Wystan came to the end of the winding crypt corridors with Gunnar's voice at his back, the torchlight directing him through catacombs sometimes narrow enough to brush both of his shoulders.
"Here we are," the illusionist said matter-of-factly as they stepped down a final shallow set of stairs at the end of the tunnel, another ancient wall of seeping rock with a waist-high alcove. The opening had a neatly rounded upper edge decorated with symbols outside of Wystan's knowledge.
"Hello, what?"
"We're here, kid."
Wystan could not place the feeling as he fixed his eyes on the alcove, not exactly foreboding at the remains of the long dead. Those he had seen for the first time long before today. As a boy Wystan had egged his father into letting him visit the dead halls and open monuments, typical romanticized stuff a lot of folk get themselves into when the skull and bones excite firelight stories and a party. The dry remains in front of him exacted a different queasiness than a timid first shiver at the grisly connotations or peering into an eldritch past. The skull and few pieces of bone, and not even a complete skeleton, had no ceremonial order, no offerings, no precious bits. Aside from the carvings above the alcove, you would not have differentiated this sight from a grave without a marker, just another anonymous ossuary in a Reach field that farmers were still uncovering thirty years after the war.
"Um ... and?"
Gunnar continued holding the torch near the opening and smiled broadly without turning his head. "Not what you were expecting, hm?"
Wystan exhaled through his nostrils involuntarily and gestured off with a hand. "Ah, no.
What is this, Gun?" His tutor had had him forget the adeptus formalities the moment they first met and shook hands.
"The ghost of The Reach, what you asked to see. That," he tipped the flaming end slightly towards the alcove, "is the ghost."
"You gotta be kidding," Wystan almost laughed, tempering himself slightly as he remembered where they were standing. "This?! What," he pointed back and forth at the inscriptions above the arch, "does all that mean?"
Gunnar chuckled slightly in his basso profundo.
"Well?! Why this one? We musta walked, what, half a mile?"
"You are right. This is indeed the very back-back end of the line, the furthest one could walk in here."
Wystan exhaled fully and crossed his arms, stared at his feet.
"They are pre-Third Era ideographics, Reachman work."
"Forsworn Witchmen?"
"That's how they've come to be known. And exactly why this tomb works so well," Gunnar explained, the smile disappearing.
"I seriously don't get this. Works, you say? Aren't we treading on some tribal grounds here?"
"Oh no," Gunnar replied, "these graves are far older than the Markarth fight. It's not the mountain tribes you'd worry about around here; they don't keep written inventories like the Imperials. Besides, heh, like I say this is a different era. More important to the local mainstream than any crazy briarheart."
"Ohhhkeeeyyyyy," Wystan followed, "so what does this gone pile of bones mean?"
The smile returned. "Everything is an illusion. C'mon," the older man turned to go, "seen enough? We've got plenty of walking to discuss it."
They wended through the same set of tight passages lined with as many as three levels of mummified remains, some complete skeletons laid bare. Wystan distracted himself from the blackly stale air by counting the dusty bits of metal here and there in the burial openings, on and around the shrouded remains.
"So tell me," he continued, nervously going through the silent calm he used before tough recitations at the Collegium.
"Eh?" Gunnar continued walking second to Wystan's great delight. It was dead quiet in the cryptways, but that didn't dull his imagination.
"What did you mean about this tomb working? Is all of this an illusion?"
"Oh no. The walls, the floors, the bones— all material reality. I've cast nothing."
Wystan stopped and turned around, held out his hand to stop Gunnar's torch.
"Hm," the illusionist's eyes widened a bit. "Yes?"
"Has someone else ... or something else ... cast something here? Like six or seven hundred years ago, or more?"
"Now you're asking the questions. The answer," Gunnar paused, grinning at Wystan and looking him in the eye.
"Yes?!"
"If there is any of that craft at work here, it's beyond me or too old to worry."
They continued back out. When they walked up a gentle incline of stone steps into the small round room just inside of the crypt's entrance doors, Wystan stopped and looked back around the antechamber's bas reliefs dancing in Gunnar's torchlight. Stylized dragon heads reached out of the walls, symbolic processions, one-point expressionless faces.
"This," Wystan motioned at the walls, "that," he continued pointing down the stairs where they had emerged, "are all, ah, material. They exist as material."
"Yes."
He managed to meet Gunnar's gaze. "And that ... last grave? That, and I would guess much in this place, are much older than Stormcloaks and legions."
"Right again," Gunnar stood with the torch held out to one side, relaxed. He was not smiling, and then also not giving his student the imperious treatment, looked curious at Wystan's next statement.
"And you say this place for some reason works, that's how you put it."
"Yep. And what do you think I mean by that? What do you really see here?"
"A generic old catacombs of no major repute from which you seem to not sense any interplanar flimflam."
Gunnar chuckled.
"The end of which holds a nondescript pile of bones under a Reachman carving and then not the slightest bit important to a briarheart war chief. But it works. Works ... how?"
"C'mon," Gunnar walked toward the doors, "gimme a hand with these." They each leaned a shoulder against one of the double doors and pushed with their full weight. It had required hours to get the encrusted iron open from the other side, first with shovels at the bases of each door and a pickaxe up and down the lichens in between the inner edges, then a campfire for a full pot of steaming oil for the seams and hinges, more scraping with knife ends and one busted dagger point. Gunnar told Wystan that this would have to be the only time they would be able to do this, starting at dawn, and that they would probably be alright since the overgrown path up a series of hills was generally untraveled, superstition keeping most others out anyway. Still and though, he had continued, they would need to take a brief tour, leave nothing behind, and push the earth back against the doors.
"As far as I've researched, on the down low, that is merely an ancestral chamber for notables of the late-Second and early-Third Eras. I'm not for graverobbing," Gunnar strolled at a pace Wystan found irritatingly between his own amble and double-time, a brisk peripatetic from years of walking tours, "not without a definite material target, that is," he smirked through the churchwarden pipe trailing a sweet mixture in the blustery Reach afternoon. "And a buyer outside of the hold. Never go selling this era it's own patrimony if you value your head."
Wystan sipped at a bottle of Alto and wondered how long the walk back into town would take.
"So you're probably wondering why I took you on a sixteen-mile walk and down into a grave, huh?"
Gunnar's voice got a little further off, and Wystan hurried down to the somewhat bemused teacher standing with one elbow in his hand, taking draws of smoke.
"Hem, sorry boss, had to pass. What was that?"
Smoke blew in his direction, dissipated. "Would you like a nap? Tired?"
"Naw, naw Gun. Just needed to stop."
Gunnar gently moved the pipe away from his lips, watched his student take a raffish swig off the bottle, shrug his shoulders.
"Well good, son. Now you. Why did I take you on a walk with shovels?"
Wystan smiled through the roll on his back of two shovels, iron pot with camp frame, field knives, a broken dagger, water skins, and (blessedly now empty) oil pots: "Something ... about that grave works magicka outside here."
"Hah!" Gunnar continued smoking and resumed his stroll.
Wystan drowned a grumble in more wine. They were at the last hill up the road from Varness when the sun was just going down over the horizon, and a hot tavern pie was sounding pretty good right about now, as was a bench to sit.
"Before we get some grub," Gunnar said, after a long walk back in silence, "you will need to stow the tools. Don't need folk getting ideas about us."
"Right," Wystan answered through his feet and aching abdomen.
"Remember," the other continued pulling his characteristic gaze on the village without turning his head, "our cover, too."
"Magelet-needs-an-ore-magnet, got it."
At this, the older man did turn his head. "Our cover, novus," Gunnar used the term for the first time, "and why am I out showing you how to find silver?"
Wystan forgot his bladder momentarily. "Um, yeah, because you're contracted with the jarl to search out new veins and I am your new charge."
"And?"
"And, since we know the arts, at least some, we monitor the area."
"That's right. We're here to help. Anyone saw us up there," Gunnar turned and pointed gruffly, "we were just making rounds, got it? Just be your usual self, and so will I." He blew out a hearty laugh. "Meet you at the Argentheim for beers."
An hour later, Wystan had his feet propped up on the opposite bench under the table and leaned against the tavern wall, poured another tankard of lager. Gunnar sat likewise right next to him and smoked, raised a hand every now and then to miners still dusty from work as they came in from the cold.
"Here there, wizo," came a raspy bark or two as the evening turned lively.
"Whatsup, Brenna?!"
For a dirtfloored inn, they could eat much and heartily for a half septim. The central pit had barons of mutton and venison smoking and dripping into the fire, hogsheads behind the bar sat piled with Alikir and Cyrodiilic glass bottles, bags and baskets of vegetables stuffed in every cranny not reserved for a table and chairs. A deep hearth framed with rough Reach granite sat in the wall opposite their bench, iron frames with open iron pots of stews simmered. The Silverhill, Gunnar had translated for him that first night, got its name from some linguistic admixture passed down from generations of multinational laborers in the Reach for the mines, dangerous work that often broke open places sealed deep. There had been readings and lectures at the Collegium about draugr ghouls, even one required symposium that kept them up until two hours before chores; Gunnar smugly added, hearing this, it was probably good old-fashioned metabolic manipulation at work there or, to put it plainly, fatigue used to emphasize the point. Akatosh, and they did it on a Frostfall night? Perfect!
The speaker had been Master Eadgar, the alchemist who saved Zia'ro, and had been held in the conjuration vestibule. I say "speaker" in the loosest possible way. He merely walked in to the candlelit chamber [drawing another laugh from Gunnar] and began the spell. Several shushes from the magistra and adepta, and the entire class watched as smoky light enveloped his hands and arms up to the shoulders, a loud whoosh! and there across the thaumaturgic circle stood the growling form of a mummified form in remnant field plate, a museum piece battle axe on its back. It had circles of radiant blue in its eye sockets and looked like a skeleton with a stretched covering of skin. Mistress Tatiana herself got up quickly from her chair at the side of the circle, held her hands up, and lowered them palms down as the exclamations and gasps got louder. Raynu and Juo stood between the benches of novices, many of whom had risen, some making evil-ward signs particular to their kindred. Master Eadgar kept both of his glowing arms up with palms facing forward.
"This," he declamed, "is a draugr." With the last word, the thing balled its fists and let out a guttural sound neither human nor animal, stood rooted to its spot.
"Knut of Valthume," Tatiana called out over the entire room, "he was born in the southern Reach mountains during the first century of the First era."
Ulia had been lounging on the benches at the back of the novices when Eadgar began. At this point, she stood and waved her arms over the rising noise of thirty-six astonished and terrified students, tried to keep her eyes on theirs to avoid looking at the apparition.
The domina nodded at Eadgar, and with a final gesture the draugr vanished. Novice chatter continued to get louder.
"Please ... please! Please," Tatiana walked over to the benches, "everyone, please! Listen. Thank you, Master Eadgar."
The alchemist walked over to a wash basin and towl on the preparation table with the thaumaturgic pigments, slowly rinsed his hands without looking up.
"Knut was one of the last ancient Nords to serve the dragons, that is, he served the dragon priests under the serpents themselves."
"Mistress," Ylena waved her hand up high."
"Not now," Juo snapped at her.
"What is it, nova," Tatiana asked with a cold stare, and getting no response continued, "Master Eadgar has just shown you several important aspects of the crafts you must never abuse. Ever. One," she struck her full oratory, "you must know the conjuration chant by heart, know its entire history. You must be able to scribe the spell from memory! Never ever use a text you do not know that well!"
Complete silence.
"For if you do not," she thundered, "you might call up something like him! An undying warrior serving the oldest powers on earth! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!" Her voice rang for the long, oddly relaxed silence. The novices mostly slumped in their benches since the spell had ceased.
"Two," Tatiana continued in her more even, stately voice, "you have to be strong enough to control that which you call, regardless. A wolf, a bear," she mimed Eadgar's actions, "a large elk for that matter. You don't know what you're doing, you get a hoof to the face, right? These are wild animals."
Most of the seated novices nodded their heads immediately.
"Then, people," she said, "just ask yourself why you need to conjure in the first place. This was a lesson in ancestry. I wanted you to see with your own eyes, which leads me to my final point: stay the hell out of burial grounds unless you have prior knowledge of their layout and provenance. I'm not going to tell you never, just don't go fooling with necromancy absent a purpose." Tatiana glared at Ylena who, to the great pleasure of her proper Cyrodiilic parentage, had since her majority sported a face full of kohl marks and the chic tribal necklaces hawked in the arcade districts, beads and central amulet purportedly from human sacrifice.
"What do you think of this demonstration, master Saltersson," the domina asked while speaking to the center of the benches.
"Domina," the stupefied Eastmarcher managed to ask.
"I said," she turned her eyes to his through the partial light, "what are your thoughts?"
"Haha, so they treated you to a candlelight Frostfall festival," Gunnar grinned, "good one."
"It wasn't fun, man," Wystan retorted mildly, "scared the shyte outta me, that's for sure."
"As it bloody well should. Now you know the reason why that tomb works its magic here in town."
"I guess."
"Oh, c'mon! You still don't see it?"
"Funny, 'see it,' heh. And no."
Gunnar sipped at his tankard. "Think: tomb up there, unknown glyphs, draugr, legends."
"I get it," Wystan said, tiredly, "they think, here, there's one up there in the tunnels, there."
"More. What did you see there at the end of the last tunnel?"
"Zenithar, man, I saw some bones on a shelf. Finito, that's it."
"Precisely."
"What part of the puzzle do I not have?"
"The legend they tell around Fjallness lands about those bones, the bones nobody has actually seen in centuries. That much I know."
"Okay, I'm game, tell me."
"Short version, a scary monster lives in those tunnels and it has followers doing bad things in these parts of The Reach," Gunnar grinned from beneath a finger rubbing his upper lip, trying not to laugh, "like I said, to my knowledge not a lick of magicka burns in that place, not in a very long time."
Wystan was starting to feel the plate of mutton in sage gravy and that last flagon of seasonal bock, yawned. "Uuukaay, so they believe it so, and it is so, royt?"
"Precisely," Gunnar leaned in close and whispered, "nothing is best hidden in ultimate mystery. It's a false relic. No power whatsoever beyond the illusions people already have. Never forget that," he put more in his pipe and leaned back, "learn how to identify those situations before you start casting. Makes your craft all the more powerful."
4E 200 Rain's Hand 01 later at breakfast
Azuyia stopped with a fork of potatoes almost in her mouth, letting the fork slide back down on her plate. The adepta had walked by.
"Something the matter," Wystan Glaedwin asked. He had been one of those immediately next to her at roll call after the acceptances that morning. The son of import-export merchants from the eastern side of Falkreath hold bordering on the Pale, Wystan was longing for something more than another generation of interminable tent greetings and warehouse inventories, so he had taken advantage of a guild childhood traveling abroad in Tamriel with his father. In Hammerfell and High Rock, even the Imperial City itself, Wystan begged and conned his way into this or that arcane workshop and scribendum, and while not professing any real skill at the commons quite yet had at least acquired the knowledge to ask a few questions, and where to ask them.
"Um," the Bosmer said spacily as she watched the imposing, robed figure wend around the refectory, saying nothing and looking at nothing scrutable, "nooooooo ... "
4E 200 later in Rain's Hand
"Come in," Azuyia heard the adepta's voice call out from behind the door after she knocked that evening. She took a breath and walked inside.
"Hello, Azuyia," Juo said, motioning to a chair at the converation table. The change was even more dramatic up close. The Nord girl she had seen just six years ago only vaguely emanated from the face she saw speaking those words in a slightly deeper voice. She had her reddish-brown hair in a tight weave pulled back in braids from her hairline. Juo wore no cosmetics, and her skin had taken on the weatherstained patina one might see in a hunter or caravaneer. She had tiny, ornate dots of silver metal seemingly embedded in her face above each eyebrow, several to a side, and a shiny emerald tattooing from below her nose and winding around her lips, spreading across her chin and fanning out on her neck. The Nord tomboy Azuyia had watched grow from infancy to her social arrival now wore longsleeved expert's robes of worn, yet obviously rich and sturdy cerulean that covered all but the last bit of her burgundy chamois boots. Juo also had an ovoid pearl the size of a quail's egg dangling from a gold chain in each earlobe, and an emerald centered in a gold brooch at the high neck of her vestment. With the journey from Greenheart and all the happenings of the past few weeks, Azuyia had the urge to run over and hug her old friend. Actually sitting across from the new adepta at her private table changed that.
"Juo," she still could not help but smile broadly, "it's so good to see you again. You look great! Ha, I still remember that time you cast a voyance to get at mom's Frostfall candies," she laughed, "you were nine!"
The startlingly changed childhood friend smiled a bit.
"When I saw you coming and going during candidacy, I thought it best that I appear only at acceptances."
"But Ob ... I mean, Adepta, why?"
Juo rose and walked to the other side of the chamber. It was more expansive than the magistra's private quarters only enough to allow a private wash tub with an extra dressing table and stool. She picked up an apricot-glazed ceramic teapot the type you'd find passing through on merchant's carts on any market day, poured two hot measures into pewter beakers, and brought them over to sit back down.
"Listen, and just this once, Azuyia. The moment we walk back out that door, or should I say you do, we have to put aside our memories from Greenheart and focus on here, now. From here on out I am the adepta in charge of overseeing, along with Mistress Tatiana, that Winterhold's laws are obeyed. Wait," she stopped and smiled warmly with the tea at her lips, setting the cup down a moment on the table with her hand around it lightly, "that came out wrong. Winterhold doesn't make laws. That's between them and the Nords," her smile disappeared, "and the Empire. We just want to make sure that all politics of jurisprudence stay out of the Collegium."
"I don't understand ... Adepta," Azuyia said, looking a bit crestfallen at her tea. She felt a hand touch hers ever so slightly.
"Like I say ... just this once. No, it's not the law. That was a mispronunciation," it rolled off her tongue effortlessly, "what I mean is the relationship between Winterhold and the imperial University. We can't give any of those fops reason to come snooping around, or worse set Mede's dogs running up this direction." The lack of a formal address for majesty startled Azuyia a bit, given the domina was herself an Imperial and enrolled by the gens Mede, but she said nothing at her first bit on the inside. "So that's the reason for such as our decorum creed. We don't want any foolish business or trouble with local Nords."
"What does this have to do with with me, Adepta," Azuyia asked quietly.
Juo sipped a little more tea and leaned back in her chair to sit with the beaker in her lap. "Do you think I could fly up to the Hall of the Elements and ask a favor of the archmage, or rather, do you think they dole out favors to friends and compatriots?"
"I'm not asking," the Bosmer started to say, feeling a chill in the air.
"I didn't think you were," Juo interrupted, "and I seriously don't think you will. We simply need to have an understanding, nova."
The moment had come.
"Intelligis forstand, Adepta," Azuyia gave the international double usage, "Will that be all?"
"Yes, Azuyia. I look forward to your progress."
Azuyia and Wystan were walking to the commons one evening when they passed the open door of the infirmary and started at the anguished figure of another novice, gripping herself in fetal position on a surgery table. A man stood there with Raynu next to the shaking Zia'ro, a Khajiit, the so-called "cat people" from an arid province like the Alik'r desert of the Redguards. She held her clawed hands, if you will, to her stomach (Khajiit being a little put off by the Nordic for "paw" as if they were felix domesticus on two feet).
"I don't kn ... yes?" Raynu looked at them from across the room.
"Excuse us, magistra," Wystan said and made to continue down the hallway.
"No, no ... please. Join us," she motioned for them to come in.
He and Azuyia walked over to Raynu and the middle-aged Nord man in bleached work frock and pants.
"This," the adept indicated the suffering Zia'ro, "is why we have our botanical halls." Those were the endless trays, shelves, glass jars, shelves of illuminated books on the minutiae of the world's plants.
"Yes, well, I think this will do it," the balding man in the white worker's clothes said to Raynu. "It's a strong emetic. Minerals from Solstheim. It will ... bring up that mess, so get a chamber pot and basin of water, and plenty of warm, clean cloth. She should recover if you make sure she drinks plenty of fluids. Try some apple-cabbage soup with sage if she can hold it down, and boil some winter wheat with blisterwort, cut it one part wine to three parts tea."
"Thank you, Master Eadgar. The centuriana will see to your payment." When he left, Raynu turned to Wystan and Azuyia. "Could one of you go fetch Gwenfir and Hons from the kitchen, and tell them we need help for a few hours?"
"I'll go get them," Wystan volunteered.
"And tell Hons," Raynu called out as he walked out the door, "to wash the soot off his hands, will you. He leaves fingerprints all over the place." She sat down next to the trembling Khajiit, who had been panting the entire time.
"What happened, magistra?"
"In a minute, nova." Shortly a young Breton woman and Nord man appeared and walked in. They both wore dirty linen aprons over work tunics.
"For Mara's sake, take those dingy rags off, you two," Raynu said disdainfully, "And did you scrub your hands as asked?"
"Yes, ma'am," the redhaired Gwenfir responded, showing her palms. She had clear skin the color of snowfall, ice-blue eyes, and a touseled shock of the fire blonde. So she's the one those comments have been about at breakfast, Azuyia thought. I'm surprised magistra tightbreeches hasn't had her replaced 'for decorum's sake,' heh.
"Ma'am," Hons followed. He was at least six-five, had bronze skin with traditional High Rock markings in silver-blue ink, a bit of a lantern jaw. Ah, the Bosmer noted again, the reason why that blessed Vinia has been walking in after four in the morning.
"Let's leave them to attend to her," Raynu said, rising, and Azuyia followed her out into the hallway. The adept shut the door, kept her hand on the door handle. "She ate an amanita phalloides thinking it was a fly amanita. If they don't get the toxins out of her completely, fast, she'll look like she's recovered. Then a day or so later will lay there like that as her liver eats itself, and she will die."
"Magistra!"
"Yes, child."
"Will those medicines help Zia'ro?"
"I put my trust in Master Eadgar. He's the best alchemist I could get at this short notice, and he's lived in the hold all his life. If anyone knows how to treat a mycological poison, it's him."
"Amanita phal-oy-days?"
"Yes. It translates to 'death cap.' I hope you don't forget what you just saw, nova. And don't," she added regally, walking away without stopping to turn around, "feel the need to keep it a secret from your fellows, either."
Over the next week or so, Azuyia made an excuse or two to sit next to the charismatic Khajiit. Many from the human populations of Tamriel took half their lives to get used to the caravans from Elsweyr. The cats, to use the pejorative, although uncommon and seen in small groups were a formidable sight up close. They tended to stand about the height of an average Nord, and while not cutting a particularly bulky silhouette were known by physicians to be noticeably heavier. Not that a Khajiit relied on the wallop that denser bones and flesh might give a barroom haymaker; at the end of their fingers were two- or three-inch claws capable of ripping pieces out of a plaster wall. Their visages ranged from feline shorthairs, common to females, to lambchopped lynxes in many of the males.
They could also jump like their animal lookalikes. Watch a house cat pounce from the floor to the top of a bookshelf and you get a sense of the acrobatic capability of a six-foot Khajiit. Luckily, they were not generally a violent race. Many Nords grew up with habitual distrust of the feline immigrants to Skyrim because they had the reputation as natural thieves and dishonest merchants. Whether the Khajiit stole in greater percentages than anyone else would take Imperial police work on the scale of the Penitus Oculatus, or the Thalmor, but it was well known the caravaneers could sell burlap to an Altmer couturier, and they could see in the dark. Nords had also learned that unarmed single combat with a Khajiit was suicide, so some of the nationalism was just pure instinct.
Zia'ro was well-liked in company. Having grown up in the trade caravans that took her people from the Elsweyr stretches of sand and sparse greenery, thousands of miles north through Cyrodiil to the frozen mountains of Skyrim, she was one of the most traveled in the novitiate and could easily adapt to the variety of conversational manners in a menagerie of folkways. She and Azuyia had not become fast friends by any means, and yet the Bosmer felt as at ease speaking to her as with any of the rest.
"How're you feeling, Z," Azuyia said to her, as others had taken to calling her.
"Moosh bettahh," the dry, unmistakably Khajiit voice replied. "Doze bittah sands zey give dis one help her heal. Dis one remembahh za name of zat plant, yes?"
Hugging and cuddling not exactly a custom with her people, Azuyia had observed in her other interactions, she settled on rapping a knuckle on the refectory table and raising a tankard with her other hand.
"Good health and good fortune," she took a swig to seal the toast.
"Manny thannks, Zooyah."
Zia'ro, to the relief of all concerned, had recovered fully after that painful night of treatment and two days off from study to rehydrate and get her digestion working. Word got around discreetly per Azuyia and her relating the story to both Wystan and Denthryd, and the mycology collection was both more popularly discussed and more intensely studied in hours outside of lecture hall the next few weeks.
