Guide:

Dwemeris

Thoughts

"Speech"

"Dovahzul"

Warnings/Disclaimer: see chapter 4

Chapter Warning(s): Time travel, sickness.

Last time…

If I am not given the chance to tell him the truth, will you do so in my stead? There are none I would entrust this to, other than yourself. Tell him how I love him so, and how he is forgiven. That I will always be proud to call him my son."

Chapter 64 – Past to Present

N'dak stuffs me in dark blue travelling robes that grant no protections what-so-ever and whisks me off the next morning.

They're heavy, and uncomfortable, but all my concerns about personal discomforts leave me when I get the chance to see the world as it was in the past – in the time that I would have, but didn't, stay in.

The middle of the First Era may as well have been a whole other plane of existence compared to the Fourth Era I'd come to know and love. Everything seems wilder, more untamed than it would be in the future. There's no roads at all, not paved ones at least. We follow the tracks left behind by the wildlife, and encounter beasts twice as large as a regular sabercat. It's breathtaking.

After travelling in silence for a while, I take to observing my travel companions. N'dak is dressed in robes similar to mine, but of a rusty red color, with geometrical patterns down the sleeves and a cowl pulled over his head. Only his beard can be seen underneath, tucked partially into his silk-like, thick waistband. He carries a pack with supplies, just like I am, and uses a Dwemer metal staff that, by the spikes on the top, can double as a weapon and a walking stick.

Er'thk is also here with us. As the older Mer's apprentice, he was forced into coming along. Law states, after all, that apprentices cannot leave their masters and vice versa. He wears a shawl that covers all of his hair including his beard, likely to avoid any sand or other bits and pieces ending up in it. His robes are identical to mine, and he fingers the hilt of a Dwemer dagger nervously, twitching at every noise.

I have to admit, this strange land makes me uneasy too. Even though it shouldn't feel so strange to me.

"Watch the skies rather than my student, Fjaldi. Those blasted Wyrms can and will attempt to attack if they come across us, and we have no Centurion guards."

I nod at the old scholar and scan the clear blue skies briefly. Right – the last dragons were only killed near the end of Tiber Septim's reign, in the beginning of the Third Era. They'll be out and about now – I wonder if their overly aggressive attitudes towards Dragonborn have changed in the past few thousand years.

Somehow, I doubt it.

"Is there a Nordic tomb around here, one called Ansilvund?" I ask after another long pause. N'dak considers my question seriously, but eventually shakes his head, tapping his staff against the dirt rhythmically as we make our way down the mountain.

"I have heard of no such tomb. The closest settlement is Ruunvald, an old temple. Forelhost, further south, has been abandoned for a long time. It used to house members of the Dragon Cult. To the North, there is Windhelm. Its splendor may astound you now, but let me say – it will be decrepit in a few years. Shoddy architecture."

Holy shit.

Riften doesn't even exist yet. Nor do Kynesgrove or Shor's Stone or any other settlements that I've been to. This is so weird.

From what N'dak tells me, we are to travel via Mzulft, heading straight for the Great Lift of Raldbthar into the bowels of the earth. We'll avoid Windhelm, but will still have a chance to see it briefly. I have been to all three of those locations back in the future, where they were weathered and old, not the thriving cities they are now. I do not think I will be quite able to reconcile the cities with their future counterparts, if what I have already seen is any indication.

Mzulft, as expected, is thriving. We walk up the stone staircases, perfectly kept, and are greeted merrily by a few guards standing on the tower. A few Animunculi scatter about, mainly Spider Workers carrying bars of metal in and out of the storage room towards the main city. A few Dwemer women are chattering over by a fountain, one of them washing dished and another gathering leftovers from a picnic. Their children rush past us as we move to the main gates, laughing amongst each other.

A caravan is set up outside, an old man leisurely gnawing on an apple and sharing a pipe with the Dwemer next to him. Both of them watch us as we walk by, the man's eye lingering on me for a little longer than necessary.

The guards in the entrance hall allow us in easily enough – but we're not allowed past the indoor gates and the guard chambers.

"We've kept some beds free for you, N'dak, old chap. But you know the drill – nobody gets in unless they know their traps." One of them says apologetically, waving us through to the place where we'll sleep tonight. We're greeted with joy and mischief and laughing Dwemer in practical, form-fitting cloth – for anything else would easily catch on fire or blades from their traps.

The guards want to know all about our journey – though none of them ask where we're from. Some curious glances are send my way, but I dully ignore them and sip a cup of tomato juice. I don't even like tomato juice, but it's more filling than water.

As I sit and watch, the rooms seem to shiver and overlap, twisting and turning the lines between past and future blurry. A guard dressed in warm reds and oranges, joking with his fellows and poking fun at a chagrined Er'thk, stands next to the shimmery figure of a Synod researcher's old corpse, flesh rotting, chunks of robes missing and the larvae of flies making their home inside of it.

I have to blink and shake my head for the scene to clear and the dead researcher, ruins and bloodstains from my memories to fade, leaving me with a strange vertigo that has N'dak inquire after my health.

"I… It's fine. It may be better if we walked a bit faster tomorrow, though."

He nods solemnly. "Aye, very well. But we can only walk so fast, Fjaldi. I will speak to Er'thk."

I can only shake my head worriedly and urge my travel companions to cover more ground the next day.

On the road between Mzulft and Windhelm, which we walk on foot, similar incidents occur. My headache never quite seems to fade completely, waking up with the dull throbbing taken as a sign of my being alive rather than a minor annoyance.

Nothing can stop the pain. Especially not with the abysmal state of medicine in this time.

Healing potions are rare, the art of Alchemy not nearly as refined as the future will make it, distilling ingredients a luxury for only the rich and scholarly. The Restoration school of magic doesn't even exist yet.

Tea made out of all the blue mountain flowers I can pick is as much as I can get my hands on.

The world shifts and distorts around me, dizzying and nauseating. Sometimes I will see ghosts of animals that aren't really there, sometimes I feel like we are the ghosts, treading on the paths of the future, even though they run different courses from what I remember.

At some point, I dodge a carriage of a Khajit caravan, only to find it pass through me like a cold breath of air. Er'thk scoffs, but I see him giving me sideways glances, wary. My sickly skin and the bruising under my eyes from my awful sleep must not add to my image. If not for N'dak, I'm sure the younger Dwemer would have abandoned me in the wilds on grounds of insanity.

I can't help it. Every time I close my eyes, the symbols on the mirror my father studied dance in front of my eyes, keeping me from rest. They flicker bright and blue in neon sharpness, and I can't understand them no matter how I try.

I'm sure it did something to me.

Maybe it even brought me back in time.

The mystery and misery only serve to make me more snappish and withdrawn. I can see that N'dak is worried in the way he coaxes more and more mountain flower tea past my lips. The red ones seem to alleviate the symbols – the ones that restore magica. I'm… Not sure what to think of it.

I have no magica reserves, after all.

Riften hold cannot seem to decide if it's a volcanic wasteland with an ash-grey sky and no life to be found amidst its toxic waters, or if it's a vibrant place with giant encampments and mountain flowers in abundance, relaxing hot springs at every turn. I vaguely remember a hunter's camp set up near the best places to relax, but N'dak and Er'thk don't want to stop.

"The air is poison, and the fumes are flammable. We cannot risk a fire, or risk a camp." Er'thk snaps at me when I suggest a break.

I hadn't even noticed the thick stench of sulfur and rotten eggs until he mentioned it. In the back of my mind, I start to wonder whether or not this is all even real.

The flora will sway in the wind where there is none to be found, change from blossoming to winter-dead, or stay eerily still even as the rain and storms pelt my icy skin.

Which is real? Am I in an illusion?

The voices of Er'thk and N'dak grow faint and then stronger, sometimes I miss entire conversations and sometimes I hear nearby Bosmer hunters complain about missing a shot, but when I look, nobody is there.

Or am I the only thing that isn't real? Am I in the past, living a lie? Am I in the future, a Dragonborn? What is real? Why can't I tell the difference? Or is it all real at the same moment, in different times?

More than once, we are forced to halt because the pain in my head becomes too much and I lose whichever food I ate, or because the vertigo becomes so great that I have to sit down before passing out.

I can't keep down anything more substantial than thin soups and broths. Dangerous, when on the roads and reliant on what you hunt.

N'dak frets and worries over me, and I have to look him in the eye and know that he will die soon. I feel sick, and not just with worry. Even the red mountain flowers don't help enough. It's like there is a steady drain on my body, on my mind.

Is N'dak even real? Am I just imagining him? He will be dead with all the other Dwemer – or is he dead, has he been dead all this time?

I don't know anymore.

Windhelm is a hub of activity that becomes almost too much for me, even at a distance. The stones are straight and new and orderly, but they are worn with age and messily placed and in ruin. A few people mill about yet dozens of traders make their dealings here, an army is building on the steps but they are empty. Once I manage to get my head sorted and firmly in the past, firmly in the time where I currently exist as more than a pale ghost, I manage to marvel at it and be saddened by how far the Windhelm I know has fallen into disrepair. The Grey Quarter doesn't even exist yet, the Dunmer not chased from their homes.

Dunmer, or Chimer? Which is real?

The city does, at some point, become too much for me, and three days during which I am too sick to walk are wasted at a lumber mill outside the city that is not on the right side of the river to me.

I should still be in bed, as a matter of fact – the sickness, whatever it is, is not going to go away mysteriously and I am rather pressed for time as it is.

Instinctively, I know that it will go away alongside the past-future mirages, once I am back in the time I now feel I belong in. If I want to live, if I want to remember what reality is, I MUST get back to the Fourth Era. Fast.

Throughout the entire week and a half of travel, the Elder Scroll, my prize, my weapon against Alduin when I make it back home, is strapped securely to my back, getting not a few considering glances. But I don't let my sickness keep me from cutting off wandering fingers with my axes.

My sense of time is completely gone. Days of travel feel like they pass in minutes, hours of talking stretch out to weeks.

The Great Lift at Raldbthar is a welcome sight for my weary body, but I know I still have to go a little further.

Eleven days down. Three more to go. Only to the tower now. Ugh, I wish we hadn't been held up when I collapsed in Windhelm.

I have three days to make it to the Tower Mzark, last time, the Falmer and Chaurus made it a four day trip. Now, my sickness is slowing me down… I suppose, when push comes to shove, Er'thk is strong enough to carry me, annoying as he is.

Er'thk, as far as companions go, is an annoying little shit not used to roughing it out in the wilds. He is quick to anger, disregards 'illogical' emotions, has zero empathy or sympathy for my apparent illness, is sour-faced at the first drop of rain and barely lifts a finger unless N'dak tells him to do something.

N'dak, on the other hand, is a mother hen on par with Ondolemar on his worst days. Protective and continuously looking out for me, yelling whenever I confront a wild animal on the road rather than let him and his feeble magic take care of the threat. We both know I am more combat capable even now, with sunken cheeks, pale skin and trembling fingers. He tells me stories to help me get my mind of my headaches and other assorted inconveniences.

My father befriended him early on as a researcher, and it was sheer coincidence that they met again in Kagrenzel. I… appreciate his concern and thoughtfulness, and feel guilty that I keep thinking of the fact that Marcurio is a better storyteller than the aging Dwemer walking gamely next to me.

They feel like ghosts sometimes, like I can reach out and move through them. But I keep my hands to myself, because if they are ghosts and this is an illusion, it is not an illusion in which I want to be alone.

I very carefully do not consider that my current travel companions will die soon. All the Dwemer will die soon. All the people I see now will be long dead by the time I come out of the other end of the Time Stream – assuming my body survives the strain of the trip.

I cannot deny the consideration that I suffer from some sort of deterioration as a result of my second accidental time travel. It explains the visions in which future and past overlap, it explains the vertigo and unsettling feeling of not having my feet on solid ground. It would also explain the headaches… Partially. My father - The cursed mirror's invading of my mind has surely left its scars.

Meeting with a Dwemer mind healer would not be remiss before I leave for the future, since none exist there. But I know that if I want to make it back there, I cannot afford to miss any time.

I must survive. I must go back. I need to know what is real, if this is real.

N'dak has clearly been to Fal Zhardum Din before, as he strides across the stone paths with certainty. Bemusedly, I notice that not much about the underground cavern system has changed, with the exception of the activity. Falmer and Dwemer are fighting a war, something I should not so casually disregard and which has Er'thk on high alert and maximum irritation level even as it wars with his awe of Blackreach.

We only come across one scuffle, where the Dwemer forces seem to have the upper hand, and N'dak bodily drags both his apprentice and myself away from it as fast as his untrained legs can carry him.

"We're almost there now. Come on boys, we do not want to get caught up in this mess. The guards will take care of it soon enough."

I'm not so sure about that, but keep my mouth shut even as we keep moving, allowing me to finally lay eyes on the Tower of Mzark – gleaming, new, and all-too-imposing.

It is superimposed by a vision of the future, but for once, the double vision doesn't hurt, as nothing has changed.

Nothing changes in the cities of stone.

My sense of time is still completely off the charts, and my frequent inquiries as to what time or date it is must have irritated Er'thk and N'dak both, though the latter isn't so vocal about any of his displeasures, preferring to keep the high ground and not resort to petty barbs like his apprentice.

It feels like mere minutes to move from one side of Fal Zhardum Din to the other, but I intellectually know that it has been days of jogging and rushing and hurrying.

Today.

I have to go back to the future today. Call Vulthuryol.

But when I step forwards onto the bridge towards the tower entrance where I first met the guardian of Blackreach, two guards stop me. For a moment, all I can do is stare at them both confusedly, because they appear as translucent specters that should not be able to poke me with their shields.

I blink twice, and they solidify. I take a reluctant step back, swaying on my feet ever-so-slightly. N'dak wouldn't have noticed, but these Mer were trained, and their eyes narrow warily.

"This is as far as you go, Kinsmer." One of them states slowly. I somehow gather the necessary energy to glare.

"I do not need to enter the tower. I need only stand on the bridge." I ground out between gritted teeth, ignoring the swelling ache in my skull.

N'dak places a hand on my shoulder in support. "Come now, Mer! Let the poor boy do his thing. Old Mzark will have his toy by the end of the day, and that's all that matters, right?"

"Unauthorized personnel are forbidden from crossing the bridge."

Er'thk takes a few smart steps backwards when my face darkens as it did when we faced an ancient type of wolf, twice as large as the ones in the Fourth Era and with twice as many massive canines, hunting in packs of four or more.

N'dak's grip on my shoulder tightens, though his voice becomes strained. "Now, gentlemer, please. He is the son of my blood-sworn brother, and his only request was that I brought his son to where he wished to go. You would not deny a Mer his dying wish..?"

The guards are not deterred, merely tightening the grips on their weapons. I can see their eyes move to my only visible scars "The boy is here now. The request has been granted. You have fulfilled his wish."

Crap, I'm going to have to call on Vulthuryol from right here, then. With all these Dwemer watching me.

And indeed, there were more gathering to watch the unfolding spectacle as N'dak spoke to the stone-faced guards, convincingly but not enough.

The anger overtakes my common sense with a fierceness that is terrifying in its own right.

I tilt my head to the side slightly, seizing up the two heavy armor-clad warriors. Even with glass war axes, I cannot break straight through their defenses, or at least not fast enough to keep them from calliing potential backup. No physical weapon would be able to deal enough damage in one go, and there are anti-magica enchantments on those shields…

But the Thu'um is not the same type of magic.

I let it build in my throat, a rumble that has the stonework shiver and N'dak let go of me immediately. I straighten myself up to my full height, the Elder Scroll on my back gleaming in the low light, the guards shifting their weapons to a ready position.

"I am Drak'nakaraat Threinmûr." I intone darkly, taking half a step forwards so their blades are digging lightly into my chest, my lips baring into a challenging growl. The power of the Thu'um echoes in my voice and all around me. Dark spots dance in my vision and my skin is burning with fever.

"You will move aside and allow me access to the bridge, or you will be moved."

They change their grips to an attack position, far too slow for a trained assassin not to keep up with, and I inhale sharply for a Shout, an haphazard strategy forming in my mind. A stab of pain shoots through my head and the world threatens to tilt on its axis.

"Step down, stranger, or we will arrest you!"

"FUS RO DAH!"

The Thu'um echoes like a thunderclap, sending the two heavy armors clanking and clashing and flying across the bridge. With a self-satisfied grin, I walk after them, up to the two golden doors. Every breath is a battle, every expansion of my aching lungs a victory.

Time to see how to get the fuck out of here before I'm really arrested and dragged before the Council.

"VULTHURYOL! Bo Het, Wuth Fadon!" I call into the blue-cast darkness, my Voice making the very ceiling tremble with its force.

Come, old friend. Come, so I may get out of here and fulfill my promise to you.

It takes only a few seconds for an answering roar to echo throughout the entire caverns, large wings swooping down overhead, sending Dwemer screaming and scrambling, either for their weapons or for their feet to carry them away from the large dragon that descends upon the bridge like the personification of Sithis himself.

My teeth rattle and it takes all I have to keep myself from falling to pieces and vomiting all over the floor in another bout of sickness, the edges of my vision darkening.

"Drem Yol Lok, Ysmir." Far too knowing eyes light up as they see me, for a lack of a better word, and even in my sorry state, I find it within myself to grin.

"I told you I would do it." I cannot help but be smug about it, and the dragon, far younger now, grins.

"Geh. And so you did. Now it is time to send you forwards, along with what has always been here."

His voice echoes and thunders, and the world shifts into a past-future vision again, the mob of horrified and shocked Dwemer fading and flickering, interspersed with the appearance of a lone humanoid figure standing at the other end of the bridge, waiting.

I make eye contact with N'dak and give him a helpless smile. Er'thk has fainted.

Then the force of a Shout and a Dragon Soul hit me all at once with the power of a magically enforced ebony Warhammer mid-swing, and existence itself fades into purple light and a mix of colors I have never seen before. My body feels stretched and compressed at the same time, and I want to breathe but can't, want to vomit but I can't, want to fade into unconsciousness but can't, want to see or feel or hear anything beyond the rushing of blood in my ears bu 't…

Then I am spat out into a whirling tornado and feel a sharp tug behind my gut before reality reasserts itself, snapping into place with an abruptness that has me topple over on the spot.

I never want to be conscious during time travel again. Never want to time travel again, period. I don't think I'll survive the experience.

The dirty, moss-overgrown stone comes up to meet me as I fall, but I find myself in a pair of waiting arms instead.

The world is tilting and moving underneath my feet, but my vision stays steady, stays in one time only, stays real, and before I know it, I am weeping in relief.

"Goodbye… And thank you, Ysmir." Sounds a distant voice, fading with every word. Then a second one interjects, far more frantic.

I'm back. I'm back. I'm home.

"Fjaldi? Fjaldi? Are you okay? You just appeared and the lights-! And the dragon who saved me is-! A dragon saved me, I-! I just- What's going on? Can you stand? Can you hear me? Fjaldi?!"

I shut my eyes and let myself go limp against the solid chest clad in mage robes belonging to the one whose arms are holding me securely in place, the sickness I'd been feeling increase over week finally abating, though I will probably need a bit of rest before even considering myself at half power again.

I have to know. He's not dead, but I have to know. Must know it now.

Drowsy and still in no little bit of pain, I manage to croak out a question: "You're not dead? Not another illusion send to punish me? You're…real?"

Marcurio sounds offended, voice sharp and there and – and – present, somehow, not like the voices of ghosts that have haunted me for what feels like an eternity, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

"Of course I'm real! You're…"

Such a shameful thing that I cannot even bring myself to listen to the rest of his sentence. My lips twitch.

I bring my head up with a momentous effort, watching his eyebrows twitch in concern at me and falls silent as he takes in my no doubt vacant eyes and dazed expression. I give him a silly grin. "I missed you, you asshole."

Then I pass out.

I wish that wasn't such a common trend.