The Voice

It had to be said: when it came to settling one's nerves, there was simply no equivalent to auspiciously vintaged ethyl alcohol. The intolerably suffocating gloom of the ancient escape route of Pelagius the Bat-shit Kook-a-Nut, Potema the Wolf Cunt, Wulfharth the Blunderking, or whoever the hell it had been in whose honor this god-buggering extrication tunnel had been built, was presently no match for Quintus' newfound surge of bravado. Not even the presence of the Queen of Dankness walking ahead of him was having much of an effect this time around. A ghostly blue ball of light hovered above her right shoulder: the magelight she used in place of a torch to illuminate the way.

"I truly hope this is the last time I have to take this route," Quintus said.

"Most only have to come this way once," replied Stentor.

Despite his liquid safeguard, Quintus felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up at the frozen tone of the Court Wizard's voice. Refusing to be unsettled, he shook it off. "One way out, then" he muttered, for lack of anything more apposite.

"Or in," Stentor said, almost as an afterthought. She came to a stop and turned to tug the candleholder-lever.

The panel door rumbled open. Without waiting for an invitation, Quintus brushed past the vile witch and strode down the stairs. A wave of nausea swept through him as the repugnant odor again rushed to greet him. At the bottom of the stairs, another wave nearly knocked him off his feet: this one beyond simple queasiness, feeling rather like some inimical force trying to dislocate his brain. His vision swam and sparkling spots danced in front of his eyes. He had to bow his head down and draw some deep, settling breaths.

Quintus had more to drink than he'd realized. And certainly more than he'd intended to.

Once he felt more or less regular again, he picked up his head to find Sybille standing beside him, the feigned concern sitting poorly on a face so utterly dominated by amusement. "Are you alright?" she asked, in her voice the faint quiver of glee.

"What's it to you," snapped Quintus. Collecting himself to the best of his ability, he straightened his back and marched down the passage between the columns of cells.

At the furthermost cell, the failed liberator of Skyrim, Ulfric Stormcloak, was just as they'd left him. The tatty, withered shade of a man shackled on the wall was the fleshly counterpart of an ugly repressed memory, reduced to a mere skeleton of amorphous anguish after long years of subduing. The wraith's sunken chest rose and fell only minimally, and he showed no sign of taking notice of their arrival. Sybille unlocked the barred door and stepped in first.

"Are you worried he will escape?" Quintus asked wryly as he followed the woman.

Stentor replied with nothing but a quick glance seeming to say, "You know nothing, fool".

Insolent bitch!

"Ulfric," said Sybille as she switched her attention to the man sagging inert. "We have returned. This is it, now. Here's your chance to impress us." In her voice, the imperious gentleness of a mother interweaved with the subtle condescension of a teacher who despised her student.

It was a good long while before Ulfric responded. Then his whole body spasmed, and suddenly his strangely alert, if entirely mad, eyes studied the two people in front of him. Same as earlier, Quintus was struck with the impression of a proud king in receipt of uninvited supplicants.

"That's it," Stentor said. "Join us here in the real world for a while."

The Stormcloak's blue eyes slowly lid to the Court Wizard. An odd spasm jerked his body, and only after a second did it occur to Quintus that it might have been a scornful grunt. When the eyes moved back to him, the shrunken features surrounding them became strangely animated. Ulfric's cracked, wilted lips twitched at first, then parted in the most unsightly of grins. Most of his teeth were missing, and those left were black as soot.

It was only through the most strenuous of efforts that Quintus managed to keep his features impassive in the face of the grating noise that escaped that mouth: like rusty nails scratching iron. At that moment, any trace of drunkenness seemed to abandon him, and he suddenly felt everything around him in disquieting lucidity. Ulfric Stormcloak was laughing. It was the most vicious sound Quintus could remember ever hearing. An uncontrollable shiver clawed at his spine.

Sybille Stentor turned to face him, smiling. "Our Ulfric has an uncanny sense of humor."

Quintus could reply with nothing but an aghast stare. Despite being unsettled, he felt scathing hatred flare inside of him.

Once the wheezing, gritting sound bearing only a distant resemblance to human laugher ceased, the prisoner's eyes were still fixed on Quintus. It was as if some unnatural source kept that terrible blue fire burning in them. The mouth opened again, but this time only a soft, foul-smelling breeze passed out through it.

Sybille, as if by a prearranged signal, took a step toward the husk of a man, cocked her head and pressed her ear close to that unsightly mouth. The Stormcloak spoke.

Stentor nodded, then turned to Quintus. "He says, 'the one who speaks has brought you to me'."

Quintus frowned. What was that supposed to mean? He cleared his throat to expulse any trace of disquiet from his voice. "Yes, well, Sybille does speak. More's the pity."

Without visible reaction, Ulfric spoke again.

"'She will provide you with what you've been searching for,'" Sybille translated.

"She will?" Quintus said peevishly. "Or you will?" It felt far from natural to be having a conversation with this . . . thing.

"'All questions shall have their answer,'" Ulfric replied through Stentor. He gave another grin.

Something once more flared within Quintus. If there was one thing he simply could not stand, it was people talking in circles, wasting his time in affected preamble. Just like that, he felt like his true self again, the trepidation shying in front of his natural arrogance. "My only questions," he said condescendingly, "pertain to the identity of the murderer of Titus II. Now, I'm told you know something of this. If so, I urge you to speak your piece and spare me any unnecessary balderdash. My time, unfortunately, is finite."

Ulric regarded him for a while, an undecipherable emotion dancing in his eyes. Then he spoke again.

"'Your time is indeed finite. More so than you can imagine.'" Another chuckle.

"Please," said Quintus, rolling his eyes. "Get to the point. Did you order the assassination of the Emperor?" Quintus already knew the answer to that.

Silence. "'No,'"

"Were you, then, aware of the identity of the killer at the time of your final incarceration?"

Whispers. "'I was not.'"

"Then," Quintus fanned out his arms, frustrated, "Why've I come? This is nothing but a waste of my time."

Ulfric studied the Chief Inspector for another full moment before he spoke again. "'I know more than you can guess . . .'" He paused, then mouthed two syllables in such a disdainful manner that Quintus didn't even need Sybille's precise imitation. "Quin-tus!" the Court Wizard spat, then grinned.

Quintus, once again, refused to be bullied. "What do you know, then?" he demanded.

The Stormcloak looked to be thinking. "'I know this is your last chance. That you need this."

Quintus waved a hand. "That's a no-brainer!"

"'You hunger for this. More than you will ever admit.'"

Quintus rolled his eyes.

Ulfric's unnaturally blue eyes held a nasty twinkle. "'Turns out the bottle and perversions can only go so far in satisfying a man.'"

That one gave Quintus a brief pause. But then he guessed that Stentor had been talking to Ulfric about him. He shot the woman a livid glare, then started to think up a scornful enough reply.

Ulric seemed again to be contemplating, his eyes going dull. Then they lit up again. He whispered through curved up lips. "'The way he looks at you,'" Sybille interpreted in a slow and deliberate manner. "'The fear and the helplessness in his young, dark eyes. That's almost like absolute power, isn't it? Only . . . not … quite." The Stormcloak smiled in earnest.

Anger flared again. "I will not stand here listening to defamations!" Even as the words left his lips, Quintus knew they only served to make him appear weak. He cursed inside. He could have just reached out and wringed that withered neck, snapped it like a dry twig. And simultaneously, he felt another stir of emotion underneath it all. Dread.

Looking satisfied, Ulfric took as deep a breath as he was able. His eyes rolled back into his head. "'The whispers in the wind,'" he spoke through Sybille, "'tell me all I need to know. And more.'" He paused. The eyes rolled back down and fixed into Quintus with disconcerting intensity. "'The storm will rise. The True Storm. It shall be my liberation.'" Then the gaze unfocused again, and Ulfric's body was claimed by shakes which might or might not have been silent laugher.

Then he seemed to become unresponsive again, and Quintus gave Sybille a cross look. "What's this gobbledygook about storms?" He was doing his best to sweep aside the discomfort that the Stormcloak's words and those penetrating eyes had caused.

The Court Wizard considered Ulfric with a smile strewn across her thin lips. "I believe it's clear he lost his mind a long time ago."

Quintus frowned at the outlandish woman. "You seem to take pleasure in that fact."

Sybille then turned her gaze to meet his, and Quintus felt a terrible cold settle down in his stomach. "Oh, I'm sure you don't even want to know about the sorts of things I take pleasure in."

Quintus was utterly robbed of a reply, and was forced to avert the woman's gleeful and malicious scrutiny.

"It's nothing new, at any rate," she continued, facing the Stormcloak. "They say he was already obsessing about storms back in the day. Seemed to have taken a particular shine to the metaphor. Renamed himself after it and all. Would call himself the herald of the liberating storm or some such nonsense. Chances are, he'd gone soft in the head already."

"You've brought me all the way here just to listen to the inchoate ravings of a madman?" Quintus hissed in frustration.

Sybille slanted him a curious sideways look. "I recommend you ask him something more."

After a long, hard stare at the Court Wizard, Quintus sniffed, nodding. "Right, then." He rounded on the Stormcloak, shucking the residue of apprehension off his shoulders. "Alright. Listen to me, you old lunatic."

"I wouldn't—" Stentor tried.

Quintus waved her silent. "I didn't travel all the way here just so you could listen to your insane jabbering about the wind and the rain and whatnot. Now, do you or do you not have anything to offer me besides the weather forecast?"

Ulfric picked his head up and eyed Quintus: curiously but without visible consternation, as if Quintus' words hadn't had any effect. Then the light in his eyes grew suddenly dim, and his head sagged. He was immobile again, without a trace of whatever had animated him.

Waiting for a few moments for any further sign of life from the defeated rebel leader and finding none, Quintus threw up his hands in chagrin.

"Told you," said Stentor. Quintus scowled at her, and she smiled. "Tried to, at any rate."

Quintus sighed, motioning at the once more inert prisoner. "What now?"

"Now?" Sybille shrugged. "We wait."

"Wait!" barked Quintus. "I've no time to—"

Suddenly, something happened to the Stormcloak. His entire body started to tremble; he arched his spine against the wall, his eyes again rolling to the back of his head. His frayed features convulsed in what appeared to be tremendous agony.

Quintus scrunched up his brow. "What's going on?"

"Beats me," said Stentor.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the seizure passed, and the prisoner sagged against his restraints. It felt as if a dreadful silence descended in the cell. Quintus thought he could hear his own heartbeats. Felt them, in any case. "What—" he started.

And was stopped short as Ulfric's head popped up with unnatural agility. The blue fire in his eyes was burning brighter than ever. Yet despite that they regarded Quintus and Sybille alertly, the eyes held an oddly vacant quality. The prisoner the opened his mouth. The Court Wizard leaned closer, but Ulfric's head jerked violently in her direction, and she withdrew.

Ulfric fixed his icy stare onto Quintus. When he spoke his mouth opened wide, permitting a view of the scarred, darkened nub of his tongue wagging ineffectively near the black gorge of his throat.

"Aah-ooh-EEH," the Stormcloak pronounced in his grating voice. He kept his eyes on Quintus, who was struggling against the chills dancing along his spine.

Taking the silence as her clue, Stentor looked at the Chief Inspector. "Alduin," she said.

Quintus cocked a brow. "Alduin?"

"Alduin was the—"

Quintus waved petulantly. "I know who he was. Or was supposed to have been. I'm in no need of a lecture in mythology, thank you very much."

Alduin, the World-Eater, herald of the end times, who according to the myth was cast forward in time with the power of an Elder Scroll—or some nonsense to that effect—and whose reappearance some fools still looked for. A giant black dragon, as it happened.

Quintus thought of the rumors that circled about the attack on Helgen; how the Stormcloaks' propaganda had been milking that particular superstition with abandon. Clearly he was still entranced by his old ideological beliefs.

Ulfric spoke again, and Stentor translated, "Alduin, he was thwarted." Pause. "And with that was the end of this word deferred." Pause. Ulfric revealed the last of his blackened teeth. "But not for long."

Blinking, Quintus said nothing. He gritted his molars and waited.

"The Storm," Sybille interpreted the prisoner's rasping. "The True Storm will come."

Quintus closed his eyes. "Not this again," he groused. "Look, won't you just shut up about—"

Ulfric's voice grew in fervency, cutting Quintus off. "WEH QWEEH!"

Quintus shoot Stentor an inquiring look.

"The Queen," the Court Wizard said.

"WEH QWEEH WEEH WEYEH!"

"The Queen will rise."

"I take it you're not talking about Elisif here?" Quintus said with all the sarcasm he could muster.

Ulfric kept speaking. "'The Queen of Terror,'" Sybille translated. "'All will bow before her!'"

"No," said Quintus. "Unlikely we're talking Elisif here."

"'The Voice,'" Sybille said after Ulfric's feverish, vowel-dominated speech. "'The Voice will compel.'" Ulric paused between every sentence, as if speaking demanded a tremendous effort on his part. Likely it did, as well. "'The voice will command.'" Pause. "'The voice will CONSUME!'"

The terrible sound of this human wreck's voice was definitely consuming something inside Quintus. He swabbed cold beads off his brow and cast Ulfric the most supercilious look currently at his disposal. "And this Queen," he said, the iciness in his voice just about concealing the cold sensation that had been steadily, and quite inadvertently, growing inside him "I trust she will have some reward for you. Because you are doing her bidding, I presume?" He'd talked to enough madmen in his life to have a fairly good grasp on the structure and thematic of their delusional fantasies. He shrugged searchingly. "What would that make you? A king, I would suppose." He flashed Ulfric his slyest, most predacious grin. "The King of Skyrim, perhaps?"

His heart be damned, why was it beating so fast!

Ulfric regarded Quintus with no sign of agitation over his taunting. He cocked his head, smiling an eldritch little smile, and spoke.

"'She will find good uses for you, as well,'" Sybille translated. "'She'll render you a more sumptuous reward than you could ever dream of. Everything you've ever wanted—and more! All you need is to carry out her will. Which you will.'"

"Uh-huh," said Quintus. "And her will would be . . .?"

"'She will point you after a lead. Follow it.'"

Quintus look around in mockery, then shrugged. "I'm not seeing it."

The Stormcloak only smiled. "'You will get your name. A severed head if you so wish. You will have something to take to the Emperor. Precisely what he wants.'" The ghastly grin got wider. "'And more!'"

Just then, right after he'd uttered those last zealous syllables, with that horror of a leer strewn across his abnormally animated, deathly features, all life seemed to abandon Ulfric Stormcloak. He went utterly limp, sagging against his restraints like the corpse he resembled.

For a second, Quintus wondered if the man had died, but detected then the nearly imperceptible sway of breath going in and out. He gave Stentor an inquiring look, receiving a minute, unconcerned shrug.

A few more seconds passed, and Quintus was just about to utter something, anything, to slough off the pressing silence, when Ulric again stirred. The skull appearing so enormous atop his withered stick of a neck, raised ever so slightly. The Stormcloak slanted a weak eye toward Stentor, who leaned close. Ulfric whispered.

Stentor nodded, turned to Quintus. "The Vigilants," she said.

Quintus frowned. "The Vigilants?"

"The Vigilants of Sten—"

"Yes, thank you. I'm familiar with the Vigilants of Stendarr. But what do they have to do with all of this?"

Seeming to be more or less at the end of his rope, Ulfric whispered one more thing into the Court Wizard's ear. Then his head fell again, and he remained motionless.

Sybille Stentor straightened and gave Quintus a sober look. "He said, 'go to them'"."

"That's it?"

Sybille nodded.

Quintus scowled. "Damn!" he spat.

Stentor arched an eyebrow. "Seems fairly straightforward to me."

"What could I possibly benefit from going to the bloody Vigilants of Stendarr?"

"Seems like something you should find out," Stentor said blithely.

Quintus replied with his sourest scowl. Great, he thought. Just what I needed: more fanatical lunatics.

He waved his hand angrily at the passed out Stormcloak, shooting Stentor a venomous glare. "All this!" he hissed. "This has been nothing but a waste of my time!"

Stentor's eyes went wide from surprise. She opened her mouth to respond.

"The Queen!" Quintus fumed on. "What fucking Queen? The man's utterly and completely out of his mind! And who can blame him." He jabbed an angry finger at Sybille. "You did this to him! You … you …."You abominable, despicable, abhorrent demon-whore from the deepest, vilest, darkest shit-furnace of the lowest, foulest depths of the Void? He waved his hand in frustration. "Ah! I can't even think of a bad enough appellation to pin on you!"

If this sudden outburst was upsetting the Court Wizard, she concealed it like an old hand. She tilted her head ever so slightly, smiling innocently enough of to put any little girl to shame. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Isn't this precisely what you were looking for? You've been pointed after a lead, I'd expect you to be happy."

Quintus could do nothing but stare at the beaming witch. He was entirely overcome by powerless rage, which was still a step up from a more elemental emotion lurking in the back of his mind: pure old fashioned, unadulterated helplessness. Finally, he heaved a frustrated groan accompanied by a wave of hand. "Let's get out of here! I can't even think in this gods-forsaken stench!"

"As you wish," replied Stentor.

And so they left the reeking dungeon, leaving Ulfric Stormcloak hanging lifeless in his grubby little cell. And Quintus, for one, could have cared less about the repugnant wraith. His mind was suddenly left with a lot to process. Foremost, he felt as if the bottom of his gut had fallen out and revealed that underneath was the bottomless abyss of his ultimate failure, his final defeat by the Nightingale, or whoever the hell it had been that had murdered the Emperor. He simply could not see it: how this babbling maniac of a vanquished rebel leader could possibly possess genuine beneficial information.

He'd feared this all along. And it now seemed that his qualms had proven themselves warranted.

The Vigilants of Stendarr! There simply was no bloody way that the Stormcloak would have had any significant connection with them. Fact was that the obnoxious order of religious fanatics had suffered sudden massive losses right around Ulfric's "death", and had later resurfaced somewhat transformed. It was not the same organization that it had once been, which in turn meant that no one in its current incarnation had with one hundred per cent certainly ever been in contact with Ulfric. Clearly it had all been a part of the delusional alternative reality the insane man had created for himself.

Quintus cursed himself. How could he have let himself be such a fool?

And yet . . .

He suppressed a shiver, remembering the way that the Stormcloak had looked at him when alluding to Colin…. Despite everything, at that point there had been knowing in those eyes. And not the sort of knowing that comes from hearing and retaining information, from processing secondhand rumors. No, the kind of knowing Quintus was thinking about was the kind born from seeing; from looking into a man's eyes and reading into his very soul. Into the secret movements beneath his brow, the secrets and hidden desires—

Foolishness! Quintus shook his head. He was letting the man's obvious madness get to him. He'd need to find his bearings again. He'd need some fresh air, first and foremost, get out of this suffocating tunnel. He'd need a drink, a stiff one at that. A good, respectable vintage.

He would need Colin—

"What do you make of all this?" he heard himself say. Only a second after, did he realized that it was probably safest to engage with the outside world right now, before his mind got the better of him. For this, even Sybille would do. Besides, he couldn't totally brush off the remote chance there was something worth gleaning in the madman's twisted fancies.

Stentor turned her cowled head back, her face ensconced in darkness. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Quintus snapped tiredly. "Who else?"

He couldn't see it, but could hear the accursed sorceress' smile. "I think he likes you," she said.

"Did you know about it?" he asked, trying to ignore Sybille's mirth.

"About what?"

"Dammit woman, stop being obtuse! About the Vigilants. Did you know he would bring them up?"

Sybille stopped short. Over her shoulder, she gave the Chief Inspector a slow regard in the unnatural blue magelight. "I did not." She then turned around fully, blotting out the light altogether.

The imposing dark shape towering over him in the closed black passage filled with strangling silence chilled Quintus down to his marrow. Suddenly, he was again the trapped lamb in the clutches of a hungry wolf. He fought hard the urge to shy away from the woman, and thus reveal to her just how deeply unnerving he found her presence.

"Tell you the truth," said the shadowy figure evenly, the voice gaining in sharpness and immediacy with the hush pressing all around it, "I'm surprised you ask me of this. Me, of all people."

Quintus swallowed. "I—"

"After all," Sybille continued, "I am an abhorrent . . . monster, am I not?"

A cold sweat broke on his brow, and he felt as if every drop was of the last piece of pride leaving him. But still Quintus refused to be overwhelmed. He opened his mouth to reply, and his voice came out as a hoarse half-whisper "I honestly don't know what you are."

Stentor replied by letting the silence grow between them. Quintus tensed, anticipating for the witch to launch at him at any moment. To punch her hand right through his chest and rip out his still beating heart.

But that did not happen. Instead, the Court Wizard spun and continued to scale the crammed steps. "I'm only teasing you," she said, her voice profoundly amused. "You make it exceedingly easy, you know . . ." In the blue glow of the magelight, Quintus saw a flash of immaculate teeth as the sorceress looked over her shoulder. "Quin-tus!" she hissed.

Quintus scowled, and it was as much a result of infuriation as it was of preconscious terror. He was out of his element here and so susceptible to the woman's little games, her gleeful manipulations. This filled him with frustrated fury. I'm going to get you for this, he thought with venomous vindictiveness, make no mistake! As though in reply to his thoughts, the softest sound of chuckling sounded from up ahead. You laugh it up. While you can.

Not one second too soon, they re-emerged into Elisif's bedroom. Quintus took in a reflexive lungful of the blessedly non-stale air. The cloying pong of the High Queen's perfumes may not have in itself much appealed to his tastes, but compared to the air of mildew, blood, and excretions, it was as welcome as the breath of a vernal mountain breeze.

In silence, they walked back to the throne room, where Falk Firebeard was presently standing very close to the High Queen. The man seemed to have Elisif's attentive ear as he spoke in hushed, serious tones. Upon catching the sight of Quintus, however, Elisif sharply switched her attention to the Chief Inspector. The steward, following her eyes, pulled back as he saw him there and withdrew to his usual place at the sidelines.

"Chief Inspector," said Elisif. "Have you concluded your business with the prisoner?"

Quintus stopped at the edge of the red carpet without setting foot on it. He studied the High Queen for a moment, trying to detect derision in her deportment, found it immediately, then struggled to restrain his frown. "It would certainly seem that way," he said drily.

"And did you find out everything you wished to learn?" Elisif seemed to be beaming bounteous goodwill. Quintus thought he'd never witnessed such a toxic display of contempt in his life.

He worked his mouth. "Hardly, your Highness," he replied with a tight smile. "It appears as though I'm about to take a little trip to the countryside." He hadn't even realized he'd come upon that decision. Something about the way the High Queen looked at him that seemed to make his mind all up for him.

Elisif raised an eyebrow. "Truly? Ah, now isn't that lovely! You will find the nature at its most charming at this time of year. The colors, at places, are quite spectacular!"

You mean the white and the gray? "I'm sure that they are."

"Now, don't you worry," said the High Queen empathetically. "I will provide you with any assistance you may need. A suitable convoy to ensure your safety. These are, after all, dangerous times."

Quintus smiled, feeling his eyes grow hard and cold. "As are all times."

"How soon are you planning to embark? Today still?"

"No, I think not. I shall spend the remainder of the day resting. Taking it all in, so to speak." Quintus marked the High Queen with a resolute look. "I'll leave first thing in the morning."

Elisif nodded. "And I, for one, will speak with General Rikke and make sure she will make the suitable arrangements before then."

Quintus gave a gracious, and entirely vindictive, bow. "Most kind, Highness."

Elisif threw his belligerent intention right back at him, her chosen weapon a most beatific smile. "Yes," she said sweetly. "Now, I must require a period of rest as well. If there's something else you need, please don't hesitate to send the word. I can only hope our modest wares can provide for your . . . demanding tastes. If not, beg forgive us humble provincials!"

At this, equipped with that lovely venomous smile of hers, she stood up, smoothed the front of her long elegant skirts, and started making her way to the chambers from whence Quintus had just emerged. Saying nothing, he gave a bow so miniscule as to be a mere nod, then, his mind full of curses and insults most odious, retreated. He rushed down the stairs, gnashing his teeth and muttering out loud some of the incendiary words weighing heavy on his mind.

"Quintus."

He stopped short at the sound of his name, looked back and saw the Court Wizard smirking down at him at the top of the winding staircase. Her long, bloodless fingers curled around the balustrade like the talons of a perched vulture. "If I don't see you again before you leave—please, do be careful." She made room for a significant stretch of silence, then added in a simple and frostily quiet tone, "It does get awfully dark out there these days."

Before Quintus could even think of a reply, the shadowy figure was gone.

Stifling one more shiver, he heaved a long, tattered sigh. His eyes flicked to the two guards standing at the bottom of the stairs, and thought he could read discomfort in their impassive faces. Or perhaps he was merely projecting.

Mumbling another curse, he swung round and stormed out into the autumnal late afternoon. The naked sunlight smarted his eyes, and he found himself with a strange yearning for the deep shades that had claimed the street in the morning. After the time spent in the dark cellar, he felt almost as if the darkness had rubbed off on him, left in him a peculiar fascination for its silent promise of horrors.

Shaking his head, he further hurried his steps. He'd need to get back indoors. He'd need a drink. He'd need to do something to the blasted dull ache about his loins, which, despite all the dread and abhorrence, had been growing, steadily and insistently.

Half running, he headed toward the Emperor's Tower, hoping not to run into anyone on his way.

Today, he would recover, recreate, and reflect.

Tomorrow, he'd travel to face more obsessed, moonstruck lunatics.

After that, who knew?