Author's Note: This is the oldest portion of the story. As such, it's the seed crystal for much of what came before and after, and as such, it involves me getting inadvertently locked into focusing on two minor characters with severely similar names and there is now nothing I can do about it.
The fact that Corran and Dela appear to switch races in the middle of chapter ten, though, is highly remediable, and I have now acted accordingly. D'oh.
2 First Seed, 4E10
The fine-robed Altmer took one swallow of the mutton before shaking his head in amazement. "I must pay my compliments to the cook."
Maenlorn beamed. So even Summerset patricians thought so, did they? "That would be my brother, Caenlorn. He has a black motive for it, mind you: as boys we got ourselves stranded in the West Jungle, with a beetle's bite leaving him too ill to stand, and so I fed the both of us on that very spot for the next week. He's still revenging me that roast sloth."
The Altmer smiled. "Valenwood born. It shows, too, in that natural courtesy of yours. Real Colovians seem to find it a needless burden at the best of times, and that's not to speak of what happens when they're in spitting distance of the seashore. And the Nibenean idea of courtesy... of course, don't ask Bjorn Stone-Fist. He seems oath-bound to see yours and theirs the wrong way round."
"And it's such a pleasant day, too, for Rain's Hand. I wish you wouldn't sully it with such invocations."
Bjorn Stone-Fist of Windhelm had made it a personal mission to pin every crime of the Third Era – and now the Fourth, such as it was – on what he called the "fair elves." As near as Maenlorn could decide, it was Mankar Camoran who'd turned Stone-Fist's head; the man had actually said that his prejudices might prevent another Oblivion Crisis, seemingly unaware that another Oblivion Crisis was good and prevented no matter what he did. But that was no cause for pity. There were a good many mortals who'd emerged from the Crisis with their sanity less than intact, but only one chose to express his delusions by throwing half the mer in his city to the icy winds.
The Altmer nodded with a wry smile. "Yes, the name does have that effect, doesn't it? Bloody-handed cretin, practically on his knees before Ysgramor... no, bad illustration: every Nord has that problem. But then again, the Imperials have Alessia, and the Redguards have Frandar Hunding, and of course there's Talos..." He frowned. "It does make one wonder from time to time."
"Wonder," Maenlorn echoed.
"If there isn't something the humans really like about a good spot of elf-killing."
"There isn't," came a flat voice from near the stairwell. It turned out to be Caenlorn, in an attitude so far removed from his usual cheerful-servant aspect that his own twin brother had needed to turn his head to see who it was.
"Ah," said Maenlorn hastily, "here's that cook you'd wished to compliment!"
"Indeed," said the rich Altmer. "I have never had mutton so tender. But say on."
Caenlorn shrugged, the casual motion of his arms clashing with the closed-up expression on his face. "Can't speak for Skyrim. The Ysgramor business... well, they always like their warriors – but it's Redguards and Imperials here, mostly, and I will tell you that there are at least three little girls named Alessia – merish all – in this county alone. And an Altmer boy named Pelinal. This is Anvil, you know." The guest raised his brow as though to ask a question, but if Caenlorn noticed, he didn't show it. "And the people who've thought of killing us – angry drunks of all nine stripes, and deep in their cups as they were, not one has mentioned elves as a reason. Hope that satisfies you?"
It was all put civilly enough, if you didn't know Caenlorn well. Maenlorn, however, could practically feel a cold draft coming from the stairwell.
"You are young," said the rich patron. "One cannot expect you to remember the days of Tiber Septim, never mind the rest of the vaunted human heroes. Nor, indeed, do I. But the fact remains: each did kill the Aldmer, wholesale, and it is for that which each is venerated. If our centuries are for any purpose – ah, Caenlorn – let it be to preserve such memory."
Caenlorn smiled without an ounce of sincerity. "For my part, I'd rather run the inn."
"And on that," put in Maenlorn with a note on which he could bustle off, "we all can agree." Of course the Flowing Bowl's livelihood stood or fell on the human trade, but it wasn't as though a manicured gentleman like this patron would know enough to quibble.
After the meal, the patron submitted an apology for causing the stir; indeed, his regrets seemed deep, and he had no thought of canceling or haggling his reservation. Nonetheless, no sooner had Maenlorn seen him to his room than he went to the kitchens for Caenlorn.
"Ah!" Caenlorn moved to the personal larder. "Good news for us – bad day for cheese. This wheel is hardening just enough that-"
"What can you have been thinking?"
"Sorry? Oh, the Altmer with the Summerset accent, no doubt. Stormed out, has he?" Though the brothers had been eating a strict diet of stale leavings for most of a month, he sounded perfectly unconcerned at the idea of losing the night's best source of coin.
"No," said Maenlorn. "You – you can't have been trying for that?"
Caenlorn grimaced over the cutting board. "Well. I like to be left alone and to business as much as anyone. But I won't let that make a coward of me."
"Seems a bit overblown. Not that he wasn't wrong, but..."
"It's a popular kind of wrong." He scored the wood under the next slice of cheese. "Bastard was talking the way those Summerset delegations talk when they imagine no one is around, just me behind the thin kitchen door. Only softened. Trying to get you on board with it." Breadcrumbs flew like sawdust. "If he were a diplomat too, it'd be a losing proposition to start anything. But as it is, all we had to lose was his custom – and we can live without that."
He would find by dawn that Caenlorn spoke only half right. He had been right concerning the patron's character; he had been wrong indeed about how much they had to lose.
22 Second Seed, 4E10
"There's the one," said Mirabelle quietly, indicating Lathenil boiling his well-water at the cookfire. The elf was considerably settled since his first evening, when he'd had to go into the cellar so as not to disturb the other guests with his howling and thrashing, but he was still in a very bad way; he didn't so much as glance in their direction, which was like to mean he had no idea he was being identified. And that despite the fact that Mirabelle had warned him to expect a human visitor.
Maelona the guardswoman nodded, stonily, and stepped forward. "Lathenil. I've been meaning to see you for a fortnight now. The Fighters' Guild is already on the path, but there is one thing they cannot know..."
"The path where?" said Lathenil dully. He had noticed, then. He simply couldn't be bothered to move in response.
"The path to Windhelm. Their man should be there within the day."
"A fighter? All the way to Windhelm?" His laugh was a weak, limping thing. "You're not likely to see him again, then."
"Oh? And why might that be?" It looked very much as though Maelona had her own ideas on that; her whole body was like a bow strung too tight to draw.
"It'd be too late," he said simply, drawing the kettle from the fire. "Stay to Anvil, protect yourself – that's all you can do." He'd made plenty of remarks like that to Mirabelle as well; they might have made perfect sense, if they had begun this morning and not three days before.
"Against Windhelm, you mean," said Maelona.
Now Lathenil showed signs of agitation. "The Black Horse Courier has come," he snarled. "You know perfectly well what I mean."
"Haven't seen it," said Maelona, with a side glance Mirabelle's way. "What is he talking about?"
"Ocato is dead, Maelona," she said.
"Potentate Ocato?"
Mirabelle gestured for her to hush, lest she wake the luscious-but-cantankerous longshoreman upstairs. "Killed by one of his own guard, four days ago – they're implicating House Terentius for the plot."
"They'll be executed shortly, of course," said Lathenil, somehow as though he didn't deem that a good thing.
"So," said Mirabelle, "I think he's fearing the worst."
"The worst – what, Second Era come again? No – no, the Elder Council knows better than to repeat that."
Lathenil slumpingly sat at the table beside his cup of hot water. "Too much to hope. Powerful people are too powerful to care about... no, to look after... no, that's still not quite-" He laid his brow in his palm, eyes wide as though a sudden pain had coursed through him.
"I'm asking about Windhelm," said Maelona sharply. "Is there any connection between Windhelm and a ship called the Falconbranch?"
"The Falconbranch." Lathenil's eyes were wide, his hand fallen to the table, his back suddenly straightened. Mirabelle wasn't sure what he might be thinking; so far as she knew, the Falconbranch was an entirely settled matter; but there was no denying the new vigor in his aspect. "It wouldn't make it to Windhelm – not a chance, even before the Sea of Ghosts – why do you ask about Windhelm?"
"I'm looking for Maenlorn. That Bosmer who kept the Flowing Bowl. He left rather abruptly toward Windhelm, in search of a man named – Beorn, wasn't it, Mirabelle?"
"I think so," she said. "One of those very manly old-blood Nord surnames." (Maelona's face told her she very much wished this detail had come up before she'd consulted the Fighters' Guild.)
Lathenil swallowed. "It wouldn't be – Stone-Fist, would it?"
"That's it! Beorn Stone-Fist."
Lathenil stood in a flash. "Gone to Bjorn Stone-Fist... knows the Falconbranch... Aedra speed me, I must find him-"
"One moment!" cried Maelona. "What is the Falconbranch?"
"I thought it had beached on Fort Constant, a decade ago." He was now stuffing Mirabelle's stale bread pell-mell into his pack. "But few things, guardswoman, would drive an Aldmer into the arms of Bjorn Stone-Fist – madness for him to do that, it was madness that drove him – and if he knows the Falconbranch..."
"And what would that mean?"
"You won't listen. These ten years, only one ever has listened, and..." He turned abruptly toward the wall, and his next words had something of a croak in them. "And... you wouldn't understand half so well. Time is of the essence – Stone-Fist – Madam Monet, get me a few quills and ink bottles – the journal I have already –"
By journal he meant Mirabelle's spare price ledger. She had, at least, been merciful enough to talk him down from his asking price of a hundred drakes for the thing. And perhaps it was mercy, too, that prompted her to suggest: "Water flask?"
"Oh. Yes. I'd nearly forgot. And a tinderbox and kettle. And that new mortar-and-pestle- the audience robes-"
Mirabelle sorely hoped he wasn't speaking of the set he'd been wearing when she found him howling under the Doomstone, but couldn't get a word in for his rushing about, punctuated by Maelona's hasty descriptions of the innkeep and futile attempts to elicit more information, and at that point the shouting did wake the longshoreman, who woke the other boarders in turn. Within the quarter-hour Lathenil was out the door, speeding toward Anvil's stables; it took twice that long for Mirabelle to set her customers to rights.
At the end of it, Maelona was still in the atrium. She took a deep breath and looked into Mirabelle's eye, all as though she were sharing some great confidence: a useful trick, no doubt, in her more covert days. "Would you happen to know what would drive a Bosmer into the arms of Bjorn Stone-Fist?"
Mirabelle shook her head. She did have some vague picture of the situation, but not enough for official business. To begin with, she had never heard of Bjorn Stone-Fist in her life. Of course she knew that one way or another, Lathenil's mind was jumping straight to those Thalmor; but then, when did he think of anything else?
Maelona was now gazing down at the flagstones. "I don't suppose you believe we're in a new Era of Chaos?"
"Not particularly," she said. (Maybe, maybe not. But if they were, what could one do anyway?)
"All right. I'll wait on the Fighters' Guild. Once they return, I can speak to Maenlorn myself." She did not sound as though she wished the innkeep well. "But your elf – he thinks he's running out into several centuries of bloodshed, doesn't he? Has he got a death wish?"
"Perhaps a little." Mirabelle shook her head, still a bit stunned by his abrupt departure. If anyone without a scratch on him needed a convalescence period... "But he claims to have survived five attempts on his life thus far. And to judge by the state in which he came to me, I think we can call it six." She smiled wryly at herself for assuming too much. "One, at any rate."
Summer (date unclear), 4E10
What a fool I am.
How can I ever have let the mere name Falconbranch draw me from Anvil into the chaos I knew full well would come? How can I have let myself believe, for even a moment, that Rynandor might live? Can this decade of stone walls and creeping bindweed possibly have transpired, if Rynandor were alive to come before the Potentate himself?
But I may as well go forward as back now. Anyone who knows of the Falconbranch, any mer who would take Stone-Fist before the Thalmor, is at the least an ally.
I think I have miscalculated my bearing, traveling off the roads. Perhaps it is only the Lake's natural contour. Whatever the case, I have found myself on the outskirts of the town of Weynon. It is a settlement which has grown for the past decade, but now its abutment of the walls of Chorrol has become a matter of security, and Countess Valga rushes to expand the walls before the first army comes to test the point.
I am using the opportunity to hear what rumors of war I may. (For the Black Horse Courier rides no more.)
They say Regulus Terentius was torn to pieces by an Altmer mob, calling themselves Ocato's supporters. Were there Men among them, had the same not befallen his son in the Imperial City, I might believe it.
They say a whirlwind has stricken the Imperial City, its eye fixed on the White-Gold Tower. They say that the Imperial Prison is half-leveled and the Waterfront, houses and ships alike, reduced to so much splintered driftwood. Once again I must count myself fortunate to be alive.
They speak of seemingly numberless heretofore-undeclared sons and daughters of the Septims. One question will suffice to dispatch the whole sorry lot of them: where were they when the Dragonfires went out?
No, I forget Antus the Ashdragon on Solstheim: a ten-year-old boy, whom his Sadras handlers call the son of Martin Septim by his Champion. I cannot decide which is the more disquieting thought: that, on hearing that the Potentate was dead, their first action was to find and steal a black Breton child? or that they had been grooming this child as a pretender since they first heard of Martin's sacrifice?
They say the Council has split into anywhere between three and seven armed factions, revolving either around one of these pretenders, or one of their own who makes no pretense. The names of Vorius and Barenziah are as close to legitimate as they come. The only geographic certainty is that Countess Valga has fallen in with Lucrece Donitia, who is liable to fall in with some Septim pretender any day now. No word regarding her daughter in Leyawiin. Beyond a day's riding distance, who can say where the lines are?
A man they call False Reuel is screaming in the town square that the battle lines will multiply until not a shred of tranquility is left in Tamriel – stewards slaying Counts, each family at war with every other, sons murdering mothers to secure the last roll of bread. He shouts that charity will be a fool's game, that ruthlessness and cunning will be the only fortress against death; I heard a woodsman thank him for being so foolish as to offer such valuable free advice. I am glad they call him false and mock him so: his prophecy is, I think, exactly as good as its hearers believe it to be.
The greatest blow to my own concern: it is said that Bjorn Stone-Fist has seized Windhelm and set himself up as an Emperor, on grounds of descent from Ysgramor the Bloody. (No word of what this means for the High King in Winterhold.) I can only hope against hope that Maenlorn the innkeep has survived this development: to go forward, I fear, will be no more difficult than to turn back.
30 Second Seed, 4E10
Though Maelona had long since grown accustomed to the weight of the City Watch mail shirt, it had felt today like an anchor slung across her shoulders. Not that taking it off had helped matters much. After a silent supper and a withdrawal to her study, the weight had merely shifted to her head and her chest.
The Countess Umbranox was dead, murdered last night in her bed. There was word of a man found at the scene of the crime – not a hint, though, of what he had been doing or what he looked like or why he was not apprehended on the spot. It struck Maelona as a bad sop. She'd thought she knew well the two castle guards who had found her with the knife standing in her chest, guards who repeated that excuse for a story, and it still struck her as a sop, something designed to produce a scapegoat without the inconvenient entailment that someone had to die.
What would make them close ranks so? The assassin couldn't be one of their own. Not the most popular among them would cause such unanimity: they had all signed up to serve Anvil, after all. But every one answered to Steward Dairihill and to her cousin, Captain Carmalo. Of the two, everyone in Anvil knew Carmalo had the final say, and now that Dairihill was the ruler of Anvil, that meant he had Anvil itself. He had a favorite pretender too, no doubt, and that might lie at the root; first it would need to come clear who that pretender was; but there was scant question in Maelona's mind as to whose word had ended the life of Millona Umbranox.
In the meantime – Carmalo was Maelona's captain as much as any guard's. She had a family in the city. She would be bound to live the same lie of obedience.
Of course, the will to murder was likely to have existed for years. Motive was nothing without opportunity. And for the usurpers, assassins and common thieves of Tamriel, an age of opportunity was dawning – every piece of the Empire free for the plucking. This was only the beginning.
She closed her eyes and weighed her options.
Lelles had proven about as observant a witness as always. She had learned that a member of the Fighter's Guild had recently been hired by Maenlorn, but he could not be consulted: three days ago he had been dispatched to the Jerall Mountains in search of an enchanted arrow – meaning that he was all too likely to run into the same border war as Maelona's own Fighter and that deranged High Elf.
That left only Mirabelle Monet. She would need to hear the whole truth of her investigation. It pointed to a terrible prospect, but anything, anything at all, was better than this. She prepared herself to tell all in the morning.
But Maelona was far from the only one in the city who could ask cui bono of the Countess's murder. That morning, there was a riot against the Steward. The docks burned, and Mirabelle Monet with them.
Summer (after 8 Mid Year), 4E10
Sleep has been scant. Dreamt last that I was back at the Special Council, and tried to warn Ocato of his danger. He wished to know how I knew. Even dreaming, I could not pretend to have an answer that could come to me before the deed was done.
But between closing my eyes and waking to that dream, there passed five hours. That is, at last, rest enough that I may confidently write again. And there is no immediate danger at my back.
The woods of the Reserve are seething with vanguards, and bandits, and refugees, and hazy muddlings of the three. The Seventh Champion must be regretting her efforts to rebuild Cyrodiil's fortifications; it helps me determine where to pick my steps, but in the grand scheme of things it can only prolong the pain.
I find myself glad, for the first time, that running and hiding are the things I do best. If I am killed, or questioned, or gang-pressed, the Thalmor will only laugh. At times I have little wish to move at all. I think it is despair that roots me so, and even now I cannot yield to despair – but twice, I was left undiscovered on account of that state. Still, I am no match for the senses of a half-starved dog pack, and the sound of fighting them off attracted the notice of a batallion. They answered to a "Gaius Septim". No matter. I outlasted their pursuit, scathed no more than my makeshift poultices could bear. I imagine they had strayed far enough from camp already; I cannot account for it otherwise.
I have learned since last entry:
The Councillor Jean Renard champions a commoner of Wayrest whose mother, he claims, was named Gemile. While I have not been able to parse the significance of this from what I have overheard, it evidently qualifies as a claim to the throne.
Morgiah may or may not be dead, and if dead, then there are an assortment of picturesque betrayals to choose from. I daresay that, if she knew Artheyn Othren, then dead she is.
There is reference to a Kratos of Hegathe and a Kratos of Stros M'kai, both Crowns and neither bothering with any claim to the throne beyond their own force of arms. I first wondered how they would be distinguished should one of those cities fall – but then I remembered: "Kratos" is an ancient title of Yokuda, meaning only "the strongest." Indeed, if an Emperor of Tamriel could ever rise again from this chaos, "the strongest" would be the truest description. There are – I find it a strangely hard draught to swallow, after all these years – no more Septims. Yet even the rank impostors have the good grace to present a comely facade, and might thus be made to hew to it. One who builds his claim on blood and cold steel alone would reign on those terms as well, for no one would expect anything else.
It seems the Imperial City belongs to no one. The Watch is trying to keep the peace on the strength of existing orders, but with the trade gone, and the storm's devastation, and the inevitability of another attempt at conquest, it cannot suffice.
There are wishful rumors that any and all of the claimants (save Vorius and Morgiah, whose whereabouts were too well-known) entered the war direct from the gash the storm made in the Imperial Prison. Of course, many more must have died under the rubble than can ever have been freed.
I stall.
Maenlorn the innkeep is dead. Bjorn Stone-Fist's first drive was to conquer Bruma; I fear it is not incidental that there is no Empress in Windhelm and that the Countess of Bruma has married his boyhood rival. Such a bloody-handed Nord marauder, the Thalmor would never invent: it would be entirely too lazy a lie.
An apt description in his blind hatred for the Aldmer, as well. In his failed assault on Pale Pass on 8 Mid Year, he sent Maenlorn direct to the flank – without any training beyond that which a barkeep might possess. It was far too easy to discover. Only one Bosmer ever bore the Bear of Windhelm.
The Cyrodiilic custom, in discovering a body, is to recover a personal memento. I can only hope what I have taken truly is a personal marker, and not merely Stone-Fist's way of marking him for the slaughter. Nothing has been learned here, nothing gained, but no matter the state of the mission, I can only return to Anvil, and hope for word.
7 Rain's Hand, 4E10
Kazarr prided himself on a job well done. Not for nothing, nor even for his dusk-grey coat, was he Azzan's chosen for the Fighters' missions of stealth. But there were always those times when the best of his ability could only do so much. He had determined the possible radius of distance, he had found his quarry, he had slipped unscathed past a score of formidable Altmer who kept their posts in almost a reverential hush, and for all that, the interview with the client would not be a happy one.
He unfolded the client's correspondence once again:
They tell me to name no names, not even my own. They say all the facts are known to you. So you must know what they want, and if it's wor...
No. Not what Kazarr might call food for comfort. Best to get direct to the point.
He walked through the doors of the Flowing Bowl as casually as any customer, sat in the corner beneath the stairs, and waited.
"You," breathed Maenlorn. The look of him was even worse than at their last encounter – true, that had been done by messages thrown back and forth through his window at the last watch of the night, but Kazarr doubted he was steady enough now to catch the stones he'd wrapped them around. "Please, into the open, into the open – just at the top of the stair – no telling when they'll come back."
They positioned themselves, Maenlorn looking down to the tavern floor and Kazarr seeing to the rooms behind.
"This one has completed the task," Kazarr began-
Maenlorn seized his shoulder like a drowning man. "Caenlorn. You found him – you – then – why isn't he-"
"Dead," said Kazarr. "In the vaults of Garlas Malatar."
The Bosmer bent as though struck by the slavemaster: a hard blow, but not one that came unexpected. "How long?" It was a voice that begged for mercy. "How long was he dead?"
"Two weeks at least. Likely more – only the left thumb was broken, and so this one believes..." Kazarr stopped there. The client was plainly in no state to hear these things.
"The instant." Maenlorn sank to the floor and into his knees, all thought of vigilance forgotten. "The instant I acceded. Oh gods..."
Kazarr gripped his arm. "The task it gave me is done – but this is no longer a matter for which a client must pay. The body of Caenlorn was one of a dozen, and not the most recent." Kazarr preferred to give a thorough report, but be comforted that your brother's body still had its skin was not advice likely to be followed. "Twenty Altmer were there, having two boats anchored, organized in arms which this one could not hope to overcome, and what talk I heard said these were reporting to others."
The Bosmer raised his head. "And the Fighter's Guild would pay from its own coffers?"
Kazarr nodded firmly. "By its consent, Master Oreyn himself will see that justice is had."
Maenlorn's eyes shone with gratitude – an instant before they abruptly shuttered in on themselves. "No." The voice shook, but the finality could not be mistaken. "No, I have had sorrow enough."
Kazarr ought to have known. The Fighter's Guild never had many blackmail victims among their clients, and whatever had happened here must, at the least, have made the raw materials for blackmail.
25 Mid Year, 4E10
The seaside towers of Anvil had a blackened look to them, and there were new walls against the shore. The men at the gates had weariness traced into their faces.
"Fort Siren sends their observation, and classes you as a refugee. Vagrant?" asked the taller guardsman, the Redguard, with a rote dullness.
Vagrant. Perhaps he was that. Poor, without home, cast adrift, shaky in the mind. But Lathenil was sure saying so would not get him past the gates, and said only: "What a strange first question."
"No," said the Imperial guardsman decidedly. "Now we can hope for a good reason to let you through."
"Andrus," said the Redguard in warning tones.
"The Fox isn't going to stripe us for disapproving," yawned the Imperial. "At any rate, we all do, and he hasn't."
Lathenil looked hard between the both of them, trying to spot the signs of a joke and finding none. "Fox – you can't mean the Fox? The Cyrodiilic legend? Prince of thieves, friend to beggars, centuries old without a trace of merish blood..."
"...master of Anvil," finished the Imperial dryly. "Truly, this is an age of myth. But he's not looking like half the thief his predecessor was, and he certainly wouldn't steal from a poor sot like you. Feel free to state your business."
He racked his brains for a possible restatement of his business that might appeal to the kind of pretender who fancied pretending to be a master thief. "I am Lathenil of Sunhold... and..."
"Ah! sounds familiar," said the Redguard, who promptly disappeared into the tower. On reemergence, he said, "Yes, you've got a friend from the Summerset Isles who asked that we open the gates for you if you came. Shall I inform him?"
"By no means," said Lathenil, feeling himself pale. "Tell me where he is likely to be, that I may stay well clear."
The guard grinned. "He told me you might say something of that nature, and that in that case I was to give you this."
He tossed Lathenil a cheese-knife, the handle painted in the cabal's script. It read: This is Shasten you idiot.
On the other side of the gate, the Sunholders clasped hands. Though Shasten looked deeply misplaced in the dun robe that signified a magister's servant, his face was nearly unchanged since last Lathenil saw him, nearly ten years ago.
"You got across," said Lathenil faintly. "How?"
He sniffed the air: Anvil had a stench to it that had not been there before. And there were sounds of shouting and tears in the air.
"One of Fiorana's reserve boats," said Shasten. "Room for me, my documents, and an Imperial family in Alinor that thought it'd be healthier this side of the strait. She found a good window of time to slip us past, too, and before the Kratoses and Camorans and assorted Septims made everything beyond the blockade line into a war zone."
In other words, it did not mean Lathenil could pass the strait the other way.
"These documents, anyway, you'll want to see them." Shasten swung his pack to his belly with his left hand...
...which was not a hand at all, but a thumb and a heel, missing all four fingers and a good bit of flesh and bone further down.
"What, what happened-"
"Ah, right, the hand. Long story short, Lillandril is openly and vehemently against the Thalmor." He looked down and grimly resumed rifling through his pack.
"That – I think I perhaps need a longer story than..."
Shasten sighed and took his good hand out of the pack. "All right. They went after Weldor for those staves, and Weldor never knowing what I'd set him up against. Killed him." Shasten looked a little ill at the memory. "I lost the hand trying to get in the way of that sword. But that's when the Lillandril Watch showed up; didn't like the sound of battle at a shop in the dead of night. Saved me, and then let me tell them the gist of it."
"The documents come from Lillandril, then," said Lathenil. "The King and Queen wished them conveyed to the Empire – not knowing what has happened-"
"Would make more sense," said Shasten, guiding him to the left, "but no, it was my own fool idea. After Lillandril. Come on to the south tents; it'd just beat all if these papers were scattered by a stiff wind on top of everything else."
Lathenil sharpened his gaze ahead. Tents indeed. The extent of it did not sink in until he got to the turning. Canvas and leather and the odd bedraggled quilt, bolstered with varying success (there did not always seem to be enough wood to do the thing properly) stretched from the lake to the south wall, noisome and ragged. There was some local decree keeping three lanes of open thoroughfare, two for the permanent structures along the east and west walls and a central one toward the palace, but elsewhere every inch was taken and more seemed needed; about a dozen squabbles and trades were in process over that issue, and Lathenil could not always tell one from the other. The mushmouthed wheedle of the lifelong beggar was a prominent note in the chorus. The whole plaza had a fractured identity to it, a bandit's camp tenuously rearranging itself as one of the more charitable Great Chapels.
As they waded into the mire he saw a young, bony Imperial woman, and a boy of about ten with a family resemblance, emerge from under a large pup tent whose fabric had an odd and no doubt inconvenient angle to it – a sail, he realized. No doubt the spare sail of Fiorana's boat.
"Shasten," said the woman. "This would be the other original Sunholder, no doubt. It is good to meet you." She was going through rote and no mistake, but it was good to see even forced decorum here.
"You are a friend of his, then," said Lathenil, giving Shasten a sidelong look. If he had forgotten the rules regarding accomplices...
Shasten shrugged. "I can't very well cross the Strait by my own power, can I? Lathenil, meet Analucia and Galen Corrinus – they have parents and an elder cousin as well, they're offshore working on setting up fish traps so the distance from port is kept to a minimum –"
"Not that Anvil apparently has a choice," said Analucia. "Half the ships at port were destroyed in some riot before we arrived, and almost all of the rest have been commandeered for naval use. It won't be enough; this city is the greatest prize of the Gold Coast-"
"Stop saying that, Ana!" The boy, Galen, glared up at her. "The Hammerfell men are fighting each other right now, fierce as anything, so when they're done with that, there won't be enough left to take us on anyway."
"Either way, we'll be awfully hungry, and soon." Analucia turned back to Lathenil stiffly, a plucked reed still supple but beginning to dry. "Would you believe we left Alinor for reasons of health?" She winced. "Oh. Yes, I imagine you would."
"I cannot fault you your reason," said Lathenil dully. "If one cannot get upstream of the poison, one can at least abstain from drinking at the source."
Analucia looked blank for a moment, before turning wild-eyed to Shasten. "You said – that oilskin – you quite clearly said it wasn't-"
Shasten turned a mortified shade of bronze. "I'll, er. I'll explain later. I did think – but no, I was the great fool of that – later, Ana." He led Lathenil, stepping long and carefully across more a dozen tentsites, to the corner where the palace gatehouse met the east wall, seemingly for the sole purpose of putting the girl at a distance.
"How did you know?" said Shasten wonderingly.
Lathenil laughed joylessly. "Know? Know that Ocato's blood falls at their feet? They, the only ones who can possibly have gained by it? You seem so amazed, but the only amazement is that, at the sound of the word Thalmor, all Cyrodiil stoppers its ears: all but Ocato. How did I know- but you speak as though..."
Shasten nodded grimly. "Probably best to start where I left off. After the fight, Fiorana decided I made a better story for Lillandril dead. Then it turned out she had use for me in Alinor."
Lathenil frowned, trying to parse this. "Fiorana certainly seems... ah... omnipresent."
"Well – there's a network now. No good asking more; I don't doubt the integrity of anyone in it, or I'd never have got away clean, but there are vows at work here."
Lathenil nodded in acceptance. Anything that worked to preserve the Kings, Queens and Councils was a balm to him, however unknown the quantity.
"So Fiorana passed her assignment. Turns out there are some jobs the Thalmor will only let Altmer do... only it helps if they're a bit, ah..."
He curled his maimed hand up in front of him as though it had languished long before healing, let his face sag into an empty, simple smile, and bobbed his head idiotically. Then he lapsed back, shaking the arm out with ferocity. "Bad habit to maintain. Don't ever hold your arm like that for months at a go."
It came to Lathenil that Shasten would never spend time at the forge again. But surely Shasten was well-acquainted with the subject. Best simply to keep talking. "This assignment, then. What was it?"
"Disposal of materials," said Shasten.
"Thalmor-proscribed?" hazarded Lathenil.
"A lot of that, yes. Plenty of those from the library of Firsthold, and if anyone there asks, it's been gone since the daedra ravaged the place..."
Lathenil's gut lurched in sick anger.
"So after about a week at the bonfire, they decided I wasn't a layabout in need of the whip, and left me to myself when they weren't coming in with carts and ashcans." Shasten sat and undid his pack. "Mostly it was only a matter of seeing what they were burning; I couldn't smuggle out more than the one volume per day. There were these loose-bound little brown books, Thalmor make, that were guaranteed to be fruitful sources of intelligence... but it was never good news. They don't seem to burn them unless they've disposed of someone. I began at last to simply take note of the names on the spine."
He produced an oilskin and unfolded it to reveal a thick sheaf of papers with two rips in the side. "This one didn't have anyone's name on the spine; only this Ayleid word, Vanua. It was the size of it that got my attention..."
He passed it into Lathenil's hands.
VANUA
Objective: The elimination of Ocato of Firsthold, by fully veiled cooperative assets, under condition that there is scant chance of replacement...
It was nothing Lathenil had not already known. Why, then, did he have the sensation of a blow to the stomach? Why those words reverberating through his skull? Long live the Empire. Long live the Empire...
"Three different stratagems," said Shasten. "Three agencies and their pawns. Every obstacle and weak point noted. Everything cross-referenced beyond belief – so I was glad to hear it was Gellius Terentius they used. If it had been that Nord priest, you'd have been dead."
"And by dint that it wasn't, you took me to be alive?" Lathenil's eyes must have been popping over the page; he knew the discomfited shift in Shasten's gaze. "I have set myself against them, and their thirst for my blood will not be bated. Sharpened on occasions, perhaps. And perhaps this war they have made is not a thing they care to risk their hides in. But the war itself can kill just as surely."
And kill Shasten as well, he realized. Shasten of Sunhold – truly a mer of Sunhold, not a resettler, for he had served a Summerguard quartermaster against the daedra, far from the Crystal Tower – was all too likely to die on this desolate northern shore, without need for the Thalmor to raise another finger.
"How can you have come, Shasten, knowing what awaited you here?"
Shasten looked askance toward the ground, scratching his head with the thumb of his ruined hand. "Would you believe wishful thinking? That thing you're holding... there's just about nothing in there about how they were going to be sure there wasn't a replacement in the offing. I chalked it up to Thalmor arrogance, and do you know why?"
By the melancholy twist to Shasten's mouth, Lathenil guessed his reason was not that the Thalmor were, after all, an arrogant lot.
"I wanted out," said Shasten. "If I had a case that there were authorities left to present to, then these papers made me a passage. That's the only reason. Even if I didn't angle myself to really believe my own line, I thought anything, anything whatsoever must be better than life as a dim-witted chore boy in a secret Thalmor office." He barked a laugh. "Might still be right about that, at least."
Lathenil frowned at the castle gates. "We can't deny that there are authorities..."
"Crown Prince Shadyrn, primarily. Fairly sure the note on Delbar the Fleet under the Hold Until Fruition header bodes badly for him. He's been warned; we're not idiots."
"Ah... good." The warning, that was. Not the idea that the Thalmor were readied to strike at the seat of Alinor the instant Ocato's body had cooled. "But even in Cyrodiil..."
"Right," said Shasten incredulously. "His Munificence the Gray Fox. You think he'd take into account aspects of this document other than its monetary value? And Steward Dairihill – that'd be the authority as of last week – she'd smile and stow it away and run for her cousin the Captain of the Guard, who'd burn it. Just like all the other petitions that stood a chance of weakening his hold on the city. Maybe next week it'll be someone better, but then you've got to consider the week after that. Look, Lathenil, let's consider you the authority here – can't think of anyone better to trust."
So, girding himself, Lathenil set his eyes to the page. It was hard reading. Of course it was. Yet once it was done, he found it provided something he had never had before: an unmistakable answer to any Heartlander who asked what the Thalmor were.
He would not, of course, let it out of his possession. But he would assuredly not show reserve in disclosing its contents. Even the poor opportunity afforded by his appointment with Maelona the guardswoman could not be ignored.
5 Rain's Hand, 4E10
The rich Altmer's terms made a fortress wall all about him. His eyes alone saw it; he had breached the perimeter only once, by smuggling a plea for aid into Pinarius Inventius' note of receipt. The customers had come and gone, unconcerned, though the Altmer reserved the right to bar entrance when he saw fit. He had granted the Flowing Bowl a cook; that, too, was part of the mandate, and so no one asked after Caenlorn.
If anyone had, he was drilled on what to say: Caenlorn was checking the books of the wine supplier from Skingrad. A story that might place him, depending on the persistence of the inquirer, as close as the counting-house, or as far as the Imperial City, and with every reason not to expect him to linger.
There were many drills, at night in the cellar. If he was asked concerning his health, he was indeed ill. If he might ever feel a sudden shock, he was taught how to conceal it under an ingratiating grin. And if Caenlorn's captor ever gave a lively anecdote concerning slaughterfish fins...
The time was coming, he was sure. The entrance was, now, barred. Seven guests had been allowed through: Altmer, all. It was their doorman who saw who did and did not have a reservation. Maenlorn was paid for it, in the usual rate. The guests behaved more or less as guests did, when they had the Bowl to themselves, though when their tones turned low, he knew it was not a business separate from his own that they discussed. For three days now, it had been like that. It was all coming together, like the framework of some awful machine.
If his Fighter's Guild contact returned now, and Caenlorn... Maenlorn only hoped they would know not to try and enter.
He brought food from the impostor in the kitchens. He scrubbed the molten wax from the bar. He returned to the kitchens with soiled plates. He returned to the bar. He let a song of Walking Falinesti run through his mind, a song he had learned from a girl he had loved in the old country, a song Caenlorn had never heard, drowning out the patter of the patron, which had turned strangely sailor-like. He saw no one was retiring to their rooms. He went back to the kitchens with more food, lighter fare, no further drinks. He stood at the bar. He stood at the bar.
The door was opened.
The fine house toward the north end of town was, evidently, no longer Maelona's address, but (by order of the Gray Fox) a lodging-house teeming almost to bursting with the first of Anvil's refugees: the last days of Crystal-Like-Law, writ small and without any attempt to impose peace or order from on high. Through the crack in the door, Lathenil had seen a man slumped against the atrium wall, snarling as blood flowed freely from his scalp. No one seemed to waste sympathy over him, which Lathenil hoped meant that he was objectively in the wrong. Whatever the case, a resident soon set him on the right course, and he found himself stepping over the beginnings of a new wall, sea-pebble and mortar, in a burned-out framework held together with not much more spit and hope, and ascending a set of thankfully reinforced stairs to the one enclosed room in the place.
"Who goes?" called Maelona's voice.
"Lathenil of Sunhold. Bearing word of the innkeep Maenlorn."
A pause. "Lessa, go play by the seashore."
A scrappy dirt-blond Bosmer girl opened the door, neatly sidestepping Lathenil at a rush down the narrow stair and giggling madly; perched on the fine double bed crammed into the end of the room, barely restraining a smile, was a somewhat smaller girl, a Redguard with a half-braided length of cornsilk in her hand, bearing a marked resemblance to the unamused Maelona seated at the desk by the doorframe.
Her mother sighed. "Right. If Alley is Lessa, you must be Esh. Down to the shore yourself, 'Esh'. All Alessias of your acquaintance down to the shore, barring input from their own parents."
The girl let herself down to the floor begrudgingly. "How did you know..."
"Trade secret," said Maelona. "But you're welcome to try and figure it out. If you want to solve mysteries, real mysteries, start with the small ones. Now go!"
This she did very quickly, in a futile effort to catch up the elder girl's stride; now that the guessing game was over, the obvious ploy to keep her out of the loop did not seem to dismay her. Odd, but then in retrospect, Lathenil's father had probably thanked the Aedra for the size of the homestead every time a private discussion became necessary...
Maelona then arranged the furniture – no mean feat; this was less a room than a fragment of narrow corridor – so that the desk divided two stools: Lathenil's against the door, hers with access to the window.
"So," she said quietly.
Lathenil rummaged through his pack and laid on the desk the innkeep's memento: a sewn band of blue cloth, cut from around his wrist. "Dead," he said. "Stone-Fist as good as murdered him at Pale Pass."
Maelona picked up the cloth. "Bad hemming," she murmured. "But a good seam running vertically – not whole cloth, then. I'd bet Fort Siren that it matches the torn jacket in the kitchen's closet... well, that would settle the question of Caenlorn, at least."
"Caenlorn?"
"Maenlorn's twin brother. Worked at the Flowing Bowl as well. They looked just alike, at least to any guest of an evening, so he would insist on wearing blue jackets to distinguish himself."
The description woke a long-dormant memory. "You... you mean the singer."
"Cook, actually."
"Perhaps that too. But he certainly was a singer." Lathenil forcefully averted his eyes from the blue band. "Dead too, I take it?"
"Yes," said Maelona without ornament. "What's more, Maenlorn mourned him, which rules out the worst I thought of him. But be that as it may, he can't bear witness; you can. So tell me: what did you believe it meant, that he went to Bjorn Stone-Fist? Other than that it was a rash decision, I mean. That much is obvious."
Lathenil took a deep breath and remembered exactly where the oilskin was in his bag. "The prime fact of Stone-Fist, to myself and no doubt to the innkeep Maenlorn, is his hatred for the Aldmeri... Dunmer-exclusive sense of the word, of course. But Maenlorn may have had cause to see a vain hope in that. The great champions of the Aldmeri people – the Thalmor, the separatists of Summerset – no, not of Summerset, never of. They devour her. They are poison made flesh. Stone-Fist capitalized on – on Ocato's death – but it was the Thalmor who spilled his life's blood – likely murdering your Champion along the way-"
At this, Maelona laughed in his face. "You think these, er, separatists killed Vienne to get to Ocato? If they wanted to destabilize the Empire, they ought to have passed Vienne over; Ocato's not exactly a great sainted martyr... not to most people, anyway," she added hastily, seeing the look on his face. "And they could very easily pass her over. She despised Ocato. And as for the implementation – I mean – it's like Itius always said: if the first step of your plan is 'kill the Hero of...'"
She trailed off with a look of dawning horror in her eyes. "I never told you Vienne was involved."
5 Rain's Hand, 4E10
Unmistakable. Maenlorn set his features into an ingratiating smile, barely hearing the word slaughterfish as it left the patron's lips.
Unmistakable.
A Dunmer woman with auburn hair. The helm of the Blades. A breastplate like the breastplate of Tiber Septim. It was only a plain longsword swinging at her hip, but that was right, too: it was whispered she had left the katana, Dagon's Bane, among the swords of the dead.
"Yes, I remember now," she said, half to Maenlorn and half to herself. "Maenlorn. The one in brown." She frowned. "You look ill."
"Afraid appearances are accurate. Champion," he added, seasoning his false smile by shaking his head in real wonder. Back to the lines rehearsed. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"You have had word of a ship, they say. A ship coming from the west of Hammerfell, bearing a remnant of the Mythic Dawn?"
He had rehearsed for the question of a ship, too. The details of that question were to be ignored. They would only impede the performance. "It would interest you, come to that. The ship's name is the Falconbranch. But the word is all second-hand – it's the captain there who knows all."
She smiled, nodded, and turned to the table where the patron sat. No eyes for Maenlorn any more, only for her. The talk began to run smooth as good brandy. How had they avoided the embargo on Summerset? By the simple expedient, said a sailor, of being caught on the other side of it when it was put into place. How had Vienne heard of the Falconbranch? She told. Ah, said another sailor, that must have been his cousin in Bravil, and it would be just like her to run for the nearest constable, but there was no helping it now. Documents were laid on the table.
Maenlorn began to busy himself scrubbing every unoccupied table, head down and knuckles against the wood.
The patron told the riveting tale of how he had obtained them from the Mythic Dawn in the wilds near Hegathe. How the notes were unclear on the point of provenance, but almost certain that the landing point would be Anvil. How there was an almost impeccable vantage point further along the Gold Coast, where they might lay in wait. Vienne volunteered herself into the effort. She did not wish them to die needlessly. She spoke of tactics. She spoke of contingencies for Savlian Matius and Narina Carvain should the effort fail, but she was confident that Grandmaster Baurus was quite well prepared already.
When they gave back his brother, how would they receive one another? How could Maenlorn explain the price he had paid? Could he look Caenlorn in the eye again? His breath was becoming –
"Maenlorn." The Champion's voice, at his shoulder. "What's the matter?"
He looked her in the eye and swallowed. "Forgive me, Champion. Not of concern to you, I know – but I – lost my brother, not long ago. The same sickness."
She clasped her hands in his. Gently, though he could feel the calluses and the iron strength. The moment held; she only nodded in understanding, allowed him to weep freely.
And then the moment was done, and the patron beckoned, and Maenlorn stood behind and watched her leave the inn, surrounded on all sides.
"I heard only a few sentences," said Maelona. "The ship's name is the Falconbranch, he said. I've forgotten the rest. It wasn't my concern, then. The Dragon armor could only mean she thought the matter serious, but this was Vienne. We all knew she could handle herself. It wasn't until Count Terentius wrote me asking when she'd be back... she'd intended to pass the reins to the City Watch as soon as she returned; Bravil was well in hand by then; but that letter came a month after I saw her go into the Flowing Bowl..."
"It begins to come clear," said Lathenil, the gorge rising in his throat. "What you heard Maenlorn say regarding the Falconbranch – duress on his part, have no doubt – but behind it, some Thalmor official is amusing himself with an inside joke. That was the name of the Seer Rynandor's purported exile vessel, when they slew him by treachery. Our great hero of the Anguish, and they scarcely flinched at that; what's an Empire-loving Dunmer by compare?"
Maelona stared at him, appalled.
"I am speaking from their point of view," snapped Lathenil. "I've brought along a little writing sample of theirs, if you care to test it."
6 Rain's Hand, 4E10
"Leave us," said Serranur, eyes fixed on the stirring prisoner.
The boatsmer filed out, but with uncommon slowness. Cerran gave him a rare glance of trepidation.
"We've made all the proper precautions," he said gently, speeding them on their way. Hands, feet, forearms and shins – all broken within the first paralysis spell. The endless drill and exercise had paid off.
It troubled Serranur, a bit, that they had never questioned his desire for privacy until the prisoner had been of the Order of the Dragon. They had shown no desire even to ask. Did they imagine he would defile himself on these enemies of the Altmer?
Regardless, it worked to his advantage. There was no time for interrogation by any standard protocol, and yet there were crucial points to be made clear. He was reduced to giving information, and thus learning the truth of matters by the light of her face.
Even in the preparatory stages, it had been maddeningly difficult to find a solid fact in the morass of legends surrounding the Hero of Kvatch. There had been Gellius Terentius' intriguing account of a visit she had made to Castle Bravil, which certainly required a second look. There was, at least, the incontrovertible record of her role in the Lesser Gate at Kvatch and the Great Gate at Bruma. But he had found only one thing he might depend on to snare her: accounts said she had once walked into a gibbet and been lowered into a lava pit of her own free will, simply because the mer asking it of her had expressed regret for his role in the burning of Kvatch. No hagiographer would dare invent something so idiotic.
Serranur took the finest workman's knife from from the table. "And so you wake."
The Dunmer's face was pulled taut in pain. That was the background, of course; it was the fine details you had to watch. She, then, was calmer than was usual, and her bearing colored with a touch of defiance, even scorn.
"I confess amazement at how simply you were taken in." Actually, matters had transpired almost strictly according to prediction, but if he could see how she responded to a goad…
"Then –" She screamed sharply. She had tried to thrust herself forward, pulling every broken part of her against every manacle at once. Yet she resumed speaking, however belabored, before the minute was up. "Then – you ought to be feeling lucky I didn't cut you down before we ever got to the docks…"
Retorts. Excellent. Precisely what he had hoped for. No cold layout of the rules and the parameters, then; he simply made a swiping cut in her upper arm.
"You know you've lost," she said through gritted teeth. "You know that no matter what you do here, it's finished. Ten years ago."
So she assumed he must be of the Mythic Dawn, did she? A more vicious cut, across the left cheek, to lend credence to the idea. "Along with the Septim bloodline," he said. "Or so they say. But you know better. Don't you?"
A feral baring of the teeth. "If I did – you think, after all these years – I'd start by telling you?"
"I think," said Serranur evenly, "that you began by telling Regulus Terentius."
The betrayal of shock for the fraction of an instant. That was all it took to know, and the Imperial Liaisons were to know at once. But he did not let it show. Whatever her belief of the upper hand, he wished mightily to preserve it.
"But that is not why you are here." He let it hang in the air, let her fears float to the surface. "You are here to tell me of the Blades."
"I won't. You know that." But despite the bold words, the relaxation was palpable. The usual account was likely the correct one, then: she had been a provisional Blade only, and resigned at the end of the Anguish. If not, she still had no worthwhile information. A secondary query, though. The Blades were not likely to be a concern for much longer than the Empire was.
But retribution was still called for. He applied a more methodical cut, this one across the surface of the abdomen, and she could not help but cry out. "You will, in time," he said; it was a capital mistake ever to let a captive with the first ounce of courage think that death would soon release them.
"But there are questions you will find easier to answer, I think, than those concerning your sworn shield-brothers. For instance, the question of the Potentate Ocato's daily schedule."
Laughter. Harsh, broken by hisses, unmistakably genuine. "You went to all this trouble to take me – without even knowing…" Another short laugh. "You imagine, that simply because we fought the Battle of the Imperial City in the same cohort… Oh, I do so hate – to break it to you – but Ocato and I are not on the best of terms. To think we swap schedules-"
Now, Serranur let his triumph show, a grin widening over his face. The struggle of the Aldmer would be a long one. There was no point in not savoring what small victories came along the way. "You mean, then, that he has no idea that you were in Anvil. That he has no idea what has become of you. That he will never know you no longer stand to defend his life."
Her face, now, became something direct from basic instruction: the Point of Despair. Incomprehension, half genuine, half willful, dissolving away with every passing minute, leaving in the end only the naked anguish that was underneath all along. Her head, held high through the rest of the inquiry, at last fell.
"E-even now?"
Her voice shook like a dead flower in the wind. Serranur was sorely tempted to answer in the affirmative – she sounded as though she might fly apart if he did – but alas, he did not know the object of her question. Information before pleasure, he was afraid, and the lateness of the day did not matter.
"Even – even your last request?"
Serranur swore inwardly. The Empire's champion herself… no question that she had been incapacitated as a threat. Yet she had been an Archmage. If there were some enchantment on her person, something that might alert others…
He touched the signal rune they had laid on the opposite wall. The others were closer to the entrance than he. He would not be the last one to know they were dead, the last defender of the Agency. It would mean the Dominion imperiled before it ever came to be.
But even as his Agents rushed in, he knew it had been a false alarm. There was no triumph, however bitter, in her face; indeed, tears were leaking from the famed warrior's eyes as though she were a small girl.
"Martin," she whispered. "Martin…"
Serranur, deciding this was as close to a statement of surrender as he was ever likely to get, picked up the clean-edged hunting knife, and, stepping delicately to the side, put it through her trachea.
"It's as I always tell you," he said to the others, smiling. "Dismay in the eyes of the enemy – it is a rare pleasure to witness. I would not deny you that."
And so, at a stroke, he had saved face, offered a strong case for his unorthodox tactics, and put an end to perhaps the most perilous task in the short history of Thalmor operations. He was, he thought, to be congratulated.
But by the deep of the night, he was sorely wishing he had killed her sooner.
If she had actually heard Martin Septim's last request…
"Vienne." Maelona, having read Shasten's file in full, sat stunned. "And to think of using Ilav Dralgoner – how could they-"
Lathenil cleared his throat. "I – did not know she was a friend of yours. I would have told you more gracefully of her death, had I..."
Maelona smiled bitterly. "Oh, she can only be dead. If not, there'd be no question of her whereabouts – beside Count Matius or Baurus, or doing something about that Antus the Ashdragon... his puppeteers, I mean; he's only a child... no, all Oblivion couldn't keep her from doing some bit for the Empire. What's left of it. And she was willing to die for the Empire, too. But like this..."
She burst suddenly into wild, mad, tearful laughter which did not die down until her lungs were spent.
"Sorry," she was at last able to gasp between spasms. "I know it's not really funny – but I guess we should all be grateful she didn't get the death she'd actually have wanted – she had this problem with high standards..."
Lathenil bowed his head. "If her death was cruel, you may at least think better of the Champion herself. She would not have abandoned him. She would have saved the Potentate."
"Well," said Maelona weakly, with one last giggle. "In truly dire straits. If she had this paper shoved before her face, the unofficial Bravil Gallants charter might give her no choice. When she gave me the offer of joining, and Gogan – this was before we were really married – we were invited to aid in the rebuilding of Tamriel. Sounds like standard official pomp, only she never stopped saying it. I think she actually went to bed each night asking herself if she'd helped rebuild Tamriel that day."
12 Second Seed, 4E10
The last request of Martin Septim. Curious. That was a question Father Jeelius had never had before, though pilgrims, historians and theologians all knew he had the narrative direct from the Hero's lips, and alas, it was far the first time he had been followed to a Wayshrine for such questions. But the answer took scarcely an instant to fathom.
"He asked that his champion trust him," he told the Altmer sitting next to him, "and that she lead him safely past the grasp of Dagon into the Temple of the One."
The Altmer smiled. There was a gratification in that smile, but it was a gratification of petty triumph, a thousand miles removed from the contemplation of Aetherius. Jeelius had long since resigned himself that some mortals would receive the most sublime of the Divines' blessings that way.
"I thank you," said the Altmer, cavalierly. "Blessings of the Divines upon you." He put his feet on the ground and walked back toward the Gold Road.
For a few steps, before he turned again. "If I come to ask, I may as well ask thoroughly. What were the Emperor's last words?"
"These words, I only know to exactness from the point he entered the Temple of the One. But I know them well. He said: I do what I must do. I cannot stay to rebuild Tamriel. That task falls to others. Farewell. You've been a good friend, in the short time that I've known you. But now I must go. The Dragon waits."
A pause. "I thank you," said the Altmer again, more quietly. He halted at the edge of the Gold Road when he came to it, took a long moment deciding, and eventually turned his steps to the east.
Maelona let her arms fall out from under her and slumped onto the table. "Why? Why would they do this?"
Still in her hand was the scrap of blue cloth. He looked on it, remembering the blue-clad mer who had sung at that harborside inn long ago, the Wolf of Kvatch at his side, in Ocato's voice and the words of a grateful Empire.
And then he swallowed painfully and told Maelona the truth.
"They want a diversion. That's all this is to them. The Thalmor do wish to conquer men, rule them as the Ayleids of old did – but – they need legality, strength of numbers... to have my people in their grasp... O, Summerset-"
Maelona raised her head and met his eyes. Hers gleamed like coarse steel, and Lathenil's heart leapt at the sight.
"Only – yes – you and I, and Shasten – we know better. You're – you're an officer of the guard, aren't you? If you can muster a force for the Summerset Isles..."
"Me," said Maelona bitterly. "A shining spearhead for all the good of the Empire – oh, but I forget. There is no Empire."
"That-" Lathenil stood and flung his stool to the floor. "From the moment we sat at this table, we have discussed nothing else! Only the Thalmor! Only what their treachery and murder has wrought you! Should they overcome my homeland – which is apparently a prize you would not deny them – they will hardly halt at the shore, they will consume the ragged kingdoms of Man one by one, and Anvil among the first – how you can-" He found himself utterly speechless.
Maelona rose quietly, crossed the desk in two steps, and righted the stool.
"Do you know what I hoped to find?" she said.
Lathenil could not begin to imagine.
"I had hoped that there was some great force just over the horizon, or just underground. Already poised to strike. Something against which we would have no choice but to unite. I could think of nothing else that would have killed her – nothing but the Mythic Dawn, and she'd certainly seen their best effort.
"And I was wrong." She shook her head in slow resignation. "This sheaf of paper you bring me... it's no deed of union. It's nothing more than another outlandish claim to power. A great friend of the Champion of Cyrodiil, of whom you have never heard, claims she and the Potentate were murdered by a conspiracy of High Elves of which you have also never heard, and so, for justice's sake, takes stake in the Summerset Isles. Emptying Anvil's harbor just to get there, if the embargo is as serious as I've heard. And then where one claim is staked..."
Maelona laid her hand on his shoulder and fixed him with her eyes. "Lathenil – I can't escape the feeling that you truly love the Summerset Isles, and that can only mean you don't know what you're asking. I swear to you now, I will not do to your homeland what the Thalmor did to us."
Lathenil accepted it, in that moment, for the bitter comfort it was. He was glad he left himself that moment. In the days to come, the full implications of Maelona's words would begin to sink in.
The Thalmor have always held it best that we keep the Empire at arm's length. If any of our policy has been often chafed at by a well-meaning opposition, the diplomatic embargo is that policy.
I trust, now, that there is no more doubt that it was done with all wisdom.
Ocato was a hero of Blue Strait, who, in one of the darkest times of Valenwood's history, emerged from the shadows of Firsthold to stand for the Altmer, and all the Aldmeri people in the end. That he was then suborned by the sons of Tiber Septim, slaughterer of our people, is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the age. After decades of such shackled servitude, after the accursed Septim line ended in the Anguish, after our ancient magic ended the Anguish itself – even then, Ocato did not return to his brethren. He maintained the foolish hope that the Empire of Man might be reformed from within, kept that hope even as the Inner Council forced upon his lips the greatest Imperialist lie since the death of Tiber Septim himself!
He was gravely mistaken. The Empire could not have been saved from itself, not by the best will. Ocato is dead at the hands of his own bodyguard, an Imperial who had quietly served him for years, and by this deceit and treachery of Man, their Empire has fallen, and only the lies of Men maintain even the warlords' bands that remain.
O people of Alinor, weep for Ocato. Weep for all the Aldmer who believed as he did and settled in the Empire, who now face death and horror in a war not of their making.
But do not let us fall prey to the same fatal compassion. Let us not be drawn into the maelstrom that swallows the rest of Tamriel; it is for Men to stoop so. Let us stand apart as we have done since the subsiding of the waves, in peace, in prosperity, in the glory of Aldmeris.
-Speeches and Sayings of the Lady Sage Arranelya (original edition, prior to expurgation, 4E15)
Author's Note: In polite society, the phrase for all this is "I think Shivering Isles is pretty counterintuitive."