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Chapter Fourteen

Pariah

"How did nobody see this coming?" Mercer was, understandably, furious.

Tensions were high in the flagon where every guildmember had gathered. Brynjolf was sat at a table with his head in his hands, barely thinking anything at all let alone really knowing what was going on around him. He didn't even know what to feel any more. He'd flitted between fury, guilt, anguish and self-loathing for a good few hours until Mercer had convened this meeting. It was almost morning now and his body was screaming at him for rest. By now Brynjolf was too emotionally drained to do anything, and longed to collapse into his bed in the cistern and beg sleep to take away his pain.

"Don't you think if we suspected we would have done something?" Stig replied sharply. His arms were crossed over his chest as if he were daring Mercer to challenge him.

"Didn't you say yourself there was something off about Lucille?" Tove interrupted. Instead of anger over Gallus' death in her voice, there was the cocky hint of superiority. As if the woman couldn't be more vile than to try and put others down in a situation like this, Brynjolf couldn't even believe why he'd slept with her sometimes.

Judging by the murderous look the beefy nord gave her, Stig would have none of the spoiled princess gloating at proving him wrong. "I thought it was a bosmer thing, it's not like she went around whispering the damn Black Sacrament to herself."

"Of course, because that's the only thing that would have given her away," Tove replied snidely.

"Bitch." Stig shoved her roughly on the shoulders and she seethed at him. "Don't give me a reason to wring your neck, because nothing would give me more pleasure, you spoilt-"

"Stig," Mercer interrupted forcefully. The bartender fumed but reluctantly stepped down, even if he continued sending menacing looks at Tove.

"As for you though," Mercer continued and Brynjolf felt the breton's accusing eyes land on him. "Couldn't keep it in your wretched pants, could you? She only had to give you a smile and you would've given her Gallus' bleeding heart yourself."

There was a screeching noise as the redhead leapt to his feet. Emotionally and physically drained as he was, Mercer's words would draw a response from him, and the breton would regret provoking him. Still, Brynjolf had to bite back the pain in his shoulder from his sudden movement, Frederick had sealed and bandaged his wound a couple of hours ago, but it still hurt.

"There's nothing you can say that I haven't already said to myself," Brynjolf growled, his eyes locked onto Mercer's. "Don't think for a second that there's anybody in this room that wants to gut Lucille more than me."

Mercer held his gaze for a good few moments, then hesitated and sighed. "I know that." His eyes softened and it was the closest thing to an apology Brynjolf knew he'd ever get. Mercer didn't admit he was wrong, ever.

"I think it'd be better to figure out who wanted Gallus murdered," Frederick interrupted softly as the redhead slumped back into his chair again. "Lucille was only the weapon."

"A conniving, ruthless little whore of a weapon," Stig added flatly. Frederick winced a little bit but nodded. Regardless, Brynjolf would admit that he had a point. As much as he wanted Lucille to suffer for what she'd done, he wanted the one who'd ordered Gallus' assassination dead even more.

"Karliah," Mercer said suddenly. Every eye in the room jumped to him.

"You're mad," Frederick said. "She loved him."

"Did she?" Mercer challenged. "I always thought it was pretty one-sided."

Brynjolf frowned as he considered what the breton was saying. He didn't want to believe Karliah was to blame, but Mercer was right at least a little bit. Gallus was the one who'd always doted on her, not the other way around. If you only considered how Karliah acted towards the imperial, it wouldn't even seem as if they were in a relationship at all. Brynjolf had always thought it was because Karliah was shy, perhaps, or that she'd had issues of her own that only Gallus knew of... but perhaps if she never really loved him in the first place it would explain a lot about how cold she acted.

"That doesn't mean she wanted him dead," Stig pointed out. It meant a lot that Stig was defending the dunmer, he'd always given her a hard time, yet... yet Brynjolf had always suspected that perhaps the old grumpy nord had always had the smallest affection for Karliah, as if she was the daughter he never had.

"You know as much as I the amount of arguing they did behind closed doors," Mercer replied. "Something was wrong these last few months between them."

"Does anyone even know where she is?" Brynjolf mumbled offhandedly. He certainly didn't know, he hadn't seen her in days.

"I saw her leaving Riften yesterday morning," Frederick said. The nord frowned a little. "She looked... tense and on edge, kept looking over her shoulder like she thought somebody was following her."

Stig cursed softly. Brynjolf's brow knitted together. He didn't particularly like where this was going. There was a moment of silence, and then Mercer spoke softly. "Frederick, Brynjolf, go to Snow Veil Sanctum."

Frederick gave him a perplexed look. "Why?"

The breton grimaced. "I did a job with her there right before Lucille showed up. We camped overnight." He paused a moment. "I woke up while she was keeping watch, she was... doing something, chanting."

"You're not saying-" Frederick started, but Mercer interrupted him.

"I didn't think anything of it at the time, and we were ambushed by draugr and had to flee not long after." Mercer gave them a pointed look. "If she did perform the Black Sacrament there, she wouldn't have had time to hide it."

"She might have gone back afterwards and covered it up," Brynjolf pointed out.

"Perhaps, but it's worth a shot."

The redhead nodded slowly, but then he remembered something and narrowed his eyes at Mercer. "If I remember correctly, it was you who brought Lucille to the guild in the first place."

Mercer grimaced and looked almost the slightest bit guilty or regretful. "Karliah was the one who suggested that I investigate her as a recruit." He pursed his lips and glanced away momentarily. "She said she didn't have time to do it herself."

"Oh god's," Frederick whispered.

It was an accurate comment for how everyone in the room felt.

o0o

It was a gruesome sight. The human flesh was decaying, the blood dried onto the floor, the nightshade petals shrivelled. But the worst part was the heavy, oppressive stench of death and evil in the room. Brynjolf shuddered as he stared at the pile of body parts heaped on the floor, surrounded by a circle of extinguished candles. There was a dagger, stained to the hilt in blood and the human heart in the centre had been repeatedly stabbed.

"I can't believe Karliah did it," Frederick murmured. They'd travelled to Snow Veil Sanctum and found the remains of a Black Sacrament ritual in a small room inside.

Brynjolf was silent. He didn't know what to say, he was so consumed with disbelief and hurt that nothing seemed appropriate. Several moments passed, and then he gingerly took a step towards the grotesque effigy. As he did so his foot landed on a circular tile on the floor and there was, again, that characteristic, dreading click sound.

Frederick groaned as the redhead stilled. "What is it with you and traps?!" Frederick had a point. He needed to stop making a habit of these kinds of things.

There was an unpleasant noise of gas seeping into the room. It took only a few moments and they were both staggering, clutching at their throats and gasping for breath. Brynjolf collapsed to the ground, pain wracking his body and curling into the foetal position. His lungs felt like they were on fire and he couldn't see straight, his head aching worse than any hangover he'd had.

But he could make out the eyes observing them on the other side of the gate that had closed to seal them into the room. They flashed in the torchlight, and then a lithe female body jumped down from a high ledge delicately. They'd been watched the moment they walked into the crypt, Brynjolf cursed himself for being so stupid as not to notice it. He'd been too choked up in his emotions to pay proper attention to anything else.

And now he was suffering the consequences for it.

The woman stalked off. As she left, the torchlight flickered across her features and he saw a pointed elven ear.

"Karliah," he growled with the last of the breath left in his lungs.

The hissing of gas stopped abruptly, perhaps the trap was exhausted of it's poison, but he couldn't do anything, even with the overwhelming urge to retch he didn't have the strength to actually do it. Then Frederick grabbed his hand and he felt the beautiful relief of restoration magic pouring through his body.

Frederick wasn't adept at casting restoration spells, though, and it was only enough to stop the both of them from dying outright before Brynjolf lost consciousness.

o0o

When he woke next he felt, surprisingly, not that bad all things considered. His head was a bit sore and his skin was itchy, but apart from that... nothing.

It didn't feel right.

Brynjolf cast a look around the room before his eyes landed on Frederick. The other man was still passed out. Concerned, the redhead gingerly crawled over to him and shook him gently. Frederick awoke a little groggily, but seemed as well as Brynjolf was himself.

"Are you alright to move?" the redhead asked.

"Yes, I think so." Frederick sounded a bit hoarse but he sat up regardless.

They paused for a few moments before carefully getting to their feet. Eventually they picked the lock on the gate sealing them in and tumbled out of the crypt, found their horses mercifully still tethered outside, and rode as fast as they dared back to Riften. Neither of them knew how much time had passed, and the guild had to know Karliah was guilty.

o0o

Whatever lapse or latency in effects from the trap wore off as they returned to Riften. Progressively throughout the journey Brynjolf began getting a headache and twitchy, to the point where he was doubled over his horse and clutching at his temples by the time they were approaching the city gates. By the time his horse came to an automatic stop before the gate guards, (considering he wasn't even directing the animal any more it was left to it's own devices to do as it deemed appropriate) he felt so nauseous he couldn't stop himself retching over the side of the horse's neck. He swayed a little bit and would have fallen off, had one of the guard's not lunged forward and caught him.

Somebody was speaking to him but he couldn't understand it, and every word hurt his throbbing head even more. Behind him, the other guard helped Frederick off his own horse, his companion faring little better than the redhead.

Brynjolf barely remembered being helped to the temple, and the trap's effects hit him in full force less than an hour later.

It was unpleasant and easily the most revolting experience he had ever had.

First he started vomiting uncontrollably until the only thing that came up was blood. But it was not the only place he saw red, because his nose, ears and eyes bled to the point that he wondered if all his internal organs might be haemorrhaging. His skin flecked with a bloody rash, before it blistered and peeled off in chunks.

It would have been worse if he remembered every horrible detail, but his body succumbed to shock and disorientation within hours and he couldn't even recall accurately what happened after that. The next thing he experienced with any reasonable measure of coherency was waking up and finding himself in a bed in the temple with Mercer standing above him.

He still felt awful and he stung all over – before realising that he was covered in bandages. Brynjolf glanced at his hands. He noticed then that the reason he was bandaged up so was not because somebody had repeatedly stabbed him or similar, but because the skin on his fingers was new and raw, as if it had all fallen off not so long ago. He reasoned the rest of his body hadn't fared much better.

"You alright?" He glanced up at Mercer when the breton spoke. "Had us scared for a while there."

Brynjolf blinked a little. The light was hurting his eyes, but he got used to it after a few moments. He tried speaking and found that he at least was able to do that, if his voice was a bit raspy. "Karliah, she trapped the crypt... where-"

"She's long gone," Mercer replied bitterly. "But I've got every contact I have searching after her, I'll find her eventually if it takes every coin I have."

Brynjolf nodded slowly. He'd consider how he could assist in the future when he didn't feel like he'd just woken up from being dead. "How long was I out for?"

"More than a week, the priest kept you in an induced sleep so you wouldn't be in so much pain."

He frowned. Perhaps the faint hints of dreams he remembered of writhing in agony and screaming hadn't actually been dreams at all. "And Frederick?"

"He hasn't woken up yet, but the priest says he'll make it," Mercer replied. Brynjolf let out a sigh of relief. He raised a hand to his head, then realised his long red hair was no longer there any more.

Mercer gave him a faint look of pity. "Your hair fell out days ago."

Brynjolf sighed but shrugged a little bit. "I suppose I was meaning to cut it." He laughed weakly but it hurt his throat so he stopped. At least he would try and look on the bright side of things, if there even was a bright side.

"Mmm." Mercer gave him a serious look then and the formerly-redhead sobered. "I've taken over as leader of the guild, nobody protested and I assumed you and Frederick wouldn't either."

Brynjolf nodded. It didn't surprise him. He couldn't really imagine who else might do the job, Stig certainly would have refused because he was so hell bent on retiring to some tropical paradise that he didn't want to be tied down to the guild indefinitely by becoming guild master.

"I want you as my second in charge."

Brynjolf hesitated momentarily, unsure if he was qualified let alone wanted the responsibility. But then he reasoned it was probably expected of him... and it would have been what Gallus wanted. His heart twisted a little thinking of the imperial and he shoved the thought away. He still really hadn't come to terms that he was gone.

"Aye, I'll accept," he replied eventually. "But we cut every tie to those worthless assassin's straight away or I'm gone."

Mercer nodded. "Of course. I might even be able to dig up some information on the one they sent to kill Gallus."

"Lucille?" Brynjolf snarled. "If you find her for me, I'll bring you her head on a platter."

"I doubt that was her real name, but I won't turn it down if you do." Mercer stood up a little straighter then and glanced away. "I need to leave. Stay here a few more days until you're well enough to come back to the cistern, then we'll talk."

Brynjolf murmured his agreement, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as the other man walked off. His eyebrows knitted together and he bit at his lip a bit. He'd have a lot to think about while he stayed in the temple recovering.