Author's Note - I don't own Oblivion (no, really?), and once again, I apologize for the sheer amount of time between updates. Thanks so much for your reviews - they motivate me to get writing like nothing else can, believe me. :D
Dreamer - Well, I always assumed first names never really meant much. And he is a shadow - very few people in Cyrodiil ever catch more than a glimpse of him. I agree with the in-game DB - they're hilarious, but at the same time, very cardboard. Which makes me sad, but eh, I guess they were going for the crazy effect. Hmm, really? I'm going to have to go look at what you're talking about. I do third person normally, with first-person italics delineating thoughts.
Reva - That isn't actually a bad guess. You're both correct and incorrect, so stay tuned :o And while you will see Na'viri again, I wouldn't consider her a main character like A&V are. At this point, I don't plan on giving her her own parts.
DualKatanas - Great to 'see' you again :D And I totally think the Legion consists of pansies. I watch them getting mowed down by wild animals all the time. Nope, Hastrel is northwest of Kvatch. Ash/corpses... I do both. It depends how they die. Wounds, you get a body. Sunlight or fire, you need to sweep your floors. Avielle using that magicka - does she seem the careful and second-guessing type to you? :P You'll see more of the effects later - just know that I'd never give a character seemingly boundless power without some form of consequence. And Na'viri will play a part later on unless I have a drastic change of heart, but you can count on not seeing her for a while.
Arty - I really have been busy - haven't been able to write or read, I'm afraid. I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I can, that's for sure. Highwaymen - I think that's relating to the Renrija Krin or whatever they're called, at least in the south. And Vicente always seemed so much more cultured than everyone else in the DB that you meet. And if you were born some 300 years ago, you'd probably have a more genteel manner, wouldn't you? He's fun to write, but I keep having to redo his dialogue to make it sound less modern.
Quillweave - Eep, a new reviewer! I hope you like the rest of my story, seeing new readers is always uplifting.
Carlotta - Really? I thought that it was written rather shoddily - since I nibbled at it a little at a time, I was constantly scanning for and fixing inconsistencies in setting, tone, et cetera - and I thought it was a little strained. But thank you :D
Pandora - Heh, I guess he could. Also, he's Vicente, not Vincente - That's always gotten to me, I love the way Vicente sounds. Is it (vi-CHEN-tae) or (vi-SAHN-tae)? I love them both, but he's not Vincent.
Kitsune - I really meant to honor your request, but I kinda got caught up in midterms. So, uh... it's still January! Erm. Yeah, uh. Not for anything, but this is my favorite chapter yet, so I hope you like it too. And abotu descriptions - thanks! Some people tell me I'm too flowery, but I love adjectives so much I could marry one.
Few people have ever crossed Cyrodiil on foot as quickly as Vicente Valtieri.
Na'viri had offered to travel with him - he couldn't fathom why - which he'd declined on the partially-true grounds of not wanting to tarnish her reputation. Travelling with a vampire, much less a known criminal, was a rather guilty-by-association act. Besides, if she'd known that he was heading to an assassins' den, she probably would have retracted the offer anyway.
So they had parted ways, Na'viri leaving Fort Hastrel in the morning and Vicente after he was reasonably sure the sun had set. Countless days spent in lightless caves and ruins had taught him how to very accurately gauge the time, but he still wasted precious minutes to make sure he erred on caution's side alone.
It was snowing outside, the sky painted dark gray with cloudy twilight. Sithis smiled upon him indeed; the fat flakes fluttering down would cover any tracks, given time. He could probably assume that the guards had lost his trail or been called off, but if somebody within the Brotherhood wanted him dead, bribes and special requests to the Legion were by no means out of the question.
The other time Vicente had been on the run in recent history, he'd cheerfully headed to a then rather disgrunted Janus Hassildor and enjoyed the luxuries of Castle Skingrad for a few days while the guards had fruitlessly searched the city below. But he did not have the time to wait out the storm, and so he travelled as the fugitive did - as quickly and as far from cities as he could. Na'viri's Kvatch he gave a wide berth, traversing the snowbound wilderness between it and Chorrol. The most he saw of Skingrad were the castle's lofty spires beyond the horizon of white-capped trees, the dull crimson towers reaching up to brush the ebony sky. Unwilling to go around the Imperial City and allow a moment to go to waste, he swam the Rumare; from there, he travelled as the crow flies, homing in on Cheydinhal like an arrow rushing towards its mark.
All of this was done under cover of shadow and starlight, hurried bouts of purpose stolen while the merciless sun slept still. Its fiery reign characterized hours, years, aeons of uncertain motionlessness underneath icy stone. Pacing, waiting, wondering... he was grateful to his wet clothes that one morning, as at least his spell-drying provided precious if ephemeral mental oblivion, a meaningless purpose to divert his mind from that one unutterable conclusion... that it was all for naught.
It was all for naught.
0o0o0
Bad luck seemed to follow Avielle around like a portable storm cloud with a bad sense of humor. What had started out as a promising and pleasant trip had gone horribly amiss, and the power that had seemed such a beacon of hope to her was now tainted with fear.
The voices - Avielle hated to call them that, it made her feel like she was losing her sanity - hadn't made a reappearance since the panicked crime scene she'd created. It was partially a relief, but half of her ws waiting for this next hiss, jumping at every whisper of wind and wondering if the suddenly torturous background sounds were real or only inside her head.
If there was one thing that was definitely only within her mind, it was her culpability. Talking wih a mounted guard and casually - she hoped - asking for news had earned her an admiring remark about how some brave adventurer had cremated a notorious trio of bandits. She didn't feel brave. It was like she was contaminaed, carrying some shameful taint inside her, and only she could see the danger within.
Whenever she thought of 'hero', the only image that came to mind were those horribly burnt, annihilated bandits, twisted and defaced like dolls tossed into a fire...
Apparently, there had also been some trouble at Anvil. It was the last thing she needed, more problems in the works... but at this point, fate had been so blatantly inconvenient to her that she wouldn't have been surprised if a Daedric Prince broke into Tamriel and started tearing the province apart.
On second thought, maybe that was pushing it.
The weather was fitful, seeming unable to decide what it wanted to unleash. The sky vacillated from cloudy to clear, and then cloudy again, spitting down sporadic bursts of snow whenever whim struck it. Warm mornings were followed by frigid afternoons, and this confusion only served to add another note of dischord to the mage's travels. Nothing seemed predictable, certain, anymore. Avielle felt like the stone underfoot had turned to quicksand, and the possibility of latent madness shimmered in the snow like a heat haze, gradually gorging itself on the inquiet it created.
The worst part was, she couldn't brush it all off as paranoia, because that was just another aspect of insanity.
Her nights were spent at a variety of quaint inns that dotted Cyrodiil's network of main roads. Little sleep was managed in the face of towering uncertainty - she saw more of the ceiling than the back of her lids.
She had to get to Anvil. Carahil had once seemed like a figure capable of revealing the mysteries of magicka to her, but now the guildhall leader was more like a lifeline she was grasping at. She had to find out what was wrong with herself before things got worse.
Things got worse.
Avielle had just passed through Skingrad and was making her way irritably through a poorly-plowed stretch of the Gold Road. Colovia had clearly seen more snow than Bravil - it was up to her knees, and the Legion was clearly slacking in their duty to keep the roads cleared. She tramped through the deep snow, muttering distinctly blasphemous sentiments under her breath as the cold seeped through her leggings and soaked her shoes.
Unable to even see where the road was, she must have strayed from the path at some point, because the next thing she knew, she was sprawling face-first into the snow. A tree's root had snagged her foot, and her fall had not been cushioned by the soft white blanket that smothered the ground - by pure happenstance, she managed to gash her cheek on a sharp rock that jutted above the snow's surface.
Not for the first time, the girl wondered why she found herself travelling so often when she detested it.
With another series of swear words, Avielle got to her feet. Blood trickled thinly down her face; she could feel the sticky warmth making its way towards her jaw. An inconvenience, perhaps, but at least this was something she knew how to deal with. She called up a minor healing spell to close it, and that's when things took another downwards turn.
At first, the magicka came slowly, normally, as controlled and untaxing as a cantrip of such low caliber should have been. But somewhere along the way of the magical pathways, something snapped, and a tidal wave surged after the trickle. The massive surge of power that jolted every cell in her body was completely unexpected and horribly familiar.
White magic surged outwards in cauls of Restoration flame, their intensity better suited to an attempt at resurrection rather than healing a cut. There was no pain this time, only an overflow of excess magic that sparked off her fingertips and vaporized the ice around her, sublimating it with its intense energy. The scrape on her cheek zipped shut as hastily as one could close a book - the spell went deeper, ferreting out all latent ills from her physical body and fixing them.
It didn't matter that it didn't hurt, because it was morbidly clear to the mage that her feared power had broken through without her calling on it.
Before she could ponder this development any further, something hissed inside her head.
Hello again, Avielle...
She shut her eyes, gritting her teeth. By the Nines, not this again...
Go away, she thought. Get out of my head. I'm not insane.
Ah, whispered the voice, but if that's the case, why are you talking to yourself?
...and steady beats the broken heart, last faithful to what's torn apart, came another, singing a snippet of poetry that the mage had heard once ten years ago.
Murdering her entire family wasn't a part of the contract, ma'am. Business is business, I'm afraid. You should have specified earlier.
They seemed to multiply exponentially, growing more numerous by the second. There was a baby crying, that same crazed laughter from before, and then that horrible, choking scream her mother had made when her final experiment had backfired... Avielle's head felt so crowded that it was fit to burst, like her very self was in danger of being snuffed out under the swarm.
Isn't power what you wanted? purred the first voice, somehow making itself heard above the din. Everything comes with a price, mage. You know that. Why bother tricking yourself? You were weak when you needed strength, and that strength didn't come out of nowhere. Just accept it... when it comes down to it, you're not really all that different than that Brotherhood you've sworn yourself against. You stopped at nothing for the deaths you seek, sacrificing some aspect of your soul for power-
Avielle clutched her head as if she could squeeze the madness from it. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! she screamed inwardly.
There was no answer but a resounding, relieving silence. Slowly, she lowered her hands, then sighed in relief and opened her eyes.
And shrieked.
Things were sprouting up from beneath the snow, ghastly apparitions of tarlike shadows with leering, fanged grins and eyeless sockets. Hooked, spindly claws like talons extended from the emaciated forms, leaving black trails as they scythed through the air like grasping fingers. Their tails were like whips edged with razors, jerking back and forth in the air as they prowled forward.
Avielle yelled and stumbled backwards. A glance over her shoulder made her recoil in the other direction. They were there, too, clawing their way up from the snow like zombies from a grave. Only it wasn't snow anymore - a wave of deep crimson was spreading through it, staining it the color of blood. Terror gripped her like nothing she'd ever felt before. It was beyond rationality. It was pure fear, staking her out like a carrion bird.
It was dead silent; though the beasts' mouths were open to shriek, she could only hear the faint rustle of the breeze. She couldn't smell the blood, couldn't taste its reek in the air... but closer they approached, ebony spikes and spines quivering with what seemed like ravenous excitement.
Oh, don't worry, mage. That same voice that seemed to preside over her possible insanity whispered to her suddenly, cadences as smooth as silk. None of this is real. It's simply what you brought on yourself. If you close your eyes long enough, it'll go away. Maybe. Hehe.
"How did this happen?" Avielle whispered aloud, paralyzed with terror. The shadow-things stalked around her like hounds of hell, vultures circling a target, and logic could not trump the instinctive fear that chilled her to the bone. "How do I make it stop?"
The voice laughed, and suddenly it sounded very familiar, as if it belonged to somebody she'd met briefly before.
You're asking your schizophrenia for advice? How would I know? I'm not real. You're just crazy.
And then it was all gone - the monsters, the blood, the voices, the tingling traces of magicka from her spell gone terribly awry. It was like time had stopped, her along with it, and the madness had been removed from the scene while she was frozen. One second, she'd been surrounded by shades with their ghastly visages and horrible claws in a crimson-spattered sea, and the next... just pure fields of white snow.
She fell to her knees, overcome with relief. But that relief was bittersweet, and purely on the short term. She wasn't surprised to feel hot wetness streaming down her cheeks, quickly turning cold in the wind.
What in Oblivion has happened to me?
0o0o0
All was quiet in Cheydinhal, and Vicente didn't like it.
He knew quiet, knew it well. Quiet was peaceful afternoons, quiet was books and starlight and sleep, quiet was the sound of his unbeating heart. He cherished it... but not this. The stillness hung over the familiar town like death, something stagnant and oppressive that dared the breeze to blow or voices to speak with a bloody axe raised all the while. Nothing stirred under the dark, opaque sky, where bloated clouds shrouded the redeeming stars and moon in their heavy, hopeless shawl.
He felt very alone, as he slipped through the alleyways and empty cobblestone he'd traversed so many times prior. Cheydinhal had changed this one night, betrayed him, turning from a warm and familiar acquaintance to a brooding stranger, something aloof and contemptuous of him. The air itself seemed to hiss with some terrible premonition.
Vicente upheld that mantle of crushing silence as he glided through the tall grass, skirting behind the Mages' Guild - his mind flashed unbidden to a certain face, before returning to the brooding fear that was neither explainable nor in his power to deny. What-ifs and worst case scenarios were rapidly solidifying the spectrum of his expectations, etching sleepless days and nights' worth of worrying into stone. Anything was possible under this dark and unfeeling sky, and his dread only magnified as he approached the archaic well that had masked his home for centuries.
It hit him like a warhammer.
Vicente had scarcely shifted the cap to the well when the smell assaulted him in all its fury, carrying primal and conscious fears alike straight to his mind. The warm air of the Sanctuary below nearly made him stagger back, as heavy and putrid as it was with the reek or poison, blood, and death.
Yes, if terror had a scent, this would be it. He knew that stench. All these years later, it still mocked him from his nightmares... and it had stemmed from this very place...
Sithis, no...
His own safety was the farthest thing from paramount in the vampire's mind as he dropped down the ladder, nearly forgetting to shut the grating above in his panic. The stench was stronger down here, causing his head to throb with dizzy nausea. There was no mistaking it, no suppressing the memories that ravaged him, shrieking out the chilling likeness between past and present that grew larger with every breath he drew...
Please, no...
The first one he saw was Teinaava. He was slumped in his chair, a novel still open in his hands. From this distance, a normal person would have thought the Argonian was sleeping on the job, or still leading his book, albeit languidly. Vicente had no such relief. He could see the lack of breath that should have stirred his chest, feel the stillness that replaced a steady thrum, taste the death in the air, the void where life had once glowed.
No...
"Brother," he whispered brokenly, leaning forward to close the Argonian's filmy eyes. He had been dead a long time, long enough for a thin powdering of dust to settle on his scales. No wound marked his body, and his face bore an expression of incomprehensive surprise. Rage kindled in the pit of his stomach as he drew in a sickly sweet undertone he had come to associate with Lucien's fort. Apples... yes, his old protegee had held a fondness for poisoning apples, just like in the old children's tale. His eyes drifted to a dusty red fruit that sat innocently on the table, a single bite from reptilian teeth gouged from it. And so wafted the scent of a toxin deadly enough to neutralize any resistance...
A soundless scream echoed in the vampire's head.
Luciieeennnnn!
But he had to know, had to be sure that they were gone, that this was real, that he was not trapped in some hideous phatasm from his dreams. He stumbled towards the living quarters, dizzy from rot and blood - pale fingers scrabbled drunkenly for the silver handles, as cold and lifeless as the corpses who now called this place home.
He managed to pull open the door - the old, thick wood portal swung open forcefully, like some furious gust propelled it. A renewed blast of the terrible reek hit him, hot and horrible, as the path to the desecrated family room was revealed.
Complete with the figure standing in the doorway...
"Ravolian," Vicente breathed.
One look at the man was all Vicente needed to know that he was heavily drunk. The cocky, insouciant air was little more than a memory on Ravolian Markaius. Once-shining hair was lank, and his Silencing sword was held listlessly, the bloodstained blade touching the ground. His eyes were glazed and half-lidded, and he was swaying on his feet. But much deeper than that was the dazed look of somebody haunted, somebody having seen something too terrible to be able to accept as reality.
And the reek... beneath the beer, he smelled of guilt. Of murder.
The vampire hissed, a purely animalistic sound, feeling venom welling in his teeth.
"He told me t' do it." The sudden words were slurred, but completely intelligible. In any other time, Vicente would have marvelled at his apprentice's capacity for holding his drink. "Didn't want to. But contract's a contract."
"Lucien chose you to do the Purification? You? I cannot believe my Family is dead at the hands of an imbecile such as yourself."
"Kill'd them all," the Imperial continued, that same glazed look in his eyes. He didn't look like Ravolian at all, not with that arrogance about him absent. It was clear that he'd cared about the Brotherhood, enough for his Speaker to tear him apart by issuing that undeniable, unfollowable order. Some of the sweat on his face might have even been tears. "Put th' apples where I w' sh'posed to, kill'd the resht in their shleep. Didn't make a sound, not any of 'em. Jusht like he shaid to..."
Vicente remembered that confusion, that self-denial - the way the world had turned to madness around him, and he, as a vampire, couldn't even access the oblivion that alcohol provided, the distance from self he would have given anything to drown in. It didn't matter. It was done, and empathy was not lessening the core of fury that boiled in his stilled heart.
Ravolian stopped suddenly, peering at the vampire as if just noticing him. "You're sh'posed to be dead. He shaid so. Told me t'wait, anyways. I gotta finish the job."
The sword lunged out with startling suddenness. For all his vampiric reflexes, Vicente barely managed to jerk back in time, flattening himself against the wall. His head snapped up to face Ravolian in shock as he yanked his dagger from its sheath. It was clear that the man was enormously drunk - his breath was thick with alcohol, and he had every reason to lose himself in it - but his attack had been none the less coordinated or slowed.
And that strength... where had that come from? Vicente had sparred with him in the past and knew his power to be impressive, but this... the sheer speed at which he brought down his claymore would have been a difficult thing for him to pull off, and he had all the strength of the undead to aid him.
He hadn't seen Ravolian on the job since his first assignment, and it was only just occurring to him that beneath his idiocy, he was truly skilled in deathcraft.
The younger assassin lunged again, but the vampire was at the ready this time, and rolled forward under the attack; it glanced off the wall. Clearly, his vision was impaired, even if the Imperial's freakish killer instinct was not.
While Ray struggled to regain his balance, the vampire sprung up behind him, fluidly transferring the momentum of his leap to his dagger's slash. But a dagger and a two-handed sword are no even match; Ray, finally jerking his sword back, was easily able to sidestep the attack. He whirled around with another wide swing, and as Vicente ducked, he finally understood. Ravolian was born for the fray and nothing else. The mind-numbing effects of the drink had no claim on his fighting because it was his incorrigible truth, the basest core of his self. Everything in life he blundered through, doing little and understanding nothing. He was only in his element in war.
He was a pitiable, tragic creature, destined to be a puppet of some greater will from the start, his only calling that of senseless, brute force.
The thought of this Purifying his Family in Sithis's name was an insult to everything the Brotherhood stood for.
And even deeper did the mockery burrow into his skull. Why was he putting faith in an organisation that preyed on its own children for convenience?
They promised me they'd never do it again.
The fury in Vicente's chest erupted in a roar as he lunged forth and punched his dagger through Ravolian's chest.
The Imperial froze, jaw slack, as the vampire jerked the bloodied blade from his ribcage and tossed it aside like a piece of refuse. Slowly, almost disbelievingly, he staggered backwards, hitting and sliding down the stone. A smear or blood marked his descent as gravity finally deposited him in a slump at the junction between the wall and floor, still firmly gripping his claymore even in defeat.
He stared up at Vicente with the eyes of a dead man.
"You should've killed me earlier," he slurred. It wasn't a defiant retort, it was a truth, a simple statement of fact - possibly the deepest thing the Imperial had ever said. You should have killed me earlier, before I had to do this.
And then Ravolian Markaius was dead, dead the way fate had always intended to see him off - finished in the heat of battle, sword in hand as he lay sprawled in his own blood.
Everything seemed very still to the vampire as he gazed down at his Brother's corpse. No, Ray had not died true to form. There was no lounging insouciance, no arrogance, none of the naive love for bloodshed in that final expression. Ray had learned right before the end, and it somehow served to make the calamity all the more wrong.
Slowly, brokenly, Vicente stepped over him and mechanically made his way towards the beds. He didn't want to see, didn't want to know. But he had to.
Strangely, the first thing that struck him about the Living Quarters was that Schemer was absent. The ubiquitous presence of Cyrodiil's only cuddly rat was absent; the rodent must have scurried off in the violence...
And they were dead.
Vicente's heart felt as if it were being strangled and ripped from his chest. The sight was unbearable. What he wouldn't have given at that moment for him to have had it right in the beginning, and for the Brotherhood to deem him and only him as the traitor...
Antoinetta - the lively, childlike Sister whose last words from him had been an angry rant about garlic - was very small in death. She slept curled in a ball, an old habit from her days as an urchin, but that instinctively protective stance had done her little good in the end. M'raaj-Dar's green eyes were open and cross-eyed, staring at the blade that had once gone clear through his heart. Telaendril had fallen prey to the forbidden fruit as had Teinaava, her hands forever pressed to her throat as she choked.
Gogron's death had been the epitome of cowardice. Ravolian had stabbed his closest friend in the jugular while he slept. He could have still been sleeping, green feet hanging over the edge of his bed and eyes closed - but the gory weal through the sinews of his throat told otherwise. The Orc had never felt a thing, and the Brotherhood was familiar with murdering the unaware, but for the pair who detested underhanded combat and loved bloodshed to have killed one another like this seemed the ultimate betrayal.
The vampire had seen enough; he turned and half stumbled, half fled from the massacre. He didn't bother to stop at Ocheeva's room, already knowing what he would see there. He nearly tripped down the stairs to his room, feeling utterly apart from reality. The doors swung open at his touch, and he staggered through.
It was wrong, purely and utterly wrong, to see his room so pristine and normal in spite of the hell his world had become. Seized by a sudden, irrational urge, he drew back his hand and slammed his fist on the table with all his strength, splintering the mahogany and sending stacks of paperwork flying. The shelves were next to go; he flung the antique books of his collection away from him like they had personally done him wrong. Pages as old as he was were torn and shredded, and his storage chest and writing desk met similar fates. But then his eyes fell on his slab, and the weapons rack that lay past it.
Vicente eyed his glass longsword, the tool that had served him so faithfully during numerous assassinations. It was a symbol of the Brotherhood to him, a memento of the death he'd wrought in Sithis's name.
He left it in the dust. It could stay there forever, laid to rest with the rest of the Brotherhood that he loved.
Lucien didn't deserve such a painless ending.
Instead, Vicente lifted the claymore from its stand, feeling the enchantments that swirled inside the aged ebony like a contained tempest. It had seen him through his greatest trials, and he did his Family's memory a disservice if he did not consider avenging them important enough for its blade.
As he strapped the sheath across his back, he noticed he small Elven dagger that he'd picked up months ago. He'd never be able to give it to Ocheeva now... and for what? Why had this all happened? He fingered the blade numbly, not caring when its edge bit into his hands, then pocketed it. A memento, perhaps. Things he could never allow himself to forget.
The forbidden had been done. The cross of blood had been carved into the Sanctuary, his Sanctuary... his only sanctuary. He had been wrong before; it was easier to do the deed yourself, because you could turn the hate inward, keep that quiet self-loathing clawing at your own heart. Now... that fury rose up rekindled, with seven new faces rippling in the flames. Ocheeva. Teinaava. M'raaj-Dar. Gogron. Telaendril. Antoinetta. And even that new, foolish Brother who had joined the Family at the wrong time, doomed to be Lachance's puppet.
He couldn't turn that fury back inside of him. There was only one conduit of vengeance that this teeming eruption of hatred could ever escape through.
Lucien Lachance.
Vicente left the bloodied halls of his only home without a backwards glance. It could fall to Lachance's ruin, for all he cared. His former student poisoned everything he touched. There was nothing left for him there. Screw the Tenets. If Lucien could justify taking seven faithful Brothers and Sisters, then he, Vicente Valtieri, could justify this.
He wasn't the only one who needed revenge as tangibly as he needed blood, and he was a gentleman - how could he justify depriving another of such a vital thing?
There was only one path clear to him now.