Beta-read by BioFan.
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Do not meddle in the affairs of Daedra. Things tend to snowball. Then to avalanche.
~Cyrodiilic Proverb
-B-
I pitched forward but, rather than striking the edge of the altar (with my head if I was very unlucky) I merely staggered a few steps. The world in which the Shrine, Aranea, and the corporeal Star had vanished. My feet no longer itched and, although I could see that I did, in fact, exist…I felt odd. Less than myself, in a way…though if Malyn had to leave his skeletal remains behind when he entered the Star, I suppose it makes sense that I would leave my corporeal self behind when Azura sent me in here.
Which raises all sorts of concerns about what happens to me—or 'my soul'—if I die while thus...eh, separated from my body.
Luckily for me, one of the Resters' (unofficial) mantras is: don't get dead. So all due caution shall be exercised and the worries about 'what happens' can stay topics for academic minds and scholastic debates.
That settled to my satisfaction, I looked around, taking in for the first time this most unorthodox of battlegrounds.
The place was a ruined, wrecked travesty. If a location could show that a second consciousness had taken and maimed what a first consciousness had decided, then this would be the perfect example. Of totally crystalline construction, the scenery seemed to give the sense of 'infinite space' while also conveying that only part of that infinite space existed in a fashion I would understand. That part which I 'understood' seemed like a strong-arm attempt to cobble together a temporary shelter from the wreckage of a ship. It reminded me a great deal of many platforms, connected by carefully delineated bridges, all of which were edged in large, crisscross shards of crystal.
But the articulation was clumsy at best.
The crystal was all black, like the ruined Star's corporeal form, but near where distance rendered detail indiscernible, the 'world' did seem to lighten to something less malevolent. I drew my sword, which felt strange in my hand, as if I were dreaming the action rather than performing it. "Malyn Varen!" I expected the words to echo in the space, but they did not: the air seemed to muffle the sound.
The silence that followed grew thick and, while the air's temperature did not change, I found myself feeling stymied and wanting for breath.
Swallowing down my discomfort, the growing certainty that Malyn was very conscious of my presence (and not at all apathetic about it), I clenched my left fist, a ward creeping slowly up my arm, across my torso, to my waist, down to my knees.
I turned sharply at a faint waft of scent—something ugly and unpleasant—to find the necromancer sneaking up from behind me, moving along a path that had not existed moments before.
So, he has some control over the formation and manipulation of this place. Blast it all.
Malyn Varen was, as I expected, a Dunmer, lean and lanky, clad in the same manner as his skeleton (though he now wore a hood). In one hand he held a long staff, fairly unremarkable in its form.
I noticed it only by chance, or perhaps one glitter of the Star's desire for purity sparkled: the ground closest to Malyn seemed to pull itself into a very substantial state of being. Further away, however, it was as if his ability to hold 'his realm' together diminished, the crystal lightening from black at his feet to smoky grey.
The Star, by its very nature, was resisting him. What he had done could be—would be—undone eventually, given time…but while he lived and possessed will it would simply take longer than one might expect.
If I were a scholar, I'd be fascinated. But I'm not, so it's not really useful information for me to have at the moment.
He hissed as he threw a spell at me—a spell that shattered at a blow from my warded hand. His spell killed my ward, but he'd lost the element of surprise. I uttered back, a hissing, slurring sound that made cold mist rise from my mouth as I gestured with my free hand. Ice condensed out of the air to form a long spike which I sent in his direction with a flick of my hand.
He slammed his staff butt-down on the ground, a pane of crystal rising up to block the attack. He swung his staff towards me, lightning arcing from it only to meet my own hastily-thrown web of the same. The two netlike spells crackled and snapped, would have caused my hair to grow frizzy in the normal world.
We stood there for a few moments in gridlock, he relying on his staff to channel power, I relying only on that power I had available.
He shouted, a wordless utterance that echoed, every echo seeming to coalesce into a plate of crystal until I stood, caged within a cylindrical construct, like a butterfly in a jar.
The upside, however, was that I no longer needed to support the spell against him. I let it drop, taking a steadying breath while I could. The trick, now, is to get out of this glorified bottle.
"I see my disciples sent me a fresh soul," he mused, his voice heavy with an accent not common to Skyrim. It grated on my ears. "And a strong, one, too!"
It won't matter to him if his disciples are dead. Necromancers never care who gets hurt as long as they're all right.
But I know how to get out of this sort of trap. It's uncomfortable, but easy enough. I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, calling the same spell I'd used on my way to the summit of Mt. Anthor to keep warm.
"Good." He came close to the crystalline wall, which thinned enough to become transparent, like a window, though it retained its cloudy grey color. "I was getting hungry." His red eyes gleamed uncannily.
Telekinesis is a useful spell. In this case, I leaned my sword against the nearest wall so I would have both hands free. I raised my hands, feeling the blood pumping strangely strong in my fingertips, matching time with my heart. I imagined magicka creeping from the well of power those with the gift have, down my arms, into my palms, the pounding of blood in the digits increasing. I lifted my hands and smacked them against the crystalline surface, allowing them to bounce gently off. I did it again, a slow-motion, deceptively gentle parody of banging my hands against a door.
It amused Malyn, who watched with a self-satisfied smile.
Within the confines, I began to feel each telekinetic pulse, the strength of what would normally be a wave expelling from me as the epicenter directed by the strike of my hand against the wall. The pulses of power that hit the crystal so rhythmically began to beat against my eardrums until...
Crack. A large fracture appeared in the crystal, evidence of where the weakest portion of the structure was.
Malyn looked surprised, clearly didn't understand what I was doing as I stood there, lips pursed.
Strike. Strike. Strike.
Crack. The fracture expanded into a spiderweb of large fractures just as Malyn reached to touch the prison.
I struck out, hard, with all the force I could muster, and the crystal shattered, expelled outwards with the force, straight into the space Malyn occupied.
Malyn staggered back, throwing his arms up to ward his face. The crystal fragments didn't touch him, I noticed, but the all too mortal reaction to sharp objects, incoming occurred, nonetheless.
I grabbed my sword and started forward, drawing back for a lunge, which was immediately foiled as Malyn turned his stagger backwards into a strategic retreat as his brain overrode his instincts. He took a defensive stance, even as I held myself ready to lunge—or, rather, while I tried to figure out how best to forego the lunge or turn a sword swing into something practical.
Malyn held up one hand, "There's something…different…about you."
I watched his off hand, the one from which an attack would most likely come. "Your corporeal form is dead," I declared bluntly, "you exist only within the realm of this artifact. This sword either hews you at the neck or takes you through the chest. Choose."
Malyn's face twitched with rage. "Who are you to challenge me? I have conquered mortality itself! Spat in the eyes of the Divines and Daedra alike!"
'Conquered mortality' has he? Hiding in here like a trapped rat? My silence in the face of his demand and declarations seemed to angry him or—which was better—unnerve him.
Here I came, some unnamed, unknown, woman who didn't need to justify herself to him: it was enough for me that that I was here to kill him. It didn't matter one bit whether he knew who I was or not. And his brand of arrogance railed against that kind of quiet confidence, that comfort of anonymity.
"This is my realm!" His voice echoed as mine had not when I issued my original challenge. "Mine! I've sacrificed too much for you to take it from me!"
"Through the chest, then. I'll try to make it painless." Not really, but the answer unnerved and vexed him further.
"Your mistake. I won't." he slammed his staff against the ground and then wrenched it to the side. The crystal at his feet opened up—giving me the opportunity to turn my aborted lunge into a hasty retreat. Out of the crystal came the last thing I ever expected to see here: a Dremora, a real, (presumably) live Dremora.
…I didn't know summoning like that could work in this place. Not that I considered it, but still…to call another Daedric lord's servants into a corrupted artifact of another of the Princes…
It made my head frizz like my hair should be doing, reminding me that I was not a scholar for a reason. Lack of patience.
These inhabitants of Mehrunes Dagon's Deadlands are rarely seen, summoned only by those casters confident in their ability to control such a creature. Nevertheless, the Daedra dragged itself out of the crystal, looking grumpy—or maybe that was its usual expression. Despite the fact that he wore robes like a mage, he carried a large, hefty-looking mace.
"Pommel her to jelly. Bring me the leftovers," Malyn declared, somewhat theatrically in my opinion, before he sauntered off with the same supreme confidence as a well-fed cat.
The Dremora snorted eloquently: Malyn or me, what did it matter? One mortal was as jelly-able as the next and he—the Dremora—had no particular liking for either Mayln or myself.
I always understood that Dremora wandered around in big, heavy armor. They're nearly always depicted in that way. That this one dispensed with such practicalities made me cautious and made me expect magic.
I wasn't disappointed, either. The Dremora raised his mace to a guard position, then drew back, readying himself to make use of it as he started at a run towards me.
I dropped to the floor, the mace and the fireball not far behind it both missing me. Something in my mind twanged, like a badly-tightened string on a lyre, but the telekinetic push sent the Dremora into an uncontrolled, flailing stumble, easy prey for a powerful lunge.
My sword punched through his chest as he caught himself against the crystalline spires that prevented anyone from going over the edge of this platform-and-bridge world Malyn set up. The Dremora went boneless and limp, dispatched as neatly as I could manage. I slid him off my sword, wishing I could dump him over the edge for good measure…but I couldn't, so I stuck him again for surety and turned to see if I could figure out where Malyn scuttled off to.
Obviously Azura is confident that, though he can slow me down, he cannot prevent me from catching up to him eventually. I wish I felt as confident about my end of this...endeavor.
Following Malyn was easy for two reasons: one, there was really only one path to follow, as he didn't have the imagination for branching paths and dead ends. Secondly, if the Star's environs grew lighter in the distance, they seemed to grow darker wherever he was. Just follow the corruption and you're bound to come to the source.
Two Dremora later—neither of which were as easily dispatched as the first—I finally cornered Malyn. He had the stiff, hunched appearance of a dog bristling at someone approaching it with a brandished stick. Even as I advanced on him, I wondered why he didn't call more Dremora—or maybe he's operating under more constraints than I'm aware of.
Or maybe he's not much more gifted with summoning creatures than I am. "The neck," I declared, repeating the option I'd given him at our first encounter, "or the chest?"
He snarled wordlessly, his lightning spell arcing away from his fingertips in a white-purple net that left streaks across my vision. It bounded harmlessly off the ward I lifted. Like many who specialize in magic, he'd never cultivated true martial ability, which meant that he relied wholly on magicka…and when it ran out, he was helpless.
It is a fate I've steeled myself against.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, with the sensation of being soaked in sweat making my clothes cling (I could only assume my real body was sweaty and uncomfortable since I'm not, myself, corporeal here), I brought my sword down with a shout, the steel edge shattering Malyn's last feeble defense. He looked up at me, despair, rage, and hate in his eyes.
He wanted theatricalities at the outset. I gave him what he wanted now. "We serve," I announced coldly, "that the dead may walk no more." He had just enough time to comprehend what that actually meant before my sword cleaved his head from his shoulders.
Or it should have, if I were dealing with a physical body. As it was, the sword merely passed through his neck, his form turning to dark smoke in the blade's wake.
The world around me trembled, then shook once. Slowly, a vibration began in the crystal, forcing me to back towards the center of the large platform upon which I'd engaged Malyn. The crystal rattled so hard I swear I could feel it in my joints. The bright light in the distance—the Star's resistance to Malyn's malignancy—began to creep forward, slowly at first, as if a trick of the eyes, then faster and faster, like water rushing to fill a void.
-B-
I shot out a hand, catching myself on the edge of the altar before Azura's statue. Sweat glazed my body, made my clothes stick uncomfortably (and left my exposed face painfully cold). It was like waking up from the sensation of falling, in that jolting moment of realization that one's position doesn't allow for 'falling.'
The soles of my feet itched from the absence of the vibrations the Star gave off before I…came back? I'm not even sure how to describe the experience. I'll worry about it later. Right now, though, my nose is cold, my feet itch, I'm sweaty and feel weird.
So, I suppose, not so differently from most long days in my line of work. A sparkle caught my eye. The Star lay on the altar, exactly where I originally put it, but it was no longer blackened and broken. It was, as reports said of it, truly beautiful, all bright silver and sparkling crystal, more like sun in shape but certainly like a star in its glittering loveliness.
"My Star has been cleansed!"Azura's pleased and slightly smug voice rattled in my skull, which made my inner ears itch. "And Malyn's soul has been consigned to Oblivion."
Which is probably not a good thing for him. I've said before that Daedra are, almost by nature, petty. Well, if they're petty over small things, imagine how unpleasant they can be when they have a legitimate grievance.
"I am pleased with you, child."
"I'm glad to serve, Madame."
She giggled. "You mean 'I'm glad to be finished serving.' Never mind words and meanings. It is enough that I am pleased and you are finished here."
It is at that. Strangely enough, after having spent time in the Star—having spent time in possession of a corporeal form but without making use of it—I found her disembodied voice less disconcerting.
"You have little use for my lovely Star," she remarked with just enough humor in her tone to suggest that she had no intention of putting her special toy in the hands of someone like me. "But I will not have it said that Lord Azura is ungrateful to her helpers." The Star vanished as I watched, fading from view. "I give you two halves of a thing: a trinket and a warning."
On the stone of the altar, fading into existence just as the Star faded out of it, appeared a small ring, ebony with a pea-sized set-in stone. The stone was amber in color, but heavily covered with black marks, like clouds, that made it seem as though the darkness held the warm glow in check.
"Not all who serve have the master's best interests in mind. The worst trouble a mortal can find is often that to which she leaves herself open…or which she invites, herself."
As soon as the last of the word 'herself' ended, I knew Azura had no further need of me, nothing more to say. I was dismissed as abruptly as it is possible to be without actual rudeness.
I took the ring, then pulled off one of my gloves. It was meant for a finger smaller than any of mine, but the band expanded until I slid it onto the first finger of my right hand. It constricted, burning hot for a moment. Before I could flinch the heat vanished and the ring was just a ring.
Nevertheless, for all its innocent appearance, I found myself wary of it. It was a powerful artifact, a summoning, a binding, someone went to great pains and—probably—great expense to make sure that nothing with this…thing…went wrong.
I glanced at Aranea, who smile cheerfully at me. No…I think I'll wait till I'm alone to find out what double-edged dagger Azura's put into my hand. Better to find out when no one is around to get hurt if things go...badly.
And there are always the Vigilants. They can have it if it proves too much for me to want to deal with.
Even as the thought came to a close, I found myself aware that the Vigilants probably wouldn't want it. It isn't an artifact associated with Azura and, I think, she would know any such thing would go immediately into their 'ungrateful' hands.
"Do you know anything about this?" I asked, holding up the ring.
"I've never seen it before," Aranea answered. "I thought with certainty she would gift you with the Star—that's customary for such great services."
The skin along my back prickled uncomfortably at these words. Something aS useful to me as the Star might be to someone else?
"Did she tell you aught about it?" Aranea asked, admiring the dark band on my pale hand.
"No…just a warning," I answered, pulling my glove back on.
"Then if she gave you a warning you would be wise to heed it. Just as you would be equally wise not to go throwing her token away." Her face remained amiable when she said it, so perhaps it was simply my mind that rendered the words in a darker vein than that in which they were spoken. "Come, it's been several hours and you look bone weary."