Chapter Eleven
Author's Note: This is the final chapter, there will be no more updates after this. To those of you who left reviews, especially lonelyguyfarhan: Your words really did encourage me and I appreciate your kindness. Thank you!
Writing this has taught me a lot and there are so many things I would do differently if I were starting over from the beginning, but.. it is what it is, and I'm glad at least a handful of people could enjoy it.
Without further ado, the end of my story.
Nilaryal couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the truly massive blue aura moving through the sky to land near the party he pursued, and he could believe it even less when two of the auras merged with the dragon and took off into the sky. He frantically dug through his saddlebag, throwing potions and food and documents out onto the ground until he found the scrolls he wanted. Jamming three of them under his arm and quickly unfurling the third he whispered the words scrawled across the page.
Blue light glowed in the letters and expanded outward, dissolving the parchment in his hand as it spread, the remaining particles snatched away by the wind before they were gone completely. The hand he held in front of him faded from view and Nilaryal launched effortlessly into the air from the back of his horse, flying unseen after the dragon. He tore off the beggar's tattered blanket and let it drift to the earth. It would slowly fade back into view after parting from his body but Nilaryal didn't give a damn if anyone saw it. He could feel magicka streaming from his feet, propelling him forward at incredible speed until he was mere yards away from the tail of the dragon. The dragon, of all things! He pulled back, letting the beast outpace him, not wanting to be detected. The cold air ripped at his hair, at his filthy rags that passed for clothing, tried to tear the remaining Scrolls of Windform from under his arm. He grit his teeth in grim determination, intent to weather the cold on his face and hands for however long it took. Each scroll would afford him only a few hours of flight. He prayed for the good of his race that it was enough.
Fifteen excruciating hours later Nilaryal was dizzy with fatigue and quite sure his face was forever frozen in its current expression. From time to time he healed himself of his frostbite, but he tried to conserve his magicka. The little potion pouch on his belt wouldn't last him forever, and all of his food had been left behind with his horse. His mouth was dry, but he swore he'd save the last of his water until this hellish nightmare had ended. He dipped in the sky, almost falling asleep, but the belly-flipping sensation of the sudden loss of altitude snapped him awake and he rose again. They had passed over Cheydinhal recently at which point the dragon disappeared, but Nilaryal didn't even need to use life detect as he could still clearly see the mortal cargo flying through the sky.
They were passing over the mountains when Nilaryal felt the stream of magicka weaken, felt himself slowly sinking in the sky.
It was happening. His last scroll had run out. He had to land now, or risk plummeting to his death, or be seen by the dragon. He almost cried in sheer frustration, at the utter unfairness of it. So many hours he had spent chasing this beast, for nothing!
Nilaryal flew low, letting the hills hide him from the dragon, and just before he dropped onto a rocky outcropping he heard flapping and then a scuff of claws against rock. The dragon had landed! Nilaryal's spell ended. His feet were already on the ground but suddenly his weight seemed to settle on them fully and he could see his own body in the periphery of his vision once again. Nilaryal quickly cast life detect and saw the aura of the dragon through the mountain. Not far away, perhaps on the next bluff. He might be able to spare the magicka to fly over there with his own spell, if he waited for just the right moment.
Nilaryal braced his hands against the sheer rock wall- he was standing on a little cliff just big enough for his person. He was so tired. So angry that he'd had to endure this. But he would wait a while more.
He didn't have to wait all that long. The smaller auras disembarked- the Orc and the Imperial girl, he assumed, and made their way down, possibly inside a cave. The dragon rested for a moment more before lifting off again, and Nilaryal saw by watching its aura move that it was hunting some kind of animal in a valley below. This was his chance, he would not get another. Nilaryal flicked his wrist, casting a weaker levitation spell than the one afforded by the scrolls, and rose into the air.
Gort lead the way into the second room, his heart pounding as they passed beneath the stone lintel and into a chamber much smaller than the first, about twenty feet long on a side. This one was clear of the rock formations, as the vaulted ceiling had been plated with hexagonal slabs of brass, each ornately decorated with gold filigree and mystical shapes of unknown meaning. They would have been grand in their day but were now dull, corroded with age and tarnished by red and green splotches in addition to the usual lichen. More flaming crystals hung on chains throughout the room, but these burned an inviting amber instead of the malevolent red.
The chief attraction of the room was the floor. Deep grooves had been cut into a large circle spanning about five feet across in the very center of the room. More concentric circles nested inside, growing smaller and smaller toward the center and finally terminating in a tiny hole much deeper than the rest of the lines. The circles were connected to one another with more grooves irregularly spaced so that the end result looked something like a maze. The entire thing was vaguely funnel-shaped: the center was a few inches deeper than the rest of the floor, but the gradient was gradual.
The only other feature of the room was easier to miss- on the wall to their right was a rectangular seam in the wall, as if the stone slab were designed to lower.
Both of them wore their helmets and had drawn their weapons, anticipating danger. Callista had left her buckler behind as it had been bent and broken by the sentry, but she carried Jasbir's potion bag on her shoulder. They looked around cautiously, and Callista approached the slab to run her fingers along the crack. There was no way a mortal would be able to move it; she couldn't even get her fingers in the narrow groove. She circled back over to Gort and they studied the maze on the floor, standing at its edge.
"What now? Gort asked.
Callista dipped her sword into a groove. It was only about an inch deep and rather thin, meaning it would be perfectly safe to walk on. Considering the shape it might be some elaborate storm drain... but why?
Both sets of eyes immediately snapped up to the tall figure that moved in the doorway, startling them both. Gort stepped in front of Callista, raising his axe, but his nerve faltered when he finally realized who he was looking at.
The Altmer's hair was disheveled and swept back, his face haggard and twisted by both anger and fatigue. The dirty clothes he wore were too small for him, leaving his lower arms and navel exposed, but still he wore the tall boots, utility belt and leather scabbard Gort had seen him with when last they met. His shortsword was already drawn in his hand. Gort's heart leapt to his throat but he pushed away the memories of humiliation. Callista needed him now.
"What do you want?" Gort snarled. "Don't you know that if you kill her, the world will be doomed?"
Nilaryal paused for a moment, then threw back his head and cackled hysterically. He had to grab the sides of the doorway to hold himself up, otherwise he would have stumbled back out of the room. Yes, the fatigue was certainly driving him mad, but that had been the final straw. His laughter echoed in the cavern. Gort scowled at the Altmer, Callista looking over his shoulder with brows furrowed in confusion. Finally the laughter trailed off and the Altmer pulled himself up straight to glare at his quarry. He thrust his sword out to point at them.
"Auriel will destroy this fetid prison you call a world! Are you so far fallen that you can't feel it, the decaying of your own flesh even as you inhabit it? The degradation of what once was boundless splendor? Fools!" he screamed the words, his throat raw and failing.
He's completely unhinged, Gort thought, slowly stepping closer.
"And where will you go once the world is destroyed?" Gort asked. Nilaryal scoffed derisively.
"You cannot com-"
Gort sprinted for the Altmer, axe raised in one hand to be buried into Nilaryal's shoulder but the Altmer moved quick as a whip and parried the strike. Gort swung low to catch his opponent on the hip as Nilaryal slashed at the Orc's head. The clang on his helm rang in his ears and he stumbled back while Nilaryal clumsily sidestepped into the room. Gort's axe had smashed into the potion pouch on his belt, driving shards of glass through the fabric into Nilaryal's skin and darkening his pants as the contents of his potions flooded out. His magicka and health restoratives were gone.
Callista ran at the Altmer but he flung out his left hand, sending a spray of ice flechettes into the air. She twisted aside just in time to miss them and they exploded into shards on the floor where she had been moments before, catching her legs with harmless ice shrapnel.
Gort came at the Altmer with an underhand swing but white light burst from Nilaryal's open palm, another volley of ice needles spraying across Gort's body. Most shattered on his armor but some drove through his leather gloves, through his pants just above his grieves in the gaps where the tasset-like strips of chainmail did not protect. He screamed as shards punctured flesh, the sheer cold as painful as the penetration. He stumbled back and the Altmer moved with him to bash Gort's helm with his sword, but Callista was there, knocking his blade out of the air with her own. He opened his palm to spray her with ice once more but Callista slashed down on his bare hand, his first three fingers severed and tumbling down as mini geysers of blood splurted from the stumps. Nilaryal screamed, dropped his sword, stumbled back into the corner by the doorway clutching his hand.
Callista pulled Gort away and they fell back to the center of the room as blue light glowed in Nilaryal's hand. He was heaving, face contorted in agony as fresh skin crawled over his finger stumps and the bleeding stopped.
The shards in his flesh had already dissolved into nothingness, granting Gort a reprieve from the cold but not from the pain. Warm blood poured from the wounds, dripping down his hands and soaking the inside of his pants in his grieves. Callista had guided him back toward the maze on the floor, back to gain distance where they could dodge his spells more effectively.
The Altmer wasn't stupid enough to keep firing when he knew they'd simply move out of the way- they would forever be stuck in a stand-off this way. Gort knew what they had to do but there wasn't time to communicate the plan in full. The Altmer had healed himself and stood gasping against the wall, staring in horror at his mutilated hand. The stumps weren't bleeding any more but his fingers still lay on the floor of the cavern.
"Stay behind me and strike second!" Gort belted and ran at the Altmer again just as he dove to pick up his dropped sword. Gort bellowed a war cry, his voice filling the cavern in a roar to rival the dragon. Even if Gort died in the attack, Callista would have a chance to strike at the Altmer after using Gort's body as a shield. Callista took her cue and ran behind him, shrieking her own battle cry, their voices as one.
The Altmer flung his ice flechettes again but Gort tilted his head to protect his eyes and ran through the rain of needles, his bellow raising to a scream as ice tore at his leather gloves and the flesh beneath, tore into the muscle where his thighs joined his body. He did not stop, raising his axe over his head for one final bash.
His eyes bulging, strands of yellow hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, veins standing out on forehead and neck the Altmer was the picture of terror. As expected he blocked the axe with his sword and Gort yanked down, catching the blade with the axe head and dragging the sword with it as he stepped aside and Callista drove her father's sword straight into the Altmer's belly with a wet slsh. He screamed and instinctively flung magicka at them with both hands, fire in one and ice in the other, his sword clattering to the ground. Callista and Gort turned, sprinted away as more ice stung Gort's flesh and flames scorched Callista's leather pants. Callista had abandoned her weapon still embedded in the Altmer's belly. Finally the torrent stopped and the Altmer sagged against the wall, his hands clutching the sword protruding from his gut and eyes rolled up to the ceiling. He still breathed haggardly, but his magicka appeared to be spent.
The circular maze in the center of the room had been spattered with Gort's blood. He stood over it now, his hands braced against his knees and axe still in hand, panting as more blood dripped down with a steady plip plip plip. Worse were the wounds in his groin and upper thighs. Every step he took felt as though it were tearing his muscles further. His pants were drenched with blood. Callista's hand was already in Jasbir's bag to find a healing potion for Gort. The Altmer was moaning in the corner, not yet dead but he would be soon if he didn't heal himself.
Rivulets of blood dripped from the stone into the grooves on the floor, were funneled down by the gentle slope. Suddenly a deep grinding vibrated the room. Gort and Callista glanced around wildly, searching for the stone golems they thought might appear, but Gort quickly realized there was movement below his feet. He jumped back in shock. Callista, standing at the edge of the rotating circles, looked down at the spattering of Orc blood in the grooves and then up at the slab of stone behind Gort. It was slowly retracting into the ground.
"I understand now," Callista whispered.
Nilaryal's head rolled against his shoulders. A spear of agony pinned him to the wall- he wasn't really pinned, the sword hadn't passed through him, but he couldn't imagine standing or moving. His limbs were numb, heavy, and Nilaryal vaguely knew that he was in shock. He was dying, but strangely unperturbed by this. Everything seemed to move around him in slow motion, as if in a dream. He could feel the pittance of magicka still at his command, perhaps enough to heal his grievous wound if he could pull out the sword. He grinned in spite of his impending obliteration- there would be no ascension of his soul, no joining with the divine, not this day. But perhaps for his people there could be. The figures before him were so blurry, and both clothed in identical chainmail... It didn't matter. This was his final gambit- everything he had he poured into the attack.
Gort's back was to the Altmer. Callista saw the white-blue glow in his hand.
"Gort!" she screamed. Too late. Light exploded from the palm, the massive stream of magicka resolving into a solid spear of ice the size of a man's forearm. Callista leapt at Gort, knocking him out of the way as the massive shard impacted her chest, ripping through links of chain as if they were cloth. She felt the freezing agony as it tore through her heart and out the other side. She crumpled. Gort's axe hit the ground, his eyes wide and entire face contorted in shock. He grabbed her by the arms and went down on his knees along with her. Wisps of freezing magicka swirled around the ice lodged in her chest. Rivers of blood streamed from her lips, dribbled down her chin. Callista's eyes rolled up. Everything was dark, closing in on her. She could see Gort's eyes under his helm and little else. She could hear grinding as the slab continued to lower, but then it stopped. Her eyes flicked over to the blurry object there, recessed in the wall, which the slab had hidden.
"Callista! Callista!" Gort held her in his arms, the ice still protruding. He ripped off her helm and flung it aside, grabbed the bag that still rested against her hip. A red potion was in his hands in a second.
"It was you all along," Callista whispered, her voice garbled by blood in her throat. She coughed once, specks of blood hitting Gort's chain veil, and slackened in the Orc's grasp. Tears poured from his eyes, obscuring his vision. The cork was off, the vial against her lips, filling her mouth and spilling back out, wasted.
"No, no, no," Gort sobbed, tipping the vial steeper, holding Callista's jaw open with his other hand. The vial empty, he cast it aside and dug out another. It was the same as the last; wasted. Blood continued to ooze out of her mouth.
Gort screamed, he cried, his voice chanted unintelligible words over and over again. Somehow he found his feet and his axe. The Altmer was slumped dead against the wall, having used his last magicka to kill the dragonborn rather than heal his own wounds. Blinded by tears Gort hacked, his axe smashing through flesh, skull, brains, over and over again until the Altmer was an unrecognizable mash of gore. He howled with every blow, his face wet with snot and tears and spittle.
When he was only driving his axe into the stone and no longer cutting through Altmer he stumbled away, dropped his axe in the pulp and staggered back to the corpse in the center of the room. The shard of ice had finally collapsed in on itself, evaporated into a mist of magicka to leave behind a gaping hole in her armor, her chest, viscera and blood dripping. He threw off his helm, shucked off his gloves. His hands and groin were still bleeding, but slower now. The wounds weren't life threatening and the pain was nothing to him now. He dropped to his knees before her, gathered the corpse into his arms, buried his face against her neck and sobbed. Her eyes were still open, dull and lifeless.
He cried until his voice grew hoarse and died and the tears stopped flowing. His entire body ached, especially his head. His heart throbbed painfully in his forehead. Gort finally pulled away from Callista, strands of snot and spittle breaking as he moved back and gently lowered her body to the floor. His mouth hung open in an agonized grimace but no more sound would come out. Still on his knees, he raised his head and twisted to look beside himself, at the recess in the wall that had been covered by stone.
A sword was embedded vertically there in the wall, exactly as Jasbir had described. It was rusty and dingy, no scabbard to protect the brittle blade. The golden hilt was shaped into a dragon's head at the pommel. A claw setting gripped a tear-cut, ruby-red gem below the crossguard, which resembled the wings of a dragon unfurled. It did not glitter beneath the dust.
So this was the thing they had come so far for, only for Callista to die protecting a worthless Orsimer bandit. He didn't understand. Why did she do it? Why had she condemned the world for his sake? What had made the compartment open? What were the rings on the floor? Gort didn't understand and a very large part of him didn't care. Let the world be devoured. He didn't want to be alive, didn't want to suffer anymore. He wanted it all to end.
He staggered to the newly exposed section of wall and fell against it, unwilling to support his own weight. There was a slight indentation on either side of the hilt, obviously a finger hold so that a person could remove the sword from the wall. He reached out, his fingers closing around the hilt, his hands smeared with his own blood. His bloodied thumb brushed against the red diamond and Gort was somewhere else.
Gort hung in a vortex of light, bodiless, eyeless but not sightless, a countless number of parallel realities streaming around him, through him, and Gort knew the past and the future of each as clearly as he knew his own memories. He could see the flow of his own life like a river, branching out into countless distributaries that forked again and again, an endless fractal of possibility. He saw a world in which he was tall and strong like his father, chieftain and warlord to thousands of Orcs. He saw a world in which he was human, draped in silk finery and crowned in gold, seated on a high-backed throne.
I don't understand. I don't understand! But Gort did understand; he could not accept it.
He remembered a day that had not existed in his own life, but in the life of some other Gortwog gro-Urgak, some other version of himself.
He sat on the floor of his yurt playing with warriors carved from bone, his fingers short and stubby. His mother was there, wearing a cheerfully cyan dress and marigold-orange undertunic, her black hair pulled up in her usual bun. Gort had always thought she was the prettiest woman in the village. More than that, Morzola always had a genuinely kind word for everyone no matter who they were. She completely lacked the pettiness and pretension of her sister-wives, who thought themselves better than others for being married to a chieftain. All of this goodness Gort could see plainly in her smiling eyes. She was just as he remembered her now, only younger than last he saw her and infinitely more beautiful.
She sat on her own bed mending Gort's clothing. Fire crackled in the center of the yurt, bathing the small room in comfortable warmth and light. Snowflakes drifted down through the smoke hole above the fire but melted to nothing before they could land.
It was so peaceful to be inside on a cold day such as this, but something was troubling Gort. He laid aside his toys and pushed himself off the plush wolf fur rug. His mother finally looked up when Gort stood beside her, his hand braced against the bed. Gort relived this memory as if he were there, and to see his mother alive hurt his heart as surely as if he'd been stabbed. He ached to throw his arms around her and squeeze her tight one last time, but the only thing he could do was watch a scene already carved into slate.
"I'm not like other Orcs, am I, Mama?" Gort asked in the squeaky, prepubescent voice of an eight year old, his eyes sadly downcast. Morzola laid the clothes and sewing needle on the bed beside her and took Gort's small hands in her own.
"Everyone is different from everyone else," Morzola said softly.
"That's not what I mean, Mama! You know... Why are my tusks so short? Why can't I run as far as Kurza? Things like that..." Gort's eyes flicked up at Morzola's and down again. He absently ran his tongue over his tiny tusk. Everyone teased him because they were short like a woman's, but even some of the girls had longer tusks than he did. Morzola sighed and looked skyward as if pleading to Malacath. She briefly closed her eyes and when she opened them again her face had changed, as if fully resolved and unafraid.
"Sit beside me, Gort. There's something I need to tell you." She released his hands and Gort did as asked, jumping up to sit beside her on the furs. His mother turned and smiled kindly as she always did. Gort knew his mother loved him when she looked at him like that, even if it embarrassed him sometimes. She spoke calmly, without hesitation or any hint of regret. "Before you were born, I made regular trips to a mannish town to trade for supplies. During one trip a man attacked me on the road, a human of some sort. He forced himself on me... I later became pregnant. I didn't tell your father because I was afraid of what he might do to us. I couldn't be sure who my child truly belonged to... but it didn't matter to me, Gortwog. It still doesn't. I love you, all of you, even if you don't love yourself." She put her arm around his tiny shoulder and rubbed him gently. Gort stared forward in shock, unable to believe what he had learned.
His focus on this memory to the exclusion of all others began to slip away and Gort was pulled back into the tide of times, into the multitude of places and things and thoughts all cascading together in a mishmash of reality. No! his mind screamed. Take me back to her! Let me be with her! Instead he rose higher, and it was as if he looked upon Nirn from every angle, from every set of eyes. A serpentine body of dazzling golden light enwreathed the globe of Nirn, endlessly looped and entwined with itself, the long-muzzled face of the Dragon God incomprehensibly glorious. It raced over Nirn with jaws gaping wide, devouring mountains, cities, religions, peoples. The very idea of these things were swallowed and gone, wiped from the collective memory one by one- but Gort saw them still, superimposed on the new reality taking their place.
Why am I here? If I am the dragonborn, how do I stop this?!
Why would you seek to prevent the birth of the world? All things must end as all things must begin. You are the catalyst for this kalpa.
As Gort watched the Dragon of Time ravage the world, he looked within the god and saw the tributaries of time shifting and merging with the main channel, building the new reality to replace the old. As Gort examined the shifting river and the new histories that played out, he began to realize that the shifting did not happen randomly- it was reacting to Gort's own thoughts.
With an effort that amounted to less than the twitch of his little finger he could reach out to grasp an idea, a kingdom, a place, and pull it as if thread to weave the strand into the tapestry of time. He could wipe out entire races, entire wars if he so desired! But he found that every time he shifted away war, death, and famine from history, the change either precipitated or followed another horrible event someplace else in time. He scoured the time-threads for a reality in which there were no wars and found none.
Where was the age of everlasting peace, the society that valued mutual respect and cooperation above all else? It did not exist.
There is one thing I can do. He saw the price: a war, sometime in the distant future of this world. He saw every person who would die as a result of this change. He saw, too, the descendants of the survivors who would persevere and rebuild. He saw a new Orsinium built by his progeny and protected by allies from the old race he would save, its splendor to rival the dying Empire. He saw a tiny bubble of peace and prosperity floating on the churning rapids of time.
This is your choice?
It is.
The light released him and Gort was back in the Cavern of Ages, his hand closed around the hilt of a sword shining and brilliant as if newly forged and freshly polished. He pulled it from its receptacle, the weight of it so very right in his hand. Gort retained only a very tiny fraction of all the knowledge, the memories he had gleaned when he looked upon the god but he knew that here, at the focus, time was unchanged. The world beyond would remember nothing of the previous age. Gort could remember not only what changes had been made to the world, but the future for generations to come, although his memory of these things were quickly fading. He knew that he would raise children, instill in them powerful ideas, and one of them would go on to unite his people. By the time he had turned back to Callista's corpse this information was gone. He could only remember his own past in a world that no longer existed.
He used Callista's empty scabbard to sheath his sword, then lifted her body to cradle it against his chest. No tears would fall despite the pain that rent his heart. Somewhere in this new.. kalpa, perhaps a different version of Callista still lived. He couldn't quite remember. He knew that he had an important role to play in this world, but what exactly? The vision so clear a moment ago now escaped him. He only knew that Callista's sacrifice must not be in vain. Her ideas of a better world in which leaders valued the lives of their subjects over power and conquest... he would make this happen. Somehow.
Was his mother still alive in this world? Was Jasbir? Would the old priest know him? Would Callista be waiting in Stonecross, and would she even believe his tale if she were? Gort walked through the dark chamber, past the stone sentries, her body so unnaturally light in his arms. He held her tight as he pushed through the narrow passage, up and up, and into the light of day.
Raxrikaasal was there, her head thrown back and she trumpeted joyfully when Gort emerged from the crevice. So, Gort thought, she was close enough to the cavern that her memories of the old world were spared. Gort immediately noticed black specks in the distance, thick like a swarm of migrating birds circling over Red Mountain, which no longer belched smoke into the sky. It seemed even taller than before.
"My people live!" Raxrikaasal cried, raising up and spreading her wings wide. She fell back on all fours, arching her neck up and bobbing her head in what must have been a drakish expression of joy. A loud flapping caught his attention and Gort craned his head back in time to see a flight of three dragons passing overhead, one ruddy-brown like Raxrikaasal but one a brilliant blue and the other emerald green with a yellow underbelly. Their majesty nearly took his breath away.
Dragons have returned to Nirn. I wonder what other new races, what new lands might be waiting? My village might not even exist anymore...
"I am sorry that your friend did not survive, small one," Raxrikaasal said, as if she had only just noticed the corpse. "I pledge to you that all dragonkind will know her deed and yours. I am indebted to you a hundred times over, as shall be my children and theirs. Will you come with me to Red Mountain? I think this must be our new home. I will see to it that she is entombed in a place of honor, if you wish it."
"Yes." Gort nodded faintly. Perhaps the dragons could fill him in on everything that had changed in the world, if they took Raxrikaasal's story seriously. After that, he had a lot of work to do- he must discover the fates of Morzola, Jasbir, Callista... and his own still to come.
Still hugging the body against his chest, Gort walked to the edge of the bluff and looked out upon the new world he had helped birth. The wind tugged at both of their hair and granted some semblance of life to the pale corpse in his arms despite the reeking blood that stained her face and body. He closed his eyes against the threat of tears.
"I'll make you proud, Callista," he whispered to the air, to the rolling expanse of mountains and valleys that stretched out before him, to the distant Dunmeri cities and Akatosh/Alduin/Auriel only knew what else.
"I promise."
The End.
