A/N: Since fast travel a)has no rational nor magical explanation ingame but b)is referred to by at least one character, even if it's M'aiq the Liar, I've decided to consider it a sort of quantum magical power.
Chapter 12
"Can you tell how near we are, Brother Varen?" said Laure, making an effort to speak normally and not as if she were gasping for breath. Tychicus Varen had stopped to let her rest several times as it was, and if he showed no sign that it bothered him, it certainly bothered Laure.
"Probably several days' walk," said the priest. "We would have to circumvent the Imperial City to the North if we planned to travel the entire way on foot."
"Is that not what we're going to do?" said Laure.
"No," said Tychicus Varen. "But it'll take some considerable discharge of magicka to do what I plan, and we must be well out of range of any mage's ability to sense it."
Laure, who during her priestly training had been one of those tiresome students who has an answer to the professor's every question and is not afraid to speak up accordingly, racked her brains for a spell that would carry them several days' journey without walking. Unless he's able to summon a horse, and I do not believe atronachs can conjure, I can't imagine, she thought. There have been magics of that type in Vvardenfell, of course. But unless he has visited the exact location at which these invaders have arrived, that would not be useful. "What will you do, Brother?" she said finally.
"I'm not completely sure I can explain it," said Tychicus Varen. "Most residents of a particular plane are bound very tightly to that plane. A few, like the ones we are seeking, can undo those bonds enough to travel between without a gate. It's possible to effect an intermediate form of travel, step out of a plane and back into it in the same instant. If you are able to concentrate sufficiently, you may choose the locale at which you return." He stopped, looking around them. The graveled path was narrow and trended steeply downward as they moved further from the city of Bruma. Trees crowded close on every side.
"What if you aren't able to concentrate sufficiently?" said Laure.
"I've never had that experience," said Tychicus Varen. "But I suspect you would arrive spread over a very large area. Take my hand, please." Laure obediently held out her hand for his square, cold one, trying to tell herself not to be afraid.
"But you've done this before, right?" she said.
"Once or twice," said Tychicus Varen. He inhaled deeply.
"Which was it, once or - " Laure began nervously, but was cut off. Everything whirled dizzily around her, trees and rocks and sky spinning at an ever-increasing speed until they blurred into gray. There was a sudden, abrupt sensation of motion that turned her stomach, and then they snapped to a stop. It felt like falling off a horse. Laure did start to fall, but then her hand was let go and a strong arm caught her around the waist.
"Are you all right?" said a distant, tinny voice. Stars flickered in and out of her vision, not the painful bursts caused by lack of air but actual twinkling celestial bodies. There was a brief glimpse of an enormous red moon.
"...Stars?" Laure said.
"Ah, yes," said Tychicus Varen. "I suppose a human being would experience the afterimage a little differently than I do. Lean on me. Your vision will clear."
Laure held on obediently. Tychicus kept his arm around her. Even though she couldn't see him, she was completely certain of the look on his face; his hold was firm but utterly impersonal. She might have been clinging to a standing stone.
After a moment the lights went out, and a moment after that she was blinking in daylight. "I think I can see," she said. Varen released her carefully, watching to see if she could stand. Laure maintained herself firmly upright, ignoring the residual giddiness. She looked around slowly. They stood among green hills punctuated with great boulders, no longer in deep forest. Sprigs of lavender came up here and there. There was a brown path under her feet.
"Where is this?" said Laure.
"We are East of the City," said Varen. "Near a ruin called Sercen. I don't know that they are there, but I'm sure they arrived nearby and it is the most logical shelter."
"You said they," said Laure, adjusting the straps on her pack as she regained her equilibrium. "Are there more than one?"
"It is likely," said Tychicus Varen. "The last such to approach Nirn was a Sleeper, a Dremora afflicted from birth. They cannot survive here without some sort of assistance."
"Assistance?" Laure looked at him quizzically as they began walking. Varen turned at once toward the Northwest, and Laure followed him quickly. "I thought daedra could only feel hate."
"I myself am a daedra," Varen pointed out mildly, and Laure felt the hot flush rise in her face. She'd been thinking of him as human again. He waved away her attempt to apologize. "Never mind, Sister, I took no offense. What you say is perhaps true from an entirely mortal perspective. Dremora do feel, and keenly, but it is not the same as human or merish emotion. They understand loyalty, and debt, and guilt, but love is so rare among them that it's looked upon as a fatal illness. For a Sleeper to have brought another Dremora with her does not require that he or she have any personal liking for the Sleeper."
"With her. You mean this Dremora is female," said Laure.
"Sleepers are not invariably so, but it's often the case," said Varen. They topped a small rise, and there was the ruin. Laure did not pause long to look at it, because firstly, Varen didn't, and second, she had no desire to stand silhouetted against the sky. These creatures may not know we're coming. May. She received an impression of towering white columns, worn by time and weather, and then they were down in the hollow and she saw the man in fur armor dragging a body out the front door.
"Brother Varen," she whispered, winding up magicka. The strain of Varen's travel spell hadn't done that any harm, at least.
"Yes, I see him," said Tychicus Varen. He did not slack his pace as he turned toward the man. As they came closer, Laure saw that the top of his head was balding, and the fringe of hair around it was gray. His head was bent as he hauled the corpse effortfully along by both legs. His armor was a little too big for him, hanging off his shoulders and arms.
Laure thought they were moving fairly quietly, but the man must have heard them. He dropped the body and drew a bow quicker than she would have thought possible, for a man in armor that didn't fit.
"Stop right there," he said harshly. His face looked younger than she had expected. "Who are you?"
"We're not murderous bandits," snapped Laure. Considering what she had seen over the last couple of days, she wasn't about to be intimidated by a man in badly-patched fur with iron arrows.
The man grunted as he looked at their brown robes. He lowered the bow slowly, letting the string go slack. "If you are, you're wearing a good disguise. Whose priests are you?"
"We belong to Arkay," said Varen.
"You want to do the Rites for this poor idiot here?" said the man. His accent was clearly Imperial.
"And destroy the evidence of your crime?" said Laure acidly. The man rolled his eyes.
"Does he look like somebody shot him?" He reached down and hauled the body up by the hair so she could see the face. Laure shuddered involuntarily. "I'm no mage. Just an old soldier."
"And you took up banditry at the closing of the Gates?" said Tychicus Varen.
"Never," said the Imperial, and if he was lying, he was the best actor Laure had ever seen. "I've been a prisoner since then."
Laure blinked. "You were in prison for two years?" I suppose that explains why he is so thin. The man's cheekbones looked likely to stab through the skin in his face. The hollows of his eyes were very deep.
"Two years?" he repeated slowly. "What do you mean?"
Laure looked at Tychicus Varen, unsure what to say to this. "The gates have been closed for two years," said Varen. His voice was very gentle, but she felt the charge of magicka building around him. "Since Martin Septim gave his life to defeat Lord Dagon."
The Imperial stared at them blankly for a moment, as if he had not understood. Then he turned white to the lips. For a moment Laure thought he was going to faint, and then he turned and leaned one arm against the doorpost with his back to them. Faintly she heard him say, "Oh, gods..."
Laure looked from him to Varen. To her surprise, the atronach priest was looking at the bedraggled Imperial with something resembling pity. "I am sorry," he said.
He opened his hand toward the man as if in benediction. A faint green tracery flew out, opening into a net, and then it struck the Imperial and vanished. He crumpled as if he had no bones. Laure followed Tychicus Varen forward, looking around nervously. "I think he might be mad," she said.
"Not yet," said Tychicus Varen. "But I'm not sure what he would do." He picked up the Imperial and set him to one side as if he weighed nothing at all. Laure could see him breathing, but his head lolled, eyes half-open. Varen paralyzed him. "If you would be so kind as to perform the Rite for this dead man, Sister?"
"Yes, of course," said Laure. Here at last was something familiar. She knelt beside the body, dug her unguent vial out of her knapsack, and began to recite the Rite of Arkay. From the corner of her eye, she saw Varen calmly binding the Imperial's hands with the belt from the fur cuirass.
The Rite of Arkay is not particularly long. As she came to the end, the body began to dissolve into gray ashes, blowing away in the faint breeze. There was a faint smell of brimstone that did not belong. We've come to the right place.
"He died by daedric magic," said Laure.
"Almost certainly," said Varen. He stood up, looking down at the Imperial. Then he turned to Laure as she straightened up herself. "Sister Laure, you must listen very closely to me."
"Yes, of course," said Laure.
"When I step inside that door, I am not sure what will happen. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it will be a fight to the death. If it comes to that, you must return and save this man. Do you agree?"
"If that's your wish, Brother," said Laure.
"Do the best you can for him, but I think he has suffered too much to be trusted far."
"Suffered how?" said Laure. Varen turned to push gently at the stone door. It swung open.
"He was not a prisoner in Nirn," said Tychicus Varen.
---
Sodrinye the Sleeper stood patiently, watching the stairs. Merodach stalked impatiently to and fro nearby, pacing without moving too far away from her. He did not feel the surge of magicka from up above them. Sodrinye did.
"Ebel-Merodach," she said.
"Yes, loathsome one," said Merodach.
"We are about to encounter an immortal of some power," said Sodrinye. "Do not attack unless we are attacked."
The caitiff spun toward her, drawing his weapon. "Is Menien Goneld dead?"
"No," said Sodrinye. "These are votaries of Arkay. I have seen them."
"An immortal votary of Arkay?" said Merodach. Sodrinye nodded once. Merodach looked at her, fiery threads glowing in his eyes, and she could almost trace his train of thought. "This is why you took a life," he said.
"Yes," she said. She did not speak with much apparent emotion. She never had. It took too much energy and was dangerous besides. "You cannot face them alone."
She felt the source of magicka approach them before she heard the footsteps descending the stairs. There was another beside it, but this one was much smaller. Mortal. Ebel-Merodach came back to stand beside her, nearby but not interfering with her line of sight. Her first glimpse of the strangers was no more than a brownish blur in the dim light as they came toward her. Then there was another surge of magic, and a blue illumination sprang up that was brighter than the dim lights of the ruin. Merodach rumbled under his breath.
"Hail, Sleeper," said the atronach in the priestly guise. He spoke Cyrodilic, but Sodrinye felt the tingle of ice behind his words.
"Hail, servant of the Aedra," said Sodrinye. "I have been waiting for you."
"We saw your handiwork upstairs," said the atronach. "This is not, perhaps, the best way to assure me of your good faith."
Sodrinye shrugged one shoulder. "We would have had to kill him anyway," she said. "They tried to kill Ebel-Merodach. And I could not let my debtsworn face an ice atronach without being able to stand with him."
"Atronach kheised?" said Merodach, startled into speaking in the Kyntongue. He did not look at her, but she was close enough to see the muscle in his neck tense under his orange-black skin.
"My eyes lie to me, when they show me anything at all," she said. "But he is close to his element. Magicka never lies." The mortal creature stood half behind the atronach, whispering something. From the cadence, Sodrinye guessed it was a prayer. The ice atronach's power was mostly his own, but the strong taint of aedric magic clung to the other. Gift without debt. Light without fire.
Enemy, from time immemorial.
