(A/N: Had to take a break from writing, but I'm back now. In this chapter, the story begins to unfold. Thanks to everyone who reviewed.
Disclaimer: No, I don't own Morrowind.)
Death's Kiss - Chapter Five - Memories.
Hasphat Antabolis. Nerevarine. Sixth House. These names run through my head - the last two in particular - as I head over the bridges and try to locate the place called the Fighters' Guild. This is an easy business - I haven't gone long before I come across a two-story building boasting a prominent wooden sign inscribed with the like. I open the door without a thought, but go in with one: this place reeks. Of sweat, specifically. Sweat has always struck me a foul odor; as an Argonian, I lack the glands to secrete it, and this lack of familiarity makes it all the fouler to me.
I see the sweaty smell resonates from a bunch of humans and mer, swatting at beaten cloth dummies with various weapons. This being the Fighters' Guild, they are honing their fighting skills. I take a deep breath, hold it (I want to breathe this noxious atmosphere in as little as possible) and ask a red-haired human woman if she's seen Hasphat Antabolis. She eyes me suspiciously.
"What do you want with him?" she asks, glaring at me so venomously I might have asked to slice off her mother's head. I heave an inward sigh; this is what happens when one sends large, battle-scarred talking lizards after men. I doubt it'll make things any better if I tell her I was sent by Caius, the "old man with a skooma problem". I could think up a convincing lie, but she wouldn't have any reason to believe me, so that would be rather pointless. She doesn't look the type to buckle under a death threat, and that's the only other means of persuasion I know.
"I only want to talk to him," I say honestly. She doesn't flinch. I pull back my lips, revealing row after row of glistening yellow fangs and mottled black gums in an attempt at a friendly smile. "Please?" The smile seems to make her hate me more. It's times like this I wish I'd been born a cute, fuzzy little Khajiit.
"No." She's firm on this one. Fortunately, there are other people to ask. After leaving the unpleasant woman to do as she will, I encounter a more amiable human, who directs me to a room in the basement. I can feel the red-haired woman's eyes on my back as I push open the basement door; smirking to myself, I take the steps down.
Where the steps wear off, a hall opens up. I follow it down to the last door and open it - lo and behold, there is Hasphat Antabolis himself, or at least what I take to be him. And a female human, ladyfriend or relative of his I can't tell. She excuses herself and goes out as I enter, but I suspect she intends to linger just outside the door, ready to spring should I cause trouble. I slide my eyes back to watch as she shuts the door behind her, then look back at the man standing before me.
"Hasphat Antabolis?" I quest. He nods. "I've been sent to ask you about the Nerevarine and the Sixth House." I still can't shake the strange familiarity of these names. He nods again, smugly this time.
"I'll tell you what you want to know," he says, continuing before I can speak. "But first, you need to do something for me." The ugly favor Caius mentioned. I grit my teeth.
"As you wish it, sera. What would you have of me?" I wonder. He smiles more sincerely at my consent.
"There are Dwemer ruins nearby called Arkengthand. I need you to run over there" - he says this in the most irritatingly casual manner - "and find me a little cube with a circular design and some symbols on one side. It's called 'a Dwemer puzzle box'. Bring me back the Dwemer puzzle box, and I'll tell you what you want to know."
"Where is this place?" I ask. I'm to steal a puzzle? Caius calls this dirty? Hasphat gives me elaborate instructions, referring to landmarks I've never heard of, so I remember less than half of what he just said. I get the gist of it, though: leave town, cross river, turn toward place that sounds like "scald" at first signpost, find second signpost to place that sounds like "Mole Egg Marsh", go right, up hill, over old bridge, turn crank. Assassins have to be good with directions, even when they're lowly slaves.
"So be it." I turn to leave, then pause as something occurs to me. "If you don't mind my saying, I believe it's pronounced Arkngthand. No 'e'." I can sense his anger at being slighted.
"How would you know?" he cries.
"A good question," I reply. "I don't think I can answer it." Indeed, I can't. And so I leave, wondering how I could pronounce such a strange name - and stranger yet, how I know what a Dwemer ruin is. I don't believe I've ever heard of one before in my life, but I know exactly what one looks like and what sort of squat, clever mer built them before becoming extinct. Odd. Very odd...
I break out of the Fighters' Guild into fresh open air, sunlight glinting off every rain-slicked surface. Stepping through shallow puddles with loud splashes, I have much to ponder as I leave Balmora.
The entrance out is semi-haloed by an arch made of the same yellow-hued stuff as all the rest. As I pass under it, I notice one of the oddest creatures I have ever seen. It looks to be a brown insect, half the size of a small house, and towers above me on thin, stiltlike legs. It lingers next to the wall bordering the city and the wilderness, mostly, but sometimes giving off soft moans of pain. A silt strider, this is. I know it as I know the Dwemer. There is something very wrong with this one... but I do not pester myself with ponderments, and continue on.
A dirt path wears out of the city limits, leading to a bridge to cross the same river which threads through the city itself. The path begins again on the other side of the bridge, wider and more refined this time around. The ground rises into rocky bluffs on either side, closing the path in and giving it a sheltered, if claustrophobic feel. I follow the path, looking for the signpost, and after five minutes of walking I find it. But it's not all I find.
Here, as the path makes a sharp turn and branches in several directions, a large building is caught up in one of its elbows. Not at all like the structures of Balmora, it is a towering, castlelike construct of gray cobblestone. Well-armored human men patrol the courtyard it encases, the walkways it suspends. An institution of the empire, no doubt... a fort. I know this because I've been in a fort before. Not that I was invited, mind you; I was on business to tear a man to pieces slowly and make it quick (contradictory as orders were), but I have been in one nonetheless. As I stand and gaze, a chill crawls up my spine. This fort should not be here. The thought is abrupt. I push it aside and examine the signpost. It's an upright stick, flagged by small wooden signs denoting points of interest. Strange names adorn the wooden flags, written in a stranger script that I shouldn't be able to read, but can. "Caldera" is the name I want. Following the Caldera flag, I take the north path.
I am haunted by a rough feeling of deja vu. As I walk, I pass terrain, flora and fauna alien to the western provinces. Even so, I am immersed in a feeling of familarity and pleasure as I view them, touch them, hear them. The feathery leaves of heather, the porous, bulbous roots of corkbulb, sweet red fruits of comberry plants; the whoops of amorous alit, shrieks of territorial cliff racers in the distance; the rich brown soil beneath my feet; the red tint to an otherwise blue sky. I recognize it all.
The vegetation begins to die off as I hit harsher, harder soil further down the path, which angles off yet again. Another signpost marks the single turn the path has taken: "Molag Mar." The ground is gray and unyielding, like rock. Only dead trees line the path now, black from starvation and... ash? Still familiar, but not so pleasant, I think as I tread the path, multi-faceted pebbles scattering aside with noisy clink-clink-clinks at my footfalls. A dip in the path prompts me to bunch my muscles and clear it in a bound, landing atop the small hill the path rises into. My tail snaps the opposite direction of my head as I look over my surroundings, miles and miles of fresh wasteland cloaked in smoky odor. And then, not so far on, a bridge.
A Dwemer bridge. Gleaming, metal, golden and rusted in the gray sunlight. A series of leaps carries me to it in no time. No water drifts by beneath the bridge, only a deep, dry ravine. I run my hand along the top bar of the bridgerail, feet feeling along the textured bottom as I cross, eyes beset on what lies at the end.
The ruin lashes up at the sky, a castle of people long dead. Carved of the same elaborate metal as the bridge, with many more intracacies, weird extensions and intentional cracks my mind cannot begin to find uses for. Things scatter the ground, doodads and gizmos and whatnot - things as vain as what seems a broken mirror, as battleready as a giant crossbow. A civilization ancient and grand, yet more technologically advanced than today's peoples could ever dream. How could such a people die out? Victims of their own grandeur?
In awe, I walk on, getting ever closer. Ghosts of memories rack my brain, sounding out and blending with the ruin before me to form new ones, all of Dwemer make. I have not been here, but I have been there... other ruins, other times. I see people, long and short, snide and amiable, but never do I see them clearly, glimpsing them for an instant before my heads shifts again. I am at peace, I am frantic, I am in awe.
And then it slows, and the Dwemer ruin comes back into focus, though a ruin no more. The rust has left its surface; its metal exterior glimmer brilliantly. I rest a hand on each knee to steady myself and make sense of this onslaught of confusion, but I don't get a chance to do so. For at the moment, I hear a voice; a voice so sweet, a voice so intriguing, a voice so... perfect.
"Nerevar?" The voice is a whip to my mind, a cushion to my soul. I spin around and there before me stands the speaker. She is a woman, with skin more golden and precious than the Dwemer's metal, softer and purer than the finest silks. Her face is thin but not gaunt, her lips plump and satiable, nose pert, ears long and sharp, her eyes wide and luscious green. Long golden hair plumes out from her head in dandelion-soft weaves to frame her beautiful body. "Nerevar?" she asks again, reaching up a slender hand to touch my face. "Are you alright, Nerevar?"
The world stops spinning, only to spin again in another sense. "I am fine, Alma," I assure her in a strong, steady voice; a sense of warmth, of peace, of bliss and of love as I have never known it flows over me. I smile as I take her in my arms - arms covered in skin, not scales. I lean closer, holding her tight. "How could I not be, when I have you here?"
She laughs lightly. "Oh, Nerevar." She shakes her head, hair bouncing over her shoulders. "Dumac awaits us. Should we not go to him?"
"Dumac can wait." I squeeze her gently. "For now, I wish to be with you." I kiss her on the forehead with lips, not a snout. "I love you, Alma."
"I love you, too," she replies, looking up. Instinctively, I lean down and press my lips to hers. The kiss lasts but a moment as she pushes away. "We should hurry," she insists.
"No, Alma. Let them wait," I plea, taking her hand. "Don't leave me..." No more is said. For in that instant, it all vanishes. Alma has gone as well, and only the Dwemer ruin stands before me, different and dead. I stand in shock, not comprehending. And then I see my hand.
The hand of a monster. Covered in scales, sporting long, gnarled black claws. I grip it with the other hand, but it is just the same. I feel teeth sharp as nails in my mouth, a tongue forked and thin. I feel no warmth in my body, only cold.
"Alma?" My voice is a serpent's hiss. I fall to the ground, racked with fear. "Alma? Alma? Alma?" I want to cry, but there are no tears. "Alma? Alma? Don't leave me... don't leave me... don't leave me, Alma... please..." Who am I? What am I? Where is she! "Alma, Alma, Alma, Alma, ALMA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
I am alone.