never been summoned by a human mage. The parts of the prisoner's skin that were visible under the grime were pale, and the top of his skull was hairless, with gray streamers down the sides. He was smaller than a kynaz, but his body showed signs of having survived combat before he was captured. For the most part he stood at the exact center of his cage, habitual position of prisoners accustomed to being poked through the bars. He gave Merodach one evaluating glance, composed of equal parts wariness and contempt, and after that resumed scanning his surroundings mechanically. Every so often he would turn a neat forty-five degrees, as if the angle mattered to him.
Merodach paced the upper level with its transparent floor, sometimes staring down at the spiral ramp beneath. A pack of clannfear had been trapped at the bottom of the shaft around the corpse masher, and they roamed in restless circles with him.
Eventually he came to look at the human again. The man tensed, obviously prepared to lunge back against the bars if necessary, but he did not move. The bars of the cage did not seem enchanted. Merodach could not see any freakish trait that might have merited the keeping of a creature of Nirn.
"Why are you here, mortal?" Merodach said at last. He knew only one mortal tongue, and his accent was thick, but he was apparently understood. The human spat on him. Merodach laughed once, wiped off his armor, and resumed his circuit. It was not by accident that Lord Dagon's invasion failed. The human stared after him for a few moments, then resumed his vigil.
Eventually another caitiff came to relieve him. He made his report briefly and went at once back to the Corridors of Dark Salvation.
---
The atrium with the two fountains was almost clean, a thick slurry of blood still clinging only to one or two of the channels in the floor. Merodach had hoped, however slightly, that the Sleeper might be gone. She was not. He found her in exactly the same position he had left her, slumped in the corner of the small chamber and quite visibly still respiring.
He shoved the Punished aside and crouched in front of her. "I return, loathsome one," Merodach said. For a moment he thought she had not heard him, and then her eyes opened suddenly. In the darkness of the closetlike space, the center of each eye was shot through with glowing threads.
"Not loathsome enough," she said, raising her head slowly. "Else I would not have had to kill Belteshazzar."
"Do not confound me with that worm," Merodach said.
"You did not stop him," observed Sodrinye calmly.
"He was my kynval. I had not the right." Merodach smiled grimly. "Do not think I would have spared you. I would have killed you, that is all."
"And freed me thus from an incarnation in which I have found nothing to desire," returned the dark kyn. One hand flopped in a weird parody of a throwing-away gesture. "But there is no end to the circle. A Sleeper cast out will be a Sleeper returned. Not blade nor spell nor poison can free me from this thrall."
"Nor I from yours, you mean," said Merodach.
"Perhaps, Ebel-Merodach," said Sodrinye. "In the full order of time."
"I did not tell you my name."
"No," said Sodrinye. "But I know it. I know also where you have been today. Who is the mortal in the cage?"
Merodach stared at her for a long moment, disturbed by this apparent clairvoyance. It was very dimly possible she could have heard it from another kyn passing by, or plucked it from his mind as krynvelhat might do with a summoned. He doubted it. He had never heard that a summoned mind could be reached without its knowledge. Sodrinye's eyelids fluttered once in the silence, then remained resolutely open.
"I do not know his name," Merodach said at last. "Only that he was captured by the previous Lord, and that he is a creature of some courage."
"Find out," Sodrinye said. "Without torture. We will require him."
"We?" said Merodach, but Sodrinye's eyes were closed again. He swore silently and bitterly and went on his way.
---
The kyn who was tasked with guarding the Reaper's Sprawl was not at all sorry to see Merodach. He barely had to lie to have her hurrying from the room. Guarding an outer tower would always be a chore.
Their brief conversation was in Kyn, but the human's eyes moved between them as they spoke. When the other kynaz was gone, Merodach went up to the cage. He stopped a few feet away, not close enough that he could have easily seized the man through the bars.
"You understand our tongue," Merodach said. "Not an easy thing, for a mortal creature."
The human stared at him.
"But I will speak to you in yours," Merodach said. "What are you called?"
"I won't give my name to a filthy demon," said the human. "Not in Cyrodilic and not in whatever-that-is you were speaking."
"This is a wise decision," Merodach said. "You have no way to know that I am not krynv – not a conjurer. And yet I must know it. One whom I serve may have a use for you."
"Then this one whom you serve can come down here himself," retorted the mortal. He turned on his regular rotation, putting him facing partly away from Merodach. This put his bony ribcage on roughly Merodach's eye level. "If you had permission to hurt me, you'd be doing it already. Go away."
"The previous Citadel Lord must have thought you were of some importance," Merodach said. "You are alive and - " Merodach sought a word. "- relatively whole. I wonder how long that will last, now that the Citadel has fallen."
The human snorted and turned again, putting his back to the caitiff. "I'm not whole, demon. The best thing that's happened to me in a year was when the gates closed. The next best thing will be when I die."
"That will depend," said Merodach. "There are many here who would not kill you as cleanly as would I."
The man whirled abruptly to face Merodach, abandoning his ceremonial turning. He seized the cage and leaned forward, clannfear-beak nose thrust between the bars. "There is no clean death here," he said. "Not for me. Not for any mortal thing. I won't tell you my name. But I will tell you what I've done. The first great gate opened in the city of Kvatch. And the sigil stone that opened it was here. Some Khajiit with no tail fought her way through a whole pack of you to get to me, and then she couldn't get the bloody godsdamned door open. I told her where to get the key to the Keep, demon. I didn't make it back. But she took your sigil and closed your gate. It was your first loss in a long string of losses."
Merodach contemplated this for a moment. "I see," he said. "The Lord was saving you for some protracted torture, and then he was lost in Nirn and you were left here."
The man stood back. "That's right," he said. Silence held between them for a long minute. Off in the distance, a kyn laughed, the echo redoubled against the inner walls of the keep. The ceiling of the Reaper's Sprawl was open. Red clouds revolved far overhead.
"Keep your name," Merodach said. "I am called Ebel-Merodach. I am a caitiff in my own clan, second to the lowest of all castes."
The man folded his arms. "And that's how you drew this guard duty? Or are you just a naturally good interrogator? You're the first one I've said more than two words to in... Gods, who knows." He jerked his head irritably. "No keeping track of weeks and months in this place."
"My duty here was finished when you spat on me," Merodach said, brushing aside the fact that he had no idea what weeks or months were supposed to be. "One to whom I owe a debt wishes me here. We will speak again."
"I'll be right here," said the human dryly.
