Winds of the Ashfall: An Elder Scrolls Tale

Greg J Miller

~O~

Chapter 15

Turdas the 1st of Hearthfire 4E71 Morning

It was after the dawn, but still fairly early as Alaron Suvaris rose that morning. Given that he'd gone to sleep relatively early in the evening, he thought that he'd managed to slumber a little longer than he'd really intended. Even so, he quietly conceded that he was probably feeling all the better rested for it. At the least, his sleep had not been plagued by any disturbing nightmares, like those he'd experienced the previous evening. If he'd dreamed at all during the night, he remained unaware, recalling nothing at all.

After attending to immediate concerns and washing his face to ward off lingering sleepiness, Suvaris dressed in his ebony armour and packed away some loose items back into his travelling pack. Before tying off the pack, he changed his mind. He extracted some food items that he thought better to be eaten before they became spoiled.

As he was eating, he considered the mild irony of the past few days. He'd initially ended up travelling with the Rurvyns in order to avoid finding himself again entangled with escorting vulnerable travellers along the roads to Mournhold. As it passed, aside from effectively escorting those traders, he'd not encountered any other travellers drawing him into other unwanted diversion.

Even so, he felt no regret over what transpired. He'd found the Rurvyns to be quite personable travelling companions. Added to that, they'd served to help him gain some better perspective of the general state of things in the homeland. Perhaps more so than those others he'd previously encountered during those weeks beforehand.

Given his weariness of the previous evening, Suvaris had not really given much thought to his opinion of the newer Winged Guar. Looking about that rented room, he considered it to be of perfectly satisfactory amenity. It could hardly be described as anything luxurious, but it was relatively clean and tidy and seemingly free of crawling insects or the like. On balance, it seemed no better or worse than most of the places he'd stayed in the homeland over the past weeks. He knew that he could certainly find far better places in certain cities of Cyrodiil, but he'd also have no trouble finding worse.

Releasing a mild sigh, Suvaris gathered himself to depart. He expected that the day would likely provide ample opportunity to take measure of what had become of all of Mournhold since he'd last been there.

Heading downstairs to the tavern area of the Winged Guar, Suvaris found himself momentarily considering the size of that main level. He couldn't quite decide whether it was truly larger than the previous structure, or whether it was really the same size, but arranged more spaciously. He supposed that it didn't really matter. It was only a matter of passing curiosity.

Movement behind the tavern's service counter interrupted Suvaris' distracted thoughts. The older Dunmer barkeep he'd spoken with the previous evening seemed absent. In his place, there was a younger male of notably similar appearance. He seemed like he might be a son or nephew. No one else was about at all.

Cordial greetings were exchanged as he returned the key to his rented room. Since he held no clear idea of his expected movements, he made no immediate plans to secure lodgings for any more than that single evening.

Suvaris did pause to ask the other Dunmer whether he held any knowledge of the person he was looking for. The response wasn't so surprising. He said that he'd not heard of any Travlon Suvaris. He mentioned that he'd certainly come across one or two Travlons before, but the Suvaris name remained unfamiliar.

After thanking the other Dunmer for his time, Suvaris was on his way.

Stepping out onto the street, Suvaris paused just outside the Winged Guar to consider his next movements. He looked up to the eastern sky, noting that the sun was just beginning to appear over the inner city wall. He estimated that it must have been no more than about a half-hour before eight. There were just a few light clouds drifting across the blue firmament. He thought that it already seemed unusually warm at that hour for the first day of Hearthfire. He imagined that it would have been much cooler back in Cheydinhal.

Suvaris casually noted that the stone walls of Mournhold were not quite as high as those of Cyrodiil's Imperial City. Only from passing through that repurposed breach in the wall the previous evening, he was also reminded that the outer walls were not nearly as thick as those walls of Cyrodiil's capital.

As he understood it, under the direction of the Lady Almalexia, the construction of the fortified walls of Mournhold had originally been inspired by the design of the Imperial City. In a somewhat similar fashion, the five districts of Mournhold within the city walls were separated by tall inner walls, with the central district only publicly accessible via two points of entry.

Of course, all of that was done many centuries before. It was intended to serve as fortification designed to maximise the defence of the city against any hostile invaders. Back then, it was anticipated that the likely threat would come from the Imperial Legion. However, the armistice negotiated between Lord Vivec and Tiber Septim meant that those defences had not needed to be fully tested in that manner.

Even during the Oblivion Crisis, Mournhold's walls had not been tested by the Daedric hordes of Mehrunes Dagon, since no Oblivion Gates had emerged quite so close to that city. However, it seemed that the defensive walls had not been nearly enough to keep the rampaging Argonians at bay when they assaulted the city.

Looking out at the Godsreach District of Mournhold, something that travelling Khajiiti trader had mentioned the previous day returned to Suvaris' thoughts. She'd referred to it as the 'City of Light and Magic'. As he understood it, that more poetic name was largely derived from some reverence toward the Lady Almalexia watching over the greater city from the Tribunal Temple. Given the absence of those 'living gods' and the subsequent shift in perspective, he wondered if anyone but outsiders still referred to the city by that name.

It took a few moments for Suvaris to properly realise that there was something not actually observable in the Godsreach as he'd been looking about. He noted the absence of two structures from the eastern side. Both the old Museum of Artifacts and the Craftsmen's Hall used to occupy a space since replaced with somewhat crude housing. It seemed that aside from the Winged Guar, only residential structures were apparent since the rebuilding in that district. It could also be noted that many of those newer structures featured more timber than stone in their construction and did not appear built to stand the test of time. All of that was markedly different from what used to be there. He casually wondered what changes might have occurred throughout the rest of the city.

As he'd stopped to look about, Suvaris had noticed a few people departing from various residences and heading off for other places. Some left via that western gate where he'd entered the city the previous evening. Others appeared to be headed directly for the southern districts of the city via the gated doorway through the internal section-wall to the south.

Suvaris intended to make his way for the marketplace of the Great Bazaar, over the eastern side of the city. To get there, he'd need to go around the central district of the city, which it seemed remained inaccessible from the Godsreach.

Only since he expected it to be the least crowded path at that time of the day, Suvaris elected to take the northern gated doorway through the old Temple District.

Stepping through the northern gateway into the Temple Courtyard, at first glance it seemed more or less very much as he recalled from the last time he'd seen it. He did notice that the doors in the gateway were nothing like what used to be there. Though the doors had been properly fashioned to perfectly fit the arched gateway, they were of much lighter construction than the sturdy defensive gates of old.

Suvaris had mildly expected that the Ordinators might be restricting access into the Temple District, or at least monitoring as sentries, but that didn't seem to be the case. He did note a nearby Ordinator patrolling the walkways of the open parkland area. Though the guard did seem to glance in his direction, there seemed no direct interest in restricting his passage.

The open greenery of the courtyard space seemed much like before. If anything, he thought it appeared just a little better kept. The arrangement of trees across the grounds still dominated, providing shade over the grassy areas. A variety of cultivated flowering shrubs looked to have been added at some time, but that seemed the only notable change.

At first glance, the temple structure appeared just as he recalled. At least from the outside. Only looking more closely, he noted subtle signs of previous damage about the primary entrance and parts of the awning above. It seemed evident that repairs to the stonework had been made, leaving a slightly noticeable mismatch between the old and the new. Of course, the banners of Almalexia and the Tribunal had been replaced with those blue banners representing the New Temple.

Unless his search led him there, Suvaris held no intention of actually going inside the temple. What he observed from the outside was enough to sate his passing curiosity.

Looking to the right of the eastbound path across the courtyard, he noted the gated door to the central Royal Palace District. Like that other gateway he'd just passed though, it didn't look nearly as sturdy as what used to be there.

At that particular time, Suvaris held no certainty of precisely what was behind that gateway, since Mournhold no longer served as the seat of power in Morrowind. Presumably, the city still administered governance of the local region, if nothing else. He expected that House Indoril would have taken over the old palace for that purpose.

Aside from the former Royal Palace and the guard barracks, the Imperial Legion and other Imperial services also used to operate from the central district. However after the Oblivion Crisis, the Imperial occupancy remained very minimal. Aside from the possibility of an Imperial representative still assigned to a diplomatic position in the city, he couldn't imagine any other notable Imperial presence. He was fairly certain that there was no longer any Legion presence at all in the area. As he understood it, there weren't even any Legionnaires in Blacklight, other than those guards directly assigned to the Imperial Consulate in the Rootspire.

In any event, as far as he could know at that time, he somehow doubted that his activities would deliver any reason for him to venture into the central district of Mournhold.

Intent upon making his way for the main marketplace, he continued onward across the temple courtyard space toward the gateway over on the eastern side.

Passing though the gateway into the Great Bazaar, most of what Suvaris found in view struck him as immediately unfamiliar.

Unlike what he'd seen in the Godsreach District, the defensive walls remained fully intact. The elevated stone bridge extending over the middle of the marketplace district also remained intact. However, it seemed that nearly everything else he recalled of the Great Bazaar was gone.

The last time he'd seen the place, there used to be a row of trader's stores running along the southern side and a similar thing on the northern side, just below where he'd entered the district. There were still some stores in those same general locations, but rather shabby looking timber structures had replaced the old stone buildings.

Across the marketplace, he could see a far greater prevalence of open stalls, where once there'd been only a few things of the kind upon occasion. Several of those open arrangements were covered only by canvas canopy. Some not covered at all. It provided the immediate impression of a general transience of those marketplace traders, as though many of them didn't really expect to be there for an extended period.

From a brief conversation of many years before, Suvaris recalled that Mournhold's traders used to aspire to gaining residence in one of the stone stores located in the rows of the Great Bazaar. However, it seemed obvious enough that those shabby timber stores didn't inspire nearly as much zeal in the current state of things.

With a mild sigh, Suvaris made his way around to the stone steps leading down to the open marketplace. The only way to learn anything was to start asking questions.

Looking about, there was one thing of note in the Great Bazaar that he soon recognised. He'd spotted only one face that wasn't Dunmer. He'd observed a Bosmer archer of lesser stature acquiring supplies from a trader operating an open stall. It appeared that the trader specialised as a fletcher. Though he did also have a small selection of quivers and bows on display. Suvaris would have expected most individuals of the city to be Dunmer, but he recalled a time when there was a far broader mix of representation.

Of course, in spite of his accent and manner, he still that a found a friendly Dunmer greeting served best at the start of any conversation in the marketplace. Even so, he wasn't really so surprised that some traders were still not so interested in being helpful unless they believed there was an exchange of trade on the table. He also quickly learned to set aside mention of the Fighters Guild. Needing to further clarify that he had nothing to do with the local operation only seemed to muddy the waters.

His queries met with a range of responses. Even so, most of those he'd spoken with either held no recognition at all of anyone named Travlon Suvaris, or just seemed to hold no interest in even thinking about it.

Though the mention of the Suvaris family name was generally met with blank expressions, just a few stopped to think about that given name. Some vague mentions of Travlons, Tralvons and similar sounding names were tenuously offered by some.

There were really only two individuals in the marketplace who were both obliging and offering something that seemed potentially relevant to his inquiries.

"Y'know what? I reckon I mighta seen someone like that around here." The male Dunmer running a stall offering general items of trade returned a thoughtful expression. He'd only identified himself as Deras, evidently his first name.

"Was it recently?" Suvaris prompted him further.

Deras shook his head. "Nah, it was months back. Was a younger fella… and he did look maybe a bit like you. Only much younger, acourse. Pretty sure he said his name was Travlon, but can't rightly say I remember his family name."

"Do you think that you might've seen him around Mournhold before?"

"Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. But I do remember talkin' to him that one time. Think he said somethin' about how he been workin' the barges."

Suvaris' brow furrowed. He recalled that goods used to be loaded on and off the docks of the lake, around the north-east, just outside the wall. From there, the barges were taken to the transfer station, and then crates were raised or lowered by winch to and from the piers situated down on the river. The river barges used to carry goods along the shallows of the Loqueach out to the small township where larger ships docked.

"The barges? On the lake or the river?" Suvaris sought clarification.

Deras looked confused. "The lake? Ain't been used for that in years. They got wagons ta take stuff out to the docks an' come back with other stuff. The docks at the top of the river, by the falls. Them barges only go from there out ta Ald Mire."

Without comment, Suvaris nodded absently. He presumed that Ald Mire had to be the place he was thinking of, located a few leagues down river. He thought that it used to be called Silent Mire or something very much like that, but he recalled that some just referred to it as the 'eastern river port'. He also recalled that a number of free Argonians used to live there after the ending of slavery. He imagined it rather unlikely that any still lived there.

Ignoring the brief silence, Deras resumed. "That young fella, I remember he was lookin' for new boots. Since I didn't have nothin' like that, I pointed him toward Radene's." He indicated the clothier's store over near the south-eastern corner of the marketplace.

Suvaris glanced in that direction with a frown. The grumpy Dunmer in that store hadn't been helpful at all. She'd denied knowledge of even being aware of anyone matching his description. It was certainly possible that she hadn't recalled at all, but it also seemed that she might not have spoken of it, even if she had.

Though he probably didn't need anything else from the trader, Suvaris purchased a couple of salted meat sticks for later. Deras seemed outwardly pleased to be making a sale and Suvaris felt satisfied to have found someone actually trying to be helpful. After all, the trader did provide the first tangible clue that there might actually be someone for him to find.

The only other person in the Great Bazaar to provide something of interest was an elderly female Dunmer operating a stall with various potions and alchemical ingredients. She seemed hard of hearing and her eyesight also seemed to be failing her. She'd introduced herself as Nuula.

"Suvarin, you say?"

"No, no Suvaris." Affecting a respectful expression, he tried to speak more loudly and clearly, hoping not provoke any unintended offence.

"Ah, Suvaris." Nuula nodded. "Can't recall any Travlon Suvaris. Not a Travlon." She paused on that point. "Y'know, we had lotsa orphans around here, years back. First with them lot comin' down here after Vvardenfell, then even more after them lizards came an' killed lotsa folk." She paused again, gazing off toward nothing in particular. "I do reckon there was a young boy going by Suvaris, years back. Livin' in the camps out front of the city. Coulda been Suvarin, but I think it was Suvaris. Don't think he was a Travlon, though. Think it was… Varen or Taren… or somethin' like that."

Suvaris tensed, taking a sharp breath. "Taron… Taron Suvaris?"

"Taron? Coulda been." Nuula shrugged in an exaggerated manner.

"My bother's boy… he was named Taron Suvaris. He would've been no more than eight at the time of the Argonian invasion."

Nuula frowned. "Coulda been the same boy. Can't really say for sure."

"Do you… do you have any idea what became of him?"

"Couldn't say. Some orphans ended up with folk here in the city. Lotsa others ended up taken north, to places like Ol' Ebonheart and Darnim Watch and such. Some went off to Selfora an' other places down river from here. Figure that boy musta got taken in by somebody, but don't think it was anyone in Mournhold."

In further discussion, Nuula reiterated that she hadn't seen that Travlon that Deras had mentioned, but conceded that she probably wouldn't have noticed him unless he was up close and speaking with her. She suggested that if he did work the barges, then one of the warehouse traders out the front of the city might know about him, or else he might need to go out to the barge operators.

Again, he felt the best way to thank the elderly trader for her help was to purchase something. Only since Suvaris seemed to have taken casual interest in it, she'd recommended her special blend of trama-root-tea in honey. She'd advised of its mild calming affects, best taken for a good night's rest. She advised of just how much to dissolve in hot water for best results.

After exchanging coin for the concoction, Suvaris thanked Nuula once again and then continued onward. None of the other traders of the Great Bazaar provided anything remotely of value to his search.

Heading for the gated doorway leading to the southern district, Suvaris had been collecting his thoughts. If there was any substance to what he'd heard from those two traders, then it seemed to add up to something. Though he could not fathom exactly how it could be so, it suggested the possibility that his brother's son had somehow survived the demise of the rest of his family and then later gone on to have a son of his own, naming him after his father.

He was told that they had all died in the accident as they were fleeing the farming village. He'd not had any reason to doubt the word of old Lilitah. She'd clearly been distraught after making it to Kragenmoor, then losing the rest of her own family as the Argonians rampaged across the outer parts of that city. Even so, she'd been clear enough over what she'd witnessed as they fled cross-country from the farming village on their way for Kragenmoor.

He'd not managed to locate any identifiable remains when he'd later searched the rugged ravines and creeks of that area. At the time, he'd not been totally surprised. The heavy rains of the previous day and evening made tracking difficult. Added to that, the directions he'd received from Lilitah had not been very good.

At first, he wasn't even so certain he was even looking in the right place. In a flooded creek, he'd identified the partial wreckage of a wooden cart. Though it seemed that everything else had been washed away, he thought it to be the cart that his brother had taken from the farm during their flight.

Without finding any bodies or the like, he still viewed that as something of a small mercy. It might have provided final confirmation of what he already believed to be, but he still dreaded seeing with his own eyes. Even back then, he understood that there would've been a good chance that some creature of the wild had found what he was looking for before him. He'd been grateful that he'd not come across the aftermath of such a thing. Even so, he'd still believed that they'd all perished. Otherwise, he felt certain that someone would have returned to the farm during the period that followed afterward. Of course, no one had.

Unless it was all some very strange coincidence, learning of both a young boy named Taron Suvaris seen in Mournhold shortly after the Argonian invasion and then a younger Dunmer by the name of Travlon recently seen in the city, seemed an impossible convergence of happenstance.

Suvaris' previous train of thought had been distracted as he passed through into the southern section of the walled city. He noted the signage marked in Dunmeris, indicating that the Plaza Brindisi Dorom was still known by that ancient name. Though he'd not actually known of it during his youth, he'd since learned that the place had held that name since well before the city had been properly enclosed behind stone walls. He understood that the plaza area had been named after an Indoril Duke from the late first era.

Of course it wasn't really the Dunmeris signage that distracted him so much. It was mostly the case that everything else he could see had momentarily taken him aback. Back when Suvaris had firstly seen that place, it still served primarily as the open parkland entrance to the inner city. Aside from the defensive walls and guard towers about the perimeter, the only permanent structure in the plaza had been a rather mundane monument constructed in the centre of the open space. That low and flat monument primarily served to seal the cavity revealing those Dwemer ruins below.

Until all that business with the prophesised Nerevarine toward the end of the third era, nobody even knew of the Dwarven ruins hidden beneath the southern section of the city. It was after a number of individuals had perished attempting to salvage treasures from below, that the passage had been again sealed off from above with that monument.

The very last time that Suvaris had seen the plaza, the open parkland space had been littered with the temporary accommodation of refugee encampments.

With all of that in mind, the very first thing that struck him was that the Plaza Brindisi Dorom no longer looked at all like the former parkland.

A large stone building of somewhat utilitarian design had been constructed right in the centre of the plaza. It seemed to have been built right over the top of where that monument had previously covered passage to those Dwemer ruins below. Only from noticing the prominently displayed blue banners with the inverted triangular glyph, he presumed that it had something to do with the New Temple.

Though there were no tents or makeshift camps out across the plaza, but there were numerous crudely constructed timber dwellings set in rows along either side of the southern wall. He noticed that despite the generally poor state of things in Mournhold, it seemed to him that were far more people living there than he would have expected.

By contrast, he was thinking that the same could not be said of what he observed in Kragenmoor. With that other city, it seemed that its population had been reduced to perhaps a third of what it had been before the invasion. Though some rebuilding had occurred outside of the fortified portion of Kragenmoor, it appeared to have remained at low ebb.

The recent rebuilding in Mournhold looked to be a modest affair, at least in terms of the expense of implementation. However, it did seem to accommodate a seemingly large number of people. Still, he imagined that Mournhold's current population could not have been anywhere near to what it had been during the peak of prosperity during the third era. Even before the more recent calamities, the number of people living in that city had fallen off significantly.

Suvaris understood that part of that earlier reduction in population came about as a result of the mass migration of individuals to Vvardenfell, after the rest of the island beyond the Vivec City district had been again opened up for general settlement. As places like Balmora, Suran, Ald'ruhn, Pelagiad and the farmlands of the Ascadian Isles region boomed, much of that came about at the expense of Dunmer abandoning the mainland in favour of settlement upon Vvardenfell.

After the destruction of Vivec City and the eruptions of Red Mountain, there no longer seemed to be anything like that drawing Dunmer to such a place. At least, not for those who remained in the homeland, instead of seeking other lands beyond their own.

By Suvaris' estimate, though Mournhold appeared notably less wealthy than before, no longer standing as the ruling city of the land, it didn't seem quite so abandoned.

Approaching those not quite so heavily fortified gates in the southern wall of the city, Suvaris noted that the sun was nearing the apex of its arc across the sky. It was not yet midday, but it was not so far off.

~O~