Accidentally misspelled the word 'contorted' as 'contortured' in this chapter. Part of me now wants to start a campaign to get that word in the dictionary…

Chapter 7-Fringe

The first sensation was one of pain. Pain as every atom of his being was ripped apart. Pain as they made the transition between one plain of reality and another. Pain as they assembled themselves with a boom of displaced air back into the form they made up.

Carnius cursed, stumbling forwards and falling on his hands onto a floor of cold stone, lit by the harsh blue-white light of that portal behind him. He rested there for a moment, gasping for breath in lungs that were raw from the shock of being unmade and reformed with such violent suddenness.

"How very dignified," a voice that dripped with good breeding and contemptuous class remarked. Carnius raised his head, breath still ragged, to see a balding man with grey hair and a hooked nose sitting behind a desk of thick oak, a jacket of black velvet covering an embroidered red silk shirt. The gladiator pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself down a little. "The floor is quite clean, you know."

"Fine then," Carnius said, looking around the room he was. It was small, at most a dozen square feet in size, made of grey stone. Its only furnishing was the desk, topped with dark green leather, and two chairs on either side.

"Please, take a seat," the man behind the desk said. Carnius sat, placing his pack by his side and noticing the metronome on its leather surface, the thin metal arm swinging back and forth between two faces, one which snarled and one which smiled. "I imagine you're here about the door."

"I suppose I am," Carnius said, still looking around the room. "Who exactly are you?"

"I am Haskill, the Chamberlain to the Lord Sheogorath," the man replied. "And currently laboured with the most arduous duty of serving as the greeter to those who decide to come through his doorway."

"And where exactly is this place?" Carnius asked.

"We are on the borders of the Shivering Isles," Haskill said. "Beyond this room is the Realm of Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness and the Lord of the Never-There."

"Right," Carnius said. "Sheogorath…he's one of the Daedra Princes, isn't he?"

"What an astute act, to remember a piece of lore widely known to just about all the people of Nirn," Haskill replied. "I'm sure you must be so proud of that. And before you ask, this doorway is an invitation, and that is all; it poses no threat to Mundus and no compact has been violated. All it seeks to do is allow people entry and egress to and from the Isles."

"What about the other people who came through here?" Carnius asked. "The ones who came out mad."

"They entered this realm and were ill-prepared for it," Haskill replied. "Their minds are now my lord's property."

"Can they be cured?" Carnius asked.

"Cured?" Haskill raised an eyebrow. "You talk of them as if they are diseased. Their minds simply exist in another state of being, now. That is all. They may one day be reverted to their original state, they may not. But there is no simple 'cure'."

"So why this invitation?" Carnius asked.

"My master seeks a mortal to act as his champion," Haskill replied. He looked Carnius up and down, surveying the grizzled and scarred gladiator. "As to why, I do not know, and seeking to divine such reasoning is a fool's errand."

"Right," Carnius said. "So what happens if I choose to go on through the Isles?"

"Who can say?" Haskill asked. "There is always choice, wherever you go, and the Realms of Madness are no different in such regard. But if you choose to pass through the Gates of Madness, perhaps Lord Sheogorath will find you of use."

He steepled his fingers and leant back in his chair.

"So," he said. "Will you enter, or will you leave? And do make up your mind quickly; I have not got all day."

"I'm going in," Carnius said, resisting the urge to glower at the man.

"Excellent," Haskill said. He slid a folded parchment across the table, and added; "This map should also be of use to you if you succeed in passing through the Gates of Madness. Good luck."

He stood from the chair and walked away, fading from view as he walked towards the far wall and leaving Carnius alone in the room.

"Hold on!" Carnius protested. "There's no door to get out of here."

He looked around the room, frowning.

"Damn posh types," he muttered. "This some kind of joke?"

The walls stirred. Carnius blinked as a wave of tiny movements rustled across the stone, and hundreds of bright blue wings bloomed out from them. A great flock of butterflies burst out of the ceilings and walls, flapping around him as they formed a trail of colourful insects that flew towards the sky. They went sunwards, and Carnius frowned as he watched them go with the realisation that the walls had simply disappeared.

The landscape around him was alien in every way that he could possibly imagine. He was on the top of a hill, and the ground around him was jagged and rolling, as if the bones of the soil had snapped upwards but failed to break the skin, or the soil had suffered some great tectonic seizure that sent fissures and hills rumbling upwards in violent spasms. Where trees would have grown, instead colossal fungi of impossible vastness covered in thick rubbery skins snaked and wound towards the sky, thick trunks cavorting over expanses of ground. Cloying and thick undergrowth spread beneath the cyclopean mushrooms, some of it blooming with bright flowers while other had heads that trailed vines of a pestilential brown; some seemed to be normal trees and ferns that he recognised from Cyrodiil, but others were overgrown and bloated fungi or strange plants that had a peculiarly fleshy quality to them. There was the sound of birds calling and insects chirruping from the plants around him, chittering and hooting and shrieking of all volumes and pitches.

In the distance he could see what looked to be a massive wall of black basalt rising from the ground over the other side of a valley, great ramparts shining slick in the sun that shone bright upon it. There was a cobbled pathway down from the top of the hill Carnius was on, lined on either side by broken and toppled pillars, and as he set off down it, he found the air here had that same damp, breathless quality that it had on that island in the Niben Bay.

With nowhere else to go, Carnius set off downhill along the path. He kept a wary eye on the greenery around him as it rustled and shifted, and part of him couldn't help shake the feeling that there was something in the plants, or perhaps the plants themselves, that was preparing to leap out at him.

The first being that he met in the Shivering Isles that was not Haskill then tried to kill him.

He met it as the path reached a dip in the landscape, path roofed by roots one of the immense, twisted mushroom trees that had its head crowned by twisted and contorted branches that reached towards the sky like broken fingers. It was an ugly, froglike creature that was squatting in a puddle beneath the massive plant's underside, and a flat, jowly head set between hunched shoulders turned to face him. It gave a guttural growl, limp lips wobbling with the noise to expose brown teeth, and raised an axe and shield of crude pig-iron and splintered wood.

With a baying noise, it charged, axe raised, ready to swing down and split Carnius' skull. The gladiator relaxed his stance, raised his hands and waited for it to reach him. This was what he had been doing for fifteen years, and compared to some enemies he had fought, this creature was child's play. The axe was in its right hand, he noticed, the shield in its left, and it wore no armour. He knew what to do.

The weapon swept down and Carnius sidestepped to its right. His left hand shot out and closed around its wrist, stumbling it as he turned and used his grip with his left hand as a cantilever with his shoulders and stepping forwards to slam his clenched fist into the side of its skull. With a crunch of bone, it collapsed, side of its skull caved in and leaking blood.

Carnius breathed the damp air heavily for a few moments as his body called for air in anticipation of yet more combat, adrenaline pounding in his head. He scanned the area, but could find no more of its companions, and took a few deep breaths to try and still the hammering of his heart as it pumped oxygen throughout his body.

Once it had calmed somewhat, he set off again, skirting around the puddle that had formed beneath the tree's roots. For a moment, he paused as he saw the pale yellow of the mushroom tree's undersides, where trunk began the metamorphosis into roots; thousands of semi-regular bumps, in the rough shape of a square rose from its underside, each one of them dimpled and slick with damp from the air. Carnius peered at it for a moment, and the started as he realised what they were. Teeth. Thousands and thousands of teeth, all of them somehow growing from the underside of this tree.

He shook his head, continuing along down the pathway as it began to wind its way uphill, the greenery beginning to thin out. Part of him was considering turning from this bizarre and exotic place, where the only people he had met so far were some kind of fat Argonian that wanted to kill him and a snooty toff. The thoughts trailed off as the path began to dip once more and he saw a building in the distance, a construction of sturdy white stone without any window or doorway he could see. As he approached, more details became clear; carvings in a language that he couldn't read adorned it in a manner that seemed more like the randomly splashed slogans of graffiti than the work of any stonemason. As he rounded the other side, he saw its doorway, a portal of thick brass with its centre shaped like the mouth of a woman, face contorted in a scream or a snarl. There was a strange humming in the air around it, and Carnius extended a cautious hand to see if it would swing open. For a moment, his vision flashed black and there was a screaming in his ears before he stumbled back. He let it be and continued down the road.

As rocks began to rise up on either side of him, the road forked. There was a signpost, and Carnius stopped to read it. At best, it was cryptic and at worst, downright useless; the one pointing to the left pathway read 'The Gardens of Flesh and Bone' and the one to the right 'Passwall'. The other four markers on it, however, seemed to point to no path in particular, and simply read 'Rage', 'Lust', 'Pride' and 'Despair'. After a few moments of deliberation, Carnius took the right pathway, deciding that this Passwall place sounded the most like civilisation of some kind.

His guess was right; less than fifty yards along the path the rocky walls that had started to rise receded, and building with a thatched roof and plastered walls came into view, part of it straddling the road as an archway. He headed through it, emerging into what looked like the central square of some kind of village. It was a decrepit, swampy place, the houses all raised on stilts and the whitewash on their walls peeling from the damp, thatch on their roofs half-rotten. The place seemed deserted, and Carnius frowned.

"Anybody home?" he called.

For a moment, all he heard was the same cries and chatters of the birds and insects in the undergrowth, and he wondered if the village was abandoned. And it was then that he heard the roar.

The bellows of some immense, enraged beast, the sound hit him like a wall, and his gaze shot towards its source, up a stepped path climbing a hillside on the village's edge. Silence fell, the creatures of these Shivering Isles cowed into quiet by the noise, and Carnius turned to face it. After a moment, drawn by some kind of curiosity that he couldn't explain, he followed it up, deciding to see what the source of the noise was.

He found what he could only call an arena; there was a flat expanse of stone, shaped in a circle and ringed by small cliffs, and, the one vital ingredient that made a battle into a show, a crowd, all of them watching the two combatants. One side was nothing Carnius could call unusual, a group of adventurers of some kind, wearing and wielding a variety of armour and weapons. But their opponent, on the other hand, was something else; some kind of giant standing a good twenty feet in height, collared with iron, its head covered with a heavy helmet. One arm ended in a massive, rusted cleaver that was flecked with blood, the other in a vambrace and a great hand. Its skin seemed to be made up of patches sewn together over flesh, glowing tattoos spiralling and whirling across it before they were covered by its irons.

Carnius stepped into the small crowd of people who were watching, and they cheered as the monster picked up an adventurer and used the unfortunate man as a club to smash one of his comrades away, the broken corpse sent flying before it slammed into the massive onyx gate that the combat took place before. It roared again, the deafening noise made tinny by the helm it wore, before swinging down with its cleaver on an Orsimer who tried to slip around its flank and stab a claymore into its stomach, separating his midriff from the rest of his body in a spray of gore.

Taking advantage of the opening, a Khajiit wielding twin daggers slipped around its behind and stabbed the weapons into the back of its thigh in a bid to lame it. He was rewarded with a bellow of pain before the Gatekeeper kicked back at him, the beastman barely able to scramble out of the blow's way and scamper out of reach.

As it turned, Carnius saw the wound in its leg was simply fading from view, sealing up with only a trail of brackish blood to mark its presence. An arrow from a distant Bosmer situated at the edge of the arena sunk into its neck, where the veins should be, but the giant being merely tore it from its neck and the injury sutured itself shut.

These adventurers were good, Carnius would give them that much, working together to try and bring the thing down; the remaining ones had split into teams, following directions bellowed at them by an Orc, ones armed with spears trying to bait and distract the creature at arm's length while a few more tried to slip round its flank and take it down there.

A spear stabbed into its gut, the haft of the weapon digging deep into the organs of its stomach and the monster bellowed in pain. It stumbled back, clumsy footsteps almost flattening the Khajiit that had managed to land the blow with its daggers just a few moments ago. Finding respite, it reached to the weapon embedded into it and tore it free with a wet squelch, its haft and head dripping with viscera. The hole in its stomach beginning to close, it hefted the spear in its hand, gaze turning towards the Bosmer archer who was nocking another arrow to his bow. A moment later, accompanied to a yell of delight from the crowd, an overarm throw sent the weapon screaming into the Wood Elf and skewered him through the chest.

One of the others, an Imperial armed with a pair of swords, cried out a name and sprinted towards the fallen Mer, uncaring for the presence of his foe. A moment later, a great hand grabbed him, lifted him into the air and slammed him down on the floor with a crack. He did not rise.

If Carnius was in their position he would have already cut his losses and run; whatever healing abilities this creature possessed, it was too much for their own weapons to overcome, and even thought they were good fighters with solid tactics this creature had them outmatched. The only problem was that the giant they fought had them outmanoeuvred; they battled it with their backs to the gate, and no way out besides getting through it.

There were only four left now; the Khajiit, who had backed away, their commander and the two spear-bearers, one of them now grabbing a mace from its sling in place of his lost weapon. With a deep, rumbling growl, the massive creature advanced, footsteps thudding against the ground.

"I told you the Gatekeeper was going kill them all," Carnius heard someone in the crowd next to him remark to another spectator. "Look, he's going to finish them off right now."

The Gatekeeper, as it was called, bellowed a challenge and charged, ground shaking beneath its steps. The adventurers tried to scatter, but a swing from its cleaver slew two of them as they tried to get away, before the Gatekeeper turned and grabbed the Orc who was making a swing at it with his claymore, Mer and monster alike bellowing in fury. It squeezed, bone cracking under the pressure, and it dropped the mangled body as it advanced on the Khajiit. The beastman yowled in terror as he found his back pressed against walls, trying to back away from the Gatekeeper, and bolted away in a desperate sprint in the hope of getting around it.

A massive hand closed around his tail, swung him up into the air and swung him back down to the ground once more.

The crowd cheered and applauded as the Gatekeeper stopped what it was doing, casting around for any more enemies before simply standing still. Their entertainment gone, the crowd began to disperse back down the hill, and after a few moments Carnius was alone at its top with only a Dark Elf woman in a dress of bloodstained blue silk for company.

"Wasn't that simply marvellous?" she exclaimed to Carnius, joy written across her features. "I always feel so very proud of him when I see him do his work!"

She clapped her hands together, smiling in joy, before she looked at Carnius proper and frowned.

"You're new here, aren't you?" she asked.

"I suppose I am, yes," Carnius said.

"I thought so," she said. "I'm Relmyna Verenim, by the way. And who are you? Another pilgrim hoping for a blessing to take root? Or perhaps…are you an adventurer, like those degenerates that my darling Gatekeeper just had to deal with?" She frowned. "No, you might be dressed like one but you don't really look like one, do you. Perhaps you won't be quite so unspeakably vile as they were."

"I've never been adventuring before ma'am, no," Carnius said. "Carnius Hackelt, by the way."

"Well that's a relief," Relmyna said. She looked him up and down, before she nodded. "Then I suppose I am pleased to meet you, serjo Hackelt."

Carnius glanced at the Gatekeeper, and back at Relmyna.

"Do you mind telling me what that 'Gatekeeper' thing is?" he asked.

"Him?" Relmyna asked. "Why, he is my beloved child! He is the consummation of Sheogorath's wisdom in the womb of my genius. His birth was painful and bloody, but well worth it. From it, I made the perfect guardian; he does not rest, he does not eat, he does not allow any other than those permitted to pass and he cannot be killed."

"Who are those permitted to pass?" Carnius asked.

"Those with Lord Sheogorath's blessing, of course," Relmyna said. "You, however, do not yet possess that, I don't think."

"So how would I get past him, through those gates over on the other side?" Carnius asked. "Get to the rest of the Isles?"

"To get through those gates, you would need to get the keys," Relmyna said. "And they are sewn up within the body of my child. You would need to kill him to get them first, and you cannot kill him. It is the perfect defence, and I am a genius for conceiving such an idea."

"How would I get that blessing, then?" Carnius asked.

"It would be difficult for you," Relmyna said, looking him up and down once more. "Difficult, but not impossible. Your problem is that your soul is dull, uninspired, lacklustre. If I were to cut you open then the world would be wholly unimpressed by your uninteresting blood. You are simply too…" she paused, as if the word she was to say next was somehow taboo. "…sane." She shuddered.

"Right," Carnius said, somewhat perturbed by the way she talked about cutting him open.

"Still," Relmyna said. "You do have quite a remarkable musculature on you. A client of mine is looking for a someone to serve as a base for a flesh-sculpture and your muscles would be nicely suited for that. Of course, I'd need a better bone structure and that skin on you would have to go, but-"

"Miss," Carnius interrupted. "I have no idea if you're complimenting me or something there, but I have one to thing to say to that. I'm not normally inclined towards assaulting people at random, but if you keep on talking about me like that then I will hurt you."

Relmyna shrugged.

"Fine then," she said, setting off down the path back down to Passwall. "Good luck getting past the Gatekeeper, by the way. You'll certainly need it if you want to get into the Isles the way you are right now."

Carnius lingered a few moments longer, watching the Gatekeeper as it nudged one of the corpses with the horny, jagged toenails of its foot. Then he began the short walk to Passwall, wondering just what he had managed to get himself into.