Chapter 38: The Fate of the Eye

Gergio had needed to wander for some time before he came to a town that he'd formerly saved from a dragon attack; a spot named Dawnstar. He'd left the town without taking much reward from them, and without helping with the damages that the dragon had caused, so most felt pretty ambivalent about him, but some were eager to give him advice on where to look for information.

"If anybody knows where to find an Elder Scroll, it'll be the college at Winterhold." he'd heard at least three people say to him in reply to his questioning, so pretty soon, he'd started off in that direction. However, he never expected to see what he saw there that day.

As soon as the dragonborn came within sight of the college, he could see that there was something surrounding it. It looked almost like a tornado made of ice, except that it was rounded, and covered the top of the college like a dome. Then, he heard a sound far overhead, and looking up, saw that three figures were soaring freely through the air in the direction of the college.

When Gergio saw that, he once again got the impression that he was late for something very important, and sped up, running around the perimeter of mountains and leaping towards the college with incredible speed, but he was sure, even so, that he would arrive later than those three, flying figures.

At last, Katie and her friends had reached the last large chamber in Labyrinthian, and as soon as they'd realized that their enemy was a lich, who was standing behind a protective barrier, being maintained by two more ghosts, the dragonslayer pulled out her many-colored bottle and looked to the others worriedly.

"I've met ghosts who could be beat with mere, physical force," she said, "but I've also met ghosts who couldn't be. One of the potions listed in my composite recipe was supposed to be for combat with ghosts, but that's the one that failed, unfortunately. Can you fight ghosts, Tolfdir?"

"If my magic holds out, then yes." he replied.

The plan, after that, was to have Tolfdir take out the ghosts protecting the lich, and for Katie and Lydia to get hold of it somehow. If it started struggling, or summoned more creatures to attack them, or if it incapacitated one of them, the other would need to do the rest of the job.

As it turned out, Tolfdir did well against the ghosts, defeating both in short order, though each had magic of their own, and the lich did indeed have a summoning spell at the ready; a monster made of rock, which got in Katie's way. Still, she was able to keep it occupied while Lydia squeezed around here and cut the lich's undead throat.

Among the remains of the lich, there were several potions and a couple of new ingredients, which Katie might have used to have another try at her last potion, if she'd only had more time. However, most importantly, it had dropped something else on the stones when it fell.

"The Staff of Magnus!" Tolfdir had exclaimed, running up to take it from the floor where it lay, Then, spotting a passage at the back of the cavern, he'd motioned for the others to follow him, and actually floated through the air to cross a large gap in the floor and reach the passage, which had been on the other side, so each of them followed, using their own levitation rings.

Beyond that, there's been a secret passage, and beyond that, an exit out of the dungeon, but Tolfdir didn't say a word until they were back outside and soaring back towards Winterhold again.

"The enchantments on this staff are strange." the old wizard noted, "They seem to drain away life, magic and energy all at once, but I don't see how this will help us. Perhaps draining magic will stop the eye, and that might help, but if so, why hasn't anyone else tried this yet?"

"Maybe there's more to it." Katie suggested, and sure enough, as they flew, Tolfdir did seem to have found something else.

"Some of the studs on the handle can be pushed inward," he said, "and there are markings next to each. One is marked with a single dot, the second with two, the third with three, and the last one with no dots."

"Settings, maybe?" Katie asked hopefully, "Degrees of power?"

"Maybe." Tolfdir had replied. Still, he didn't look convinced, and Katie had to admit that although he hadn't, at first, seen through the deception of the ghosts in Labyrinthian, Tolfdir did at least seem to know more about enchanted artifacts than she did. He'd continued to study the staff until they came within sight of Winterhold, and a look of anger finally began to spread across his face.

The wind-shield that Ancano had been using to protect himself from attack had grown larger in their absence, until it covered the entire college, and neither Katie nor Ancano knew what to think about it. Had it grown suddenly, enveloping and trapping innocent people? Would they be able to defeat Ancano, but powerless to stop the Eye? Their thoughts were dark, as one by one, they landed on the bridge just outside the wind-shield, with Tolfdir still clutching the staff tightly in one hand, looking up grimly at the college where, Katie thought, he'd probably learned his own early lessons in magic.

However, as Katie saw Tolfdir standing there on the bridge with the Staff of Magnus in one hand, a change seemed to have come over him, more extreme even than the change she'd seen in Labyrinthian, when he'd been wreathed in flame. His calm expression had taken on a look of grave severity unlike anything she'd ever expected to see from Tolfdir, and in a moment, without a word to any of the others, he pressed one of the studs; the one with the single dot next to it, and at once, the staff began to radiate bright light.

Everyone watched in amazement as Tolfdir carried the staff right to the edge of the huge shield that Ancano had built with the power of the Eye, and as soon as he was within a couple yards of its perimeter, the shield seemed to open up before him like a curtain; reacting to the staff. However, it hadn't disappeared.

"Tolfdir!" Katie exclaimed, rushing forward with hope in her heart, "It works! We can get in!"

"Yes, we can get in, but it's a trap." Tolfdir noted ruefully, "I can see that now. The reason why this sphere has been expanding is that it represents the extent of Ancano's power. Once we were inside, we'd be helpless against him. This staff is offering us some protection somehow, though I still can't quite discern its real enchantment. Still, Ancano is clever, and he'd find a way to defeat us once we were inside."

"So what do we do?" Katie asked, feeling a little confused.

"Have your potion at the ready." Tolfdir said firmly, "We may need you to act quickly, as you did in Labyrinthian. As for me, I don't think it's enough to just light the way through Ancano's power. We need to actually disrupt it. I'll take care of that, if it's possible."

In just a moment, Tolfdir had aimed upward with the staff, and fired. A beam of wriggling energy arced out, twisting and twirling in the air before it reached its destination; the shield that Ancano had been using.

At once, the massive shield, once invulnerable to all manner of force and magic, began to bend inwards, as though trying to escape from the arcing beam, and finally, it started contracting. The shield shrank in spurts; first by only a foot or two, then three feet, then six. Still, Tolfdir kept firing his beam until the shield had once again retreated inside the hall of the Elements, and he motioned for Katie to follow him.

"Ancano will still be more powerful than any wizard." Tolfdir warned as the others followed him, "Once we cut him off from the Eye, he should be more managable, but even so, I would prefer if most of you remain here until he's defeated for good. Our battle will probably cause some damage."

Quickly, Katie flung open the doors of the Hall of the Elements, and Tolfdir rushed inside, firing beams from his staff, which caused the shield to further contract, and also, the beam would sometimes whip around and sear one of the nearby walls, leaving flames behind. As Katie stepped into the chamber behind him, however, the sight that met her eyes was a strange one, and beautiful in a terrifying way.

The Eye of Magnus had changed shape; its sections opening up, separating, and floating around the shining mass in the center, which was starting to look like a small, blue sun. Ancano was continuing to cast some form of spell on it, but Tolfdir didn't waste any time, rushing over and firing the staff at him.

However, the beam passed through Ancano harmlessly. Soon, the two heard him utter a cruel, bitter laugh.

"You're too late, you know." the high elf said, rising to his feet with a piteous expression on his face, "The Eye is mine now, and I've already gained enough control to become impervious to your mortal magics. In fact, I have more power than you can realize. Oh... the secrets I've discovered... You'll never know. I could unmake the world, if I chose to. Your place is down among the rabble, not here; consorting with the gods."

Katie and Tolfdir shared only a glance at that point, but it was enough. They were both thinking the same thing; that if the Eye were deactivated; if Ancano's link with it was interrupted somehow, then he would probably lose all the power and invulnerability that he claimed to have. However, they didn't say a word about it, before Ancano attacked, and he attacked in a very unexpected way.

For just a moment, light seemed to be shining out from Ancano, but then, as the light began to fade, so did he, and Katie and Tolfdir realized that they'd been talking to nothing more than an illusion.

Quickly, Tolfdir aimed his staff towards the eye and fired, but it didn't seem to be having any effect, and Katie could already see Ancano, descending towards her from the ceiling with enormous speed. She had only just enough time to raise her arms before his own came down on her, and she felt an enormous, crushing force pushing against her. It was hard to believe, but, she realized, Ancano had grown stronger than the dragon skeleton that she'd just fought. Tolfdir had been right to suggest that she keep her potion handy.

Katie was trying to think of some way to break away, when Ancano unwittingly solved her problem for her, striking her in the stomach with his palm, and much to her surprise, it actually hurt. In fact, it hurt an awful lot, and set her soaring through the air, towards the far wall of the chamber, where she hit the marble with a thud.

Katie felt like shaking herself to make sure that she was still in one piece, but knew she didn't have enough time. Quickly grabbing her potion bottle, she drank a little of the liquid inside and put the bottle back, still mostly full, into one of the leather loops that she used for carrying potions. When she did that, the reaction was much different than it had been in Labyrinthian.

There were no flashes of light, and no outward visible sign that anything had changed, but Katie could feel the pain in her arms and midsection fading rapidly, and as she looked back up at Ancano, who was rushing towards her again, she knew that he was no god. After all, gods don't make mistakes.

Ancano was within a few yards of Katie when he opened one of his hands, and a blast of intense fire burst out, covering her in extremely hot flames. She could feel her armor softening under the heat, but quickly, she raised both arms in front of her, and just like that, she felt some new, protective force rising up around her, to block the flames. Then, with a single swipe of her arm, she'd not only put the flames out, but struck Ancano across the face, sending him flying to the other side of the chamber, where he crashed through a marble pillar, splitting the stone as he went; his body breaking pieces out of the far wall as he struck it, finally coming to a stop.

The high elf looked disoriented as he picked himself up off the floor, but unfortunately, he didn't look injured, and the eye still wasn't closing.

"I don't understand it." Tolfdir thought to himself as he felt the power of the staff waning, and yet, the eye was still open, "Why isn't this working?"

However, it was only when he actually asked himself that question, and took a moment to consider the possible answers, that it occurred to him that there was a clear reason.

Quickly, Tolfdir pressed the second stud on the staff; the one with two dots next to it, and fired again at the Eye. It satisfaction, he saw that the beam that came forth that time was far straighter and more powerful, and that as it struck the center of the Eye, its many plates and sections began to grow closer together.

"Did you know that there are many secrets of magic that have been lost throughout the ages?" Ancano asked as he walked across the room towards Katie, actually sounding as though he were talking to a friend, instead of someone who'd just punched him through a mass of marble, "The Eye has given me power, of course, but of far greater value is the knowledge I've gained; knowledge of spells that you perhaps can't even fathom. Watch me, and learn what you can from this experience, if you should survive it."

Katie didn't like the sound of that, because Ancano was still talking as though there was no possibility that he might lose, and in a moment, she'd begun to realize why. As she watched in horror, ice had begun to spread across his arms and across his toes, until he raised both arms with a confident smirk, and a dozen huge crystals of ice shot out from his hands, expanding into columns as they neared her.

The dragonslayer had seen what happened to a person when they were frozen, and indeed, it was one reason why she'd been so interested in preparing the potion that she'd just taken. At was a dangerous kind of attack, but she was ready for it.

Before the ice even reached her, Katie had pulled her arm back, and soon, she'd swung forward, shattering the super-hard ice as though it were made of straw.

Indeed, if the ice had been similar to the kind of magical ice used by Dassan, that would have been enough, but it seemed that that ice was very different, because instead of dissipating, it continued to grow, spreading out on either side of her, and as she glanced to the left, she saw something in the ice that looked almost like the face of a person with pointed ears.

Ancano was in the ice, Katie realized as she reached out to grab the pointy-eared form. In fact, he seemed to have become able to change himself into ice at will, as well as to project it all around himself and his enemies, as Dassan had done. Worse yet, it seemed that his icy body could manifest itself from any of the ice that he'd created, because when Katie crushed the icy figure in her hand, the human-like face of Ancano emerged from the ice behind her with a cracking sound. She had just enough time to turn and spot him, before he placed a hand on her shoulder, and a huge ice crystal formed around her, entrapping her.

The Eye was still closing gradually, when Tolfdir saw what had just happened, and realized the horrible danger. Almost a third of the room was filled with ice by that point, with Katie trapped in the middle, but worse yet, Ancano seemed to feel that his fight was over, because in a second, he'd stepped forth from the small iceberg that he'd created, completely back to his normal appearance, though by that point, Tolfdir knew that meant nothing for him.

"I suggest you stop that." Ancano said, looking insufferably smug and pleased with himself, "You may be powerful, but you know that you're not strong enough to beat a true metamorph like me. Just step down and take a place in my service. I may have some use for you."

However, Tolfdir continued firing into the eye angrily, trying to circle around it and away from Ancano, who was already forming another spell in one hand. That was when there was a trembling sensation, all through the room, like a mighty earthquake, and Tolfdir heard the sound of a cracking and groaning like heavy stones being broken and shifted. Quickly, he looked up, and there, he saw a sight that gave him hope again. The ice that had covered Katie was filling with cracks.

"No!" Ancano shouted, suddenly looking furious, "No! You can't escape! I command...!"

However, Ancano's command went unheeded. In just a second, with a sound like a thunderbolt, the magic iceberg exploded; ice flying in all directions as Katie finished flexing her muscles, and glared angrily at her enemy. The flying shards of ice seemed to vanish as they struck the high elf, and soon, he was turning into ice again, but ironically, that very fact may have saved Tolfdir's life, as the ice chunks that hit Ancano might otherwise have struck him.

Once again, Ancano began preparing some powerful magic to use against his enemies, even while in his ice form, but that time, Katie had had it, and she knew what to do next. Pulling out her spear, and feeling the solid steel give like clay under her touch, which taught her in an instant, just how much pressure she could safely apply, she struck the spear hard against the ground.

As the metal hit the marble, it vibrated like a tuning fork, producing a sharp, higb-pitched clanging noise, and again and again, she struck the floor, walls or pillars of that chamber with the spear, producing more clanging noises; more deafening, high-pitched sounds. At last, she gave one last jab at the floor, and slammed both of her fists together at the same time against the handle, and that did the trick.

Tolfdir fell over from the force of the blow, even from that distance away. The windows surrounding the chamber all exploded outward in rains of glass upon the ocean far below, and every last piece of ice in the room disintegrated like broken glass. In the midst of it all, Ancano was again thrown back through the air, looking stunned and horrified as he staggered back to his feet, and began forming a shield of ice around himself. Katie, however was charging towards him with both fists bared angrily. Her spear had been crushed by her last attack, and there was nothing left of it but a twisted wreck. Still, she was determined to win; even with only her fists.

At that very moment, however, a resounding "snap" filled the chamber, and Ancano looked, mad with horror, towads its center. The Eye, on which he'd depended for so much of his power, was closed.

He had no time to react to that, when Katie's fist drove through his own midsection.

Tolfdir looked as relieved as Katie felt, even as the effects of her potion wore off. She never liked the sight of blood on her hands, but at the very least, the college was safe from the Eye, or at least, it seemed to be at first.

However, as soon as Tolfdir had stepped away to examine the dead body of Ancano, the Eye had begun to react again; its surfaces opening up and its aura growing once again, and both Katie and Tolfdir looked on in horror.

"What is it?" Katie asked over the increasingly-unpleasant noise that the eye was beginning to make, "What did we do wrong?"

"I don't know!" Tolfdir exclaimed, shaking his head, "Whatever Ancano did to the Eye, it's not stopping. I'm afraid its magic will start to spread again soon, without anyone or anything to guide it."

"So what do we do now?" Katie asked, still horrified, but Tolfdir's only reply was "Don't worry. I've got a few ideas."

However, it seemed that there was someone who had more than just ideas, but a plan, because in only a moment, there was a distorting of the space in front of them, and there, before the eyes of Katie and Tolfdir, there was a member of the Psijic order. Even Katie recognized him from the descriptions that her mentor had given of his uniform, and in spite of how unpredictably things had gone, he had a smile on his face.

"Well done." he said, "We knew you'd be able to do it. Even our magic couldn't get in until the Eye was out of the hands of a mortal again, but thank you. With Ancano's death, the problem is much smaller, though the threat is not fully ended; not yet."

Katie listened carefully as the Psijic spoke, noticing that two more had appeared nearby, and wondering what it all meant. However, much to her relief, Toldir looked exceptionally grim-faced as he listened to the Psijic's words.

"Unfortunately, Ancano's tampering with the Eye has made it unstable. If it remains here, its magic may destroy your whole college. If you mages of the college are to be allowed to live your lives, it must not be allowed to remain here."

"Certainly not." Tolfdir admitted, speaking boldly to the Psijic, in a way that Katie would never have expected of him, prior to that week, "Its power is too great for any one person or group of people to hold. It doesn't belong in this world at all."

"Then with your leave, we'll take it for safekeeping, and you can continue your lives and your experiments, as though it never happened." the Psijic replied, still smiling as he turned towards the Eye, but in that moment, just as Katie was about to step forward, Tolfdir raised the Staff of Magnus, and clapped it hard against the ground.

At once, a wave of energy spread through the whole chamber from the tip of the staff, washing over all three of the Psijic wizards, and their reaction was the same as Tolfdir's had been, in Labyrinthian, when the same thing had happened to him. She knew at once what had happened, as they all shrank away from the Eye, and from Tolfdir. All of their magic had been drained away by the staff.

"Wh-what are you doing?" the Psijic gasped, recoiling in fear as Tolfdir walked towards him with an intensely grave look still cemented to his face, "L-let us d-deal..."

"You're not listening to me." Tolfdir said in a very strong, commanding tone, "I am in charge here. I am the ranking professor in this room, and you three are not even members of the college. That makes you outsiders. Your presence here is only because I allow it. I am the one in authority, and I say this. The Eye of Magnus was discovered by -me,- and it will be -I- who decide what to do with it. Not you! Do you understand?!"

"B-but you know..." the Psijic insisted, "You know that the p-power of the Eye... is something that no one c-can be trusted with."

"I do know that." Tolfdir said at last, beginning to look truly angry, "In fact, I know, or guess more than you realize. What went into the creation of the Eye, I wonder? Clearly, it's some machine, designed for the consolidation of power; perhaps even a power greater than what we call magic, like the type you Psijics are often said to wield. A hundred selfish men might have designed it, seeking this power for themselves, and been usurped and murdered by one, who took it all for himself. Yet, in the end, he was overthrown, just as Ancano was. It's little wonder that no one has had the heart to try to harm this treasure. Absolute power, after all, is a tempting prize, when one doesn't truly understand what those words mean."

"Ancano was a fool," Tolfdir concluded at last, "but mainly because he'd forgotten that absolute power over the world leads to an imbalance within oneself. I've felt this pull, even with my own limited magic, and have chosen to use it only rarely for that reason. When your power to alter the world is so great, you may come to the conclusion that you yourself are already perfect on the inside, and no conclusion could be worse for any person than that one. The project that created the Eye; the pursuit of total power in the hands of only a few... It was a foolish and shortsighted goal from the start. It should never have been attempted. No one can be trusted with it."

"But we can k-keep it safe!" the Psijic insisted, at which point Tolfdir turned his glare on the powerful wizard again.

"Can you? Can you really? I didn't trust Ancano with this power because I knew him. I trust you even less, because I know nothing at all about you or your order. No. The Eye will never leave this college. I will deal with this in my own way; the way it should have been dealt with long ago."

With those words, Tolfdir turned on the eye, and pressed the final stud on the Staff of Magnus; the one with three dots next to it, then aiming it at the eye, he fired.

In seconds, a blast like a hundred thousand bolts of lightning shot out from the Staff of Magnus, sweeping over the Eye, and soon, new cracks had formed in its surface. The Psijics gasped aloud, but it was too late. The armor-like shell that covered the eye was tearing itself to pieces, and the star-like energy source inside was imploding before their very eyes, until finally, from the single point where the light had, at last, disappeared, there came a wave of tiny, shining stones, shooting out in all directions like small, glimmering stars. The stones bounced harmlessly off the Psijics, Tolfdir and Katie, but there was nothing more to be said or done. The Eye of Magnus was destroyed.

Just then, however, Tolfdir gave a brief hiss, and dropped the Staff of Magnus. It was turning bright red, and as he watched, it began to radiate heat, spreading a red and white color to the marble below it, until finally, it seemed to have stopped producing heat again. Soon, all three Psijics got up and began casting spells of ice at the red-hot section of the floor. When they were done, the red and white colors had faded from both the floor and the staff, but it wasn't what it had been.

Little more was left of the Staff of Magnus than a half-melted lump of slag, and that was welded permanently to the floor; its once-great enchantments gone.

Beyond the mods addendum; Things you can't do in-game

1. Tolfdir is the one who uses the staff in this arc, rather than the main character.

2. Ancano's powers of flight, strength fortification, endurance fortification and metamorphosis are -all- impossible in Skyrim.

3. In Skyrim, the plot goes exactly like you'd expect it to. The artifact is too powerful for mortals, so we'll take it and keep it safe. They take it, and then boom, it's back to normal, like it never happened, except that that ending is just as much of a cliche as it was in the hundred thousand Saturday morning cartoon shows that spawned it, so it all unfolds differently here.

4. You can't actually destroy the Eye or stop the psijics in the game, which is too bad, since from what we've seen of them so far, it makes no sense at all to trust them with absolute power.