Middas, 1st of Frostfall, 4E 201

The start of the week had crawled by, leaving Yngve anxious by Middas morning. Finally, the day had come when he would be able to enact the next step of his plan, to find out who was responsible for the murders of Friga Shatter-Shield and Susanna. Or, at least, to find something – some clue – that would give him some direction in his pursuit of the answer. How lucky it would be, Yngve thought, if all the proof lay inside that house. But he was sure it didn't, and that more work lay ahead.

Still, thoughts of progress swirled around Yngve's mind for the last few days, exciting him and raising his hopes. He had passed his old seal to Silda on Morndas without a hitch. He hardly slept Tirdas night, and woke early. Despite struggling to use his nondominant hand, he had washed his face and combed his hair relatively quickly, and by midmorning he was already ready.

Yngve wasted no time, heading from the palace over to Valunstrad, with Tymver on his heels. They bypassed the cemetery and went straight to the market, where Yngve began casually searching for an opportunity to lose his housecarl. The crowd was thin at first, but it was relatively early. After a short while, spent browsing and chatting up the merchants, the market became busier. By about midday, Yngve was easily able to give Tymver the runaround, as he had many times in his life, and slip away from the market, toward the cemetery, alone. From there, he walked quickly into the adjacent neighborhood, ascending two sets of stairs and coming to Hjerim at the end of the path.

Now that he stood right outside the door, the large, vacant house looked intimidating. Yngve shivered. The neighborhood was eerily quiet, and there was no telling who or what was inside the house. An unwelcome thought crept up on him. If something were to happen to me in there, would anyone even think to look for me inside? He pushed it out of his mind; it was too late to turn back now. He had to know what was behind the blood stained door. So, steeling his nerves, he tried the handle, and the door unlatched.

The inside of Hjerim was empty and looked, on the whole, long abandoned. The air was thick, Yngve immediately noticed, with a stench that he could only struggle to describe. He thought perhaps he had smelled something like it before, but couldn't place where or when. It was nearly overwhelming, but in a slow, creeping way.

In contrast to the general old and dusty state of the house, the blood splatters and drag marks continued inside, to the left side of the main room. Following the stains, Yngve came to a blood stained chest, which, surprisingly, was unlocked. Inside was a stack of leaflets and a book, and Yngve, unsettled, took both without looking at either.

Lifting his head from the inside of the chest, Yngve's gaze was drawn through a doorway toward a back room on the main floor. He was thoroughly creeped out, but this called for a thorough investigation. He didn't want to have to come back here later, so he solidified his resolve and forced his feet to take him there. Entering the back room, Yngve was surprised to find a bed that looked completely out of place. It didn't appear slept in, exactly, or perhaps this was just because it had been made. But it wasn't old and dusty like the rest of the house.

"How odd…" Yngve muttered to himself. He didn't hear the front door open.

Moving over to a side table, Yngve found several more stacks of leaflets. He sifted through them, and they all appeared to be identical, entitled Beware the Butcher! and imploring the reader to bring any information of "suspicious behavior" to Viola Giordano. The name wasn't familier to Yngve. He supposed he should find out who she was and consider speaking to her. Suddenly, as he was peering closely at the little shelf on the table, he heard a booming voice ring out behind him.

"Find what you were looking for?"

Yngve felt his heart leap up into his throat, and for a moment he was sure it would fly out of his mouth, as he practically jumped out of his skin. Trying to stand quickly upright and turn around to face the intruder, from his position crouched on the floor, he smacked the side of his head against the table. The force of Yngve's hard head knocked two stacks of leaflets to the floor, along with something that made a hard knocking sound against the wood.

"Tymver!" Yngve groaned angrily, wincing as he groped around on the floor to pick up whatever had fallen with the leaflets. "You scared the crap out of me!"

Yngve clutched the side of his head with his injured hand, while the other fumbled through the papers on the floor for whatever he had knocked down that had made such a hard sound. After flapping several papers out of the way, his fingers closed around an amulet. Still squeezing his eyes shut, he shoved it into his pocket; he'd have time to examine it later, when he was safely off of this unsettling property.

"It serves you right," Tymver said calmly. Yngve glared at him.

"Why are you here?" Tymver asked firmly.

"Because," Yngve said shortly, standing up and moving to investigate two wardrobes against the wall.

"Uh-uh," Tymver said, moving toward Yngve. "You've had your adventure. Now let the poor dead woman's house alone."

"No way," Yngve argued. "Something is obviously fishy here. And I'm already inside. I might as well look at everything," he insisted, throwing open the doors.

"Well, there you have it," Tymver said in a deadpan tone. "An empty closet. Let's go now."

"But… wait," Yngve said, sounding confused. "What's wrong… something's weird about this house."

"It's probably the blood," Tymver said, as if it were obvious. "Or the smell. I'll grant that you were right – the blood trail brought you here, and it looks like whoever murdered those women has been in here and may even be actively using this house to base his operations. But you were supposed to tell all that to the guards and let them conduct the investigation."

Yngve stood firmly in front of the wardrobe and looked defiantly over at Tymver. He wasn't ready to leave yet. He was sure this house had more to say about the murders. But he also couldn't deny that Tymver was right. He had exhausted all the clues in the house. So, after a brief stare down, he sighed and walked toward Tymver and the front door.

"Wait…" Yngve said slowly, when he was back in the large main room of the house.

"What is it now?" Tymver asked. He was starting to sound annoyed, a rarity that Yngve would have appreciated under different circumstances.

"There is something odd!" Yngve suddenly exclaimed. "Tymver, look!" Yngve beckoned Tymver back over to the empty wardrobes against the wall in the back room. Tymver begrudgingly joined him.

"There should be a room here," Yngve said excitedly, gesturing into the nearest of the wardrobes as if he were pointing through a doorway. He stepped close to the back panel of the wardrobe, reached forward, and knocked on it. Surely enough, it sounded hollow.

"There's a room!" Yngve repeated.

What they found in that room, after searching for the back panel's release, was shocking. The back of the wardrobe opened into a small secret room, filled with bones and an assortment of gory remains. Yngve stepped back, reeling, as the house's odd stench hit him full force. At least now he knew where it was coming from.

Regaining some of his composure and covering his nose, Yngve peered into the room. At the back, against the wall, was what appeared to be some sort of grisly altar. But, what really caught Yngve's eye was a book. Before Tymver, who was similarly knocked back by the smell, could stop him, Yngve carefully entered the room, doing his best to navigate the viscera without touching it, to grab the book off the altar.

As soon as the book was in his hand, Yngve felt two large hands grasp his shoulders firmly. Tymver pulled him out of the room, somewhat roughly. He looked unamused.

"We're leaving," Tymver said, trying to hide a sense of urgency that Yngve could still hear coming through in his voice.

"Yeah," Yngve said. "Okay." He was eager to breathe clean air again. In fact, he wondered briefly if breathing the air in that house was going to make him sick.

Yngve and Tymver walked back through Valunstrad toward the palace in silence. Yngve could tell Tymver was rattled. He also wondered if Tymver was angry with him, and whether Tymver would tell his father about his exploring Hjerim. In a weak bid to stay on Tymver's good side, Yngve didn't attempt any further shenanigans for the day.

In his room that evening, as Hilde lay by his feet, Yngve looked through the books he had taken from the house. Their content was unpleasant, to say the least. The first one he had found, in the chest, appeared to be a diary documenting the murderer's stalking of Susanna. The second, the one he retrieved from the altar in the secret room, contained a list of body parts and some sort of incantation. So, Yngve supposed, this murderer is some sort of would-be necromancer…?

After thumbing through the books, Yngve also remembered the amulet he had knocked onto the floor, and fished it back out of his pocket. It was a large jade pendant, which appeared carved, but was so worn that it was almost smooth. Around the jade pendant was a ring of ebony. It had a strange energy about it that Yngve couldn't quite agree with, but he supposed that may just be because it wasn't a style he liked.

When he could find the time, Yngve could think of at least one thing to do. He should look into the strange amulet he had found in Hjerim. The first person he thought to ask was Calixto Corrium. Yngve had been many times to Calixto's home museum, to ooh and ahh at his collection of trinkets. Maybe he could tell Yngve something about the amulet's significance, or its origin.

. . .

Fredas, 3rd of Frostfall, 4E 201

Despite his full schedule, Yngve managed to find a bit of freedom late Fredas afternoon. Not only was he pleased with that turn of events, he was also generally in high spirits because of his visit with Wuunferth the previous day. After a reexamination, Wuunferth had removed the hardened bandages from Yngve's initial visit. Rather than use more of the thick hardening paste he had used then, Wuunferth rewrapped the injury in a new bandage and left it as it was. Although Yngve still couldn't really use his hand for anything, this change at least made it less clunky and awkward, on the whole. But Yngve had only been left with just enough time to go to the White Phial and get his potions refilled that day. Today, he was determined to at least find something out.

Today, when he left the palace, with Tymver right behind, Yngve followed a passageway on the left-hand side. This led away from all the places he had been visiting lately – the cemetery, the market, Candleheath Hall.

"Hmm," Tymver hummed to himself, as he trailed behind Yngve.

"What?" Yngve asked.

"We haven't been around to this side of the city in a while," Tymver said. "It'd been a while, even before you ran off with the militia," he added.

"So?" Yngve asked pointedly.

"No reason, nothing," Tymver said. "I was just noticing."

"Tsss," Yngve huffed, annoyed. He knew what Tymver thought he was referring to – an incident that had taken place during summer the previous year.

"I have not been avoiding the Snow Quarter," Yngve said firmly.

"Oh no?" Tymver asked, trying to hold in a light chuckle.

"No," Yngve insisted. "I just… haven't had any business there, since the last time I went," he finished, rather lamely.

"Conveniently, since that—" Tymver began, before Yngve cut him off.

"It was a misunderstanding," Yngve said, through gritted teeth.

"You got dumped," Tymver said. He was trying to be gentle about it, in his way – firm and truthful. This had often been Tymver's most valuable quality, to Yngve, who, perhaps over-confidently, believed himself capable of seeing to his own safety in most situations. For better or worse, like it or not, Tymver would always be honest.

"No, it wasn't supposed to be like that. She didn't understand," Yngve repeated, though this time Tymver could hear resignation in his voice.

Yngve remembered the incident clearly. At the time, he felt himself deeply in love with a local Dunmer girl, Elvalsa, and he thought she loved him, too. She had said that she wanted to marry him, and they had talked about it as if it were an inevitability.

'When I am your wife,' Elvalsa would ask, 'will I live in your palace?'

'Of course,' Yngve had answered.

'Then, will I have to dress and act like your Nord women and eat your Nord foods?' she would ask.

'No,' Yngve would answer, smiling. 'You should only dress and act like Elvalsa, and eat whatever you like.'

Yngve knew his father would never have approved of her; marriages were political arrangements, and Eastmarch stood to gain nothing from a girl like Elvalsa. And, although Yngve knew that his own parents had loved each other very much, he also knew that they were made to marry each other regardless of how either of them felt about it. Feelings simply weren't in the equation. That was why Yngve had asked Elvalsa to leave with him. He had thought it out carefully. He wanted them to go to Dawnstar. He knew Riften wouldn't work; his mother had been from Riften, so a side of his family was there. Winterhold was also close, but had little of anything to offer anyone, unless they were a mage. Yngve thought Dawnstar the next-best, next-closest city. He thought they stood a chance of getting there and getting a legal marriage, before his father could intervene. Elvalsa didn't see his intentions clearly.

'How can you ask this of me?!' she had demanded.

Although they usually spoke in Yngve's language, Elvalsa, perhaps because she was upset, had switched into her own. Having spent an abundance of time in the Snow Quarter in his young life, Yngve was by this point a fairly competent Dunmeris speaker. But he was surprised at her reaction, and could only speak clumsily while trying to explain himself. And, in any case, Elvalsa would have none of it.

'I know what you're trying to do,' she had said, her voice dripping with accusation. 'You'll sequester me in that city! Have me bound to you up there while you come traipsing alone back to Windhelm, to take some Nord woman as your proper wife, and I'll have nothing to do but wait, unknown to your father and whatever real family you make, for you to grow bored of playing Lord of Eastmarch and come back to me to entertain yourself!' She was seething.

'Forget about it!' she had spat, before he could formulate a meaningful reply. 'And just don't ever even look at me again!'

Yngve hadn't ever recounted any of these details to Tymver, and he didn't intend to do so now. He wasn't even headed to the Snow Quarter. Though, he had to admit it made sense Tymver would think that. Anyone who knew him, even in passing, would probably guess the same, seeing him walk this way.

"Just… just mind your own business, why don't you," Yngve grumbled petulantly. He crossed a walkway and went down a set of stairs, passing several doorways and finding his destination on the left.

"And anyway, I was going here," Yngve announced smugly, as if it proved anything.

The doorway he stopped in front of led to Calixto's House of Curiosities. It was a gimmicky little museum for oddities of dubious authenticity. Yngve considered it a local institution.

"Here?" Tymver asked, surprised.

"My, my, you're awfully questioning today," Yngve said, trying to sound unconcerned.

"It's an even longer throw back," Tymver remarked. "I haven't brought you here since you were, hmm… ten years old, or so."

"I guess I've been feeling nostalgic lately," Yngve said dismissively, pushing the door open. "Come on, it'll be fun."

Inside was a dimly lit house, owned by Calixto Corrium. The majority of the main floor was set up with shelves and tables, to display Calixto's collections. The proprietor enthusiastically greeted them as they entered.

"Welcome to the House of Curiosities!" he began, before recognizing Yngve. "Oh, it's you! Welcome, welcome, my dear boy! It's been quite a while since you made a visit. As you know, I offer a brief tour for a few coins. Or, you can simply browse at your leisure."

Now that Yngve was a little older and, arguably, a little wiser, it occurred to him that his frequent childhood visits to hear Calixto give the tour probably made Yngve – or, his father, at least – one of Calixto's all-time best customers. Yngve handed over four Septims – two for himself, and two for Tymver.

"Of course, we'd like to hear the tour," he said. Calixto accepted the money, and led them to one end of the displays to begin. He made a sweeping gesture toward some old looking bladed tools first.

"These tools were found in a crypt outside Windhelm," Calixto began. "They belonged to the ancient Nords, who dwelt in Skyrim before the days of the First Empire."

As Calixto spoke, Yngve peered intently at the tools laid out on the shelf. Tymver stood a few feet back, watching Yngve and paying no attention to the displays or the tour. Something about this felt deeply interesting to Yngve, but he couldn't figure out why. It was maddeningly at the edge of his mind, but just out of reach, as if he were struggling to recall a verse, memorized long ago and since forgotten again.

"Most scholars believe that the Nords of old used these implements to prepare their dead for burial," Calixto went on. "What macabre mysteries would these tools reveal, if they could but speak?"

For the rest of the tour, Yngve was so busy trying to remember what he thought he had forgotten about those tools, that he hardly heard anything else Calixto had to say. As the tour came to a close, Yngve almost left without even addressing what he had come to Calixto to ask about in the first place.

"By the way," Yngve said, fishing the strange amulet from Hjerim out of his pocket, "do you know anything about this amulet?"

"Hm?" Calixto asked curiously, as Yngve showed it to him. "This is the Wheelstone. It's an heirloom symbol of the power of Windhelm."

"It's a… what?" Yngve asked, not bothering to hide his surprise.

"Oh, my, yes," Calixto said. "Find this somewhere in the palace, did you?"

"Uh, yeah," Yngve lied. "But I've never even heard of any 'wheel stone' before…"

"Traditionally, it's carried by the court mage," Calixto said informatively.

"Wuunferth?" Yngve asked.

"I would be interested in acquiring it, though, if you're willing to part with it," Calixto added, sounding hopeful.

"Shouldn't… shouldn't Wuunferth have it?" Yngve asked uncertainly.

"Bah," Calixto said. "It's purely ceremonial, he has no use for it. And I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to give it to him. Would you?"

"Really?" Yngve asked, eyeing the amulet again. "Why not?"

"Gives me the creeps," Calixto said decisively. "They say he dabbles in necromancy." Calixto was starting to sound a bit forceful in his tone. Yngve glanced at Tymver, who was standing on the alert.

"Wuunferth?" Yngve said again. "Necromancy?"

"Seems like the type," Calixto persisted.

"I… think I'll just hold onto it for now," Yngve said.

"Suit yourself," Calixto replied, suddenly sounding cheerful again. "Feel free to bring it back here if you change your mind."

Yngve thanked Calixto for the tour and the information, and left quickly. He now felt that he only had more questions – far more than he had when they went into Calixto's house. One of the first among them was simply, if this amulet had anything to do with the city or a member of the court, shouldn't Yngve have heard about it before?

"That was… odd," Yngve said, as they exited Calixto's house and stepped out into the afternoon sun.

"Hey, Tymver?"

"Hmm," Tymver hummed, to signify that he was listening.

"Why should Calixto hate Wuunferth so much?"

"No idea," Tymver answered truthfully.

"Well, at least I know where to go next," Yngve said with a shrug.

"To the guards?" Tymver asked pointedly.

"Ugh, come on, Tymver," Yngve groaned. "We've already found at least two leads, just by following the clues."

"Which is their job," Tymver interjected.

"Which they haven't had the manpower to get done," Yngve countered. "And we're close! We just need to find who this amulet really belongs to."

"So let the guards take it from here," Tymver insisted again.

"Tymver, they'll never get to it. And even if they do, how many more victims will there be by then? Those women deserve some kind of justice," Yngve pleaded, adding, "and their families deserve some kind of closure." They had stopped walking, and Tymver paused to think.

"Alright," Tymver finally said, heaving an exasperated sigh. "Not like I could really stop this anyway," he grumbled. " Once you get stuck on something, you can't be stopped."

"Correct!" Yngve said cheerfully, as they walked back to the palace. The next step would be simple enough: just ask Wuunferth if he knew anything about the amulet.