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The Road to Kynesgrove
XI: Solitary Silhouette
Farengar.
A single candle's steady flame threw light on the sleeping form of Whiterun's court wizard, passed out at the small side table in his bedroom with his head and folded arms resting on the curling, yellowed pages of an old journal. He snored softly, mumbling as he dimly registered his name being spoken. The word seemed to come from his deepest dreams, gently coaxing him from slumber.
Farengar, alok nu.
The Nord jerked awake with a snort, nearly falling off of his stool. It took him a moment to gather his senses and remember where he was; the whispering voice faded from his memory. The journal lay open in front of him, the scribbled words blurring in the low light. The Companions had brought it to him several days prior, asking that he inform Delphine if he could interpret what was written on the pages. Scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he thought back to the past seventy two hours and wondered if at any point in his life he had been as frustrated as he was now.
The author of this mess couldn't possibly have been his master, and yet he well recognized the quill strokes has teacher's hand had produced. Not once under his tutelage did Farengar ever see his master writing in this huge journal-which, the Companions had told him when they delivered it, had been ripped in half and the other section delivered to one of Delphine's associates-but what disturbed him was the complete alteration of writing style about halfway through. On one page, his tutor had been writing about the proper way to bury a dragon (to keep the soul from escaping the body, place a leek in its mouth and cover its eyes with a branch cut from a fir tree) and the next page was an unintelligible mishmash of words: a soul gem as large and shining as a mountain i am being swallowed my bones will rot in your bed I will keep myself in your cage zu'u dovah zu'u dovah zu'u
And that nonsense went on for the rest of the book.
With slender hands he ran his fingers over his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how long he had been asleep and hoping he hadn't drooled all over the journal's pages. Stifling a yawn in his sleeve, he stood up to stretch his cramped spine when he heard the voice again.
Dahmaan zu.
His body froze, every muscle tensed. Quiet and musical the words were, and haunting in their familiarity. They drifted from the room like leaves blown by the wind, leaving the wizard slightly trembling, his face still buried in the crook of his arm. When the voice didn't return, he let out the shaky breath he didn't realize he had been holding.
"Hello?" he said, uncertainly. The candle's tiny flame fluttered. Dragonsreach answered him with dead silence.
Standing and slipping his feet into his soft-soled boots, he ventured out of his small bedroom. His study was dark; the bookshelves and tables were all shadows in the gloom, and the fire in the Great Hall beyond had burned down to weak cinders. Blue moonlight filtered in from the high windows, but none of it reached his quarters. The Jarl's castle was truly asleep. And yet….
Farengar.
This time, the voice had moved from his bedroom to somewhere out in the Hall, almost too quiet for him to hear. Steeling his resolve, he moved around his paper-strewn desk and strode into the hall. His feet automatically steered him towards the stairs and into the inky darkness of the second story.
"I am here," he said, his voice wavering just a little. "Where are you? Who are you?"
One of the steps squealed under his boot as he stepped on it, almost drowning out the immediate response to his inquiry.
Zu'u in.
The second story was unusually cold, and as Farengar stood on the top step, trying to get his bearings in the darkness, he felt a chill breeze stir his midnight blue robes. He squinted. The doors to the Great Porch were ajar.
"Maybe it was just the wind," he mused, approaching the doors with outstretched arms lest he trip on the carpet and sprawl on the ground. Poking his head out, he took the chill of the air deeply into his lungs, trying to clear his head. The covered section of the porch was wrapped in shadow, but the balcony was bathed in the starlight; the white stone glowed like ivory. Snow-capped mountains stabbed the sky in the distance, white razors against the horizon.
Farengar. Het. Nok.
Farengar's eyes narrowed.
A pool of shadow blighted the otherwise pristine balcony, shivering like a mirage. For a second, in the space of time between blinking, the mage thought he saw a figure standing over the shadow; a billowing shape, a man cloaked and hooded, buffeted by the wind—but then it was gone, and only the shadow remained.
Like a man in a trance, Farengar stepped out onto the porch, leaving the huge wooden doors swinging open behind him. His footsteps made no sound as he glided over the flagstones, and when he came into the dazzling moonlight he had to hold his arm over his eyes. When he brought it down, the shadow had dissolved, and what remained on the ground at his feet was a mask.
He stared. It was a beautiful piece of work: a solemnly carved face with almond-shaped eye holes, a straight mouth, and intricate runes deeply etched over the whole piece. Leaning down to grasp it, he noted that the material—smooth and glassy and cold—was much heavier than it looked. He turned it from side to side, noting the color change deep under the mask's surface. It was dark, almost black, but when the light struck it, it flashed crystal blue and violet, like seeing a glimpse of sky behind a cloud.
He had the strangest feeling he was meeting an old friend again after a very long separation, and there was an ache in his chest when he breathed. The voice whispered once more, and Farengar could swear it was happy.
Zu aav.
The court mage of Whiterun held the mask up to the moon, marvelling at the silver light that now poured out of the eye holes, and smiled.
Whenever Acajou felt overwhelmed by destiny, whenever her quest pushed her one step too far towards burning out, whenever she felt completely and utterly lost- moreso than usual- she retreated to Monahven. The stars, the snow, the crystal sky, all these things served to clear her easily addled brain at the cost of shivering for a few hours in the bone-deep cold. She would climb up past the crumbling Word Wall, sliding and scrambling on patches of ice, until she reached a jut of rocks just beneath the mountain's jagged peak. The wind was vicious at this altitude, and her knees trembled whenever she remembered how far down solid ground was, but watching the sky from this perch was enough to erase her fears and make her forget that the entire country of Skyrim was depending on her to not be a total screw-up.
Somehow, though, in the presence of Paarthurnax, the wind didn't bite as deeply, the snow didn't cling as tenaciously to her legs, and the company they kept together on top of the world was as pleasant as if they weren't two dragons wrestling with their instincts screaming at them to decimate Nirn and leave it a smoking ruin. Even before Acajou had been robbed of her human form, her subconscious dovah sil had whispered to her in dreams, tempting her with flashes of how blissfully wonderful it would feel to crush a human's head in her jaws and set a whole town on fire with one breath. Now that she was a dragon in more ways than just carrying a title, that little voice had become more and more insistent, robbing her of her already tenuous ability to focus on the tasks ahead of her. And so, once more, she found herself occupying her favorite spot on the tallest mountain in Skyrim, her body wrapped around the peak like a snake on a tree branch.
Perched on his Word Wall, looking as much a part of the mountain as the snow and the rocks, Alduin's former second-in-command meditated with closed eyes on the dovah rotmulaag, his throat reverberating with the echo of drem being chanted over and over for days on end. The true meaning of the word-peace, true peace, all encompassing peace-was evading him, slipping just out of his grasp every time he thought he had calmed his spirit into a trance. He knew he should not be worried. Worry did absolutely nothing to a situation except make it worse.
However, it didn't help at all that the root of his worry was sharing his strunmah this evening.
"And then we were attacked by Thalmor," Acajou babbled, gushing about her recent adventure like a child home from school. "Delphine was hurt, but she made sure that I wasn't spotted. We walked in a freezing ravine the whole time, just for my sake." She paused to shift the grip of her deadly claws. "See? Delphine's not a bad person."
The ancient dragon's eyes remained closed. "Hmmm."
"She even found a very old journal in the lighthouse that Farengar told us about, and she said it's probably got tons of stuff that will tell Esbern and Farengar how to help me. They just have to figure out what it says first."
"Who did you say directed you to that place?" Paarthurnax raised his head; the snow that had gathered on his brow slid off in a puff.
"Farengar Secret-Fire. He's the court mage at Dragonsreach in Whiterun."
The silver dragon shifted, shedding the rest of the snow from his wings and back, and turned to look down the rest of the world. The restless feeling in his chest swelled into solid unease. That name. That place.
"I have some onikaan for you, Dovahkiin."
Sobered by his unusually quiet tone, Acajou released the mountain peak and clumsily worked her way towards the Word Wall. Even though she was a dragon, she felt tiny standing before him, as tiny as she had when she had first met him all those months ago, filling her with equal parts awe and pants-crapping terror.
"It seems unfair of me to ask this of you, because I have no alternative means with which to help you. I imparted this Thu'um to you because I perceived, in my ignorance, that I was acting as your grah-zeymahzin, but I fear I have done you wrong."
Acajou laughed, the column of her throat producing a sound that was like rocks being ground together. "You saved me, though!"
Paarthurnax shook his head once, his crystal blue stare punching a hole in her mirth. "It is well that you think so, but that may not be the case. You are not familiar with the Shout I used on you, are you?"
Acajou shook her head.
"It is a Shout that was born out of desperation and anger, and was not something I would have desired to use if circumstances had allowed otherwise. I learned it from my zeymah, who, I think, did not intend to teach it to me. When I last saw him, the Shout was the only thing he could pronounce."
"It's a very useful Shout, though," Acajou interrupted. "Can you teach it to me?"
"No, Dovahkiin. I am trying to tell you that I have not helped as much as hindered you. I cannot say that I regret my initial decision to use the Shout on your human form, but I must warn you that you must be cautious. I am afraid for you, Dovahkiin, because you now share the legacy of, and are now seeking assistance from, the joorre that owe their mir to the mad dragon Numinex."
Cocking her head, Acajou wracked her brain to recall the last place she had heard that name. Surely it wasn't one of the dragons whose souls she had absorbed-numinex wasn't in the bank of names she had heard whispered in the depths of her heart in the quiet hours of the morning, when she could feel the dovah souls shift under her skin-but it was frustratingly familiar. For some reason, the word reminded her of bones.
Suddenly, it clicked, and she fixed a puzzled expression on her friend. "The skull in Dragonsreach?"
Paarthurnax bent his head in acknowledgement. "I am sure you know fragments of the tey do Numinex-that he was captured and imprisoned in Dragonsreach until he died. There is much about the situation that I myself do not know, but my counsel to you is this: Numinex created sil dir vo—the Living Soul—so he could escape his prison. They had trapped his body, so he created another one. Do you understand?"
The wait for Acajou to think through the conversation was long, but the Old One was nothing if not patient, and so he silently regarded Acajou as she shuffled in the snow, fanning the sail on her back and wracking her brain for the connection. "Wouldn't he need to...," she half started, and then she stopped to think some more.
Paarthurnax decided to give her a nudge in the right direction. "Think about what happened to you."
The emerald aurora rippled overhead, casting Acajou-colored light on the whirling snow. Thinking back to her first day as a dragon, she wondered how long it had been since she had come to the mountain with Delphine. She felt like she hadn't been a human in years.
"Someone tried to kill him?" she guessed.
"He wished for someone to kill him," Paarthurnax corrected. "What other way was there for him to free himself?"
"He could have asked someone for help. Why didn't he ask you?"
The silver dragon shook his head. "By the time I was finally able to reach him, he was too far gone to ask me for help-even becoming hostile towards me when I attempted to burn the yoke holding him. However, you show wisdom, Dovahkiin. Numinex had a vovahzahfahdon within Dragonsreach, a mortal who worked to enable me to come visit my friend for the few times I was able. His name was Romos Ineskel—the court wizard of Dragonsreach in the time of the one they called Olaf One-Eye. Romos was... aan dovah askk. The dov lore was laas to him. Numinex was able to win his cooperation because he allowed Romos to study him. It was a truly desperate decision."
The gears in Acajou's brain were turning more quickly now. "Numinex asked Romos to kill him so he could leave his old body behind and escape Dragonsreach, right?" If her brow could furrow, it would have as soon as she finished her thought. "But why didn't Romos just set him free in the first place, if they were such good friends?"
"Niid. Vovahzahfahdon- Romos was a false friend to Numinex. He would not have freed Numinex from his horrible prison even if I had put my teeth to his throat. He cared only for the research that the Jarl's pet provided him with. Paak unslaad-the suffering Numinex underwent at the hands of that monster to win his freedom must have been vanmindoraan." Paarthurnax huffed through his nostrils.
Acajou shuffled uncomfortably, thinking of the many times she had stood on the Great Porch and stared up at the huge wooden yoke, marveling at how useful it must have been for Olaf to have that installed in his castle. "So Romos Ineskel was aan bruniik joor," she said, not thinking of the words she used.
The great white dragon fixed a peculiar gaze on his pupil before replying. "He was a very, very bad man," he agreed. "Worse than the Jarl, for Olaf did nothing but gloat about his prisoner; but Numinex was no helpless victim. Romos's treatment of my zeymah was due, in part, by Numinex himself. Romos worshipped Numinex, but one cannot worship a nameless dragon without going mad themselves."
"Nameless?"
"The word 'numinex' holds no meaning in our tongue," Paarthurnax said. "It is an echo of what he used to be called, but his true name has been lost to the centuries. Not even his zeymah can remember his Shout."
Acajou perked up. "So, if Numinex made Romos go crazy too, then he won out in the end, right? He tricked Romos into 'killing' him so he could use the Living Soul and then he escaped. And," she continued breathlessly, "we can find out his real name and Shout him back from wherever he is and ask him how to fix me!"
"Prem, Dovahkiin. It was not that simple."
Lowering himself from his Word Wall, he stretched out his time-beaten body under the flawless sky. His voice was heavy with loss when he spoke again. "If a dovah is killed by one other than the Dovahkiin, their body dies, but their soul does not. For thousands of years before Alduin's return, I meditated on Monahven and listened to the whispers of my brothers' souls from their burial mounds. The only voice I have not heard on the winds of Nirn has been Numinex's.
"I cannot tell you what happened between dov and joor after I left Dragonsreach for the last time. The Greybeards at the time-predecessors of the four that you know-were the ones who informed me of Numinex's skull decorating the Throne Room of the hofkahsejun. What I do know is this: Numinex was able to use the Living Soul, but in some terrible trick of dez, his soul was silenced, and there was no Dovahkiin in those days to silence him."
Acajou was almost afraid to ask. "What happened to the court mage?"
"Krosis. I do not know. But hear me well, Dovahsebrom. Numinex's madness was-is-infectious. The whole of Dragonsreach is fouled with it. Anyone who met Romos, anywhere his step landed, would have been exposed to the soul-deep despair that plagued my brother for the last years of his life. A mad dragon's dur, his curse, does not die." Turning his face, he stared down at the world with milky blue eyes, looking back on the past, searching through his memories for something that would help his pupil.
"It was a terrible oversight to not inform you of this backstory sooner. Unslaad krosis."
For a while, the singing wind and blowing snow were the only sounds on the mountaintop. The inner fire at the dragons' cores kept them from feeling the cold, iced as they were, but Acajou, thinking of Numinex, trapped for years as a court mage's plaything, made her shiver suddenly.
"He was soul trapped, wasn't he?"
Paarthurnax said nothing, but his silence was as good an affirmation as any.
The blood dragon suddenly felt very, very vulnerable as she crouched in the snow beside the oldest living dovah on Nirn. She looked at the twin sails of her wings, studying the dark veins lacing the membrane, thinking of Numinex struggling to escape a mad wizard's spell, his wings beating in futile sweeps as the golden light of his soul was stolen from him the moment he had broken from his cage.
"It may well be," Paarthurnax said at last, "that this will have no effect on your search do undo this Thu'um. If I am incorrect in my assumption of the events that took place, then Romos Ineskel is long dead, and Numinex's soul is lost to fate, and I will be glad of it." His deep voice rumbled in Acajou's chest. "But I cannot lie to myself, or you. You are tied to the zoor, now, and you must see it to its end."
Acajou buried her nose miserably in the snow, melting it with a blasting exhale. Despite the somber mood, Paarthurnax thrummed a low chuckle. "Faas niid," he said, "I am at fault for all of this. Whatever you ask of me, I will do; whatever assistance you require from me, I will provide. Hio kos fahdon. Zu'u vahrin hio."
Looking up into the wise face of the ancient dragon, Acajou felt her apprehension recede. If both Paarthurnax and Delphine helped her, surely they would succeed. Her mood brightened. Perhaps Delphine would finally be able to see that Paarthurnax was a true friend after all, and not some vicious, bloodthirsty monster like she wanted to believe. She pounded the ground with her tail in joy. This was it! She could bring the Blades and the Greybeards together and get her body back! She burbled at her good fortune.
"It's settled, then!" she announced to the coming dawn, blushing rosy pink on the eastern horizon. With two powerful bounds she was back up the slope of Monahven's peak, slipping all over the icy rocks in a gawky display of complete uncoordination. Clinging for dear life to an unsteady boulder, she called down to an amused Paarthurnax, "With all of us working together, there's absolutely no way we can fail. I wasn't worried for a second!" She wobbled precariously on the rock as her great weight shifted it slightly down the slope.
Drem. Paarthurnax held the word in his heart for one last moment, drawing its meaning into his soul as he stared up at Acajou's wobbly silhouette against the sky. The Dovahkiin, Keizaal hun, imminent conqueror of Alduin and all dragons once under his rule. Drem.
More excuses! I bought a beautiful gaming computer to play Skyrim on! To say that I am happy to finally play Skyrim on high settings for the first time is an understatement.
With this chapter, I had to tiptoe around a lot of canon, and make up a whole bunch of stuff. I hope I haven't stomped on your suspension of disbelief too much.
Anyway, thank you very much for being patient with me and especially for reading this story. Thanks awfully to Agent 94, Kai'ika95, thuggie, MadameHyde, and the guest for reviewing. I am very happy to have such encouraging readers.
Translations!
alok nu - arise now / wake up
dahmaan zu - remember me
zu'u in - I am your master
het. nok. - (I lie) here.
Zu aav - join me
Onikaan - Wisdom.
Gray - zeymahzin - Ally, true friend.
Zeymah - Brother
Mir - Allegiance
Tey do - Story of
vovazahfahdon - untrue friend, two faced friend
aan dovah askk - lover of dragons
laas - Life
paak unslaad - many indignities
vonmindoraan - incomprehensible
aan bruniik joor - a savage person
prem - patience
hofkasejun - the dragon word for Dragonsreach
faas niid - worry not
Hio kos fahdon. Zu'u vahrin hio - You are my friend. I am yours.