Chapter Forty-Nine: 'Flesh, Blood, Breath and Bone'
--SI--
The second level of the Gardens' subterranean ruins showed not all the Isles integrity had yet leeched out of the Fringe. The lower levels also held the guardians Lahallia expected. Putrid, rotting undead, and the strange fleshy behemoths, like those tethered in Relmyna's domain shuffled and lurked. They further reinforced Lahallia's belief that Relmyna was too sick to live. The perverse nature of the fleshy atronachs made her stomach twist and turn, wondering if they were once people Relmyna warped, twisted and experimented into…these things.
That was somehow worse than a construct made of living creatures' 'leftovers'.
Orphael was no help, not knowing how to unravel them, or how Relmyna constructed them in the first place. The best he could do to simply put them out of their misery, but in this place with madness leeching out atronach, Duchess and Mazken fought on fairly equal footing. Well, not quite so equal, because the Duchess and the Mazken could work together, more or less.
In the darkness of the lower level, the hearts of the atronachs shone dull red. Coupled with their muffled groans, it was all the warning the intruders had before clumsy hands swiped out of the darkness—a darkness which seemed to absorb the light of magelights, instead or retreating from it.
Lahallia stopped walking, taking her cloak off. Sweat made her clothes and hair stick and cling uncomfortably, and in the greenish blue miasma of their magelights Orphael, too, looked sweaty—though it lent a sheen to his skin which played interesting tricks with the light and the planes of his face. Lahallia tied the cloak in a thick, clumsy knot about her waist, unable to bear the additional heat of it.
Orphael, knowing the heat would not be any worse or better without the cloak, which was designed for camouflage, not temperature considerations, did not doff his. Nor did he miss the glance Lahallia bestowed on him, half-envying, half-disbelieving that he could wear a wrap in this moist heat. He merely shrugged, and they continued on their way, ears pricked for nay warning of more atronachs.
Orphael did wonder, for a brief moment, if this was where Relmyna sent all her early experiments in the crafting process. Some of them did seem a little more…ragged…than others.
--SI--
The wade through heat, darkness, and guardians finally led Lahallia and Orphael to the first milestone of their journey, which they both greeted with some relief. Growing out of a shallow pit filled with sand near the far wall, spiky, bony protrusions struggled out, like skeletal fingers clawing for escape from quicksand. Evil mushrooms, Orphael thought, testing the sand for traps, which was a euphemistic way of saying 'wading through it to see what would happen'. The bony protrusions really did look like mushrooms as he got closer, mushrooms with flesh-like caps, skin stretched taut over a bony frame.
"Is it safe?" Lahallia's voice, so long silent, startled him.
The sand slipped underfoot when he tested his weight on it, but he neither sunk in up to his neck, nor lost his balance. "I think so..."
Lahallia did not wait for him to finish, stepping past him into the sandy pit. She shifted her footing, the sand proved quite treacherous, though not deadly so. The mushrooms smelled foul, and she now knew where, exactly, some of the Gatekeeper's reek came from. The putrid odor of decomposing flesh left her a sickening certainty, that this was the dermis membrane Relmyna demanded.
Thank madness she had brought containers for these things—Relmyna wanted them as unadulterated as possible—and thank madness again Relmyna only needed a small sample, the barest catalyst for her great creation.
Thank madness? Where had that come from? Lahallia shoved the notion aside, as well as the monologue Relmyna gave, Lahallia having only listened to a few more words past basic instructions.
Lahallia summoned the small crystal vial from Relmyna's lab. Relmyna refused to consider allowing two such faulty messengers carry the precious ingredients, and so made certain arrangements.
Orphael rolled his eyes at the woman's obsessive nature. Insane or not, the Isles did not need her ilk. What a pity Lord Sheogorath thought she belonged here. He could see why Nirn had not wanted her.
Lahallia remained grateful she did not have to carry any of these components in her pocket. She was no little boy to carry toads and snakes about with her, or to keep mice in a box under the bed. Carefully she approached the mushrooms, but stopped short. She could feel Vision triggers pulsing in the air around them. If she took another step forward, she would be within the sphere of those influences.
Yet she could not shake the notion that the instant one of those mushrooms left the colony, she would See, whether or not she harvested the ingredient herself. It all had to do with proximity. Whatever else these things were…As instinctively as she found herself acting the part of Duchess, she simply knew this was one of those times where she could not escape her so-called gift.
Swallowing she took a deep breath, reached out an hand and with some effort, snapped one of the stalks free, as though it were nothing more than an alchemical ingredient gathered from the mundane wilds.
Orphael watched Lahallia stiffen, moving towards her to make sure she neither fell, nor injured herself. He did not trust the sand not to suck her under, or try something equally dangerous. Lahallia did not thrash or flail, in fact the air around her seemed to hum, intense. She trembled, but as one staggering under a great weight. Something had changed, was changing. Was it due to the Order over their heads…or something else?
He pulled her back from the sand, glad when she moved, though numbly. Once they both stood on solid ground again, he kissed her neck softly, then waited for the fit to pass. He could do very little else.
--SI--
Defeat. Incalculable defeat. Defying all logic. Impossible.
Yet the Chessmen were gone. Beyond his reach. He could not call them. He could not compel them.
The Faceted Endless was neither present, not destroyed. It simply was not there. But he was there, standing several feet above the lapping waters of Oblivion. Severed from realm and servants, all he could do was watch as the Fifteen Princes stood round him, those with mouths unsmiling, all emanating a caging aura, trapping him in a way insulting.
If he could feel enough to be insulted.
For a moment, everything grew dark, except for glowing eyes, or orbs of light for those who had no eyes.
Even Mora. The only one of them who could understand the necessity of the March…and yet there it wriggled.
"…flesh, blood, breath and bone…" Fifteen as one spoke, and he felt himself torn asunder.
--SI--
Lahallia came back to herself with a thud of mind falling into place that would have sent her toppling face-first into the smelly fungi. Fortunately, Orphael had a hold of her, and did not let her fall, pulling her against his chest as her balance shifted. Her mind swirled with confusion, as one who walks into the middle of a play never before seen. Tension hummed behind her eyes, but nothing worse than that.
"That fit did not seem so bad," Orphael said after a moment, carefully caressing her throat with his gloved fingers.
"It wasn't." Lahallia looked around, wondering at this, wishing in some back compartment of her mind he did not have the gloves on…but this was not place for those sorts of thoughts. "It's strange…but we've no time. You should have slapped me awake…"
"You weren't…there…for more than a few minutes, we're still doing well." Orphael knew what Lahallia meant, that she was willing to undergo a little physical pain in order to make good time, with the Greymarch in progress. The idea remained distasteful.
--SI--
They found the blood liqueur guided almost by smell alone. The reek of pooled blood and a faint undercurrent of something vaguely familiar but wholly alien seemed something that should only exist in Mephala's realm, or perhaps Mehrunes Dagon's. Maybe it did, 'Blood Liqueur' sounded like the sort of thing one should be able to find in either place. But blood it looked, gushing from a fountain at the back of a room, which was more like a swimming pool than a room. Orphael actually walked over the edge, finding himself ankle deep in the warm, silky mess before he realized.
"Wait," he raised an arm to prevent Lahallia from doing the same, quashing the disgust of his current surroundings. This was a Dremora sort of place.
Lahallia did not let him stop her. She summoned the vial to contain the blood liqueur as she stepped easily around him, though she appreciated the gesture. Wading through blood—thank goodness Mazken boots seemed proof against liquids!—was not something about which she was ever curious. She was halfway to the fountain when she stopped, closing her eyes as shivers ran up and down her body, her breath catching in her throat.
Orphael swore, forcing his magelight to grow brighter. Lahallia's eyes glittered, but not in the same way as for Visions past. Something strangely familiar graced her features, something un-Altmer. She still trembled, but her wide, staring eyes made him think something was not…usual.
--SI--
He was like a child, a little child with a new toy. A wonderful toy, and he could make of it what he liked. Large mountains. Little rivers. A castle of his very own, and he could have people to come live here, if he wanted. Who he wanted. Whatever he wanted.
The land was young, wild, untamed, pulsing with a vibrant, lifeblood all its own, so different from the nasty seas around the islands…for islands they were. But he wanted fewer. Two of the largest massed suddenly appeared as one, each shimmering in his eyes with one of two distinct auras. He liked them, they were colorful, and if he got bored with one…there was the other to distract him! It kept things fresh! Interesting! "Do the seas have names?" he demanded, his voice oddly strange in his own ears. Should it sound like that…? Was there anyone to hear the question?
Oh, yes, yes to both questions. Obviously.
"No, my lord. Not as of yet."
Hmm, which meant he had to come up with names. How tiresome. It was more interesting to turn the clouds lurid green. With purple spots. "I…we shall call them…Clowns and Mimes. Biscuits and Cheese? We should have all four—we like clowns, mimes, biscuits and cheese." Abruptly, the latter two appeared by his elbow, on a silver plate, and the former two began to run amok over the land, gnawing at trees, or breaking down stones with invisible hammers, each drawn to one or the other of the two distinct hemispheres of the Isles.
"Feisty lot, aren't they? Shoo! We shall call the seas…not Clowns and Mimes, or Cheese and Biscuits…do you like cheese?"
"No, my lord."
"Hmph. Neither do we…" for a moment something dark swam in his mind, something dangerous, but it never came out of his mouth, and so vanished like a puff of smoke. "Enjaen and Emean. Take this down, so we don't forget."
"Of course, my lord. Would you like to see your servants?"
"Servants? Our servants?" Servants? For him? How exciting—a lovely present! A wonderful idea! Were they colorful? They must be colorful…but first, the ordering of the kingdom, his kingdom. He wanted to put it together, but didn't want it to be boring, and that would take time.
Who cared about time? He had all the time in the world and nothing better to do.
Wouldn't mushrooms look pleasant on those hills? Big mushrooms casting spores about like confetti!
--SI--
Lahallia wobbled on her feet, her skin coated in cold sweat, unlike that which these underground passages encouraged. Again she was left with the feeling of having glimpsed something through a crack in a door. No faces, no names, no discernable voices, just two separate entities. And the Isles spreading out below, like a map.
It left her not wanting to know much more, because the questions these new Visions triggered scared her. She wondered if they were Visions of the normal sort at all. They did not feel like the normal variety.
For Orphael's sake she quenched the notion, wading into the bloody pool to catch water from the fountain. Relmyna was specific about this: blood liqueur from the source.
Orphael said nothing, but bit the inside of his lip. It galled him he could do nothing more than stand here, making sure she neither drowned herself, nor did herself unwitting harm when these Visions seized her, thought these seemed to him so much stronger, for they did not permit her to thrash or struggle.
Or was it simply her fatalistic acceptance that these things would happen? Whatever it was, he did not like it, not when it left her so pale and frail-looking. Not when it gave her that unexplainable look while Visions forced her out of her own mind, into the moving current of time, barely tethered to the Now.
--SI--
Blood and flesh gave way to bone, massive bones growing, so it seemed, out of the very ceiling, lit all around by a profusion of withering moons, like paper lanterns in the cavern. Their pale green light gave the place a ghastly glow, but also made this the brightest place in the ruins so far.
Lahallia and Orphael stopped for a brief rest, taking a little water from their canteens as they leaned against a wall, sitting side by side. "How do you feel?" Orphael asked, feeling rather foolish.
"Tired," Lahallia admitted. "The heat just takes everything out of me."
Orphael did not think it was just the heat, but did not share this idea. She had not asked for his opinion.
"You don't look so well yourself." It was true, Orphael's skin appeared somewhat ashen in the strange light. "Is there anything…anything I can do?"
Normally Orphael might have teased her a bit, gotten her wound up and riled, but something in her tone dismissed this as a proper course of action. "I should be asking you." And not because she was his Duchess. "No, I don't think so."
Lahallia shifted, wrapping his arm around her, and settling almost with her back against his ribs despite the heat. "I am never coming back down here. Relmyna can go herself, next time."
Orphael chuckled at this, but the chuckle died in the darkness. Sooner or later, they would have to go get the Osseous Marrow. He knew Lahallia would once again go where he could not follow. All he could do was make sure no harm came to her body—but he worried about her mind. She had the gracing touch of insanity. Usually he would have anticipated full immersion…yet he found he did not want to see her wholly lost to it.
Lahallia got up, marching resolutely to the bony growths. The sooner she got the ingredients, the sooner she could get out of here.
--SI--
All was in—dare he say it?—order. The Shattered Mind finally declared himself satisfied with both his empty realm and his own appearance.
How long had it taken? He could not tell—time did not exactly matter here, not yet at least. And not so long as the Shattered Mind ruled. Time was a loose concept, with regards to the progression of days and nights. Yet another something to keep the Shattered Mind from boredom.
Not forever, but for a good long while, he hoped. Perhaps it was because this was the first organization of the kingdom. The Palace certainly did not meet his tastes, but what were his tastes? He would not have built a palace looking like a lopsided cake, frosted in pink and blue tiles.
Nor would he have lived in a giant gold and emerald mushroom—this one scrapped because the Shattered Mind detested the stairs.
At least this incarnation of the Palace resembled a palace. The Shattered Mind finally announced he would 'leave the details to you. You're our detail person'. Joy unbounded, but the Shattered Mind approved the long staircases leading up to the palace from the Split City. Make everyone else climb stairs, but not the Shattered Mind himself, oh no.
It was a mercy he, himself, had no concept of boredom, no practical concept, anyway. This place made his teeth itch, but service bound him here, and here he would stay—unless the Shattered Mind changed the rules. But he could only change them so much.
--SI--
"Get it!" Lahallia's joyous cry trailed behind her like a scarf. At least this was fun! The air here, in pursuit of the elusive Essence of Breath was cooler, a relief from the stifling halls elsewhere. The dark halls, luminously lined with green and blue, twisted, turned, rolled up and down, crossing and crisscrossing, giving the glowing mist with its sound of breath taken in room to run.
From the moment it whipped about her, like a cat twining enthusiastically around ankles in welcome, tiredness, frustration, everything but the thrill and fun of chasing down this cheeky little breeze faded to peripheral details of little note. She had not yet tired of this game so like tag. Every time she lost track of it, felt sadness, frustration, all the troubles trying to bear down on her begin to reassert themselves—three times now—it reappeared a moment later to vanish the unhappiness, as though not ready to give up the game just yet.
But it was a fast little breeze!
Orphael, winded from charging after Lahallia—who cared about the impish breeze?—hunched to breathe. He could not see how she got the energy, all of a sudden, to run like a mad thing, happier than she had been in quite awhile. He knew his mistake the moment Lahallia whipped out of sight, her mad cackle of laughter drifting back to him.
It was good she was enjoying herself, but really—they had a job to do.
Oh, he suspected the breeze really was the Essence of Breath, or part of it, but shouldn't they be looking for a source, rather than chasing around this little wisp of air?
Lahallia knew she had lost Orphael, but at the same time, determination to catch this spritely wind possessed her. Part of her wondered if it might not want them separated for a reason—though what that might be she could not guess. Best to enjoy things while she could.
Suddenly she entered a room, pitch black, and staggered as the floor dropped down a short way, but kept her footing. Light began to glow. The little breeze she sought so doggedly whispered into the room, then wrapped itself about, settling between broken pieces of a tree trunk, rooted in both ceiling and floor, giving the room a light, of its own. Like a tired puppy, the breeze did not try to run when Lahallia stood up.
Lahallia did not move towards the light, she simply waited for Orphael as it breathed and shivered on its perch, taking opportunity catch her breath as she waited.
Orphael turned a corner, following the suddenly stationary glow and his innate sense of where the Duchess was. It was something Mazken shared, in case the Duke or Duchess ever disappeared, or was kidnapped. She stood there, a dark silhouette against the bright green-blue light. "Lahallia?"
As though responding to his voice Lahallia held up a hand, containing a glass phial. The breeze sighed, and a small tendril of it wafted towards the phial, which Lahallia capped. Smiling, she dismissed the whisper of breath in a bottle, ready to make her way back to the Isles.
Orphael sprang forward as Lahallia turned her back on the breeze on its perch, seeing what she did not. The breeze reared up, like an animal ready to pounce. It slammed into Lahallia's back, coagulating around her head before he could clear half the distance. She took a deep, involuntary breath, inhaling the glowing haze before she crashed to the ground, light, breeze and the life in her eyes gone.
For a moment Orphael was sure the Essence of Breath had killed her, but placing his cheek close to her mouth, he could feel it, strangely cool, as though she had just finished sucking on an ice cube. Her breath, however, came normally, and her skin remained warm to the touch.
A moment later the Essence of Breath reappeared, like breath on a cold day, and wobbled its way back to the perch, as though exhausted and unsettled by the experience.
--SI--
Two spurts of water bubbled and glittered in a long, square room, behind a large stone chair. One bubbled sluggishly from the ground, knee-high, dark and gloomy, smelling strongly of decay, darkness, dirt and filth. The other sparkled, shooting up twice the height of a man, golden as sunshine with brilliant white sparkles like bubbles or dancing droplets weaving through it, a sweet cloying smell emanating from it.
"Well! Let's see them! I want my servants!" The excitement was killing him—as was the constant use of 'we'. There was no 'we' there was him, and his rules, and his realm. End of discussion. This was a one-Prince show.
"Very well, my lord. Where shall I begin?"
"There! It's sparkly!" Today he liked sparkly.
"Very well." The scroll of names appeared in The Other's hand. Their faces were already changed, changing their names, and walking them through the Founts would be the last of the process of Severance and Reattachment. It would make all which was now drawing to completion truly complete. "Aureals, come forth…"
In order, by name, first the old, then the new, females first, then the males. The creatures strode boldly out of the water, unarmed, unarmored, protected only by large, bedraggled feathery wings in shades of gold, orange and warm rose. The weight of the feathery appendages gave the Aureals an ungainly way of moving, as though unused to their own wings. They hazed slightly as Sheogorath watched them pledge themselves tonelessly, and step aside. Their features changed, the last fine details put on a near-finished piece of work.
Then came the newly christened Mazken, in order, by name, first the old, then the new, females first, then the males. The creatures pulled themselves free of the water as though reluctant to do so, unarmed, unarmored, protected only by large, leathery wings in shades of luminous green, blue, or streaked in lavender. They, at least, had less trouble, wins open and raised as a creature posturing in hopes of avoiding a fight.
Then it was done, and all the Daedra, Mazken and Aureal alike, blinked as though walking from bad dreams. They also took an immediate dislike of one another, snarling, and hissing, bunching up by species. Forgetting they were once one and the same.
No one would ever know. Not even the Shattered Mind.
Only he himself, The Other, because someone had to know.
