17th of Rain's Hand 4E 165
Karliah was half asleep when she felt Gallus' fingers twitching.
Pulling herself fully out of her slumber and into his dark bedroom, she waited and tried to sense if he was having nightmares. Usually he was okay if she stayed with him, and nothing overly stressful had happened with the Guild. On the contrary they were entangled in each other's arms after a night of riotous celebration, after five years of plotting and action the Thieves Guild had finally taken Windhelm back from the Solsthiem Shadows.
Gallus' hands squeezed tightly then released, his arms and legs jerked suddenly, an audible groan escaped his lips. Karliah quickly sat up and gripped his shoulder, softly calling his name.
He didn't wake up, which was especially odd due to him being a very light-sleeper. Now Karliah was starting to panic as she shook him.
"Gallus! Gallus! Wake up!"
He did so with a gasp and a violent lurch upwards. Karliah immediately conjured a flame in her palm and illuminated the panting Guild Master.
"It's okay, Gallus. I'm here-"
"It's not okay." He interrupted, his expression was near hysterical. It didn't sit right with Karliah and she felt a pit of dread start to coagulate in her stomach. "No no no no... It is not okay."
"Gallus, what-"
"Stay here!" He half yelled at her, shrugging off her hand which had gripped his shoulder. As he made to dress himself he continued to bark crazed orders. "I need you to stay right here, Karliah! Right here! Do not move! I will be right back!"
"Gallus! What is going on!" Karliah shouted, but she hadn't so much as placed her bare feet on the floor before Gallus held her in place.
"Stay here." He said quieter, although his voice still was frantic. "I will be right back." Without further explanation he tore out of the room with nothing but a nightshirt and trousers on, leaving the Dunmer fuming in bed as he exited the home.
"He ever pull shit like this on you?" Karliah asked Spook as she lit the bedside lantern, the black cat prowled from his spot at the foot of the bed up to Karliah's free hand. For ages Karliah obediently waited with Spook, who seemed perfectly content to accept her pets and scratches.
She was falling asleep again when the main doors of the manor burst open so hard they made her jump, and her heart didn't calm down when she heard not one but two pairs of feet charging up the stairs. Gallus flew back into the bedroom like a storm, and when Mercer's equally panicked face followed him Karliah threw the bedsheets completely over her head.
"By the Daedra, Gallus! What are you doing?!" She roared, trying to shield her nakedness and face from her work partner.
"Karliah, you trust me, right?" Gallus' voice tried to be soft but it still came off like a demand.
"What in Oblivion is going on?!" Karliah screamed again. It wasn't like their more than platonic relationship was completely secret to Mercer but Gallus still constantly ingrained into her the dangers of letting others know of their closeness. It was not right to let Mercer in like this.
"Karliah, I need you to get dressed into your traveling gear. Bring everything for a journey. I'll explain on the way-"
"I am not going anywhere until you explain yourself now!" Karliah yelled behind her covers.
"Karliah, we need to go immediately. We will explain everything once we're on the move, we don't have time to lose." Mercer said, his voice urgent and firm.
"Trust us, Karliah..." Gallus coaxed again. This time Karliah peeked at the two men, eyeing them both harshly. And with an indignant exhale she lowered the blankets from her face.
She hated how much power those two had over her.
"We're going to the Falkreath woods." Gallus finally indulged once all three had mounted their horses and started trotting down the south road of Riften. The sky was pale and bright with the dawn but the world was still cold, once the sun rose it could continue melting the stubborn blotches of snow that still dotted the landscape.
"This some ruse to pay a visit to my mother?" Karliah mocked, her tone snarky and sharp. Gallus turned to look at her fully, but he didn't look upset. Now Karliah read worry and even sympathy in his features. Gallus faced the road again, Mercer stayed quiet on his own horse.
"Did she ever tell you about the Nightingales?"
"Only ever to get me from stopping crying or to put me to sleep." Karliah answered. "A holy trinity of Nocturnal's ne'er-do-wells... The same sort of tales the rookies lap up."
"I'd hardly call us 'holy'..." Mercer muttered, and Karliah stared at him profusely.
"What is this about?!" She demanded for the hundredth time.
"Damn it, Frey. I wanted to wait until we got there." Gallus scolded the senior thief.
"She needs to know before, Gallus. We don't know what it'll be like once we get there."
That was the final straw, Karliah nudged her horse forward and blocked the other two from continuing down the road. Glaring at both Gallus and Mercer from under her hood, feeling that regal attitude they both always accused her of emerge in full force.
"Where are we going and why?" She spoke crisply through clenched teeth. Mercer looked at Gallus, who let out an exasperated sigh.
"We are going to the Twilight Sepulcher, in the Falkreath woods." He said finally. "The Skeleton Key is in danger, and your Nightingale mother tried to defend it. Mercer and I are also Nightingales and are bound to answer Nocturnal's summons by Oath. You are coming along with us."
Karliah could only stare in disgust. Gallus held her gaze bravely, but Mercer put his head in his hands.
"Do you think me a fool, Gallus?"
"Of course n-"
"Do you think me a fool?!"
"No!" Gallus shouted this time. "I think you're incredibly intelligent... and a marvelous thief. You're strong willed and honourable and you're really funny at times and I love your ears, your eyes make me lose my mind and you smell good."
A heavy cloud of awkwardness hung over the trio, Mercer had to look away and Karliah could only gape incredulously at Gallus before he shook the wistful expression off his face and donned a more serious one.
"Around a year after you joined the Guild I wanted to meet your mother, remember that?" Gallus asked, and Karliah nodded her head. "You said no, absolutely not. She hated Thieves Guild thieves and wouldn't take to us kindly... I went anyway."
"Gallus, can't you ever just listen to me?!"
"And she liked me very much!" Gallus pointed a finger at Karliah. "I won't bother you with the minute details at this very moment, but over the years she revealed to me her role as a Nightingale... and had me initiated as one myself. After the death of a certain audacious Fringalla Cessario we had Mercer sworn in."
Karliah's festering rage grew even hotter when she felt tears brimming in her eyes, and she lashed out in a dire attempt to distract the others from them.
"So my mother, who prevented me from joining the Thieves Guild for most of my life, who stopped talking to me once I joined, became best buddies with my boss and partner and told them all her big, dark secrets... and they all went off selling their souls to some Daedra behind my back?"
"Dralsi had some misconceptions about the Guild that I cleared up. After we reconciled that she did try to reach out to you, but you wouldn't let her."
"Because she was trying to drag me back into the woods!"
"She wanted to start preparing you for the Oath!" Gallus shouted back, all three horses whinnying and growing restless. "She had been grooming you your whole life for the Nightingale path, she just didn't want to tell you until she thought you were able to fully understand!"
Too many emotions were blowing into Karliah's head at once, they all got twisted up with each other into something incomprehensible and messy. She felt like screaming, crying and smiling all at once. Her mother did approve of her, was okay with her joining the Guild, but she also withheld colossal secrets. Her mother, partner and lover all excluded her from...whatever they were. They didn't even tell her. Just the thought of the three of them meeting and getting along without her wounded her trust in everyone.
A part of Karliah still wanted to not believe Gallus, but what he said made a little bit of sense. Her mother would tell her stories of Nocturnal and the Nightingales as a child, always threatened that ancestral thieves were watching in the shadows if she misbehaved. She would disappear, sometimes for weeks at a time, and make up some bullshit excuse. Strangers she would claim were old friends would pass through, and Karliah seemed to remember one being called Fringalla. Dralsi's lessons in thievery and survival were oddly emphasized on duty and honour, despite the two never being more than woodland hermits with no affiliations.
And she wanted Karliah to stay in Falkreath, near where this Sepulcher apparently was.
"If you go to that squabbling, political rat den you will never use your full potential! Everything I taught you would be for naught!"
"Let's say I believed you," Karliah started, looking at both Gallus and Mercer. "How do you know my mother needs help?"
"Our Lady told us." Mercer said simply, impatiently nudging his horse into action again.
Karliah hardly let the conversation stray from Nightingales and Nocturnal the entire journey. The three were fighting their way through the still half frozen over Jerall mountain pass and she still demanded every detail.
Gallus did most of the talking, explained the "business contract" made with Nocturnal in exchange for luck in larcenous endeavours. Nocturnal did not ask for prayer or penance or celebration, she only asked for guardianship over the Twilight Sepulcher. Gallus described the Skeleton Key, how it was so powerful and must be guarded at all costs lest it fall into the wrong hands, that it opened the Ebonmere which was the source of Nocturnal's influence in this plane.
"Many have speculated the reason why Nocturnal created the key in the first place and why she allows it to be stolen. Some say she loves the havoc it wrecks, others point to her apathy." Gallus had shouted over the wind in the mountains. "I myself have entertained the idea that it simply acts as a reason to instigate Nightingale agents. She wants to control or influence us, but not without a cost, and without a sacred relic and temple to guard there would be no contract. There would be no Oath to her."
This is why they were traveling to the Sepulcher, Nocturnal had sent the same dream to her two Nightingales in Riften. Someone had tried to steal the Skeleton Key and all its unlocking potential, Karliah's mother had tried to stop them but was unsuccessful. They were going to help.
And the more Karliah learned and the more everything made sense, the more she relaxed. She even felt happy and at peace when they entered the Falkreath pines. The jays and treecreepers fluttered and sang along the trees, returning after spending the winter south. The sun shone brightly where the thick canopies of pines didn't obstruct it, the spring air was scented with promise of growth and fertile earth.
As much as Karliah didn't regret leaving to join the Guild by any means, it still felt wonderful to be home.
"These bugs are eating me alive!" Mercer exclaimed after slapping one on his cheek.
"If I had known we were coming here I would've brought my alembic. Mother and I developed a repellent made of fir needles and troll fat." Karliah said, riding her horse beside him and taking in the fragrant air.
"Did you two hunt trolls?" Mercer asked.
"Of course, there's always a few in the area. How do you think I could smell one out in Eastmarch that one time and it turned out to be you." Mercer scowled at Karliah's jest before Gallus called back from his leading position.
"What do partners in crime need to share?"
"Respect and allegiance..." Karliah muttered.
"Exactly, work on the respect half."
"Are you sure you don't want me to lead? I know this forest like you know the Blue Palace." Karliah asked.
"I'm not sure if your mother has ever shown you the Twilight Sepulcher. It's on the west side of the forest, still a day's journey away." The Guild Master had answered.
It took more than a day, to Karliah's delight they had to camp overnight. Surviving and roaming just like the days with her mother was beyond refreshing. She couldn't wait to see her again, as awkward as it might be with her Nightingale secret revealed. It had been seven years since she had seen her mother, and Karliah honestly hadn't thought a reunion was possible until now.
Karliah interpreted Gallus and Mercer's unease and stress due to being in unfamiliar woodland and the peril of the Skeleton Key. Despite Karliah asking what Nocturnal revealed in their dreams several times, neither answered fully, and she knew they were hiding something.
Lightening fast thoughts of something bad happening to her mother whizzed through Karliah's mind but she always pushed them out. There was no use working herself up before she knew all the facts, the only thing she could do was wait until they reached the Sepulcher.
And they did, by dusk the next evening. Gallus' makeshift map had led them right to the rocky cliff face, a stream of snow melt from the towering mountains rippling down the stones and crags. And right beside it a large, black iron door.
"This is it." Gallus sounded defeated already. With slumped shoulders he led his horse to a nearby pine and tethered it. "Prepare yourselves, we don't know who or what could still be inside."
Karliah immediately went to counting her arrows, checking her daggers and potions, and stretching out her stiff muscles from the ride. The two men moved languidly and sluggish, Mercer swung his sword a few times, Gallus simply stood still and faced the black door with a look of melancholy.
"Let's get this over with." He said finally and set off to the door. His two senior members followed suit, Karliah's pulse quickening with each step.
To a bit of her surprise, Karliah's initial view inside the temple was of an earthen tunnel. Gallus lit the torch in beside the door and used it to light the path before them. Karliah followed him in through the tunnel while Mercer took the rear. All three strained to hear any sound in the darkness beyond, Karliah even notched a cautionary arrow and pulled it back slightly.
The tunnel opened up into a huge, spacious cave. A foot-worn path in the dirt led forward to something Karliah couldn't see in the pitch blackness. What Gallus' torch did illuminate on the path of heavily trodden earth was splattered with blood... And the tracks suggested the fight had lasted for awhile. That and Karliah counted at least seven different shoeprints.
Another flash of her mother being seriously hurt or in danger before Karliah shook the notion from her head. She had to stay focused.
Mercer veered off to their right suddenly, and when Gallus shone his light on him Karliah saw the body at his feet. An Orc, middle-aged with heavy armour on his chest and an arrow plunged in his throat. Her mother's arrow.
"I don't think whoever survived hung around, they should be gone." Mercer said, even though his voice was quiet it still sounded loud in the silent cave.
"Then why are we here? Where is my mother?" Karliah asked, her bow still raised and her attempt at not sounding scared failing horribly.
"Your mother was to wait here for us." Gallus said, pressing forward. As he lit the various sconces and pits the cave revealed itself to Karliah more.
It was bigger than she previously guessed, the light couldn't even reach the vaulted ceiling or the furthest most walls. Karliah could only lower her bow and gaze in astonishment as Gallus and Mercer continued lighting the chamber and whispering to each other. The worn path led up to a huge stone feature, atop of which archways aligned with another ominous black door.
Karliah nearly tripped over another arrowed brute, when she looked back up she noticed Mercer and Gallus were already aways a way on the flight of stairs leading up to the arches and black door. They both stood over a black mass of a body, a large battleaxe buried into its back.
A battleaxe... not an arrow.
Suddenly Karliah was in a dream. Despite sprinting as fast as her legs could carry her it seemed an eternity before she reached the stairs. Blood descended the steps from where the body had fallen, by the time Karliah reached them Mercer had already pulled the heavy axe from the corpse and flipped them over with his boot.
Karliah's eyes frantically took in the mysterious figure, yet her hazy mind struggled with comprehending what she saw. The body was female, in dark, fitted armour, complete with a black hooded cape and a mask concealing their face.
"Who is this?" Karliah asked. More and more it felt like her body and mind were separating, flying leagues apart in opposite directions while she was left in the middle feeling numb and cold. "Is this who wanted the Skeleton Key?"
When Karliah looked at Gallus she saw tears streaming down his face. Instinctively she went to him and took him in her arms. This she could do, no matter how dazed she was.
But Gallus' crying was different, off somehow. And he didn't respond right when she touched him. Karliah followed his teary gaze back down to the body, where Mercer had pulled down the mask to reveal gray skin and violet eyes...
Dralsi Indoril's face, already in the early stages of decomposition...
And Karliah felt nothing. She simply stared down at her mother's corpse and continued holding onto Gallus, seeing with wide eyes but not believing.
Slowly it seeped into her. While Mercer kicked the battleaxe down the stairs in anger, the clanging ringing throughout the cave. While Gallus rambled apologies and swears and other words she couldn't really hear. All of a sudden Karliah's knees gave out, forcing Gallus to catch her as he lowered her to the cold floor. As she went limp and clutched onto Gallus' arms Karliah released a wail from the inner most caverns of herself.
And she couldn't stop. Writhing on the ground and gripping onto Gallus' sleeves, all she could do was scream at the pain that was seizing her whole being.
"I'm so sorry, Karliah... Your mother was... she was such an exceptional woman." Gallus choked out, but Karliah felt no comfort. Her mother was dead. She never got to say goodbye, the last time they spoke had been during a tumultuous fight seven years ago. She never got to hug her one last time and say she loved her.
"Whoever is responsible for this is going to fucking pay." Mercer said off somewhere.
"Karliah... Karliah, listen... Your mother wanted you to be a Nightingale..." Gallus spoke in a hushed tone close to Karliah's ear, but her weeping still made it difficult to hear him. "We need to restore the trinity... protect what your mother died protecting..."
She was never going hear her mother's soothing voice or laughter again. Never hunt or brew or heist with her again. Never smell her again. Karliah's chest felt physically in pain as her heart broke into pieces.
And would've her mother still been alive if Karliah had stayed in Falkreath with her? If she hadn't have joined the Thieves Guild and instead fulfilled her Nightingale destiny with her mother, would've this onslaught ended differently? The two of them had taken down packs of werewolves together... a few mercenaries would've been nothing...
"When Nightingales swear servitude to Nocturnal their souls become part of the Evergloam in the afterlife... If you want to be with your mother again..."
Karliah didn't care what she had to do. She needed to avenge her mother and tell her she was sorry. Sorry for leaving for Riften and not staying by her side.