Tirdas, 1:10 PM, 75th of Second Seed, 4E 202
Hidden Location
The die was cast. The Heart of Lorkhan had landed in Skyrim.
It came now in the wake of many other things. Some of them had been rather trivial, such as the brief manifestation of Red Mountain in the midst of Skyrim. Others had been quite simply alarming.
Alduin could not see into the major cities of Skyrim. They had been filled with the blinding poison of Aetherium ore. But by observing the mortal goings-on outside them, he still learned more than enough. The latest was that the Jarl of Blackreach had been crowned High King of Skyrim, and thus had the refined Aetherium had been removed from Dawnstar.
This had not been an avoidable setback. He reminded himself that the shield of politics had delayed the mortals' usage of the last Aetherium shard longer than anything else could have. Certainly, to hide it by normal means would have been a futile effort. But now it was in the hands of his enemies, and he no longer knew its location. It was moving, he knew not where. And this did trouble him.
But the Heart of Lorkhan had landed, and all Alduin needed to do was to reach out and seize it. It had landed far away from his hidden shelter, from the place in which he resided alongside the conduit. But all he had to do was to claim it for himself, and the mortals' paltry efforts with their Aetherium shards would be neatly undone.
Once, Alduin had been a man. A part of him had been, at least—the mortal man whose lust for power had doomed him to take part in Alduin's return. The man named Logrolf, who had once served the Daedra, and who had lost his duplicitous god at the hands of the one in the golden mask. The Dragonborn.
The Dragonborn still watched over the plane of Aetherius. And even now, Alduin would not risk that confrontation. But the part of him that had once been Logrolf wanted to make that man pay. He had taken everything away from Alduin, both in his mortal and immortal origins. It was his doing that had caused all of these terrible events.
Alduin had once been the herald of the end of the world's cycle. It had been his duty to bring the world to a close so that it could be reborn in its next form. But the Dragonborn had broken that limit. He had cast Alduin down, and now destroyed all that would ever allow Time to renew itself. It would be a pleasure to end him.
But still, whether he played the role of the World-Eater or not, Alduin was the son of Akatosh, and he knew the nature of Time. His conduit had steadily allowed the fibers of Time's flow to snag and tangle upon one another. So much of the world had been corrupted now that this was not only feasible, but indeed inevitable. The mortals would not know what had come upon them.
And, of course, this was before Alduin claimed the Heart of Lorkhan. He would be leaving his shelter soon. Once his draugr closed in on the Heart, and began to tap into its power for him. Then he would no longer need to stay here.
It was at this time, as he was contemplating his departure from his refuge, that he sensed the foreign presence. It was distant, very distant, not even on this plane. He felt it through the reach of the conduit, where it exited into its anonymous reach of Aetherius. Someone was coming into the conduit's passage.
Someone was coming in. That shouldn't have been possible. The conduit was completely hidden, as it always had been. Its aura was no greater or lesser than the ambient aura anywhere else in Skyrim. Yet here was a foreign presence, he understood not what kind, and it was steadily invading the tunnel that led straight to his conduit's physical form here in Mundus.
Alduin thought quickly. There was only one thing he could do in response to this. He reached out with a single, flickering black hand, and laid his fingertips on the conduit's stone surface.
Then he was inside
the Aurbis itself
a swirling tempest of stars above
a fiery mark across the sky
halting short of the end
landing in the very midpoint
Alduin stood upon a smooth, featureless circular platform of dark stone, exactly one hundred feet wide. There was no other land. All around him, above and below, was nothing but vivid starry sky, clouded with vivid sweeping auroras of blue and red and green. There was no sun, no moons in this place. The auroras turned and shifted around him, changing with every passing second, while the stars beyond them slowly revolved over and under the platform.
This was the inside of the conduit. He anchored himself here, against the foreign presence.
Across from him on the platform stood an entity he scarcely recognized. But he did recognize this entity indeed. The giant jointed metal body, the spikes and ridges of its design, the all-cleaving sword it held at its side.
"Hello, Jyggalag," Alduin said.
The metal figure walked slowly towards the center of the platform. Beneath the light of the aurora, it shone in a thousand different subtle colors all at once. It spoke to him in a deep, commanding voice. "Your end is upon you, Alduin."
Alduin walked slowly as the same. His body was perhaps half the height of Jyggalag's, for it largely retained the form of its mortal host. But he was beyond the limits of mortal flesh. His body was one of darkness, wreathed in black flame, with the timeless armor of dragon scale melded into his skin.
He opened his hand. A long-bladed sword of his aura's light-consuming flame burst into existence in his grasp.
"You made a mistake coming here, Jyggalag. The planes of Oblivion are no target of mine. You would have been safe."
The two of them continued to approach one another. Soon, they would meet. And Alduin would do all in his power to be ready for that moment. He knew not to underestimate his enemies. And more than that, he understood what it meant to confront one as eternal as this.
But he also understood that this was a risk for them both. Jyggalag had not made himself known here as a mere apparition, in the fashion of Shor. He had arrived in his true, physical form, every bit as tangible as Alduin himself. That meant that both of them had the potential to destroy the other, here and now, right in this Aetherial arena.
"You are foolish as ever," Jyggalag said. "The denizens of Oblivion have never been content to stay in their own realm. And neither am I. The world of Mundus is not yours to destroy."
Alduin inclined his head ever so slightly as he walked. "Of all the people you could say that to, why would you choose the one whose title is World-Eater?"
"Call yourself what you like. The truth will carry on with or without you."
Jyggalag's sphere was that of order. It allowed him to deduce the future based upon the past and present. And that meant that he would not have come here if he had predicted his own defeat.
Yet that was not the only option besides the prediction of victory. Alduin suspected that neither of them truly knew the outcome of this encounter, or their fight would have already begun.
"I decide what the truth is, Jyggalag. You should know that by now. Such is the power I wield."
They were close now. Alduin could see the contours of Jyggalag's impassive metallic face. This was the face of his newest enemy. They were both ready to fight—and only one of them would leave this passage alive.
Jyggalag raised his sword up in front of him. "You are powerful indeed. But you are no Daedric Prince."
The dragon-being crossed the remaining distance at a sprint, and with a roar of everlasting might, leapt into the air with his sword aloft.
A flash of metal crossed before him, and his blade was instantly parried. He felt himself be thrown aside by the impact, and landed with an effortless roll back to his feet, in time to see Jyggalag swing outward at his neck. He caught the sword in a deft hanging parry of his own, cast it aside, and closed in for a low strike to the ankle. But the Daedra moved his foot back at the exact same moment, and came down with a downward swing upon Alduin's head.
All of that happened in barely a second's time. At the last instant, Alduin reached into the threads of space, and pulled himself through. His body vanished in a flash of lingering black flame, and reappeared in the same moment beside Jyggalag's left flank.
There was already a massive metallic instep kick coming up at his chin. It was too late to avoid. He felt the cracking force of the blow through his whole skull. But it mattered little. It was an opportunity. He brought his sword up in a driving strike, right at Jyggalag's foot, before it could get out of his reach.
At that moment, he saw the point of the giant metal sword coming down at his chest. No opportunity after all.
This time, he blinked through space to stand directly behind his opponent's back.
"Yol-toor-shul!"
The blast of fire came as a brilliant, cascading wave. But Jyggalag turned and held out his empty left hand, and with an idle flick of his fingers, the fire dissolved into nothing.
It made sense that the Daedric Prince was so difficult to catch off-guard. His sphere was that of order. He had used his grasp of cause and effect, no doubt, to locate the conduit's opening in Aetherius. Such was the nature of his foreknowledge. And the same power was making him aware of every attack before it came in. If only that were enough to allow him to survive this encounter.
Alduin stepped forward once again, and the fight continued.
Jyggalag did not wait for the distance to be closed. He lunged forward abruptly with a low thrust, one arm outstretched, the other behind himself. A good, fast strike. One that could have ended the fight in a single blow. But Alduin did not wait either.
The dragon sped up to a sprinting charge just as the sword approached him, then blinked five feet upward into the air, straight over the incoming thrust. He brought his sword down right upon his opponent's armored head.
But there was nothing there to strike. Jyggalag had already sidestepped the attack. And with his empty left hand, he grabbed Alduin by the back of the neck, and flung him hard at the floor.
The fool. He couldn't have expected this to end well for him.
Before Alduin could land upon the stone surface below, he simply blinked back up behind Jyggalag's head, and resumed his strike with even more speed than last time.
A solid metal elbow came up and slammed into his face. Pain shot through him all at once. He lost hold of his sword, landed on his back on the unyielding ground. That didn't slow him in the slightest. He jumped up onto his feet and recalled his sword into his hand in the same move.
Jyggalag was bringing his sword around in a one-handed horizontal swing, aiming to cut Alduin cleanly in half. There was no time to dodge it. Alduin simply blinked into the same place he was now, and let the blade pass through him in the split second that he was traveling through the threads of space.
Then it was his turn, because Jyggalag had finished his swing with his arm held across his own body. Again, he was vulnerable. Alduin lunged forward and brought his sword straight up at his opponent's wrist, before the motion of the swing was even complete.
But once again, his weapon hit nothing but air. The Daedra had stepped back—and let go of his sword. For a split second, the weapon hung nearly still in the air, just barely rising before just barely beginning to fall. And in a graceful, blindingly fast maneuver, Jyggalag moved both hands clockwise at once. His right, neatly moving out of the way of the incoming attack. His left, grabbing onto his sword in a reverse grip, just long enough to use it to counterattack.
And now Alduin was vulnerable, with his sword still high in the air. Jyggalag's blade could have taken both of his arms off in this one oddly-held strike. There was no choice but to blink away once again. This time, he went to the Daedra's left side once more, where there was seemingly nothing on guard awaiting him. But given everything so far, he already knew what to expect.
Or perhaps he did not. This time, no new attack was already coming his way. Jyggalag had stepped away, and sunk into a defensive stance, awaiting the next move. There was no point in moving to attack immediately.
"Is this it?" The dragon laughed. He was slowly circling to the right, making Jyggalag turn to follow him. Both of their weapons remained on guard. "Is this all you can do? You're a disgrace."
Jyggalag turned his head ever so slightly. His face remained blank, but he must have been having some sort of reaction. "You couldn't pick a less suitable being to try to goad into foolish action."
"Oh, I don't know. It seems I already goaded you into coming here to begin with." The truth was, of course, that this encounter had been entirely unexpected. But that wasn't to say that it couldn't end in Alduin's favor. He had already healed fully from the pain of the previous strikes. If Jyggalag intended to kill him, he would have to try far harder.
"You are doomed to failure, whether by my hand or not," Jyggalag said. "But I would prefer your plans to advance no further."
The Heart of Lorkhan. That was what he was referring to. He simply didn't want to see Alduin gain access to such an immense source of power. That was why he was here today.
But why would he come here today, so late in the order of things, if he had already foreseen his own success in this duel? He could have chosen to seek out the conduit and end Alduin's plans the very day they had been put in motion.
Unless his victory was not certain in his own mind, and this was an act of desperation. Alduin betrayed no emotion externally, but within his mind, there was nothing but triumph, for Jyggalag had just unwittingly betrayed his own doubt.
Really, Alduin should have thought of that all already. Not that he had a low opinion of his own reasoning skills. He'd simply been a little bit busy this past minute or so. And, he suspected, he would continue to be busy for some time yet.
Jyggalag closed the gap between them with a single, massive step, and swung his sword in an upward, diagonal slash. Instantly, Alduin responded with a great discharge of shock magic from his free hand. It flooded over the stone floor like a searing, snapping river of magical energy, threatening to destroy all in its path. And it went straight at his opponent's feet.
As an afterthought, he parried the incoming blade with his own, and let it slide up over his head. He was more than free to retaliate, even as the shock magic continued to spread forth below.
But even this didn't suffice. Jyggalag jumped back one full pace, evading the shock spell just as it reached his forward foot—and evading Alduin's sword strike entirely—and at the same time, swept his empty left hand up over the ground. The path of the spell broke like a wave on the shore.
Alduin blinked away to the far side of the platform before he could be attacked again. The Daedra had proven that he would not be felled by direct means alone. It was time to introduce a new tactic.
He had never used this outside Mundus. But he expected it would work much the same. He needed only focus on the part of himself that he understood best. The part that yearned to see everything unmade.
There were no words to this Thu'um. No sound issued forth but the booming thunderclap of the magic itself. For an instant, everything seemed unchanged—and then the starry sky was cloaked in a tempest of burning clouds.
Jyggalag turned and looked up above. There was nothing to see. Not until a flaming meteor streaked down and smashed into the middle of the platform.
This would not damage their fighting surface. This entire arena was little more than a metaphor given physical form. And it would not harm Alduin—never could a dragon be harmed by the power of his own Thu'um. There was only one vulnerable target of this magic.
Certainly, Jyggalag would be able to predict the locations of these things in advance. But he could be forced into a situation where his predictions wouldn't matter. That would be their turning point.
The two combatants strode towards one another silently. Another meteor landed on the platform, and then another, both fairly close to Jyggalag's path. But nothing was stopping this Daedric Prince from continuing his fight.
Of course, nothing was stopping Alduin either. This was his conduit. His battleground. He enjoyed it even more without the stars turning overhead.
In the last twenty feet, Alduin sped up to a run. His opponent did the same. They met at the very center of the platform, and resumed their fight amid the rain of fire.
Their first strikes both missed entirely. The dragon dropped his head down as Jyggalag's blade passed over it, and lunged forward at a leg that had already stepped aside. Then he came up with a vertical cut of his sword's near edge, only for Jyggalag to parry it, then ride his blade up with a thrust to the chest.
Alduin blinked away just as the silvery point touched his armored skin.
An instant later, he reappeared past Jyggalag's side with an outward slash to the back of the knee. His target was supposed to be there. It wasn't. Instead, he was met with a solid metal kick between the shoulder blades. The ground came up and struck his front, even as it shook with the unceasing meteoric impacts of his own magic.
Without even looking, he blinked back to where he'd been before, just high enough up to land on his feet. Jyggalag was facing the other way, carrying his sword out from a downward swing where the dragon had just been.
And yet somehow, when Alduin moved in to strike, his blade still clashed with Jyggalag's own. Neither of them moved away. They held together for a moment, turning and pushing, trying to lever their weapons into one another, circling slowly in place with laborious struggling steps. Alduin could have blinked out of this at any moment. But he didn't.
That was because a meteor was coming down right upon them.
It was incredibly sudden. Jyggalag let go of his sword with one hand just long enough to shove Alduin away, then stepped back and raised the same hand over his head. The meteor stopped in midair just a few feet above him, burning furiously in place. Then, with the same telekinetic force, he flung it with all his might at the ground upon which Alduin stood.
In that instant, the dragon realized that this fight was not going to be resolved by any means he had ever used before. This enemy, this one enemy was simply too powerful. He was able to see too much in advance, able to do too much in response. He was the Daedric Prince of Order. For everything that had a cause, he knew its effect.
He blinked away to Jyggalag's left side, and put his sword up on guard. But he had no intention of attacking. Not now.
The conduit allowed him to circumvent all different limits. The threads of space were one. Those were safe to travel. He was faced with a far more dangerous limit to traverse, one he had never willingly undertaken before. But he believed he could do this.
He believed it because Jyggalag didn't know the outcome of this fight. He now understood with perfect clarity why not. The Daedric Prince of Order saw all things in paths of cause and effect. There was a very simple way to disrupt this form of insight.
The metal being strode towards him and prepared another strike. It could come at any angle.
Alduin blinked away.
He reappeared right in Jyggalag's path, and caught the incoming attack with a deflecting parry.
Or: He reappeared behind Jyggalag's shoulders, and dismissed his sword.
He let Jyggalag's blade pass over him, then brought his sword down atop it and pinned it against the ground.
Or: He reached through the row of thin spikes, and grabbed tightly onto Jyggalag's head with both hands.
The force of his action struck through his heart and mind with shattering pain. He had just traversed the branches of Time, and put himself in two places at once. Few were the times that this had ever been done. But now was not the time to reflect on that. He ignored the first path, and concentrated all on the second.
The meteors raged on around them. But this fight was over. Sometimes it felt good to be the one doing the cheating.
He held on tight, still perched behind Jyggalag's metal shoulders, and sent himself forth into the Daedra's mind.
All was consumed. He felt nothing but a mind-searing wall of agony. Jyggalag was attacking him, driving him out. But he focused and pushed back, and the agony burned all around them, and he wrenched his way through Oblivion, and tore the path open ahead, and reached within.
Order and chaos circled around him as one. Clarity burned into his mind, clarity, perception, understanding, it all floated in place, orbiting around a many-layered core. The core. Memories of time, memories of madness, of love, of hatred, all of them crushing and deforming against each other, bending into unrecognizable shapes, destroying all that they once were.
His body was ablaze. He was burning away to a skeletal self, holding on with nothing but charred bone, numb with nonexistence, yet still somehow hurting. And he wasn't holding onto a Daedra at all, but a mortal being—a dark-skinned female, one he did not recognize, crying out in pain. Another identity, another layer. There was no stopping now.
He forced himself to see with the other's eyes. The memories spun and twisted and strangled each other, and the eyes of Oblivion, the eyes of Order, they saw so much. They burned with all-consuming light inside his very skull, they were too much, they were never too much, they were what he needed. He reached further and further, to see all things to their conclusion.
The mortal being could not resist him. He held her in place as he sifted through the burning overwhelm of everything else.
The threads of the conduit were nothing in comparison. The infinities of existence were laid out to him as simply as a single forked path. He viewed the causes, the effects, the workings of Jyggalag's mind, and he knew what this meant. He may not have had long, but he already knew what thoughts to pursue.
Images came to him. The adventurers leaving Arkngthamz, leaving the one draugr he had seen them through, and continuing their journey through Skyrim. They skipped through conversations and encounters in the blink of an eye, exchanging ideas, exchanging information. They raced from city to city, collecting one shard of Aetherium after another, until all four clicked together in a perfect circular crest, its design flashing right in front of him, the bright blue surfaces shining with their own inner power.
Then came the things that had not yet come, but would unless intervened with. The path they took from their meeting place, the path east, beyond the Throat of the World, beyond the massive mountains and into the forest. Another design flashed before his eyes, of a great metal ring suspended around a tiny sphere, all intersected by a sculpted metal arrow through the center, standing at an odd angle.
Then came a name. Bthalft. And immediately, he committed it to memory. Bthalft. Beneath it, he saw the coursing lava, the fearsome machinery, the adventurers using the sacred device for themselves, with the Aetherium crest in hand. He saw a glimpse, another flash of the blue magical essence, now shaped into something far greater—
There was a horrible, gut-wrenching shearing sensation, and something came loose from him. The connection severed in an instant. The arena returned to him.
Cold, steely fingers closed around his neck, and flung him out over the dark stone. He landed to a skidding halt, the flames of his shadow trailing behind him. Everything was in disarray. His thoughts were everywhere.
A moment passed in silence. And then Alduin slowly pushed himself upright. The sky above was perfectly clear, stars shining through the light of the aurora. All was silent.
Something had gone missing from him, and he didn't understand what it was. He couldn't remember what it had been. Perhaps it had been something truly great, something vital to his survival. He could not tell.
Across from him, Jyggalag was down on one knee and one hand, clutching at the hilt of his sword where it lay on the ground. There was no more connection between them. That was gone. It had all ended.
Alduin forced himself to stand upright, and summoned his sword back into his hand. This was his chance. He reached through the threads of space to blink across the distance between them.
Nothing happened. He was reaching into the dark. But not the dark. He was reaching into nothingness. His sight of space, his connection to all of the threads through the conduit, it had gone blind.
The rest filled itself in. The remaining memories, the things he had failed to understand he had forgotten. Now he remembered what Jyggalag had done to him, just seconds ago, before the connection ended. The Daedra had prevented Alduin from pursuing him in his weakened state. And he had done it by sabotaging the limits of Alduin's own power.
What was to happen next?
"Your time is coming soon," Jyggalag said, as composed and threatening as ever, even as he struggled back to his feet. But he didn't wait for a response. He simply disappeared into the stars beyond.
He must have intended to retreat to some place of safety. And now Alduin could not stop him. But it mattered not. This fight was over.
The dragon abandoned the arena in kind, and returned to his place of refuge. The conduit's place of refuge. It was as guarded and undisturbed as ever. He stood in place before the great floating orb, and considered his next move.
He had intended to pursue the Heart of Lorkhan himself. But now, he was content to leave that to the others under his control. He could tap into its power through them just as easily. There was a far more important matter that demanded his attention.
Bthalft. That was the name of the location he had seen. The golden arrow through the ringed sphere, the fiery device that had lain below. That was where the adventurers were traveling.
Alduin was reluctant to leave the conduit unprotected. And so he spent some time carefully crafting a barrier around its place of refuge. It was not a perfect thing, but since this was no longer at the center of his plans, he cared little. There was no risk of it being used against him. It was not like the Heart of Lorkhan, or the Aetherium shards. It was a threat to his enemies only.
But all the same, he endowed it with all the protection he could muster. No one short of the Dragonborn, he imagined, could bring this down quickly enough to pass through. Likely, it would only last for a matter of days without his direct attention, but that was more than enough time for his mission to reach its end.
And so he departed from the conduit's place of refuge, quite possibly to never look back. If anything went as he desired, this place would be destroyed along with the rest of Mundus before he could have the chance to return.
In the meantime, he had adventurers to kill.
