"Very nicely done," Nazir said, handing me a clanking satchel. I looked at him expectantly.
"You aren't going to put it back into the guild?"
"Not all of it. This is your cut. 1500 septims."
"1500 septims?!" I could almost faint. I don't think I'd ever seen so much coin, let alone held it in my hand. I jangled the pouch, appreciating its weight. If Nazir said these small tasks weren't very lucrative, I wondered exactly what lucrative meant in the brotherhood's book. Or should I say who? There certainly was an upside to murdering on command. Possibly a few.
"Don't spend it all in one place. Or do. I couldn't care less," Nazir shrugged and returned to his meal.
I skipped down the steps and into the main foyer, twisting Cicero's twin daggers between my pointer fingers. My body had felt lighter than it had in quite a while. I had a good amount of coin in my pocket and it almost felt like I hadn't been restless for days. When I closed my eyes, I didn't see the color of blood. I saw black. The simple, reliable black of the Void.
"But the night mother is mother to all! It is her voice we follow! Her will! Would you dare risk disobedience and surely punishment?" I heard Cicero's voice ring from the main corridor, he sounded frantic. I rushed down to find him. He stood in front of a large wooden box. The same box he was transporting when I first met him. The brotherhood surrounded the scene. Astrid and Arnbjorn stood around him stiffly, as if they may need to take action.
"Keep talking, little man," growled the werewolf. "And we'll see who gets punished."
"Oh, be quite you great, lumbering lapdog," argued Festus, "The man has had a long journey. You can at least be civil." He turned to Cicero. "Mister Cicero, I for one am delighted you and the Night Mother have arrived. Your presence here signals a welcome return to tradition."
"Oh, what a kind and wise wizard you are," Cicero said with a smile of gold. "Sure to earn our Lady's favor."
"You and the Night Mother are of course welcome here, Cicero. And you will be afforded the respect deserving as your position as Keeper." Astrid's voice was cool and collected, as usual.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" The fool literally jumped for joy.
"But make no mistake. I am the leader of this Sanctuary. My word is law. Are we clear on that point?"
"Oh, yes mistress! Perfectly! You're the boss!" Cicero giggled happily and began pushing the large crate to the stairs. I was about to offer him some help before Astrid's voice caught my attention.
"Ah, there you are. Good, I was done speaking with that muttering fool. We've got some business to discuss."
"Do you have a contract for me?"
"I do, indeed. You must go to the city of Markarth and speak to the apothecary's assistant. You'll probably find her in the Hag's Cure, when the shop is open. The girls been running her mouth. Wants an ex-lover killed. She apparently performed the Black Sacrament. Her name is Muiri. I need you to talk to her, set up a contract, and carry it out."
...
I found Cicero in a large room on the second floor. The sides of his crate were tossed in different directions and in the middle on the wall stood a tall stone cylinder.
"Is that her?" I asked. Cicero only stood there smiling. "Is that the Night Mother?"
"It is indeed, my dear Innocence." I was beginning to put the pieces together. The Black Sacrament. The Black-Hand. The Night Mother. They were all cogs for the deity Sithis. If Sanguine knew, he'd slaughter us all, that is assuming that the amount of unholiness didn't knock him unconscious on his way through the door first. Cicero and I stood in silence for a while before I broke it.
"I came to bring these back to you." I unsheathed the daggers and held them out to him. Cicero shook his head and smiled.
"A gift from Cicero to you. May they guide Innocence's hands through the chests of targets with ease." Silence followed, but not an awkward one. Just admirable silence.
...
I walked into the Hag's Cure and sighed, taking in the scent of nirnroot and fire salts. This was my first full contract. Find the patron, find the contract, and collect the gold. Five people were now dead by my hand, and my hand alone. Sure, I had finished people off when Sanguine was too busy or lazy to do so himself, but those were his victims. These were mine. I swallowed my nervous excitement that came with the power I felt.
I found Muiri in the back of the shop, pacing and waiting. Waiting on a murderer.
"Muiri?" I asked nervously. This woman made a contract. A contract to have someone killed. She could make one against me if I make one wrong move. She looked up from her pacing and gasped, pushing her hands through her hair.
"Are you the one?" I nodded, hoping that I was answering yes to the correct question.
"The Dark Brotherhood! Oh... my goodness, you're really here! The Black Sacrament. If actually worked!" She seemed a mixture of nervous energy and hope. The promise of death bring hope to the hopeless.
"Now tell me what you need." She explained to me that the man, Alain Dufont had wronged her in a time of mourning. How him and his cutthroat friends had been bandits disguising themselves as eligible bachelors. They had destroyed her relationship with the Shatter-Shields and her reputation. Muiri had called me here to bring justice to the unworthy. She had also requested that I kill a daughter of the Shatter-Shield clan, Nilsine. Why, she wouldn't say, but it was my job to carry the order through.
...
As I made my way carefully through the ruins of Raldbthar, the hideout of the bandit crew, I couldn't help but admire how good at sneaking I had become during these few days of on-the-job training. Sneaking around people instead of attacking felt more humane and less nerve racking. It was almost as if I was becoming one with the shadows, like the night mother had wrapped me in a cloak of invisibility.
The kill was clean and easy as my new daggers sliced through the man's jugular vein as if it was made of butter. The smell of blood only lingered in my nostrils for a moment before I had forgotten about it entirely.
Killing Nelsine was slightly more difficult. Her clan was one of, if not, the largest one in the city of Windhelm. The giant mansion of a cottage they lived in had the most intense locks I had ever seen. I eventually picked it and entered the house, knocking over a chair in the foyer and waking the contract. As she searched for me in the dark, I quickly slid my dagger through her stomach. She slumped to the ground with a blood curdling screech. I slinked through the window almost too quickly to grab my twice blood-soaked daggers on the way out.
When I returned to the apothecary, Muiri seemed relieved, yet eager to get me out of her presence. She rewarded me with a pouch of gold and a ring and sent me on my way.
...
"How did everything go? Has Muiri's ex-lover been executed?" Astrid giggled cutely, drawing out the syllable "ex." Even through the Dark Brotherhood was a very diverse group, full of all different races and walks of life, they all had one thing in common. Their twisted love of dark wordplay.
"I did what had to be done. Nothing more." I swallowed the dissonance of pride and anguish once more. It was fading, that was for certain. I didn't know weather that was comforting or terrifying.
"Of course, dear. Of course," she cooed. "And from what my little ravens tell me, you handled yourself quite well." Word of two assassinations in one night must go around quickly, especially with friends like these. "Now I need your assistance with a matter of a more... personal nature."
"Is something wrong?"
"It's Cicero. Ever since he's arrived his behavior's been... well, erratic would be an understatement. I do believe he is truly mad." She squeezed her temples as if whatever problem the fool was causing wasn't worth the time it took to polish her daggers. "But it's worse than that. He's taken to locking himself in the Night Mother's chamber and talking to someone in hushed frantic tones. Who is he speaking with? What are they planning? I fear treachery. Dear sister, I need you to steal into the chamber and eavesdrop on their meeting. It'll be no use clinging to the shadows. They'll see you for sure. No, you need a hiding place. Somewhere they'd never think to look." She smiled a dastardly smile.
"Like in the Night Mother's coffin."