A/N: Sorry for the late update, everyone. The Mac had a brain fart and made a good three, four thousand words of this chapter go poof as a result. So I had to write that all over again, and I don't think what I have here was even close to the quality of what I had before. I hope it is acceptable to you.
Also, I've decided to split this chapter into two parts again, because it ended up being too bloody long. That's what I get for taking one battle scene after another more seriously than character development, I guess.
Well, then, here's the next chapter—thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy! - K
XIX
Mistress Malys had never moved so quickly in Her life.
Eastmarch was already far behind them before She could even think to look back, and the Rift below them was merely a blur of brown and green. The vast wings of the dragon Odahviing were hardly moving, but every so often, they would flap once, and Malys would feel Her insides shift violently towards Her spine with the acceleration.
She chanced a look around Her; ahead, vinye was white in the face, and was wrapped hand and foot around one of Odahviing's spines, clutching it for dear life—and screaming all the while. Behind her, cosette looked faintly green, and several of the dragon's scales around her were already streaked with bile.
And grimnir, still perched just behind Odahviing's head, looked as though he was having the time of his life. She couldn't see his face, of course, and the shriek of the wind made it impossible to hear anything he was saying, but it was clear that he had done this before, judging from the aerials Odahviing was pulling off. The dragon would hover on thermals, execute rolls that would send Malys' brain reeling—and grimnir would hold fast to his steed through each one.
As they neared Riften, grimnir must have given some unseen order, because Odahviing suddenly launched himself higher than ever, almost perpendicular with the ground. Then, just as even Malys was beginning to feel cold from the rarified air, the dragon stalled in midair—and dropped like a stone. vinye screamed louder than ever, but it wasn't until later that Malys realized that She had been the one shrieking Her head off that time.
With good reason—the dragon was upside down now, and from Her vantage point, Malys saw Riften above her head, getting closer and closer with each passing second. But at the last possible moment, grimnir and Odahviing leveled out, and sailed over Riften at so low an elevation that Malys swore she'd lost a few hairs to the topmost tower of the city's keep.
Then they were upright once more, and flying nearly level with a mountain that cast its shadow on the south end of town. Malys barely caught the remains of an old Nordic fortress on the summit before Odahviing leveled out. They crossed a large valley, and Malys thought She could see the same exact spot where the mages had scaled the cliffs on the opposite side—near Lost Tongue Overlook. She thought of Tolfdir, and Her heart sank as she remembered Her words with the kind old Nord.
Odahviing was descending now, this time for good—Malys could see the familiar ruins of Rkund in front of them. The crimson dragon's wings flapped once, and the vampire felt a crunch as the beast's claws touched down upon the carved stone. The impact was enough to send Her tumbling to the ground, but She did not care—She could have kissed the stone, it felt so good to feel it beneath Her once again.
Behind Her, vinye and cosette dismounted the dragon—or at least, cosette did. The high elf collapsed in a heap, breathing heavily. "Never again," she gasped; her voice was hoarse from all her screaming. She took several deep breaths as cosette continued to be sick on the pavilion. "We are never … doing that again … that was … awful …
Arch-Mage grimnir slid from Odahviing's neck, and stroked the dragon's horns. "Saraan pah," he instructed him. "Meyz nu vahlok." The dragon nodded once, and took off once more, shrinking to a blurry point in the sky.
It took several minutes to recover from their flight, and Malys was thankful that grimnir allowed them this. With any luck, they had arrived here much quicker than Solyn had expected them—he would be caught off guard, perhaps so much so that they might actually have a chance at defeating him.
But when grimnir finally ushered them up, and made his way to the front door, he opened the gigantic door—and Malys instinctively knew that Solyn had foresaw even this.
Damn.
A shimmering blue shield blocked their path, distorting the hallways and machinery beyond into blurry shapes of gray and gold. grimnir moved to inspect this shield, and it was only after a few minutes of silence that he finally spoke.
"He's prepared well, this Solyn," he grunted. "I haven't heard of magic like this in at least two eras."
"Two eras?" cosette repeated in awe. "So this has to be more than just a simple barrier, then?"
"Mm." The arch-mage shook his head. "A 'barrier' isn't the right way to describe this. Look." He raised his hand towards the doorway, and gathered some ice magic into his hand. Malys saw it rotating in the same manner as Her own ice storm. Sure enough, grimnir's own ice storm radiated from his palm a second later, leaving a growing trail of icy crystals in its wake as the super-chilled clouds entered the ruins.
Suddenly, the clouds vanished. Confounded, Malys tried to figure out where they'd gone, and Her first thought was that the sapphire shield had nullified grimnir's attack. But Her confusion only grew when She noticed that same trail of ice lining the hallways beyond—only to fade less than a second later.
What in the name of—?
"It's no barrier," grimnir said definitively; he did not sound happy. "It's a claudication spell."
Malys and cosette traded the same look of puzzlement, but vinye looked aghast. "A claudication spell?" she gasped. "There's no way Solyn could cast something that complex! He'd have to have at least a hundred other wizards with him—each one just as powerful as he is! Only the Dwemer could have the means to cast a spell like that!"
"This wasn't here the first time we were in Rkund, Arch-Mage," Malys spoke up. "Solyn cast this himself, not the Dwemer—and it's already common knowledge that Solyn was alive when the dwarves were, vinye. He probably learned that spell from them."
"Would someone mind telling me what the hell a claudication spell is?" cosette interrupted.
grimnir cleared his throat. "A claudication spell can separate anything inside its boundaries from normal reality," he said. "Think of digging a hole in the ground—except the hole isn't … physically here. But what Solyn did here is only the easiest way to accomplish this—there are records of several Dwarven cities throughout Tamriel that were physically removed from both time and space with this spell. Some even suggest that the entrances to those cities lead to the same identical ruin."
The Culler blinked. "None of that answered my question at all," she remarked, and secretly Malys agreed with her—even a summation of this spell had made Her head hurt. "Just tell me what Solyn did here."
If he was affronted by cosette's bluntness, grimnir didn't show it. "Solyn has greatly accelerated the flow of time within the ruins of Rkund. Judging by how quickly my ice storm dissipated, I would guess that … several hours have passed in the time I took to finish this sentence."
Malys' heart sank. "And how long has this spell been in effect on our end?" She asked.
Grimnir leaned in closer to the shimmering wall to take a look. "Since last night," he eventually said. "About … twelve hours."
cosette quickly began counting on her fingers; Mistress Malys inwardly braced Herself for bad news, as the Culler's round face seemed to lose more air with each passing second.
"That's almost five years!" cosette finally shouted.
"Damn it." vinye made a fist. "That Chimer thought of everything. He knew we'd try to get here as soon as we could. But that spell just gave him all the time he needed—and then some." The altmer turned to grimnir. "Please tell me you can break through."
The arch-mage grunted. "Well, the fewer people you have on hand to help cast a spell like this, the more holes are left to fill, and the easier it can be breached. It's quite possible Solyn cast this on his own—which, while no small feat, means it's more than likely that the boundary of his claudication spell is nothing more than a very large sphere.
"That said, this won't be easy, and it likely won't be quick," said grimnir. "Breaking through a claudication spell is tricky. It's not unlike popping a bubble with a needle—only we're dealing with a different kind of bubble, and using a different kind of needle."
grimnir looked at the mages, and added darkly, "Which means we need to prepare for a very different pop." He took a few steps backwards, and the three mages did the same without a moment's hesitation.
"Let's hope you lot learned enough about wards from old tolfdir—Akatosh rest his soul," he said gruffly, taking the elaborately carved, triple-pronged staff on his back and bringing it to bear. Malys noticed his mask was no longer the rusted iron he'd worn before—it was a smooth and glossy bluish-green. When had he changed it?
She, vinye, and cosette each erected a ward, and so too did the arch-mage. Then grimnir hefted his staff in his free hand, and a glowing lance of energy, somewhere between lightning and turquoise fire, erupted from the globe on its tip. Malys sensed something ancient inside the blinding beam of magic as it struck the claudication spell, something thousands of years old, older than Solyn—perhaps even older than time itself. She noted how the beam seemed to be traveling in two directions: away from the staff, and towards it at the same time.
"TIID!" grimnir barked. Suddenly, a bluish-white wave of energy burst from his mouth, and towards the energy field he was assaulting. Shielding Her eyes from the glow, Malys noticed that the blurs beyond the spell seemed to be getting more in focus; within moments, they were beginning to slow down more and more, and She could make out the motion of various pistons and turbines—he'd breached the spell.
"How did you do that?" cosette asked, taking a long look at the staff as grimnir replaced it on his back.
"Very carefully." The three mages waited for more, but the arch-mage did not elaborate. "The spell has been neutralized; none of us appears to be suffering any ill aftereffects. But I don't think I need to tell you that we are entering uncharted territory here. We may very well be facing forces unseen in Tamriel for almost four thousand years—if ever at all. Be on your guard."
The mages nodded, and followed grimnir into Rkund.
Dagoth Solyn looked up from his latest project. Some sixth sense of his had gone off in a dark corner of his mind, and he immediately sensed that the claudication spell he'd placed had failed, and the normal flow of time had now resumed. That was quicker than he anticipated; he'd been hoping for at least another decade before the spell would be broken. That must have taken a considerable amount of magic, certainly more than any normal mage possessed.
Was it the Dragonborn? Solyn wondered. It was certainly likely—he'd been hoping to goad him here, and test the power of his creations against such ancient magic—but this magic felt more ancient by far. He wondered if … perhaps it was, he thought. Now he was intrigued; he would definitely have to see this power firsthand.
The Chimer turned around to regard the massive mounds of material heaped before him. A few dozen of his ash creatures were already loading them into his creation, along with a few other odds and ends. And that wasn't even counting what they'd been mining these last five years—mining and refining, purifying and shaping.
He clapped his hands. "Double time, now!" he ordered his ash spawn. "We will be entertaining some guests soon, and no mistake. And I wish to greet them as only a Lord of House Dagoth should."
Several of the ash spawn broke off from the main group, and approached Solyn. They presented him a large number of large blocky shapes, cast from Dwemer metal and hollowed out to his exact specifications. He watched as they pried open the molds with their jagged weapons.
He saw what lay inside them, and he knew that it was good.
Then Solyn turned back to his project, and gazed at the two artifacts that had been forged mere hours ago. The better part of three years had gone into studying the potential of his creations, and another two were devoted to mastering said potential. Finally, by his reckoning, over a month had passed since the forging process had begun. But at long last, they were here, cooling before his very eyes.
He saw them, and knew they were good.
It was strange, Vinye thought, to be inside Rkund again; the first time, they had entered it at the behest of a benefactor of the College. Now, however, they were trying to destroy that benefactor.
Time was of the essence, and the four mages wasted no time in maneuvering through the winding halls of the citadel, Grimnir in the lead. Vinye remembered just in time to watch where she stepped this time around; the Altmer even saw the same floor trap that Malys had saved her from. It had not been altered or disabled, and was therefore just as deadly to any one of them.
Before long, they reached the great hall. The tents of the miners were still there, but something was wrong. There were no lights from campfires, flickering off the walls and rafters of the immense chamber. And the entire hall seemed eerily silent; only the sounds of arcane machinery filled their ears …
"Laas … yah nir," Grimnir muttered under his breath. A few seconds later, he threw out his hand, and the mages stopped behind him. "We're not alone here," he grunted.
"How can you be sure?" Cosette scanned the expanse with a hand over her eyes, but found nothing.
"That was a detection spell you heard me cast," said Grimnir. "Whatever's out there, I counted about a dozen of them. And unless you three know any invisibility spells, they're spread far enough apart where we can't sneak by."
Vinye immediately tensed. "Automatons?" she asked—though deep in her mind, she already knew the answer.
Grimnir shook his head. "No," replied the Arch-Mage. "Size of a man—but too slow to be a man … "
Malys pointed further down. "The lift we took is at the far end of the hall," she said. "We'll make a run for it—hopefully we won't have to deal with them all."
"I don't care," growled Cosette. Her swords were already in her hands. "I've got some serious anger issues to work out before we're done here."
Grimnir started. "Wait, no!"
But Cosette had already made her decision. The Breton launched forward from her position with a war cry that all of Rkund had to have heard. Vinye cursed under her breath, and charged.
Suddenly, explosions rocked the great hall, and several tents burst into flames. A smoky haze filled the chamber within seconds, restricting the mages' breathing, and their senses as well. Several of Solyn's hated ash spawn rose from the wrecks of the tents; Grimnir had blown their opportunity for an ambush, but the atmosphere of the hall had now changed in more ways than one.
It was as though Mehrunes Dagon's Deadlands had suddenly merged with this little slice of Tamriel. The air was hot and foul with the stench of smoke and burning flesh, and the rising flames reduced the scenery around them to a hellish orange-red glow. Shadows danced across the bodies of the dozen ash spawn as they marched towards them, spell and sword in hand, streamlining their facial features, and transforming them from merely unsettling to outright terrifying.
But Vinye did not see the Deadlands; indeed, she saw something much worse … the trees of Valenwood, and the city of Falinesti, all erupting in gouts of mage-fire. She sniffed the hated smell of elves being roasted alive, eaten alive, and the pops and sizzles of a child prodigy's lethal lightning incinerating the grisly remains …
No, she thought, screwing her eyes shut, trying to block out the memories. Not now—I can't … not now …
A rush of wind dispelled her thoughts, followed by another screech from Cosette. The mad Culler was a mage on a mission, Vinye thought—and she was not about to let a handful of these monsters get in her way. Her Forsworn blades scythed this way and that, twin tornadoes of ivory and stone that ripped into the rough, ashy skin of the constructs that opposed her.
Before the elf could bring her thoughts back to Mundus, the Breton had already dispatched half of the ash spawn, their remains swirling in the wake of her onslaught, and smearing her sweat-matted face. For only a split second, Vinye caught a glimpse of that face, of eyes that seemed to glow with dragonfire.
If it wasn't so small and round, she thought, it might have belonged to a Dremora.
The other half of the ash spawn had been wise enough to keep their distance from the raging Cosette, and eschewed their jagged blades in place of fiery bolts from their palms. The chamber soon lit up with their mage-fire—shorter-lived than the spellwork of the masters of Cyrodiil, but more intense and explosive for it—and Cosette, for all her swordsmanship, was forced on the defensive as quickly as she'd taken the offensive. She ducked and wove the bolts like a fox evading a hunter's arrow, and more than once one of the infernal missiles exploded close enough to singe her robes.
But it soon became apparent to Vinye that all the rage in the world would not sustain Cosette for very long; she was moving slower, and her movements were becoming more predictable. The ash spawn, on the other hand, were not bound by the rules of the living; they continued to sling firebolts at the Breton.
"Down!"
Grimnir's command echoed throughout the great hall, even in the din of battle, and Cosette flung herself to the floor without apparently realizing who had told her to do so. Then Grimnir raised his staff again, aiming it right at the ash spawn.
For the second time today, aquamarine light blasted from the staff, and Vinye felt the hairs on her neck rise from the sheer intensity of the ancient magic within it. She had never encountered magic like this before, not even during her days with the Guild of Alinor. The ash spawn did not have a chance; Grimnir swung his staff in three wide, full circles, as if he was wielding an immensely long sword. The blade of magicka sliced through the monsters, and they evaporated in a matter of seconds.
A sudden hush descended upon the ruins as Grimnir replaced his staff onto the back of his robes, and the remains of a dozen ash spawn drifted lazily in the hall. The Arch-Mage's mask was unmoving as he strode toward Cosette.
"How did you do that?" He did not sound happy.
Cosette looked like she had wanted to ask that very same question. She scowled, but said nothing.
"The ash spawn that attacked the College were not only immune to conventional destruction magic," Grimnir went on. "The heat from their bodies was enough to melt tempered steel blades. Your swords are—as far as I can tell—bits of ivory and stone, lashed crudely on wood. Why, then, are they still intact?"
Vinye was taken aback at this. The ash spawn can do that, too? But how, then, had Kinsbane survived when she had flung it into the face of the monster that had attacked them outside the Forge? She could only assume that moonstone was substantially tougher than the tempered blades Grimnir had mentioned—either that, or that monster had not been under Solyn's control, and its full power had not been unleashed.
"The Forsworn use a special hedge-magic that only they know," Cosette answered him. "They put it on their weapons and armor. These 'bits of ivory and stone'"—she fingered the pommels of her twin swords—"are more durable than anything the Thalmor or the Stormcloaks can produce." She looked at the Arch-Mage with a raised eyebrow. "I'd think you would at least know something about this if you were the most powerful mage in Skyrim."
Grimnir's mask did not move. "Oh, I do," he replied. "I also know that after the breakout at Cidhna Mine some years ago, Urag and I restricted all knowledge about Forsworn hedge-magic to a need-to-know basis, and even then to the senior scholars. That your blades can withstand the heat of an ash spawn's insides isn't what surprises me—it's that you seem to know quite a bit about one of the … grayer fields of study taught by the College, hmm?"
Cosette's round face was getting whiter with every word he spoke. She gulped as the mask peered in closer to her, and Vinye felt a pang of sympathy: Grimnir had thoroughly sandbagged the Breton; she might as well have admitted to her involvement with the Forsworn—and their breakout in Cidhna Mine. Worse still, Cosette was part of a faction that practiced outright xenocidal behavior, but they were especially hateful of Nords. As Grimnir was a Nordic hero, Vinye suspected the Breton thought of him as highly as she had the late Ulfric Stormcloak.
That was two of them that Grimnir had read like books. Vinye had been first; her secret collaboration with Septimus had been anything but secret to the Dragonborn's eye. That her connection to the Thalmor yet remained in the dark offered no consolation. And now Cosette had been laid bare before the dangerously shrewd Arch-Mage.
She looked at Malys, now; the Dunmer's burning eyes were not straying an inch from Grimnir. Vinye knew the two elves were thinking the same thing—he hadn't expressed his knowledge that Malys was a vampire, but he had the edge in experience. It was more than likely he'd run into a few vampire covens in his day.
"I told you I lived in Markarth when I was younger," said the Breton, recovering a little bit of her composure, and some sarcastic wit to go along with the nonchalant pose she currently struck. "You've been to Nchuand-Zel. We both know the Forsworn are a surprisingly popular topic of conversation over there."
Grimnir showed no sign of being convinced by Cosette's answer—but neither did he press the issue further. He took several steps towards the Breton.
WHACK.
Vinye had chosen that moment to blink, and therefore missed a good deal of what happened next: one moment, Grimnir had raised his staff. The next moment, it had swung faster than a bolt of lightning, and Cosette was sprawled on the floor before his robes, clutching her stomach and cursing furiously.
"Pahlok!" Grimnir bellowed under his mask. "I told you we would be facing an enemy unseen in this world for thousands of years." His voice was terrible, and Vinye even thought she saw a few sparks dance over his fingers. "If you ever rush blindly into such danger like that again, Miss Ionsaithe, I will not be rescuing you next time!"
Cosette had gotten to her feet, still holding a hand to her chest and coughing as she cast a healing spell over where Grimnir had hit her. The Breton said nothing, but stared back at Grimnir defiantly as the Arch-Mage continued on his way. The iridescent mask did not even look in her direction.
"Some Nordic hero he turned out to be," spat Cosette as Vinye and Malys caught up with her. "Where does he get off, striking one of his own like that?"
Vinye remembered that day when she'd seen the Dragonborn bedridden, nearly delirious from a combination of potions and pain. "I don't think he's a hero," she said softly. "I'm not even sure he thinks he's a hero."
"Maybe he fancies himself a father," Malys remarked. "Someone like him probably never had a chance to settle down, raise a family. Maybe he never will."
"Are all you vampires so damned depressing?" huffed Cosette as she patted dust off her robes. "And where did that come from, anyway?"
"When a father strikes his child, it's usually because they did something wrong," mused the Dunmer. "That's probably what he thinks of the three of us—maybe even of the whole College. It's the family he could never have."
Family. The word had a particularly deep impact on Vinye as she realized that none of the three mages had any family of their own anymore. Taron Dreth had murdered Cosette's mother and father. Whatever family Malys had had was gone, lost in the cataclysm of Vvardenfell. And Vinye's own parents … Her father had died a meaningless death for a meaningless cause—but the Altmer knew at least that her mother was still alive, somewhere out there, perhaps still in some cushy office in Alinor overlooking the Abacean.
The thought of it made her teeth clench. She would never see her again.
And if Vinye was honest, she did not wish to.
Malys' words had cast a pall over the entire group, and no one spoke again until they had caught up with Grimnir. The great hall of Rkund, full with the sounds of battle not minutes ago, was almost eerily silent once more as they approached the lift that had taken the three mages to the lower sections of Rkund.
Unfortunately, it only took one glance at that lift for them to realize that Solyn had anticipated this, too.
"I don't believe this," Cosette groaned, aiming an angry kick at the house-sized mound of rock, metal, and debris that had broken off from the ceiling, and crushed the elevator beneath it. "That was our only way down there. There's no way we can get to him now!"
"Maybe there is," Malys said. "Didn't Tolfdir and J'zargo go through another way to meet up with us last time?" She looked around, sensing skepticism from everyone present. "It's all we've got," she added with a shrug.
"Then let's get this over with." Cosette had already pointed out another set of double doors off to the left, and a third to their right. She was already heading to the former destination with purpose in her every step. "Malys, you're with me. Vinye, you and the Arch-Mage can go right."
Grimnir whipped his head in the Breton's direction. "What makes you think we are splitting up in here?" he demanded. "None of us will know where we are going now—we will be blind!"
"All three of us went into Dwarven ruins blind—and alone," countered the Culler. Her arms were crossed. "I remember Tolfdir saying even you weren't capable of that," she added with a smirk.
A shadow fell across Grimnir's face, and for a moment, Vinye worried that the two would come to blows once more. Cosette's desire for revenge was making her increasingly unstable, she knew—and Grimnir, while powerful, was still largely an unknown. If these mages were to be enough to fight Solyn, they would have to put differences aside for the time being.
If they didn't, Vinye thought, they might kill each other before the Dwemer do.
Then the shadow lifted, and Vinye noticed that the color of the Arch-Mage's mask had changed—it was black now, like ebony, instead of the greenish-blue from before.
"If even one of us ends up reaching a dead end," Grimnir said, "then we will be wasting too much time doubling back." He heaved a heavy sigh. "But if even one of us finds a way through, then we may yet stand a chance."
He turned to Cosette and Malys. "Two hours," he decided. "You have until then to find your way through. We will not come back for you until then."
Vinye thought Dremora could have soiled their armor for less than the smile spreading over Cosette's face. "Deal."
And not deigning to waste any more time, the Breton turned on her heel and made to head left. Malys watched her go for a very long moment before she turned her burning gaze to Vinye. Both halves of the vampire's face were completely unreadable, and the Altmer did not like it. But eventually, Malys tired of staring, and followed Cosette without a word.
Grimnir huffed as the two mages disappeared from sight. "That Cosette," he said, apparently to no one in particular. "I like her, you know."
That confused Vinye, and she furrowed her brow. "Arch-Mage?"
"Arrogant, headstrong—disregard for authority," the Nord went on, seemingly talking to himself. "Oh yes—it reminds me of when I was younger … more reckless. Maybe 'like' isn't the word for it. No—I understand her. She's a warrior. Proud … to a fault, but fearless … living for nothing more than the chance to unleash hell."
But then Grimnir turned on his heel, and made for the doorway off to his right, and he was heard to darkly mutter, "And if we're not careful, that's exactly the type of attitude that's going to get us all killed."
Unsure how to respond to that, Vinye hurried after him, and the golden doors banged shut behind her.
The path of Cosette and Malys eventually took them to a long corridor, whose end was lost to sight in shadow. Metal gratings either side of the path afforded them a view of the chamber below them: a massive space even larger than the great hall of Rkund.
Cosette could barely hear the vampire trailing in her wake as they navigated the walkway, not for distance between them, but for a sound that seemed to be coming from below them—the clicking, whirring cacophony of hundreds of small mechanical joints.
Immediately, she glanced at Malys; she had apparently read the Breton's mind, and was now crouching prone on the ground so as to avoid being seen. Cosette followed suit, and in so doing, she now had a clear view of what was going on down there, making that awful metallic racket.
It was not hard to spot. Spiders—more of the mechanical spiders than either of them had yet seen in one place. They skittered about the room below them, which they now saw contained a dozen or so smaller rooms inside one bigger chamber. Each of these rooms had several shelves along the walls, packed near to bursting with assorted parts and bits of Dwemer metal, and these were gathered around a single stone table, where rested several unfinished automatons.
"This looks like an animunculory," Malys whispered to her, almost inaudible over the noise. "Several ruins in Morrowind had chambers like these. This was where the dwarves would build their automatons—arm them, even repair them—everything from spiders to centurions."
Cosette took one look at all the spiders downstairs, and grimaced as she noticed several ash spawn ambling around the place, appearing to supervise the whole operation. Then a thought came to her. "Maybe if we can cripple all this," she said, "we can slow Solyn down—he can't take over the world all on his own."
Malys seemed to consider this, and nodded. But she had just noticed something else, and now it was her turn to grimace as she bade Cosette look closer at the scene below them. The Breton peered at all the spiders, and felt her jaw drop as she saw a horribly familiar ice-blue color gracing several parts of each and every animunculus.
"He's enhancing the automatons with Aetherium?" Cosette mouthed back to Malys.
The vampire looked grim, and she nodded back. Both women knew that this bode very ill for them indeed—they knew now that they absolutely had to destroy whatever was down there to have any hope of crippling Solyn. But there were too many spiders for them to take on—and with that Aetherium, Old Gods only knew what they were capable of now.
There had to be another way, and Cosette decided to press on through the corridor.
Slowly, she and Malys crept along the stone floor on all fours, not daring to make a sound. Cosette was experienced in this scenario—she had been taught from her youth that stealth and discretion was key to the work of a Forsworn Culler. Malys, wearing the black robes Cosette assumed she'd found in whatever ruin she had recover Wraithguard from, was like a moving shadow, and kept to the corners—only her glowing eyes betrayed any light at all as she stalked behind Cosette.
Then, without warning, everything went south.
Cosette had no idea if one of them had blundered into a pressure plate, or if sheer lack of luck was to blame. But regardless of cause, a jet of steam had suddenly erupted from above—and caught her right in the face.
"Yackpth!" Ignoring all sense of concealment and silence, the Breton yelped as the superhot mist scalded her skin. Only then did her brain process what she had just done, and Cosette clapped her hands to her mouth as if that would silence the echoes of the shout she had been too late to suppress.
A second of total silence passed. The mechanical noises had stopped as well—and Cosette knew the horde of spiders below would have been very defective indeed to not sense their presence here.
Sure enough, one second later, the gratings either side of them slid upwards into the ceiling, exposing the platform to the whole of the animunculory outside—and revealing dozens upon dozens of the mechanical spiders.
And the trio of ash spawn with them.
Each spider, as the two mages had seen, had been enhanced with Aetherium; the wonder mineral had been plated over the pincers of their arms, as well as the tips of their six legs. Plated, too, were the gyros that crowned each spider's abdomen, and even the gem that was fixed inside that mechanism. These gems crackled and sparked with electricity—electricity that no doubt was meant for them.
Cosette and Malys traded glances for a few more dangerous moments. Neither of them wagered they looked happier than the other. Then, reacting naturally—which is to say, throwing all sense of caution out the window—Cosette screamed a half-dozen curses and war cries, and jumped into the sea of enemies below.
The Breton was in her element. Cullers were expected to be unexpected, to slay their targets without them being aware. As the Forsworn evolved, and grew stronger, so would the Cullers, in their efforts to cull the weak, and make the Forsworn stronger still. But Cosette was an Ionsaithe first and foremost—like her family, now long dead after enough bloodshed to fill a keep to its length and breadth, she was an unstoppable force of war.
Her twin Forsworn blades were out before her feet had even hit the ground, and the hedge-magic imbued within them speared one spider apiece before they could properly process these new arrivals. From there, Cosette was a whirlwind of devastation, and her vision began to swim and melt into the familiar blur of adrenaline-fueled battle. Mechanical parts scattered every which way as the swords tore into the animunculi, and foul-smelling oil spattered her robes and face as she fought her way to the ash spawn in the middle.
But Malys was not to be outdone. Cosette was so absorbed in her own fight that she was hardly paying any attention to the hybrid vampire, whose hands were beginning to brim with poisonous red magic as she, too, leapt down into the fray.
That magic now erupted from her fingers like the foul clutches of Molag Bal himself. Two of the ash spawn were closer to her; they stood no chance against the crimson energy. The spiders fared little better—the ruby-red tendrils seeped into the inner workings with impunity, corroding the Dwarven metal—if only slightly—and leeching the constructs of the souls that powered them.
But the spiders were not defenseless—indeed, the duo soon discovered that Solyn's upgrades had not just been cosmetic. Even as their reckless assault had begun, sparks had begun to dance over their surfaces, spreading from the Aetherium gem affixed to their crowns. Within moments, the entire horde of automata buzzed and snapped with lightning that would not be out of place on an adept mage's elemental cloak spell—and no doubt functioned the same way. And that wasn't all.
Some of that lightning flowed back to the gem on the nearest spider to Cosette, and she barely leapt away from the remains of the final ash spawn that she had just destroyed. No sooner had she fled than a thunderbolt blasted from the turquoise-colored jewel; one of her blades was barely grazed by the energy blast. The Forsworn weapon was flung from her grip and clattered against the far wall behind her—next to a set of double doors that Cosette hoped might be their way out of here.
She paid her disarmed sword no heed—a true Forsworn always carried more than one weapon in their hands. Quickly, before any spiders near her could squeeze off more lightning, she sent off a pair of fireballs to her immediate left and right. More scrap metal was hurled into the air from the force of the explosions, and the errant sparks of her missiles ignited some of the oil and disabled yet more of the spiders.
But they were still coming.
Now, Cosette was forced to erect a ward before more lightning bolts could stitch the air between them, and the bolts thudded off her ward—but not without repercussion; the shocks rebounded through her hands with such force that they were numb after merely three blasts. With her hand no longer able to properly maintain the ward, the silvery shield flickered and died in her palm.
The spiders seized their chance. Two more bolts struck home, and Cosette's other blade was blasted out of her hands, landing right on top of its companion. That left both the Culler's hands free to cast spells, and spells she did cast, creating enough magefire to burn a whole company of soldiers, allegiance be damned. For each bolt they cast, she cast a fireball—and ten more spiders would be flung to the far corners of the animunculory.
Then a third bolt struck Malys.
The vampire had been doing almost as well as Cosette up to this point; in addition to the ash spawn, her soul-devouring magic had disabled nearly a third of the automatons in the room—Cosette had disabled slightly more so. Nevertheless, one spider must have escaped her onslaught, and it now fired point-blank at the dark elf's chest.
Time seemed to stand still as the force of the impact lifted Malys clear off her feet. The Dunmer hit the wall with a thud, and slumped down on the other side of the doorway as Cosette's blades and did not move.
"No!" Even as the scream left her throat, Cosette knew she was in trouble—there were still too many spiders for her to take on alone. And a sudden noise from ahead of her told her it was about to get even worse. She looked up, and felt her heart sink—three dwarven spheres had just entered the chamber from an unseen entrance off to her right.
To her lack of surprise, they too had been furnished with Aetherium upgrades: the ridges and hubcaps of their wheels were lined with the mineral, as were their arms, their squarish eyeholes, and even some pieces of their body armor. Each sphere raised a blade with a refined Aetherium edge, and hefted a crossbow loaded with bolts that were similarly tipped with the glowing substance.
Cosette knew she could not stay here—she could not take those down as long as Malys was down for the count. So she decided to exercise the better part of valor, right as the spheres fired their bolts. Those bolts must have been loaded with some type of enchantment, Cosette decided—no doubt owing to the Aetherium tips—because after each one, she heard an explosion just where her feet had trod, and the force of the impact nearly knocked her off her feet.
Cosette wasted no time in collecting Malys' body and her effects; she hoisted the former over her shoulder, like the vampire was nothing more than a sack of grain, and clutched her twin blades in her other hand. As she moved to open the door, the Breton chanced a look back, and saw the lead sphere lining up for a second volley. There was a hiss, and then a whoosh of air that sounded akin to a thunderclap. A storm of metal parts blew up in the wake of this wall of air, turning the entire room into a deathtrap.
That was the last thing that Cosette remembered seeing before sprinting out of the room like a scamp out of Oblivion, Malys in tow, and hands torn and bleeding from clutching her ivory-pointed blades so tightly. She closed the door, but not quickly enough; just before the door banged shut, the lead sphere's attack caught her, and Cosette Ionsaithe felt herself being swept off the ground as if by a hurricane, and into total blackness …
Vinye and Grimnir had no less difficult of a time themselves. Their route had taken them to the edge of a massive pit that stretched down, down, down into dizzying depths. Lengths of chain as thick as Vinye's breast stretched into the yawning chasm, carrying giant buckets the size of carriages, each one filled to the brim with ore and rock. The heat was incredible—Vinye guessed that whatever lay at the bottom of this hole was not unlike the vast furnace and the molten lake inside the Aetherium Forge.
The path was rough and rocky, not at all like the smooth-cut stone within the great hall, but here and there cobblestones were scattered along the path as it wound along the chasm. And to make matters worse, the two mages were not traversing this alone—or, for that matter, without retaliation. How the dwarven spheres currently blocking their path could maintain their balance on such precarious ground—while simultaneously fighting the two mages—was beyond Vinye; it was a testament to the engineering and the arcane genius of the Dwemer.
Unfortunately, she did not feel like appreciating it now.
One Aetherium-enhanced sphere went down to her lightning, finally, and the Altmer scattered the remains into the abyss with a growl. The other two spheres, meanwhile, raised their left arms, and Vinye instinctively created a ward to protect against whatever was coming. But she need not have worried: Grimnir—black mask and all—had charged forward with a roar, and whether because of this or some other sensory ability they possessed, something in the mechanized minds of the animunculi now treated him as a higher-priority target than Vinye.
"FUS!" bellowed the Arch-Mage. There was an explosion of sapphire-colored flame, and the spheres were knocked several feet away from Grimnir.
That was all he needed. In a graceful movement that Vinye would never have expected from her own race—never mind a Nord—the Arch-Mage was suddenly between both animunculi, with his ancient staff in his hands. That staff spun around his grip in a wide arc like he was wielding a blade—and before Vinye could blink, the lance of magicka sliced through the two automatons like they were nothing more than parchment. The sheer amount of power flowing from the staff overwhelmed the spheres, reducing them to piles of ash within seconds.
Vinye was awestruck. "What manner of staff is that?" she breathed. "Who did you have to kill for something like that?"
Grimnir slid his hand in front of his hidden face; when he removed it, the mask was an iridescent bluish-green instead of the ebony face from before—a rare form of moonstone, unless Vinye was horribly mistaken.
"The dragon priest who wore this mask," Grimnir replied, "along with several Thalmor whose ambitions got too big for their brains."
That threw Vinye for a loop. "What were the Thalmor doing in Winterhold?"
"It was before your time—and mine, I suppose," said the Nord with a huff. "It's a rather long story, and I don't know if this is the best time to tell it all. There could be more automatons coming any minute now."
And so they continued on their way down—but Vinye had not liked how Grimnir had said "before your time." Was that merely her being paranoid, or had the Dragonborn found out about the massacre in Falinesti somehow? She stared at the angular face; it was hard to decide if she preferred Grimnir wearing his dragon priest masks or not. The unmoving faces of the masks were more than a little unsettling to her, but Vinye had also seen the horror that lay beneath. She had a strange suspicion that Grimnir's scarred face and single blue eye could stare right into her mind.
"Look at that," Grimnir suddenly pointed out to Vinye. She followed his finger to the far wall, and saw several tunnels branching off into the unknown, like the caverns of an anthill. Vinye thought she could hear several explosions coming from deep within those tunnels.
"That's not natural," remarked the Arch-Mage. "Those were dug up—recently, too. I'd say Solyn is looking to expand his operations in Rkund."
"What exactly is this place?" Vinye wondered out loud. "My guess is that there's some kind of foundry below us, producing all that molten slag." She looked at the gigantic containers, still bound to their immense chains. "He's mining here, making more of that Dwemer metal," she guessed. "The material for that goes down below, to be forged into whatever he wants."
"It's not just the metal," Grimnir nodded, pointing at a bucket that was just rising up to meet them; Vinye was stunned to see a thick bluish-green liquid within it—it could only be molten Aetherium. "You saw those spheres. He's found more of that stuff, and no mistake. I'd like to know where he found so much Aetherium, though—and more to the point, how he found it. What's wrong?"
For Vinye had held up a hand to silence the Arch-Mage; there was a new sound that had just emerged amidst all the creaking of chains: a whirling, swishing sound—like a dozen of those dreaded thresher blades. It was coming from … below them?
Oh no.
"Wasps," she gasped in realization. Without even thinking, she took Grimnir by the arm and dashed off. "We've got to get out of here!"
"What wasps?" protested the Arch-Mage, trying to keep step behind her. "What are you talk—?"
Only at the last possible moment did Grimnir duck the lightning bolt that had apparently come from out of nowhere. He and Vinye turned to see three dwarven wasps rising up from the depths. Vinye felt her heart sink—even these had been given a healthy augmentation of Aetherium. The spinning blades that made up their wings were a whirling blur of blue and green, and a layer of the substance covered its back like armor from its head to its soul gem "stinger."
That soul gem, Vinye noticed, was a lot bigger than the gems she had seen on the wasps from before—the ones that could masquerade as light fixtures. Rather than a chip of some pinkish mineral, this appeared to be a whole crystal, ice-blue in color. It was a greater soul gem, Vinye realized, possibly even a grand soul gem. That could only mean trouble: in terms of enchanting, grand and greater souls offered more of a "charge" than lesser and petty souls.
The lead wasp now aimed its stinger right at them, and Vinye and Grimnir both erected a ward at the same moment as a shower of more lightning bombarded the sliver of a cliff on which they now stood. And to make matters worse, another swarm of wasps, just as big as the first one, swooped down from above to join their mechanical companions.
Now there were six wasps—and six stingers blasting lightning at them.
Vinye knew the withering assault would prevail over them eventually—and so she made a decision. "Cover me!" she yelled at Grimnir. Quickly downing a potion for her magic, she murmured an incantation, and slammed a hand on the rough rock wall behind her. There was a burst of violet flame, and a storm atronach burst forth, almost as if from the cliff face itself.
"Excellent!" Grimnir called out to her, and despite the heat of battle, Vinye felt a brief surge of pride at the compliment. "That'll soak up all their attacks—no amount of lightning can even touch a storm atronach!"
Two of the wasps were destroyed by Vinye's summons before Grimnir had even finished his sentence, their inner workings flying every which way before plummeting into the abyss with the rest of their remains. Vinye and Grimnir disabled a third with one blast of lightning each. The attacks hit the spider in both rotors, causing it to lose altitude rapidly; the wasp was lost from sight within seconds.
At that point, something shifted in the wasps' stance. The stingers rotated once with a clanking noise, and hefted them again. When they fired their next salvo, it was not three bolts of lightning, as Vinye had expected—but rather lightning, ice and fire magic, a continuous stream of each from one spider.
Damn it, Vinye thought with a growl. She overcharged her next attack deliberately, and fired at the closest wasp. Something screeched within the casing on impact, and the animunculus blew apart with a bang. Unfortunately, the next bang would be much less welcome; the torrent of fire and ice had proved too much for Vinye's atronach, and it quickly leapt off the edge at the wasps, perhaps sensing it was not much longer for Mundus. When it finally blew apart, the wasps were sent flying off-balance for several seconds, but they were not destroyed—or even disabled.
Vinye swore again at this.
"GOL!" Grimnir suddenly roared. A burst of golden haze rippled forth from the mouth of his mask, striking one wasp and barely missing the other. To Vinye's amazement—and the other wasp's as well—the automaton plummeted like a stone into the bottomless pit. The other wasp chased after its companion, but it did not get very far; one final blast from Grimnir's staff obliterated it completely.
Vinye stared at the abyss. "What did you do?" she asked. "What kind of Shout was that?"
Grimnir patted his robes, and straightened his multihued mask. "It's a bit hard to explain to someone who doesn't yet know the Way of the Voice," he said. "When you Shout, you force the world around you—whether it's just a single man, or a crowd … or, yes, even the whole of Mundus—to know what you are shouting. You can make its essence become reality by speaking the Rotmulaag associated with it—the Word of Power, as the dragons call it. That's how they breathe fire—the dragons need only speak the Rotmulaag that means 'fire'—yol—and fire appears.
"What you heard me Shout was gol, the dragons' word for 'earth,'" Grimnir went on. "You could say that I forced that automaton to know 'earth.' As a flying creature, the concept of 'earth' must surely have been anathema to its masters' design. It became confused, lost. Were it alive, I've no doubt that trying to comprehend that Shout would have driven it mad, and it would likely try to kill itself because of the insanity."
Vinye wasn't too sure she understood any of that. The Altmer made a mental note to look over every scrap of information that Urag and his Arcaneum had on the Voice—assuming she made it out of Rkund alive.
Grimnir, meanwhile, was not continuing downward; he was staying right where he was, apparently very deep in thought. "I don't suppose you have any idea where we are?" he asked.
Vinye thought for a moment, and realized she did not. They were well and truly lost. However … Vinye knew it wouldn't hurt to check. There were spells designed for this exact purpose, and even the lowliest novices of magic could learn to cast them. She closed her eyes, and began to concentrate.
In her mind's eye, she willed the image of the Reliquary to come forth from the depths of her thoughts: the three plinths, bearing the bas-reliefs of Kagrenac's Tools; the circular platform, the stifling heat that rose from it—
A thin tendril of blue mist extended from her, winding along the path ahead until it was lost to sight. But the clairvoyance spell was wavering; Vinye's thoughts were being disturbed. In her haste to cast the spell and get her bearings, Vinye had committed a big mistake. She had dove into her memories too quickly … too deeply.
She was a child again, now, tiny among the enormous trees of Valenwood even as they burned to ashes from the onslaught of mage-fire … People were screaming; men, women, and children were cut down and burned alive in the street, and faceless, soulless soldiers were pushed back by the few who tried to resist … Sickening sounds of teeth upon flesh and bone rent the air—
Stop, sniffled a voice in the elf's mind; she knew it to be her own, the innocent youngling she had been before her life had changed. Please stop …
Faces from the past and present flitted in front of her vision; her mother and father, members of the Synod, and the College of Whispers as well—the one remaining rational part of her brain dared not label those swindlers as "colleagues." Then there was Tolfdir, his wrinkled face kindly and reassuring, needlessly slaughtered in senseless retaliation; the hated golden visage of Dagoth Solyn; Taron Dreth, his face forever frozen in a ghastly leer by the Chimer's deadly magic—
And then—just as the spell would have faded to nothing—the round, tattooed face of Cosette Ionsaithe burst through it all, snarling like a rabid dog. Her eyes burned like lava—and suddenly, Vinye felt the clairvoyance spell becoming stronger once more.
That was it, she realized—that was what she needed to do. Don't worry about the Reliquary, and don't worry about anything else. Focus on them … on Cosette, on Malys! With newfound conviction, Vinye allowed the faces of her compatriots—her friends—to take the foremost spot in her mind. She felt the flames of Cosette's fury, burning since the treachery of Taron Dreth. She felt the coldness of the grave as the waxy, split face and burning eyes of Malys Aryon swam in her vision. Her skin boiled and froze at the same time as the spell sought out her targets.
And with one final effort of will, she finally felt their presence within Rkund! Both were faint—whether from distance or injury, Vinye could not tell. But for the moment, both were still alive. Now it was only a matter of following the trail.
"Come on!" Vinye called out to the Arch-Mage—there was no time to waste. "I think I know where to go!"
Grimnir followed behind her—Vinye barely noticed that his mask had now turned a bright green, almost like Alinor glass. She kept on casting her clairvoyance spell, maintaining the misty path ahead. Down, down, down they went—until, just when Vinye thought the path would take them to the very core of Mundus itself, the path took a hard left turn, and directed them into one of the tunnels that Grimnir had pointed out.
There was no light in this space, except from the pit behind them, and even the mage-light that Grimnir conjured with a snap of his fingers did little to pierce the gloom. "Laas … yah nir," he muttered again.
And then, without warning, he brandished his staff and sent yet another lance of blue-green magicka down the tunnel. There was a screech of metal on metal, followed by a massive explosion that shook the passageway. Vinye, fearing a cave-in, moved as if to flee the confined space, only to be rebuffed by Grimnir's stocky arm.
"No need to flee," the bright green mask said reassuringly. "That detection spell saved both our skins. There were several animunculi lying in wait further down. Spiders, from what I can tell by the remains," he added, "and … something else, too. Something bigger. Not a centurion—this tunnel's too small. But it was too big to be a sphere."
"What is it, then?" Vinye asked, feeling rather apprehensive about this unseen enemy.
Grimnir shrugged. "Whatever it was, I'd surmise it was the one that dug this tunnel," he said, "and all the others here too, I suspect." He turned back to the elf. "You're sure that clairvoyance spell sent you down this direction?"
Vinye nodded. "Why do you ask?"
Grimnir was holding up a hand to the eyeholes of his mask, and didn't sound too pleased. He fired off a second orb of bright white light, which traveled the distance of the tunnel, illuminating the rock walls as it passed by. Dimmer and dimmer it grew as it moved further away from the pair—
—until, quite suddenly, it stopped.
Vinye felt a sinking feeling in her breast. Solid rock.
" … Because it looks like we'll have to do some digging of our own," Grimnir sighed, confirming her worst fears as he hefted his ancient staff yet again. "This isn't going to be easy, and it isn't going to be quick, Vinye," he told her. "I have to concentrate completely on what I'm about to do here, else I could end up collapsing this whole entire tunnel. I need you to get behind me and make sure that those infernal machines don't try to trap us in here."
Vinye looked from the staff to the end of the tunnel; the mage-light had faded, and all beyond was inky blackness once more. "Are you sure you can accomplish all this with just that one staff?" she asked, somewhat skeptical; Grimnir's credibility as the Dragonborn could only stretch so far. The ornately carved staff certainly looked old, yes, and possessed a strange and ancient magic indeed. And yet …
And yet Grimnir was laughing. "You don't know what this is, do you?" he chuckled, as if he and Vinye were seated in some city tavern, discussing the matter over drinks. The Altmer shook her head.
Grimnir cleared his throat, roared a battle cry, and let fly at the end of the tunnel. The burst of magicka that poured forth from the glowing round tip was different this time; it was no longer a thin, precise lance, but a wide cone of burning energy that bored into the rock wall like some giant drill. The noise was deafening.
"My first day with the College," Grimnir called over the din, "led me to the ruins of Saarthal. We found something inside what little remained of that ancient city—an artifact of incalculable power. It radiated magicka in a way, shape and form that was unlike anything we had ever seen. Everyone at Winterhold was quick to call it the 'Eye of Magnus,' and by the time we delivered it back to the College, every scholar there was tripping over themselves to get a chance to study this incredible find. Except for one person."
There was a slight rumbling noise, and Grimnir relaxed his hold on the staff only a little. The cone of energy thinned slightly, but was no less intensely gouging at layer after layer of rock, burrowing deeper into the earth.
"A high elf by the name of Ancano—the Aldmeri Dominion's 'liaison to the College of Winterhold,' so he claimed—conspired to claim the power of the Eye for himself," Grimnir went on. "He destabilized the Eye, creating magickal disturbances throughout Winterhold and Skyrim. His meddling killed my predecessor, Savos Aren, along with his Master Wizard, Mirabelle Ervine."
Vinye felt a stab of shock—she recognized one of those names! Ancano was well known in the Isles, and was supposedly a personal favorite of the High Justiciar Celeralmo, whose word was considered both law and religion among all the Thalmor. She managed to conceal any emotion that might have betrayed her recognition, but the question still remained: What was Ancano doing in Winterhold, of all places?
"Fortunately, I had been doing my own research into the Eye at the same time as Ancano," said Grimnir. "I learned that there was a second artifact imbued with the same inexhaustible power as the Eye of Magnus—and therefore, the only object that could counter its destructive effects. This is that artifact."
Vinye, her interest piqued, turned back to look at what Grimnir was showing him, and realization hit her like the thick walls of Whiterun as she beheld the staff in his hand. How did I not notice the connection before?!
"The Staff of Magnus," she breathed. Vinye had heard more than her fair share of stories about this legendary artifact: how it had been created by the et'Ada Magnus—the god of magic himself, and the architect of all Mundus. The Synod Council in particular had coveted the staff; Vinye had remembered hearing rumors about such a powerful weapon in her time studying there. It had been said that the Staff of Magnus was the only object on Nirn capable of containing his divine power.
"I was able to recover the staff—at no small cost," Grimnir said. "I foiled Ancano's mad plans, and killed him for his trouble. The Eye of Magnus was sealed away by members of the Psijic Order before its effects became irreversible and even more destructive." Vinye did not immediately catch what he said next, owing to the fact that the Arch-Mage had lowered his voice to where he could not be immediately heard over the Staff of Magnus' continued efforts to drill into the rock.
But she thought it almost sounded like, "If only I had known what that bastard was really up to … "
A sudden noise from outside interrupted Vinye's thoughts, and she whirled around to the tunnel entrance to see a small patrol of spider machines—each modified with Aetherium components—scuttling towards her. "We've got company!" she hollered at Grimnir.
The Dragonborn did not even look back at her. "Stay on them!" he bellowed.
A single glimpse at those spiders told Vinye that they were capable of producing lightning like her own; sparks were already flying over their chassis, and the Aetherium gem that crowned each one was brimming with electricity as well. It was highly likely, therefore, that they would be very resistant, if not totally immune, to her attacks.
In spite of the long odds, the Altmer grinned—there was a simple answer to this.
In three short, methodical seconds, her storm atronach filled the tunnel completely, blocking the spiders from reaching Vinye and Grimnir. The spiders opened fire—and with an alarmingly large amount of lightning, Vinye thought; it was just as well she'd summoned that atronach to serve as a shield. But the bolts had no effect on the mass of sentient, electrified rock, and Vinye inwardly cheered.
My turn.
The atronach brought both of its rough fists together with a booming crack. A wave of electricity radiated out from its stone palms, and Vinye was pleased to see that the shockwave completely unseated the spiders, throwing them off balance. It was a shame they had not been knocked out of the tunnel completely—Vinye was now certain the Aetherium might have something to do with their resistance to lightning—but she could take what she could get.
"Stand aside," she commanded the atronach. Her summons obeyed her without question, and the Altmer wasted no time in charging a lightning bolt in one hand. Her first shot disabled the two spiders nearest her; they crumpled to the rocky surface in a heap of parts. Her next bolt sent the third spider flying right out of the tunnel and into the abyss below. If it touched bottom, Vinye never heard it.
She wiped her brow and took the time to drink a potion. It was likely something had seen that last spider fly out of the tunnel, and no doubt reinforcements were on the way—but it would take time to navigate the winding path they'd taken. "How are you doing back there?" Vinye called out to Grimnir.
Another rumbling sound, louder and longer this time, was the initial reply. "I think I might be breaking through here," Grimnir grunted. "I hope we do—I think this staff might be running dry very soon. See if any of those spiders had a soul gem I can use to provide a little more charge—I don't want to be caught with a depleted staff in this situation."
Vinye decided to leave the question of why the potential of an artifact of divine power would be limited by soul gems, of all things, alone for the time being. She and her atronach sifted through the parts, and it wasn't long before the two of them found a pinkish gem the size of a skooma bottle.
"It's not much," Vinye said when she presented this gem to the Dragonborn, "but it ought to be enough for us to break through—"
Vinye heard the dreaded sound of thresher blades getting closer and closer mere moments before a spear of ice blew her atronach apart.
Immediately, she created a ward to shield herself from the blast caused by her summons' swift departure. Without its bulk blocking her from the pit outside, Vinye had no trouble seeing the lone Aetherium-enhanced wasp descending through the air like some mechanized, malevolent vulture.
And Grimnir had still not finished breaking though to whatever lay on the other side.
She had nowhere to go.
The Dwarven wasp moved like lightning; a fireball blossomed from the soul gem on its "stinger", heading straight for Vinye like a fiery arrow. Quickly, the Altmer erected the strongest ward she could; she felt a sensation like a hot, smothering blanket passing over her body, and she involuntarily stepped backward several paces, but the ward had stopped the worst of the attack.
But the wasp was not done. Vinye had seen these hated automatons use both fire and frost, and now this one sprayed a shower of lightning down the passageway. Thin fingers of plasma arced straight for Vinye as she prepared another ward, but she knew this one would not do any good—
… Or would it?
Push … and pull.
Inwardly, Vinye grinned. That wasp had made a big mistake by forcing her into a corner like this.
Quickly drinking another potion to restore some of her lost magicka, Vinye altered her stance, twisting her ward hand and arm at the wrist. The edges ward began to flicker, and then to flow inward, pulling the wasp's lightning in with it, and slowly restoring Vinye's reserves even further.
Suddenly, there was a third rumbling noise, followed by a terrible racket directly behind her. Vinye's heart rose as she felt a cool breeze against her back—she didn't need to hear the Arch-Mage's shouts to know that Grimnir had finally broken through!
"Come on!" Grimnir was hollering. "Forget the wasp and let's go!"
Vinye managed to tear her eyes away from the hovering animunculus before sprinting away with Grimnir. But the noise of swirling blades still echoed in her ears—the wasp was pursuing!
She bulled past Grimnir without even knowing that the Dragonborn had stopped, without even knowing that she was out of the ridiculously confining tunnel. A few seconds later, though, her senses had caught up to her, and she turned around to see what the Arch-Mage was doing.
It was not hard to guess. "Yol … Toor SHUL!" thundered the Dragonborn, and a massive blast of fire erupted from the mouth of whatever carved mask he was currently wearing. The flaming missile rocketed down the tunnel—too fast for the wasp to turn tail and fly back the way it had come—the tunnel had proved to be the architect of its final mistake.
There was a massive explosion as automaton met missile, and the hot wind blew through the tunnel exit was all that remained of the Aetherium wasp. But Vinye's relief was short-lived: Grimnir's tunnel was never meant to last for very long; there was no shoring, no heavy wooden beams to reinforce it. And his fireball only made it end sooner.
Rocks fell from the ceiling of the excavation, filling the hole completely in less time than it took to draw breath.
For a full five seconds, Vinye did not breathe. Slowly, she turned to Grimnir, white in the face as a horrible realization sank in, and whispered,
"Do you realize that that was our only method of escape?"
Grimnir apparently had not—though the way he was looking at the now caved-in passage suggested that he might have been entertaining a second thought about what he'd just done.
"Hmm," was his only reply.
That only made Vinye madder. "We're well and truly trapped in here now, thanks to you!" she screamed. "Solyn kept us from going forward into Rkund—and you just kept us from going back into Skyrim! Did you even think about what you were doing?!"
Grimnir did not move a muscle. "Hmm," he said again.
Vinye felt the beginnings of panic begin to set in amidst her rage at the Arch-Mage's blunder. "We'd better hope Cosette and Malys make it through on their end," she hissed at Grimnir—toying at Kinsbane with a finger as she did so. "Because if they don't, then I'm going to—to … "
Vinye had turned her back on Grimnir in the midst of her tirade, and in doing so had gotten a glimpse of where exactly they were right now. For several seconds, her mouth moved soundlessly, though a strangled choking noise escaped her throat every now and then.
And then, in the span of a single moment, her anger at Grimnir had evaporated.
One moment later, Vinye was laughing. She knew where this place was—she recognized the greenish-blue light of this immense, natural cavern. She recognized the giant mushrooms, each one the size of a great oak tree—and most of all, she recognized the same set of Dwarven ruins here that she had once called a church in passing.
They were much closer to Solyn now than ever.
"I don't believe it," Vinye croaked through the titters and tears that had been caused by the absurdity of it all.
Suddenly her legs were carrying her forward. "Come on!" she called back to Grimnir. "Maybe Cosette and Malys made it through, too. We can wait for them up by—"
Vinye's offer of a resting place died on her lips as yet another rumbling noise began to invade her senses. The Altmer jerked her head upwards so fast that she cricked her neck, so worried was she of another cave-in. But the ceiling of the huge cavern remained undisturbed—whatever it was, it wasn't coming from the cavern.
In fact, thought Vinye, confusion mounting rapidly, these rumbling noises sounded less like the earth trembling … and more like something exploding. And what was more, it seemed to be coming from … right behind them?
Vinye and Grimnir turned in unison to the great golden door that opened into the cave just as a massive BANG forced the doors open, nearly tearing them off their hinges. A plume of black smoke poured into the cave, and both the Altmer and the Dragonborn were coughing within seconds.
Because of this, it was only after several long moments of wheezing and hacking that Vinye felt well enough to open her watering eyes and see just who or what had made that noise.
Then, out of the cloud of thick smoke, stumbled Cosette Ionsaithe.
She was in a bad way: her robes were torn and blackened in a dozen different places, and the Breton sported several shiny burns on the skin Vinye could see. The noise and force of whatever had exploded behind her had also sent the Breton into shock. She tottered forward unsteadily; the way she was walking looked as though at least one leg had been badly injured—but as the smoke cleared, it became clear that Cosette wasn't limping, but was merely trying to haul a loose pile of bloody, oily black rags that looked bigger than she was.
And then Vinye blinked, and saw the scene clearly through untainted eyes, and gasped—that pile of bloody rags was Malys Aryon.
"Sorry to … take so long," Cosette mumbled, still clutching the unconscious vampire with one arm. Her eyes looked glassy and unfocused. "Ran into … some old friends. I'm … not so bad … as I was … "
Then, like any reasonable mage who'd just been through hell and back, she fainted face-first onto the cobblestones.