The feeling, no, that sickness and dread and throbbing pain, it was there, but where, where – he closed his eyes for a moment, against the sound of the Blades clashing against the assassins and the sight of the Emperor's piercing, deep gaze – and gasped, pointing at a closed, stone portal in the wall which he'd taken for a bricked-up window or door from long ago. "Sire – behind -"
The Emperor moved with alarming speed and a swish of robes, and clasped a pale, veined and wrinkled hand over the criminal's mouth, that his words would not be talked over or go unheard or forgotten, and pushed the criminal out of the path of the bricked-up arch, against a cold wall. His pale eyes stared into the dark and alarmed eyes of the ragged criminal, whose warning was silenced.
"I can go no further. You alone must stand against the Prince of Destruction and his mortal servants. He must not have the Amulet of Kings!"
With this, the silver-haired man, still pressing the boy against the wall with desperate urgency, undid the clasp of the amulet about his neck, and pressed it, near-forced it, into the thief's hand.
"Take the Amulet! Give it to Jauffre! He alone knows where to find my last son!"
A muffled response of confusion was kept compressed under the ring-clad hand – the wrinkled man leant in and spoke low and stern.
"Find him, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion."
With this, the prisoner was released – in time to see the stones in the arch sliding upwards, sliding open. The Emperor stepped backwards, calm flooding onto his features and his eyes closing as he whispered a prayer to Arkay – and as an armoured figure emerged from the space behind him, wielding a dagger, masked in enchanted metal.
The lad gasped – against all logic, he rushed forward as if he'd any chance of slowing the assassin – the armoured figure extended a hand and magic struck him, enveloped him, the pain spread – no longer only his head and his gut, but a dull throbbing deep pain lying under his skin and burrowing like something parasitic.
He could not move. He fell to the ground like a dead weight, paralyzed, landing hard on the solid floor upon his back, his right arm with the amulet in its hand folded awkwardly and painfully beneath him, head striking against the stones painfully but not so hard as to stun or daze him.
No, the lad was quite conscious of everything – as he stared up to the Emperor turning and facing his attacker with stony expression – crying out a warbling cry as the masked assassin reached as if to embrace him and stabbed the cruel-looking, warped weapon into the old man's back – withdrew, stabbed, withdrew, stabbed, withdrew – again and again, and the lad saw every wobble of Uriel Septim's form above him, every stagger, every waft and billow of his robes, until like a tree being felled he teetered side to side and in one movement muffled by furs and velvet, collapsed beside his paralyzed form, eyes like sea-ice fixed upon him with that same stare, that same fatalism, that same unnerving... that...
That hope. That damned hope, all because he'd seen him in his dreams, assumed the wretch's importance purely because he knew his own importance would cease – trusted in a filthy prisoner not yet old enough to grow a beard with shackles still fast upon his wrists, no weapons, no friends remaining to him, no opinions of his own success.
The assassin, satisfied, moved to the boy, standing over his prone and unmoving form. He spoke softly. "Stranger. You have chosen a bad day to take up the cause of the Septims." He placed the warm metal of his sabaton, pulsing with magic so thick the lad could feel it like a coating of oil, upon the boy's throat, slowly stepping and putting his weight upon it – there was no need for such efficiency as had been had with the emperor here, and he could watch the panic grow in the paralyzed teenager's eyes, watch him scrape and struggle for breath, watch him try to scream or plead –
The masked man's head was cloven from his shoulders with a sweep of a long, lightly curved sword in the hands of one of the Blades. The mask evaporated from the head into dust, the body slumping – the magic released at once, and the boy sat up, gasping, as the bodyguard knelt with horror by his charge's side, feeling desperately for a pulse he already knew was absent. "No," He choked. "Talos save us..."
He looked to the prisoner, in shock, in the sudden silence where there was no fighting left to be done. His voice a whisper, his eyes staring at the boy's shoulder, rather than his face, so flooded with realization. "... We've failed. I've failed... The Blades are sworn to protect the Emperor, and now he and all of his heirs are dead." The dark-skinned man's eyes closed tightly for a few moments, and he placed a hand upon the still chest of Uriel Septim.
The boy did not know what to say – he only sat up to kneel, and watch – the Redguard's hand slowly moved, eyes widening as he slowly realized, when his hand did not touch a large gem – "The amulet! Where is the amulet of Kings!? It wasn't on the Emperor's body!"
This King may have willed it – may have chosen the boy as some strange messenger – but he did a good job of making the prisoner look like some terrible vulture of a graverobber – to steal from the man only seconds after he'd died – he blurted out: "The emperor gave it to me!" – seeing the Redguard's hand on his sword. Truth it might have been, but a truth which sounded like the most pathetic sort of story – yet the man didn't move, or accuse him, or move to get at him – he just looked at the Emperor and... laughed, a sad, broken sort of laugh.
"Yes... I expect he probably did... strange. He saw something in you. Trusted you." The lad sat back, staring. The guard sighed. His hand moved to stroke back the dead man's silver mane of hair. "They say it's the Dragon Blood that flows through the veins of every Septim. They see more than lesser men...Or was it more of lesser men?"
He rose – so the boy rose too, unsure of what to do but listen to the Blade speak. "The Amulet of Kings is a sacred symbol of the Empire. Most people think of the Red Dragon Crown, but that's just jewelery." And admittedly, the lad had not expected a man without that crown to be the Emperor! "It has power – only a true heir of the Blood can wear it, they say. He must have given it to you for a reason..."
The boy held the chain of the thing, staring at it with a deep frown. All this talk – an heir of the Blood – but no. He would know, if the necklace held what he feared. "He must have given it to you for a reason. Did he say why?" The prisoner sighed. "He said – he said I had t'take it t'someone named Jauffre... I dunno who -" "Jauffre? He said that? Why?" There was urgency in the man's voice. The prisoner shifted, trying to adjust the chafing cuffs at his wrists. "Coz... well, he also said... there's another heir. I figure that's this Jauffre?"
The Redguard was gobsmacked, astonished, and laughing in disbelief – "What! No, no, the man's practically as old as the Emperor himself – another heir?! Nothing I ever heard about..." His tone thoughtful. "But then, if someone did, Jauffre would be the one to know. He's the Grandmaster of my order... though you may not think so, when you meet him." When. There was no if. The Emperor had said the lad must take the Amulet to Jauffre – so take it to Jauffre he must, it was simple as that, apparently. "He lives quietly as a monk at Weynon Priory, near the city of Chorrol."
The lad held up his hands, brows furrowing – "Hold on, hold on, Chorrol – righ', great, but I don' even know how I get outta here... Through that gate what they had locked?" "Yes. That way is clear now, at least on this level. It's a secret way out of the Imperial City... or at least, it was supposed to be secret... you'll need this key for the sewers." He passed forward a large brass key, of a heavy make. "There are rats and goblins down there, be warned... but from what I've seen, you've got a sixth sense about danger. An experienced Healer, am I right?"
The lad hesitated – "Well... no, not really... I mean, I know a bit about alchemy, but I ain't even got magic... at all... not a touch ovvit."
The man's eyebrows shot up. "Really? Huh. Well... I don't know what you are, prisoner. You held your own against something, that's clear." He gestured with a large hand to the blood and scrapes all over the lad. "And with your bare fists... I am sorry we did not provide you with a weapon. I'm afraid we thought you might still be a threat to the Emperor, despite what he said... only now do I realize how closely to follow his words. He said for you to bring the Amulet to Jauffre, so I think he meant for you to do it... Glenroy and I must guard the Emperor's body. Clean out those scum from these halls. But you found a way to follow us all this way... I'm sure you'll be able to sneak past any remaining threats on your way through the sewers."
Honestly, the lad didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. A bloodied hand rested once more upon his throat, a deep frown upon his face, as for the third time, he was handed something - needing to pocket the amulet and key.
A dagger. A simple enough dagger, that the Redguard handed him in as much confusion as anything - knowing, in a sad and empty way, that he must trust and possibly even respect this criminal, but not really knowing why - certainly no more than the criminal himself did.
He took it in his hand, and at a gesture from the Redguard, began to move for the passage which had been gated off. He stepped carefully around the bloody and sprawled form of the Emperor, biting his lip as he kept his bare feet from the man's blood which was pooling about him - could not help but look again into the blue eyes which would soon begin to cloud, as if hoping there might be hidden life still in them - but no - only that damned hopeful stare. He came through the doorway and paused, as the Blade spoke.
"Prisoner. My name is Baurus. What is yours."
The scrawny, bloody lad went still, brows furrowing. His head still ached, and not from the feeling of the magic from the red-robed assassins - that feeling, surprisingly, had faded, enough that he doubted any would be waiting for him in the sewers. The only magic he could sense was that from the Emperor's amulet, a magic which felt, so close to his skin, almost like some sort of oil that would not wipe away - not pleasant, but not painful. No, his head hurt still from the paralyzed fall, and from the beating he'd received when he'd been caught, slipping out of someone's house in the Elven Gardens district... and though he remembered the name he had given, he could not be certain what name he had been recorded under in the prisons.
He spoke quietly, as if trying to convince, or to remind, himself.
"... Bialis. Bialis Conroy."
It was a slightly odd name for a human, admittedly - the given name carried something elvish with it, the surname perfectly common. But it was not so unthinkable as to give the Blade question.
"Good luck, Bialis Conroy... and make haste."