It had taken Neht several minutes to yank himself out from beneath his own grogginess.
"Not," he breathed (in reference to his shoes), "Where I left you!"
He peered out of a nearby window, beginning to feel painfully aware of an overwhelming sense of weariness affixed to his limbs, as though he was stuck once again within the mire surrounding dreary Ildrim (which he'd had to cross long before reaching the boat that had ferried him across the Padomaic Ocean to Gorne.) The sluggishness of Neht's movements was, as he later decided, markedly unbecoming for a warrior of his prowess; yet in spite of it all, he did finally manage to reach the window (and thankfully, there were none around to witness his haphazard shambling.)
The emerald-tinted landscape of Gorne seemed once more unchanged, save for the island's flora. Most of the plants' leaves were weighed down with water after another copious amount of rainfall. Aching fingers sleepily trailed across the windowsill, stopping short before Neht would suffer his clumsiness claiming the potential casualty in the form of a knocked-down candle. Once he was satisfied that it was indeed raining outside (and not the hallucinated product of a weary mind), Neht doddered back to the bed at a glacial pace before sinking back into the sheets. Normally, his relatives held an unspoken expectation that Neht would rise and take breakfast with them, but he'd managed to scrawl out a note detailing how he was feeling a bit under the weather (which was only a half-lie, anyway. He wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise.)
Though he was thankful that he'd done so when he woke, he recalled neither writing that note nor falling asleep again. This time, he woke feeling a trifle more rested than before with the gentle warmth provided by linear rays from the weak midday sun, which had managed to surmount the clouds' chokehold, streaming insistently through the windows just as the clarity of his thoughts surmounted the grey barrier of grogginess. Their presence meant that he had no need of further pestering to facilitate his awakening. He peered over the side of the bed once more, finding that his shoes were undisturbed before his gaze habitually perenigated to the next item of concern - that horrid red book from last night.
Neht dressed quickly, armed with the intent of finding out what Vissamu was, despite the dreadful feeling that enveloped him whenever the thought of the word, and of that infernal, beetle-shaped symbol scrawled below it-or, perhaps this tincture of danger is what had garnered his interest in the first place. Since it seemed as if someone had gone to great lengths to conceal the book and the paper detailing Vissamu's existence, Neht felt morbidly compelled to investigate it. Certainly, the book and its secret had been concealed; but he couldn't help but feel as though someone had wanted him to find it. Though he'd like to tell himself that he'd been all but wheedled into it by the circumstances, those who knew him well would profess that he could've just as easily left the matter alone.
For time immemorial, the area around Vissamu was where the forest withered and wept in silence. It was where the wild things of Gorne, hardy and aberrant though they were, did not grow. The residents of Sandil House breathed not a whisper alluding to its existence - not since the early Second Era. Few in number were the elders who knew the truth. They prayed silently, each day, that the red deeds of the past might simply be swept away by the tide of forgetfulness or buried beneath the ebb and flow of life as usual. Even the servants held their silence as if the very whips of their masters hung headlong in their gaze. Aside from the occasional choked rumor from the village about the deeper parts of the forest being cursed and otherwise unnavigable, what there was in earnest to be known about the place had long surrendered itself to realm undiscussed mysteries.
The verdant abundance of life abruptly surrendered to a pervasive and unnatural desolation where the ancient and long-forgotten clanstead of House Dagoth had once stood on Gorne - Gorne, which had once known a far different version of "life as usual." Perhaps all things that were healthy and good sensed the stifling, oppressive aura of death lingering about the ruined hold of Vissamu, and had made it a point of simply avoiding the place outright (if they were wise.) It could be said, perhaps, that the forest itself was afraid to grow too close the entrance of that ancient, bloody cavern. Dead tree branches struck out in all directions like wicked, withered limbs that longed to point Neht in all the wrong directions as an act of vengeance for the event that had caused their suffering ages ago, each of their twisted trunks faced downward, reverently, to the earth as though kneeling.
Over the past few days, Neht's forays into the dense forest of Gorne (which was nearly a jungle in its own right) surrounding its eponymous village had grown progressively longer, yet it seemed that no matter how deep he went into the forest, the location he sought remained tantalizingly elusive. One afternoon, he fancied that he'd seen a spot where the vegetation faltered, but a few steps more proved him lost and unable to find it again, leaving him to wonder whether or not he'd just imagined the whole thing. The idea of finding the truth behind Vissamu - a desire which dogged him day and night - seemed just as lost as he was within all that greenery.
His exploratory efforts were fueled chiefly by his desire not to be cooped up in the village all the time. Though he knew that the library of Sandil House was an easy sanctuary for him, he did not dwell in there overmuch-for books, while interesting, made for somewhat cold friends with which he soon grew bored. The forest seemed to be the only viable alternative, since it was entirely plausible that the forest might lead him to whatever Vissamu was, and the better half of those there who knew where Neht had come from spared no effort to let him know that despite his kin and his newfound status, they turned their noses up at him.
They turned their noses up at Neht. They turned their noses up at him, and they turned their noses up at him and he almost hated them for it. It would've been so easy to hate them, but as they were in ignorance of his situation, Neht gave them forgiveness, which, admittedly, he didn't feel that they deserved. Was his mere existence truly such a crime? He had (as he'd informed each and every one of them) about as much control over the circumstances of his birth as each of them had. They were markedly cross with him for being an outsider, yet equally as cross with him for all the things that made him less of an outsider-and really, there was no winning to be had with these people!
Nevertheless, he weathered each and every cold shoulder, snide remark, and upturned nose with a smile upon his face and his intentions in the form of a dagger concealed behind his back, for it was as an old friend (whose face and name he could not recall) had once said: "A smile to your face, sera, and a dagger to your back," - all the while subduing a hot, impetuous coalbed within him in the shape of his own nature, which remained lambent with indignant rage, constantly threatening to push him to the point of argument. (He'd been reminded of the quote while reading something eerily similar in a book called The Formalities of Mirth by Serjo Athyn Sarethi of House Redoran-the words uttered by warrior-poet Vivec. Neht found terribly strange that he knew this, for he had absolutely no reason to believe that he knew Vivec whatsoever - rather, that is what he told himself, and what others might tell him in turn if he were to voice such a suspicion to the ears of a House immersed Tribunal doctrine. (Coincidences of this sort, however, had long ago been extinguished from the lands of Veloth.)
Wading back through the deluge of green was no easy task, but it was enthralling; something Neht thoroughly enjoyed-until it rained, at least! Then, it was time to head home (home, with the implications of a family, which he found was a delightfully unfamiliar concept) for a piping hot mug of bittergreen-and-apple cider. The cider itself was the stuff of legend as far as Neht and his tastebuds were concerned. Ardently spiced with earthy bittergreen, processed and cooked to the point where it was safe to imbibe, combined the powerful sweetness of a brew composed of pear-like apples endemic to Gorne.
The apples enjoyed their facetiously-awarded nickname of "Gorne apples" (given by Vivec himself, no less) due to their presumed kinsmanship to the gorapple. The sweetness of the brew, though undeniable in its strength and capacity, had a sharpness about that was to be expected with most Dunmer teas (as the cider had been dubbed a 'tea' by the Sandil family.) The apples with which it was crafted, Neht was told, were exported by the crateful and the profits from this endeavor were used to pay the local clergymer and provide for them, as well as funds being sanctioned for the upkeep the small Tribunal Chapel adjacent to Sandil House. According to Grandfather Ranalith, the remainder of the profits were tucked away into the family's pocket for the sake of maintaining a foothold in the Grand Council as well as the Alma Rula.
The way Folvoso brewed it with such care; how she smiled when Neht made him feel that her presence there made the cider that much better. The inviting ginger-brown of her hair somewhat resembled the beverage itself, leading Neht to voice his supposition that perhaps her hair smelled of apples and bittergreen, too, causing the poor girl to grow nervous and blush.
Folvoso looked to be a few years Neht's junior. She was a slave, marked by the magicka-draining bracer that cruelly encumbered her slender left wrist. When looking at her, he felt that he should be made stand between her and every gust of wind, lest it sweep her thin form away - although she was not unhealthily thin, she was svelte in a way that he'd never seen on a mer - at least, not in this lifetime. She was the charge of Samase Larethi, the kitchen-mistress, (fondly nicknamed the "Mistress of Three Meals") was rumored to be the illegitimate sister of Neht's mother and Ranalith's own daughter. While she was afforded the grace of not being a slave, she too was a live-in servant of sorts.
She was an artful chef (and an absolute fiend to those who dared to barge in before meal-time), priding herself on whipping up the most delicious surprises for each meal. Naturally, both his grandfather and Folvoso had warned Neht against ever asking what's for dinner. It struck Neht as somewhat odd, that his meticulous, compulsively orderly grandsire did not object to each meal being a surprise, as it seemed to Neht that he adored knowing and anticipating all things within his grasp. Perhaps the secret to it all was to anticipate the unknowable.
Nevertheless, with each meal (and really, anything that involved summoning Folvoso), Neht couldn't help but feel immensely sorry for her, gazing at her as if that slave bracer were a blemish on her otherwise immaculate complexion. One evening, it compelled him to sneak into the kitchen and visit her while Samase slept. He tiptoed carefully past Samase, afraid to risk breathing too loudly and risking the incumbent wrath of the Mistress of Three Meals (as she was known for her temper, and the kitchen was of course littered with all sorts of dangerous, sharp cooking utensils) and over to Folvoso.
Armed with both the intent to free her and the key to her slave bracer, which he'd divined the location of and nabbed from its home (being tucked inconspicuously within a hidden compartment in a desk), Neht murmured urgently, "Please wake up. I'm here to free you!"
The slave girl did not even so much as stir, suddenly sitting bolt-upright in bed. Once it clicked that it was indeed young Lord Sandil before her, she rose up and ushered him out of the kitchen quietly. Their conversation began properly in an alcove down the hall, conveniently removed from the immediate sight of anybody who might be walking down the main corridor to the kitchen.
"Listen. I don't want to be free," she hissed in his ear, thin digits unable to completely encircle the muscular bulk of Neht's forearm. "I'm quite happy here. Where would I go, anyways?"
Neht drooped. Being the impetuous creature that he was, he hadn't thought about that-but now that the question was raised, where would she go, hypothetically speaking? Where was there to go on a such a small island where news and discontent traveled with such virulent swiftness? What a fool he was, and what a fool he must look in the eyes this girl. He might've walked away, encumbered with his own discouragement were it not for Folovso's heart being somewhat moved by the notion that a mer having newly found his family might risk their wrath - and the entire island's wrath, for that matter - and all for the sake of liberating of one slave! Like any other noteworthy Indoril of yore, he meant well, but his passionate well-meanings could just as easily incite disaster.
"I...I see," came his half-hearted response. "There is sense in what you say, but -"
She cut him off. "But every time you look at my bracer - and you do gawk at it rather often - it fills you with disquiet. That much is plain to see. It is, if I may say, serjo, almost tangible. It upsets my master and makes him feel as if he's doing great wrong by my being here, but I am had-pressed for choices. Forgive me for interrupting, serjo, and for...drawing conclusions, if they are incorrect."
Stunned, Neht took a few steps backward. There came an awkward pause before he was able to produce a response. "I see. You know this...how?"
Folvoso chuckled - a rich, syrupy sound. "I know because I know where master Ranalith keeps his journal, and where he stashes my key! He keeps it there, in the same place where it has been for years in case I decide to change my mind and take it. Lately, I've come believe that he wants me to take it, but perhaps now that you've given me the courage to consider it, I may tell him to his face that I'm happy here. Now," she added, with the sudden sharpness of a mother scolding her children for being awake at odd hours, "Get you to bed, my lord, and let us not speak another word of this!"
Neht blinked and moved to thank her-to say something, but she had already crept back into the kitchen and into her bedroll, tossing him a bit of a wink before turning her head away. In his mind, he fancied that he could hear her beautiful, warm laughter, playfully chasing him down the corridor, up the stairs and back into his bedroom. There was something exhilarating and most of all, very familiar, in all of it.
The next morning when Folvoso came to assist Samase with serving breakfast, Neht became aware of the tiniest trickle of a connection between them that hadn't existed before - how she gave him that knowing, secretive smile as she laid before him a small, rotund platter of scrib jelly. Breakfast was often a hurried affair at Sandil House, consisting of the four Sandils: Neht, Ranalith and Alveth's children (the girl-child called Lilth and the boy-child named Ienas) with the addition of the steward, Ravos Sorvalith, who, as Neht understood it, was also kin to his grandfather. Suffice it to say that he couldn't recall the specifics of how, and had probably dozed off while reading about them.
The conversation lacked its usual contrived air. It was as if everybody had privately resolved to slow down a bit and enjoy breakfast today-or perhaps this, too, existed only in Neht's fancy. Toward the end of the meal, the conversation had turned toward matters concerning Sandil Tomb, located on the other side of the isle. Though normally well-mannered, the twins offered a few fond statements about how most of the ghosts in there were all their grannies or grandfathers, prompting Grandfather Ranalith to lecture them on the specifics of familial relations, which in turn produced yawns from the twins in unison. Grandfather's lecture waned to silence, for he had concluded that alas, such complexities were wasted on young minds nowadays!
As the conversation climbed through various twists and turns, the kids couldn't help but observe that Uncle Neht seemed to avoid scrib cabbage and other such leafy greens like the Blight whenever they were placed on his plate, leading Ravos to question whether or not Neht truly believed that he could survive on tea, bread, scrib jelly, scuttle and meats alone.
Meanwhile, Neht's mind remained fixed on the subject of ghosts. A few recollections of last month's events made him wonder when, exactly, (and for that matter, where and why) had Indoril ancestral spirits collectively convened and picked up their ill-conceived habit of constantly speaking in riddles and seemingly obscure apothegms.
"Do not come any closer," the spirit had warned in a woeful, misty voice, "And 'ware the place where the sins of a bygone era have leave! Where the forest cedes to its grief!"
A fat lot of help that was, but Neht, (being who and what he was) knew well the meaning of those words. The Indoril Ancestral Spirits who'd snubbed Nerevar so long ago for what they dubbed his "inferior status" (in the face of his ascent and on the day of his wedding, no less!) were now markedly fearful that he might choose to reincarnate into one of the main families this time; yet far too proud to humble themselves enough to make that request just a bit more clear and less - well, snobbish.
Neht was feeling rather magnanimous, given their offhanded surrender during the ceremony (entailing, as Grandfather Ranalith had gone to such lengths to express to him, that his relatives formally and ceremonially recognized him as one of their own) and altogether nonplussed by their behavior as a whole, now. Though it had been a source of genuine (although mild) distress so long ago, it now seemed like an insignificant speck of dust misplaced by the wind-although that didn't mean the idea of squeezing in even closer to one of the main families (provided there was a "next time" to be had) was any less appealing.
"'Ware the place where the sins of a bygone era have leave.'
The spirit's warning loomed long in Neht's thoughts as he ascended the stairs to his room.
'...Where the forest cedes to grief.'
Those words cast a long, dark, scarab-shaped shadow over the rest of his week, though despite the spirit's intentions, it gradually began to blossom into more of an invitation than a warning.
