Beta-red by BioFan.

Chapter Seven

'Coincidence is the word used by those too short-lived to watch the patterns of history or the plans of the Divines and the Daedra unfold. True coincidence is very rare. Meddling…less so.' ~Anonymous

-B-

Ilinalta's Deep proved to be a dungeon. A prison. A place so full of corruption that Matteo and I both firmly agreed that every mage with an ounce of power should be immediately fetched from Headquarters to help purge the ruin, scorch the very stones.

Not that this would do anything, mind you, since we fired the corpses as we went to keep anyone we hadn't dealt with—yet—from using the bodies of his or her fallen comrades.

One of my early encounters with necromancers reinforced this practice: she was a particularly powerful one, and kept reanimating her fallen minions. It was a battle of will and grueling endurance. Never corner a Dunmer mage if you can help it. There are easier ways.

As far as this place, it's entirely likely there's a back way out of this Oblivion-hole, but I think we'll have caught the main body of these…people. I dislike calling them people, but they remain, at their core, as mortal as anyone.

These were part of a fairly vicious cabal, masters and apprentices alike; it looked as though the head necromancer was running a school. Or maybe the presence of so many casters was, somehow, beneficial to him.

"This has to be the last of it!" Shayla called from where she bunkered down, unable to get any closer to the stairs leading, presumably, to the last level of the tower. Here, the last of the mages who hadn't run gathered, shoulder to shoulder, auras whipping about them as they dug their heels in.

"Bellona!" Matteo barked from his own cover—a shield held grimly aloft by Deirdre. "Fire from the left! On your mark!"

I took a deep breath, letting heat and fire build inside me, a spell similar to the one I'd used to dispatch the cultists in Namira's cavern. It didn't have to be quite as powerful since I'd have Matteo to back me, but it was still strong. "Mark!" I barked, just before the spell began to get away from me—no burned hands this time.

Suddenly I gasped. Matteo didn't coordinate an attack from his side of the room: he drenched me with a spray of ice that evaporated on the spot, sapping my spell and causing the biggest cloud of mist I'd ever seen in my life. A multitude of voices rose up in protest—theirs and ours alike.

Deirdre's voice rose and fell, her words and the pull of magicka telling me, plainly, that she was casting detect life on our un-gifted colleagues. I did the same, hastily, in time to see one of the necromancers approaching, dagger in hand. Casting spells when you can't see is risky, because you have to get in close once the combatants begin to mingle—otherwise you kill those on your own side.

The temperature began to drop, the mist hanging thick in the air, as I stepped forward, the skin to my elbows covered in an ebony skin that turned the blade of the necromancer's knife as I struck at it before clocking him upside the head. My sword finished him as he lay stunned upon the ground. When I looked up, lifelights mingled, circling and jockeying for position within Matteo's charmed mist.

"Bellona!" the voice belonged to Erik. Turning, I caught a blow from a staff. It struck, but not before I got my arm up to ease the blow. I staggered back, arm aching.

A burst of magicka, unusually strong and vibrant, came from the direction of Erik's voice. Then, the necromancer fell, inexplicably, with a scream; a second later, something dragged him back into the mist. Another flare of Erik's magicka and a screech from the necromancer—a screech suddenly cut off.

"Matteo! This was insane!" I shouted, drawing heat to me, feeling it vibrate through my body, the mist inching back away form me, falling to the ground in fat raindrops.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!" Matteo protested, his voice labored but unrepentant. "Watch your back!"

Two necromancers appeared out of the mist, distinguishable by the silhouette they cast and their pink lifelights. With a growl, I sent a gout of fire racing for them, setting their robes afire, turning them into flaming targets for anyone near enough to attack. By now, most of the mages had switched to various flame spells, the ambient temperature of the ruin rising and forcing the mist to creep back, shrinking along the walls.

By the time the mist was purged, the necromancers were dead. Lisette and, oddly enough, Matteo had burns, which Deirdre immediately tended. Shayla's armor had a gash in the armguard, which was beginning to corrode. Her sword was broken at the hilt, also corroded.

"Damn them!" she snarled, tossing the weapon away.

"Shayla!" I tossed her my sword, unfastened my staff from its carrying rig. I've thought before that I should really have it bound, so I don't have to carry it…but my experiments with doing that didn't go well when I was younger and I have no reason to think my abilities with the School of Conjuration have gotten any better.

"Bellona! Look! I did it! I did it!" Erik crowed, once he was sure the danger had, for the moment, passed.

I turned, found two summoned familiars sitting at his feet. Frogs. Frogs whose heads were knee-high to him, gulping placidly. Two of them. "Twoooo!" he crowed, looking fondly down at their spectral green-blue shapes.

"That's very good," I declared, with my best tone of encouragement. And it is. Who knew he'd be one to shine in a crisis? It seems to me that these…frogs…had something to do with that one necromancer's slip, fall, and final fate.

I wish they wouldn't stare like that. It's...unnerving.

"No time for that!" Shayla panted, peeling her armguard off and letting it fall to the ground. Despite her efforts, the corrosion kept spreading; if she didn't abandon the article, it would probably spread to the rest of her armor. "Let's find this necromancer!"

When Shayla gets her nose down on a scent she's not one to give up on it, no matter how tired her mages are. I felt a little woozy, I'll admit, but not woozy enough to slow me down. A glance at Matteo garnered a silent nod of confirmation: he was good to continue as well. Sweaty, maybe; a little tired, surely; but ready to go nonetheless.

Not that one really has a choice in a situation like this.

-B-

Our necromancer turned out to be already dead. Or, rather, we supposed the skeleton in the large, regal chair to be our head necromancer, given the way his students defended him almost to the last and the way the room was warded to keep trespassers out.

Someone did not want visitors, either because his body needed to be intact or because he was finishing some foul ritual. There were certainly chalk signs and black soul gems all over the room—those would need to be destroyed, but that would best be done at Headquarters. The dead can't be restored, but there are many as-yet unanswered questions about what happens to a soul-trapped creature—a creature with the powers of logic and reason—when the stone is simply broken.

So we have Resters—and members of the clerical order—who try to extract the soul so it can move on to the last leg to its journey. This is beyond my scope, so I have no idea how successful they are. Or if they're successful at all.

Lisette and Erik began the task of gathering any black soul gem they could see, all of which went into Erik's knapsack for transport. Many of the gems seemed to be full, an unfortunate thing that made me hope the Order has more luck with freeing souls than I usually expect.

Few people in the world deserve that fate (though I can think of some who do).

"Look at this," Deirdre remarked, pointing. Keeping a prudent distance, she indicated chalked marks on the floor, encircling the chair in which the skeleton in almost new black robes sat. They seemed inert, none of them glowing, but they seemed to describe a path or 'road' from the skeleton to—

"Oblivion's teeth!" Matteo hissed, with my own curses echoing his own.

"What is it?" Erik asked, looking away from his task to the object that had us all—well, we mages—so transfixed.

His frogs continued to guard his ankles, gulping and blinking in the most unnerving fashion.

It was—and I emphasize 'was'—the artifact known as Azura's Star. The Star is very distinctive in appearance, an item coveted by mages and adventurers alike for its unique properties. Soul gems are used as fuel for enchantments, since power must come from somewhere. Mostly, soul gems are destroyed upon use; having imparted their contents the corporeal container disintegrates. The Star, however, doesn't suffer this limitation: any lower form of soul (in other words, any soul belonging to a creature without the powers of logic or reason) can be captured and used to fuel an enchantment…but the Star doesn't disintegrate, proof against the double transfer of power.

In every depiction of it I'd ever seen (and every account of it I'd ever heard or read), the Star is supposed to be all silver and crystal, pulsing brightly with a pink light when full, icy blue but still brilliant when empty. Now, though, it was an inky black, with several of the rays that give it a semi-star shape broken off, equally dead and dull.

Looking closer, I could see, along the edges of the Star's blackened silver ornaments, traces of pink light, murky and distorted. The aura of the Star, that which mages can sense, was a terrible miasma, which both drew and repulsed. It was like…the smell of rot trying to choke out the finest rose perfume. It was as if two auras warred over the item which had broken during the struggle.

The Star, however beautiful, is—as all Daedric Artifacts of power are—dangerous. Broken and corrupted, it's even more dangerous.

"That feels…strange…" Erik frowned, his tone becoming vaguely detached.

"Erik!" Deirdre barked as Erik's hand snaked towards the Star. She shot out a hand and grabbed Erik by the collar.

I noticed, as he reached out for the Star, that Matteo and I, too, had drawn nearer to it. Realization that we had made me aware that I, too, wanted to touch it.

Which was ridiculously stupid.

I grabbed Matteo's wrist, even though he hadn't moved. There's an evil power in this Star, in it and on it. I don't like to think what would happen if anyone touched it casually. I don't think gloves would help, as they often do, when handling things like this.

"Who taught you to try to pick up a Daedric artifact that way?" Deirdre demanded, sounding more like Erik's mother than a teacher checking an overeager student. "Get away from there." She grabbed Erik's shoulder and pulled him back, but the way she held onto him spoke of fear for him rather than irritation or mistrust. Maybe he felt it, for he didn't give any hint of being irritated or chastened by her words or actions.

"It's been damaged," Matteo declared, not bothering to shake off my grip.

"Corrupted," I corrected. "We can't leave it here…but sure as the Deadlands are closed, I'm not touching it."

"Nor I," Matteo agreed, straightening to examine the skeleton. "Overlooking the Star, for the moment, look at this skeleton."

I did so, stepping around the Star, careful not to disturbed the chalked signs surrounding the skeleton in its chair and the Star on the ground before it.

"Do you think he soul-trapped himself in there?" Deirdre asked. It's unlike her to sound so nervous. "That would explain the…shall we call it...'soul path' that the runes describe?" Matteo asked.

The chalked runes described—for those who can read and understand—an outside influence to a soul trap that would, if performed correctly, force the spell to work on the caster, and hold the spell together while, at the same time, dragging the soul into the Star. The soul path would be needed, since soul traps and things of that nature—barring those imbued into weapons—don't persist after death. You die and your spell dies with you.

Well, most of the time; the exception is that if your fire spell has hit a tree, or ice is all over the floor, any point at which magicka is no longer necessary to fuel the spell's effects then those effects will persist. That's the way it goes unless additional steps are taken to ensure the casting finishes independent of the caster.

The other exception is persistent magicka—which is what we mages call it—which is almost never seen in combat. Most wards, many bindings, enchantments on weapons or armor, those sorts of things encompass the more traditional persistent magicka. Again, not relevant to the situation, but certainly relevant to the topic.

"The clothes on out skeletal friend here are new, and the other mages in this foul place certainly didn't want us coming this far," I noted aloud as Matteo and I surveyed our skeletal 'friend.'

"No signs of damage to the skeleton, picked clean, held together magically," Matteo continued.

Suddenly, the Star at our feet let out a shiver of power and the skeleton fell apart, its bones suddenly and inexplicably no longer held in place by magicka. Matteo and I both danced back, power lapping around our feet like cold water.

The Star seemed to vibrate malevolently, the scent of roses fading until it was the barest whiff under the smell of rot. I shuddered; Matteo crinkled his nose.

"We should let the Vigilants look at this," I said, biting my lip, disliking the malevolent feel of the corrupted Star.

"Do you mage-types have any kind of consensus?" Shayla demanded.

As one, we all looked to Deirdre, deferring to her deep well of experience. "If we four put every possible ward and charm on it, each individually, alternating in many layers, I believe we could safely move it. Though I would recommend not handling it bare-handed or for long, if possible," Deirdre answered slowly. "We should summon the Vigilants. While we ward the Star, the rest of you should look and see if this…madman…kept any kind of journal, log, or record of what was happening to him. What he was hoping to accomplish or why."

Many mages are like that, prone to recording their studies and experiments for the sake of replication at a later date or as a list of 'what not to try again.'

The first thing was to dispel any magicka lingering in the chalked marks. We felt nothing, and when we removed them they seemed to be only chalk on the ground, their purpose fulfilled, the power fueling them spent.

Then came the long process of warding the Star. Layer upon layer, charm after charm, we worked until all four of us—Matteo, Erik, Deirdre and I—sweated like daytime travelers in Elsweyr. Add this effort to a vicious fight and I think we all felt more than a little tired; casting the protections took more strength than usual because they took more concentration than usual and, thus, needed more power.

"Deirdre, look," S'Renji declared, once Deirdre finished the final layers of protection.

I took off my knapsack, emptied it, turned it inside out, then grasped the Star, turning the knapsack right-side out and securing the Star within without having to actually touch it. Then, for good measure, Matteo and I began to ward the knapsack, too.

"His name was Malyn Varen," Deirdre's voice declared through my haze of concentration. "This says he was dying, slowly, of disease. He couldn't accept it, so he sought a way to cheat death."

Low sounds of disgust and 'that can't possibly end well' filled her pause.

"After many months he secured Azura's Star, he seemed to think that—" she stopped, though whether puzzled or appalled I couldn't tell through the buzz of magicka, and charms now resonating in harmony with one another.

"That what?" Shayla demanded, scowling now that this had become a very magicka-centric exercise. Shayla is not known for an abundance of patience.

"It's as Matteo and Bellona thought: he soul-trapped himself, or meant to do so…and claim the Star as his own Realm of Oblivion, a corner where he could reign as lord and master. Forever."

"He's delusional," Erik said. "He's delusional, isn't he?"

"Certainly. But it appears he may have been successful," Deirdre said. "Let me add another layer to your knapsack, Bellona."

She did so, taking it from me distractedly. It was proof of how skilled she was with magicka that she could cast such strong wards when her mind seemed only half there.

"Deirdre, are you all right?" S'Renji asked gently, blinking his big eyes slowly as he studied her.

"Yes," she answered simply, frowning at Malyn's diary. "It dissolves into rambling after that. Almost…almost as if he were slowly being driven mad."

Though why the madness set in—naturally, induced by his own foul craft, or, perhaps, inspired by a very displeased Daedric Prince at the perversion of her special toy—is debatable. It's also irrelevant.

"We should burn that," Matteo said darkly, "Force anyone else with the same brilliant idea to start fresh."

"We should burn it after we find out what the Vigilants want to do," Shayla interrupted. "I don't think they'll be too happy about a broken Daedric artifact like the Star, much less having to secure it. The journal may be instrumental in figuring out how to fix it so it can pass into their hands."

"Their hands?" S'Renji demanded. "It deals with souls. It belongs with our Order. Send it to the Temple of the Divines in Solitude and let it rot in their archive."

"These things never stay secure," Erik interrupted, unusual conviction in his tone, "never. If the Lady wants it back, she'll have it back. Better to take it to her Shrine—wherever that may be—and let her deal with it, broken or not. At the very least—"

"No, we should let it be researched. You know the Order wants to find a way to make soul gems irrelevant," Lisette interrupted. Though non-magical, she's very much a bookworm when she's not on Order business.

"How could this have anything to do with that?" Matteo asked, frowning.

"How should I know? That's the point," Lisette responded.

"First things first!" Deirdre barked, stopping the rising-in-volume argument, "We need to bring it back to Headquarters." She turned her attention to Shayla, and handed Malyn's journal to her. As leader of our troupe, Shayla would be the one making the first report when we got home; she'd need to turn over Malyn's journal at that time.

Shayla took it, frowning. "We'll take the Star back home and secure it. I'm sure the Vigilants will be called in. Our superiors—and theirs—can decide how to approach it. We're none of us very high in the Order, so our counsel isn't likely to mean much." Though she cast an 'except you' look in Deirdre's direction…but Deirdre seemed unusually unobservant.

I wonder if she didn't have some contact with Azura's Star at one point…or if Malyn's research seemed familiar to her. There's no way of telling from the skeleton what manner of man or mer he was—though his name is suggestive. Maybe they knew one another in what we suspect are Deirdre's 'bad old days.' Or maybe it's one of those 'I had theories and someone acted on them' moments mages sometimes have.

"It's still cold, and this one's fur is still damp. If we must argue, cannot we do it in the sun?" S'Renji asked darkly, his penchant for complaints bringing with it a wise suggestion.