(AN: So since I've started writing again, I thought I would resurrect this old story.)
(I still have a goal in mind for the end, and now that I've weathered yet another such thing as will happen in the end [no details, spoilers], I can write this story aright. Although I am wondering what will await at the end of this small wandering.)
The Red Dog
Jonna was alone. She could not find the Companions; the Emperor had quite taken her away into a place apart from them. Nor could she guess which way they were, as it was night and she was far and away from Whiterun. Even the smoke could not be seen in the night sky, with moons hidden and no sign of light anywhere. For night it now was, and even the Northern Lights were not visible in the inky black sky.
All she had was the piece of leather that the Emperor had given her. Try as she might, she could not get rid of it nor destroy it in any way. A little unsettling, but for the moment it was an oddity. It hadn't tried to kill her, nor was it whispering to her either. But it had more than one surprise in store for the daughter of Jordis the Shieldmaiden. As the night was deepening, and the air growing colder, she stuffed her hands into her armpits for warmth. As she pulled them out, she found that the leather scroll was in her left hand. But more than that, she noticed that it seemed to be shimmering.
She had heard of shimmering scrolls from Eirik. But this was far too small to be an Elder Scroll, and those were written on heavy vellum and not animal skins: at least the ones he had seen. What this could be, she did not know; but the curious glowing drew her attention and she unraveled it again. The letters upon the leather were glowing, each one with a faint, silvery light. Their light gave off just enough glow to be read even in the darkness, and so she read the words aloud:
"'Saecellum of Boethiah, east of New Gnisis. At the depths of Haemar's Shame, in the northern side of the Jerall Mountains. In CyrodiiL, on the far wEst of the snows of Bruma, north of the maiN road. In the Keep of Castle Volkihar on the island in the sEas of the north, off the coast of Skyrim. The Ratway beneath Riften: ask Guildmaster Brynjolf, tell him the Nightingale has sent you. seek out the lords of madness and pleasure: tell them you have been sent to settle the debt of Servius Crixus.'"
Even as she read these words again, she felt a tingling up her spine; like a sudden, unexpected wave of liquid warmth was slowly creeping up her back from the base of her spine toward her shoulders. She gasped, turning about and swatting the air with her hands. But there was no one there to be doing this; she was indeed alone. She returned to the leather roll and skimmed it again. She knew enough of her letters to know that some of these words were not written properly. And, looking at them from a different angle, she thought she saw these misspelled and miss-capitalized letters give off the faint sheen of a crimson glow.
Nevertheless, she was starting to grow weary and longed for a place to spend the night. In the darkness, she could see nothing but the faint outline of the sky against the inky black mountains and trees all about her. With the moons hidden, she could not find her way by night. Lying down here in the snow was far from her mind; she would have to be mad to do that, as there was no protection from anything out here. So she stuffed the leather scroll back into her bosom and stumbled about the snows, like a blind woman, feeling the snow with her fingertips. This was her only option, but it froze the tips of her fingers as she crawled forward.
At last, her fingers felt something hard and rough; the trunk of a tree. She didn't quite like these sleeping arrangements, but there was no choice in this matter. With her hands, numb and almost purple, she pawed away at the snow, pushing it back from the trunk of the tree, creating a barrier between herself and the cold beyond the lowest branches of the tree. Once a shallow wall of snow had been formed, Jonna snuggled up against the trunk of the tree, wrapped herself in her cloak, burying her cold hands close to her shivering body, and at last fell asleep.
In the depths of the night, she was roused by the sound of a barking dog. It seemed faint, as if coming from a great distance. Her eyes opened and she saw, through the branches of the tree under which she had been sleeping, a dog of reddish fur sitting in the snow just a little way before her on the other side of the trees. It was a surprising sight to be certain; she had heard stories about a talking dog that led people to an impish little boy who offered to make deals with them, which always ended in tragedy. She worried that, perhaps, she had come upon just that dog.
"Hello?" she muttered.
The dog did not speak to her, but cocked its head to one side in curiosity. Jonna breathed a sigh of relief; at least this wasn't that daedric dog which she had heard about. She had expected a voice to sound from it, and was relieved that it had not. Instead, the dog looked at her for a good long while, and then took off into the snow.
"No, wait!" Jonna cried out. "Come back!"
She rose to her feet, ignoring the strength in her limbs, and began to run after the dog. She found that the snow was surprisingly hard and she could run as far as she could on solid ground. The dog she saw immediately, ignoring the fact that she could see at all though she saw not the sun or moons, and took off after it. The dog took off at a brisk pace, and she ran after it, unaware of much else around her. The land and the trees and mountains moved by as if a great blur, but she kept her eyes on that red dog.
A great mountain began to rise up out of the land, and still the red dog ran up the steep slopes of that mountain. Jonna ran after it, ignoring how easily she seemed to be running up the steep incline of the mountainside. Higher and higher the mountain climbed, until at last there came a plateau at the top thereof; the side which Jonna had just now ascended was on a slightly lower level. The far side, however, was slightly more elevated and cut off the far side of the horizon: on the crest of the far side of the plateau stood the red dog, ears perked up eagerly. It seemed to be waiting for her, for it had stopped running and was looking back at her.
"Where'd you come from, boy?" Jonna asked. "Why'd you run?"
The dog made no answer, but turned and ran down the far side of the plateau. Jonna groaned in frustration and sprinted up the incline and arrived at the far side of the plateau. But even as she did, the horizon opened up and she saw before her a land that was not covered in snow but green. There was so much green that it hurt her eyes to look at those verdant forests and rolling hills of grass. In the midst of that far green country was a lake of clear, blue water, and in the middle of that lake was an island; upon that island she saw a great sprawling city, looking like a silver pile of jewels around a single upturned silver button button whose pin was reaching up to the sky. Against that silver city a dark shadow loomed from the west.
As she looked upon that fair and distant city, her eyes looked down for a moment upon the violently green land. There she saw, plain and apparent, the little red dog bounding down the other side of the mountain into that green country. She would not lose this dog again, though she had no clue as to why she cared so much for this dog. She made her way down the side of the hill, struggling to keep from tripping as she galloped down after the dog. Her feet were not so steady now in this green land, and the vibrant colors hurt her eyes.
"Wake up," she heard an old man's voice speaking from somewhere deep within the earth. "Wake up!"
Jonna awoke with a start, and found herself shivering violently. The green country and the red dog had vanished; it was merely a dream. She was once again beneath the tree in the midst of the snow and it was very cold. More than that, the wind was picking up and snow was falling outside the boughs of the tree. Day had come, but the blizzard that fell upon the Pale brought a sullen gray morning; yet there was enough light for Jonna to see what was happening outside the tree before her. She covered her mouth with her hands; just outside the wall of snow and the boughs of the tree, she saw the tall dark shape that she and Sigrun had seen in woods outside of Riverwood.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Stay away from us!"
"You are not safe here, Jonna," the figure spoke; it was the voice of an old man, the same voice she had heard in her dream. "There is a cave nearby; hide there, you will be safe until she comes."
"Until who comes?" Jonna asked. "Who in Oblivion are you?"
But the figure disappeared, vanishing within the gray snows of the blizzard. Jonna wasn't about to move at first; she did not trust this old man as much as Sigrun did, and she had a feeling that he had only now approached her to kill her and so bring Sigrun to ruin.
Suddenly she heard a sound that changed her mind immediately; the distant growling of a troll's voice. She had not yet proven herself against a troll, and she was also shorter than Sigrun and therefore much smaller than a troll. Furthermore, she was freezing and in no proper condition to fight anything larger than a skeever. She crawled out from beneath the tree trunk and made her way out from under the branches. It was indeed a blizzard, though not as thick and sever as she had first believed; nonetheless, the cold wind bit her bare, exposed fingers. She looked this way and that, looking for the cave which the old man had spoken of; at the present, it was her best and only option. She saw no sign of anything, only trees and snow on all sides near and mountains capped with snow in the distance.
She heard a noise, like the ringing of clear, silver bells. An orb of blue light appeared from behind a tree and darted through the air over to hover before her face. Jonna waved her hand at it, as if swatting away some pestilent and noisome insect: her hand passed through the orb, but it did not fade or recoil. Instead, it began to soar away off to the left, leaving a soft trail of glowing blue smoke in its wake. She had heard tales of will-o-the-wisps and how they lured the unsuspecting travelers off to their deaths. But in these dire straits, she would not have turned down an offer of aid, even were it to come from Idolaf himself.
Rising up from the snow, she followed the trail of blue smoke. The orb moved slowly and gently, never going so fast that it went out of view. Here and there it would turn around the bole of a tree and wait until Jonna had rounded the corner before moving again. So she followed the little glowing orb for some time, heedless of the falling snow; though it bit and froze her, the orb was close enough that its light was not extinguished by the falling snow; furthermore, the smoke that the orb emitted had some kind of magical property, for it was not blown away by the wind but remained in place until Jonna had passed through it, after which it dissipated into thin air.
At last, the orb led Jonna through a line of trees toward a tall mountainside, whose sides and surfaces were covered with snow. In the side of that mountain was a cave, low and mostly concealed by snow. Jonna's expression lightened and she hurried inside the cave without a second thought. Once she had passed through the drifts of snow that had piled up around the entrance, she found herself in a dry, shallow cavern of beaten earth and stones. No one was inside it, but there were things enough to make Jonna think twice about the old man, the orb, and her decision to follow their lead into the cave. There were bones strewn hither and yon on the floor of the cave: some were very large, but there were here and there, either whole or in pieces, the bones of humans. Moreover, a foul stench filled the cavern: it reeked of stale air and decay.
She let out a groan of disgust. These were hardly optimum living conditions; even sleeping beneath the stars, as she and Sigrun had done in the first days of their journey, was better than this. She began to realize why there were so few tales of women going on great adventures: they were not for the faint of heart and those foolhardy enough to go on them would have to be blessed with an iron constitution, nerves of steel, and a high tolerance for personal uncleanliness and disagreeable lodging conditions. But she was a Nord, and would never hear the end of it from Sigrun if she went back home now, she knew. After all, she was older by a few months and it had been her insistence that brought them both out here into the wilds.
So she stomached the foul odors, and looked for a place where she might sleep that was out of immediate sight, in case whatever else lived here came back. She found a nook of the cave that looked like a niche that had been weathered out by natural erosion; it was for the most part filled with bones and filth. Jonna crawled over to the nook, cleared out the filth, and arranged the bones as a little wall to keep her hidden.
For many long hours she stayed here, covering her mouth and nose with her hand to keep out the stench. There was little activity outside, only the howling of the wind through the rocks and the flecks of white snow drifting through the air beyond the mouth of the cave. In such a state, Jonna did little but lay down amid her bed of bones and think about what had happened lately. Her encounter with her father Idolaf and the disgraced Battle-Born clan came to mind, as well as her falling out over Sigrun concerning that matter. She thought that if she could only see Sigrun again, she would apologize for every hurtful thing she had said to her. She tried desperately not to think about Jarl Nelkir, for his piercing, intense eyes seemed to linger in every dark corner of the cave, summoned into her mind if her thoughts as much as drifted momentarily to him.
Her mind now went to the Companions, and to Skyrim in general. The Companions had lost Jorrvaskr and were now on the run, but, as she had heard by and by, this was indicative of elsewhere in Skyrim. Eastmarch was under the tyranny of the Dunmer, who had renamed Windhelm 'New Gnisis', and the Reach was under the control of the Forsworn. Even in Whiterun, less than a day's journey from the doors of her own home, Nord men were being slaughtered and their bodies strung up along the walls of the city. There were also rumors of these half-Orcs, people who had been raised under suspicious and shameful circumstances, and were now being forced en masse to immigrate to Skyrim via Riften. Their land was surely in dire straits, and the time was right for a hero to save them.
Into her mind came a fleeting thought that the desire of her sister and herself to save Skyrim and the command of the Emperor seemed to go hand-in-hand. If Windhelm could be freed, or at least if they could secure passage to this place nearby - the Saecellum of Boethiah - then it seemed that one part of this dark bargain could be completed. Even as the thought entered her mind, it vanished; no matter how much she tried to recall what she had thought, it seemed sealed tightly away in her mind, inaccessible and lost for the present time.
Despite the chill of the bare, stinking cave, there was a certain coziness about it. Jonna wrapped her cloak tightly around her, making sure to cover her nose with it, and curled up into a ball. She only planned to rest for a few moments; but the warmth of her body heat beneath the blanket and her general weariness brought sleep back to her. As she slept she dreamed yet again: she found herself once more upon the top of the mountain, looking down into the wide, violently-green land beyond and below. Again she saw the little red dog bounding down the mountainside into that land, and yet again she leaped after the dog, going as fast as her legs could carry her. The green land passed around her on both sides like a mirage; the red dog the only clear thing in sight. By and by the green trees parted and she could see the wide lake she had seen before, now stretching impossibly wide on every side of her view, and the city with its tall tower in the center.
The red dog ran headlong towards that lake and leaped into the water. Even as the dog's body was about to enter the water, a curious thing happened which left Jonna speechless, breathless, and amazed. The dog seemed to grow in shape as it neared the surface of the lake, becoming as large as the roof of Jorrvaskr. The red dog was now a giant thing as it met the waves with a mighty crash. But it did not slack its pace or turn around to make for the shore; it kept on paddling through the waters towards that city on the island in the center of the lake. It was making good time getting there, for already the dog was half-way across the lake to the island and Jonna could scarce make out any details upon it. But there was just enough for her to see something that gave her a start; it looked like there was something on the dog's back, something that stood out from the dog's red fur, something she hadn't seen before in the first dream nor here before the dog had grown in size and entered the lake.
But time was running out. The dog had almost reached the island. Jonna knew that she could not catch up with the dog, though it was larger and slower than a smaller dog, but she was losing sight of him and a strong desire came over her to follow this dog. She took a few steps back, and then took off on a running start, hoping to leap as far into the waters as she could to get as much of a head start before she had to swim. Her feet pushed off from the side of the shore and she leaped into the air; then she came down upon a cold hard floor. For a moment she thought that she had woken up, but when her eyes opened, she saw the blue waters of the lake beneath her, rippling and moving, but she was not sinking into them. She placed her hand down and felt a hard, solid surface where the water should have given way. Curiously she pushed herself back onto her feet and realized that she was walking on water.
Her eyes lifted up to the island beyond and the dog. To her surprise, the dog had not disembarked onto the island but was still paddling on down the lake, moving southward. Now Jonna was sure that she could catch up with the red dog, that she could walk on what it had to swim through. Putting forth her effort, she began to run across the surface of the lake to catch up with the large dog. But no sooner had she received this ability to walk on water, but the dog now seemed to be moving faster than she thought was capable. Yet she was determined to keep up with the dog and find what it was that was riding upon its back. Across the surface of the water she ran, following the dog as it swam on southward. The city began to pass away on her left and still the dog continued to swim. By and by the dog seemed to grow in size the farther south it went, as the land around them changed.
The lake issued into a long river that snaked through a very wide and forested land. The forests off to the left were darker than those off to the right, and those on the right were under the shadow of the great western darkness. Yet the dog seemed to be paddling through the water, oblivious of either darkness; or perhaps it was running away from that darkness? Jonna did not look long into either forest, for in the darkness of those trees she could see eyes leering out at her from the shadows. Strange eyes, unfriendly eyes; as she noticed them and tried to shut them out of her mind, she could sense with a dead certainty that those eyes had nothing but ill planned for her in the dark. Instead, she set her eyes on the dog, who was still paddling down the river.
Before her eyes, Jonna saw a sight that she had never seen before in her entire life, one that took her breath away. The great river now issued forth into a wide and boundless sea. There was nothing but water as far as the eye could see southward: it seemed that the sky and waters met and there was no sign of land anywhere near in the south. The dog, meanwhile, paddled out of the river and entered the wide sea before turning left and swimming along the shores of the sea. Jonna was now gaining on the dog, and she realized something else that was happening: the dog was now a great ship of red wood with a dog's head upon it. The surface of the ocean, which had once been solid and firm, became liquid once again. Jonna sank into the waves immediately. She swatted at the waves in vain, pawing with her hands to get her head above the waves. Below her all was dark and foul things were whispering to her: 'Give in, child. You have no part in anything that is to come. You are only a weakness to her. You have no right to live.'
Still Jonna fought to keep her head above the waves. The voices grew louder and louder, becoming a hoarse, cacophonous roar that filled her ears; she longed to be deaf, if only that she never hear the intense dissonance of those voices. Her mouth and nose were full of water, and she could not speak or breathe; the cold abyss of the dark ocean awaited her below. Her eyes, however, were still working. Each time she went under the waves, she could see their faces: Idolaf, Jarl Nelkir, a squinting face half-yellow and half-gray, a strange Argonian she had never seen before, and then another face. But this face remained with her once her head came back up. Now she clearly saw the thing that was upon the back of the red dog that was really a ship; it was the shape of a man, looking over the edge of the ship at the drowning woman. That man bore the face that she saw in the waters: it suddenly dawned upon her where she had seen this face, though it had only been dimly lit in a dark carriage some indeterminate time ago.
It was the face of the Emperor.
(AN: No I haven't forgotten this story, I've just been really busy with other things and my interest has been low.)
(Some of you may be asking "what in Oblivion is going on? has he gone full Kirkbride?" Well, not exactly. See, the crazy stuff that happens in my story usually has a purpose: I can't just make weird stuff happen for the sake of weird stuff happening. And as the story progresses, you will see just how important the weird stuff that happens is to the overall events of the story.)
(This chapter was also an example of a dialogue-lite chapter, which I have experimented with before. I hope you weren't too upset by that: I know that I tend to jump to dialogue when I read other fan-fics on here, so I hope you were more kind than I am wont to be.)