Sorry for the lateness of this post. I was almost done more than a week ago, but then I had to leave for a vacation with my family, and sadly, there was not even a computer where I went - I've got to get a laptop, or at least a tablet! - Hopefully, I can get the next chapter up by Saturday, and so I won't be too far behind.
The Temple of Miraak
The first day at sea, Aleron had thought he was likely to die, if from nothing other than puking out his own insides. He'd never been in a boat, but he had expected the movement to be no more upsetting than a day on a cart. After all, carts on rough roads did more jumping and jostling than any sea could possibly. What he had not understood was that carts were always on solid ground, however choppy and uneven that ground was. Being on the water was not so jostling; it was unsettling, because the stomach had quite literally nowhere to settle. By the end of that first day, Aleron was praying as fervently as he ever had in his life for just a moment of solid ground. By the third day, however, as their seaborne voyage was coming to an end, he felt he could live on the water.
He sat working a dragon tooth against a large dragon bone. From the moment he'd realized how long it had taken his axe to punch through Mirmulnir's skull, he had wondered if armor could be made of dragon's bones. He knew that at one time the Dark Elves had done so, back before dragons had gone extinct. There were legends of dragon bone shields and helmets; and the hilt of his father's sword was dragon bone. It had, though, for the longest time, eluded him how it was possible. A forge didn't even heat the bones. A grindstone would wear away before the bones were even scuffed. He had finally begun to despair at the idea when he realized that human teeth were harder than human bones. He knew that if such were true of dragons, then he could use the teeth to work the bones. It turned out that he was correct. It would take him some time, but he knew that, eventually, he would have a full set of dragon bone armor.
He tried not to think of where he was going as he worked the bone. Solstheim was a strange island, from what he'd read. Once, supposedly, it had been much like Skyrim, at least along the northern half of the island. All accounts of its topography gave it a wedge shape, starting with the fairly low and level southern beaches, still quite cold, if not so cold as most of Skyrim, and quickly rose to jagged mountain peaks and rising passages that would fit well in the coldest reaches of the Jerralls. The southern half of the island, though, was now covered in the ash of Red Mountain, an astonishing thing considering the distance to Vvardenfell. That ash, as it had in the Dunmer homeland, often carried on the wind to create ash storms that could choke a man to death. It was not until the mountains rose high that the ash stopped. Past the ash, it was so cold and inhospitable that none lived so far north. None but the Skaal, anyway. An enigmatic group of Nords, shockingly rumored to be almost pacifist. Little was known about the Skaal, as few were hardy enough reach their home, and fewer still had any reason. Most of the northern edge of Solstheim was completely inaccessible, rising directly from the ocean floor in thousand-foot cliffs. No trade was done in the northern mountains.
Somewhere on that island, though, were people who wanted to kill him, people who seemed to think him a false Dragonborn. He did not think that last part was true. Dragonborns were the least attended of the Greybeards' study, but he believed that they knew enough to spot a false one. They had sent him to fetch the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, though. Had that been a test, to see if he'd been true?
Mjoll sat herself down in front of him, a look of total seriousness almost disguising the height of her cheekbones.
"We need to talk," she said just as soberly.
He set his dragon bones aside, next to the fine new kite shield he'd gotten from Oengul War-Anvil in Windhelm. "What about?"
She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. "I need to know some things about you. I realized recently that I know almost nothing about where you came from. I'm following you. I've put aside my whole life to follow you. I know you don't like talking about it. But I need to know."
Aleron felt cornered. What had Erik told her? He suspected that the red-headed Roriksteader knew far more than he let on. "I don't . . . I don't know what you want me to say. You know my family died some years ago. You know I don't have much experience with normal people, since then or before. What else do you need to know?"
Instead of answering, she put her face into her hands. "My family, my whole village, was murdered in front of me." It was mumbled, muffled by her hand half-covering her mouth, but Aleron heard it. He stared until she looked up at him.
"Go on," he told her. He knew, now, why she had been so interested in Benor of Kolgrimstead.
"I watched the bandits burn my village to the ground, watched them kill everyone I knew. I was just a girl, but I saw rapes, murders, brutality. I watched as a bandit cut my brother down, laughing as he did it. I watched a boy burned alive. I watched everything had I loved taken from me. Only my father and I got out alive."
"How can you stand it?" he asked, interrupting her. "How can you stand the pain of talking about it? How can you even bear to remember it?"
"It hurts no more to talk about it than not to. I don't like doing it, because I don't like the pity in others' eyes when I do. But I carry the pain of it every moment."
Aleron sighed. He had to try, but he could feel the tears already. He took a deep breath. If he could talk of Tor with Delphine, he could do this. "My father and mother died of an illness when I was fifteen." So far, so good. "I watched it take them, tried to help them as best I could. But nothing helped. They died shuddering, like animals in the cold. They were good people."
He jerked as she brushed a single tear from his cheek.
"There's more than that," she said tenderly. "Why were you so alone before they died? Why, before that, did you not have much experience with people?"
"I can't," he started. But the look of hurt in Mjoll's eyes hit him like a blow. "My brother," he continued. "My older brother, Avenall, was my whole life when I was a young boy. He was like my father, strong and always smiling. We would run through the forests around my home, playing silly games. He taught me to read, out in those woods. One day we found a cave. He wanted to go and get our father; but I convinced him to go in with me instead. I wanted to see an ogre. He died in there, crushed by an ogre. I ran. Got away."
He was shocked to see a tear on Mjolls face, and he wiped it away and kissed her cheek where it had been. "Why did that make you alone?" she asked. "You were a boy. Who would hold you responsible?"
"They thought I killed him. Everyone but my parents. Somehow, I collapsed the cave. I suppose I shouted without knowing it. My father dug my brother out, later. But no one ever saw any ogres."
Mjoll's eyes were hard, now, a hint of dark gold in pale green. "And the priests all thought you a murderer, too. And treated you like one."
"Yes. Truth is, I never killed anyone until I came to Skyrim."
A silence stretched between them, then. This was a topic rarely discussed among honorable warriors. Methods of battle, sure. Heroic deeds. But the first kill was something few wanted to remember.
Mjoll broke the silence. "I killed my first man the day Kolgrimstead burned. Within the next five years, I'd killed more than twenty - mostly those that burned my village. The rage didn't make the pain go away, though."
Aleron looked at her. She didn't seem in pain. She'd shed one tear, for him, but none now for her family.
"I cut a man's head off," he heard himself say. He seemed to be listening to himself, not speaking. "I was fighting my way out of Helgen, and he tried to stop me. It was the emptiest feeling I'd ever had. It was like a nothingness had swallowed a little piece of the world. I did it with a sword. I left it with his body. I thought the axe would be better for my soul. An axe can be used for other things than killing, at need, though mine's poorly suited for anything else. A sword, though, is just for killing. It seems silly, now. I've killed so many. It's still always empty. It seems unfair. It seems like death should be the right place to bury all that pain."
"Pain's not for burying." Her voice was strong, and her eyes were remembering something. "Pain is there to make us stronger than we were. Without pain, we're all slaves to our whims. Pain is the cost of freedom. Pain is how we know we've lost something. It's the cost of having anything at all to lose. Don't hate your pain. It's what's left of them."
Aleron stared at the warrior woman. In all his years with the brothers of Weynon Priory, he'd never heard such wisdom. She seemed to know what he was thinking.
"I had a father who taught me how to deal with grief." Her smile was not of pity, but of understanding. His own father had never talked with him of how to cope with Avenall's death. Tor had buried his emotions, dealt with them in some private way. Corette had simply cried herself to sleep at nights, then spent her remaining days focusing on her last son.
"How did he die?"
Mjoll's eyes remembered again, yet still they did not weep. "My father died six years ago, in a storm. He was a hunter, and he was caught out-of-doors in a blizzard. It's an occupational hazard, I suppose. Still, I miss him. But he died a happy man, never having regretted one moment of his life. I hope I'll be so lucky."
They talked for some time of their respective pasts. Aleron was shocked that she mostly remembered the good moments of her life before her family was taken. All of Aleron's clear memories were sad. She said he needed to focus more on the good memories, that he needed to find them wherever he'd hidden them in his mind. He was not so sure he could do that. He thought those memories would be the most painful. But then, maybe that was the point.
.
That evening, they reached Raven Rock, on the southeastern shore of Solstheim.
The docks were crowded, Teldryn noticed, as he surveyed the myriad ships lining the ever-growing wooden walkways. He should leave with one of these ships, he knew. A fishing vessel would be as good as a merchant; anything to get him off this island. He was sure, now, that he wanted to leave. He could not say why, but something in him was trying to get away from here. True, there was more competition for mercenaries on the mainland - and Nords often refused to associate with mages, especially elven ones; but better competition than . . . dread.
One ship in particular he had hopes for. Northern Maiden had been seen coming in, so said the dockworker he'd spoken to when he first arrived. Captain Gjalund Salt-Sage was a solid man, always willing to take on any passengers who could pull their own weight. Why pay for hands when travelers were eager to work for passage? He did not see Northern Maiden right away, though. Still, other narrow-hulled Nord ships were settling into their berths. Perhaps, if he could find a captain without prejudice, he would be able to book passage with one of them. He ignored the Dunmer ships. He would not go back to Blacklight, no matter how desperate he got.
Blacklight would be a sign of failure for Teldryn Sero. Returning there would mean that he could not survive as a mercenary. His return to the city would be a return to work as an assassin for House Redoran. He would not do that. Whatever he was, he was no longer the lackey of a broken system. The Dunmer had been a proud people, once, but now their pride had cost them so much. They had to change, but not as Hlaalu had wanted. They could not conform to the ways of the Imperials, could not become . . . diplomatic. It was his belief that the Dunmer should learn from the Khajiit, the Nords, and those few Bosmer who worked in secret to subvert the Dominion. From the Khajiit they could learn to keep their own culture, to separate themselves even when in foreign lands without losing their traditions. From the Nords they could learn of unyielding defiance. And from the Bosmer they could relearn what they should already have known best: espionage.
True, the Dunmer had never really lost any of these things. They had practically invented them, especially among the elves. But they had turned on themselves long ago, thinking that House rivalries kept them strong. Once, perhaps they had. Now, though, the squabbling houses in Morrowind only kept the Dunmer people weak.
Hope for change had been the reason Teldryn came to Solstheim, after years as a mercenary in Skyrim. Hope that here the Dunmer could remember that they were strong. But hope had turned to despair, and despair into revelation. The Houses must not come together. There need not be a new Hortator. The Houses must fall. Whether it took a hundred years, the Dunmer people were the only hope for the Dunmer race. If they rose up, if they each realized what they were: not a divided house of one race, but a million survivors, each with the capacity for greatness. If they could come to know this, they would make the world fear them again.
Teldryn planned to do his part. He would go back to Skyrim, become the most feared spellsword since the Nerevarine - alas! that Nerevar reborn had so long been lost - and the Dunmer people would see what they really should be: a terrifying specter, a nation of unknowable Dark Elves, spreading not like mere weeds, but like choking vines from the black ash of Morrowind, most mysterious of lands.
Thoughts like these kept him company as he searched through the arriving vessels for a Nord who would meet his eyes. Finally, he saw what he was looking for. Northern Maiden was docking in the closest mooring to the Bulwark.
He rushed across the docks, feeling more and more confident in his decision to leave as he got closer and closer to the vessel. He could see Arano arguing with Gjalund, likely over the lost freight from the captain's last departure. And then a Breton man stepped from the craft's deck onto the dock. Arano stopped shouting at the ship captain long enough to look the new arrival over. The Breton took the opportunity to ask a question, though in the cacophony of the docks Teldryn could not quite hear what it was. By the time he was close enough, the Second Councilor was already near to shouting.
"I don't care if you are some Nord hero - though you look a Breton to me - this is not Skyrim. You are in Morrowind, now, in the sovereign territory of House Redoran. I don't know what a Dragonborn is, but perhaps you will be best served going back home where people care. There is no . . . Miraak . . . here in Raven Rock. If you insist on staying, you may, so long as you abide by Redoran law."
The Breton man was a sight. He was young, with a somewhat dangerous look to his eyes. He wore shining full-plate armor with a red and gold sleeveless surcoat. Slung across his back was a kite shield in the Breton style, obviously new, without a spot of wear. His cloak was of fine cave bear skin, rimmed with what looked like fur from a snow bear, clasped at the right breast with a golden disc and a fox tail. His companions, who waited behind him like bodyguards, were a disparate lot of Nord warriors: a shield-bearing woman with red-gold hair, a fire-headed barbarian in furs, and an older bald spellsword in black scaled leather and fur.
"We'll follow your laws," the Breton said. "But two men came from here to kill me. They were sent by someone representing this Miraak. All I request is that you let me ask around. Captain Gjalund here had some strange things to tell me about the men, and I think you should talk to him about them. Your city may be in danger."
"Miraak, you say?" Teldryn had not noticed Nelos behind the Second Councilor. "You say those priests tried to kill you?"
The Breton practically shoved past Arano to stand before the Telvanni wizard. "Who is Miraak? Where can I find him?"
Teldryn tried to squeeze past the newcomers to get to Gjalund, but Nelos saw him. "Teldryn, there, can take you to his temple." Curse that old magus. What was he talking about?
"I know nothing of any Miraak. I'm trying to leave this damned island."
Nelos made a sound like a rusty hinge. "You've forgotten already, haven't you? I'll admit the details are getting fuzzy, even to me." To the Breton, he went on. "Miraak is some old dragon god of the local Nords. His temple is near the center of the island. Teldryn knows the way, I think. Unless that too has been taken from him."
Teldryn wanted to scream. Something in him knew that if he didn't leave now, he never would. "I could take you there; but so could some others. Myself, as I said, I'm trying to get to Skyrim."
The wizard shook his head disapprovingly. "Teldryn, I don't think you can escape what's taken your mind. Whatever is happening, it is in you now."
"What are you talking about, wizard? Nothing has taken my mind."
"Where did you wake, this morning?"
It was such a ridiculous question that Teldryn actually thought the old Telvanni was trying to trick him. "I -" He couldn't remember. He'd been at the Netch, hadn't he? "What is happening?"
In the Retching Netch, Teldryn could see that his first impression of the Breton had been wrong. He'd thought the man some wealthy lord of high birth, likely a Colovian by his accent. He'd thought, because wealthy men usually were, that he had been some spoiled brat, looking for adventure while his guards kept the real dangers away. His hands were the first indication that such notions of this Aleron as a fop were inaccurate at best. They were a blacksmith's hands, much like Glover's, rough and filthy, ham-like in their girth and strength. Then there was the realization that he filled out the thick armor. Teldryn had not noticed at first - all men seemed over-thick to his Dunmer eyes - that this Aleron was half again as wide across the shoulders as most, even among the rangy Nords. Then there were the eyes. No soft lordling had ever had such keen eyes.
"So you're the Dragonborn?" Teldryn asked without really understanding what he was talking about. "I've heard the term before somewhere. I thought it had to do with the Nerevarine, but if it's some Nord legend I must have been wrong."
The Breton spoke softly, but with a firmness that belied a quiet intensity. "I have the soul of a dragon and the blood of Akatosh."
"Ha!" Teldryn had heard other insane stories before, but a demigod was pretty new. "Well then, you shouldn't be so worried about this Miraak. Seems to me a demigod such as yourself would make short work of a few priests."
"I am what I am. But I need your help. And in truth, it seems you need mine."
"I can find the place," he told the party. "It's just into the mountains, about two to three days hike. I'm assuming you weren't foolish enough to bring horses to Solstheim?"
The Dragonborn shrugged. "No. We left them in Windhelm. Can you take us to the this Miraak's temple?"
"I can. But the pay will be significant. I should be running as far from the place as I can get. Better the Thalmor than this."
The group all nodded agreement, and the older Nord man, Valdimar, said, "You'll be paid your wage. Though I think when we free you and this island from whatever hold this cult has over you, you should be grateful enough for that."
Teldryn shrugged. "A mercenary's got to make a living. You won't find a better sword here in Solstheim, not even Slitter. And I have other skills, I'm sure you know." There were two mages in the group. The Nord was strong in destruction, and had the sure aura of experience. The Breton was clearly strong in healing, though just as clearly inexperienced; his connection was like a busted water pipe, spitting out Aetherial aura in uneven streams. There was another strong connection, though, that was never out of control, no matter how untrained - that was just how natural enchanters were; it was something about the way they thought, more than their connection, and it was why enchanting could be learned so fast by men with natural talent. He would have to keep Patamon away from this one. Enchanters were always looking to trap the powerful souls of Storm Atronachs.
"We'll need to keep a watch on you." The Breton said it so matter-of-factly, without a hint of remorse. "If they can control your mind while you sleep, they could have you try to kill us."
"Agreed." Teldryn was not happy about it, but the Telvanni had wiped away enough of the fog that he now remembered waking up at the Earth Stone, hard at work on that strange structure. It was what had convinced him to stay, at least until this was taken care of. Then, he would be off for Skyrim and a life of striking fear into the hearts of Nord bandits.
"We'll leave in the morning." The Breton's keen eyes were eager now.
Delphine hated being this far north, even in spring. It was too damned cold. More than that, though, she hated the empty feeling this place gave her. She did not like wilds that had no wildlife, and between the White Mountains and Dawnstar, there was nothing but treeless, rolling hills. It made her paranoid, even though the good visibility should have done the opposite.
"How are you so sure," Lydia asked, "that this Marcurio is in Dawnstar? You said that wasn't in the letter. And you also said that last you'd heard from him, he was in Riften."
The wind was bad today, and Delphine missed a word here or there. But she got the gist of the question. "He wouldn't stay in Riften, not now that the Black-Briar woman is Jarl. He's here because it's the only hold capital he hasn't visited yet."
The Nord woman looked incredulous. "From that you've marched us two hundred miles? You're mad."
She could not stop the grimace from her face. She had begun to think of this young woman as a trainee, and such insubordination would have gotten a flogging when she was an initiate of the Blades. "If I'm wrong, you can officially declare me a fool. I'm sure it would amuse your thane to hear it."
Lydia just grumbled and continued her trek. Delphine hated traveling on foot like this, but such a long journey meant that the horses were needed more for pack animals. Her Ysmir and Lydia's Skade had been loaded almost comically high when they'd left Riverwood, but they were more lightly packed now than she would have liked, with still at least two days of travel ahead of them.
Their journey through the White Mountains had been mostly uneventful. They had taken the northern mountain road, it being the fastest and safest route to Dawnstar. They had passed Whitewatch Tower on the fourth day, and there had been the only excitement. A group of bandits had apparently thought it prudent to attack a heavily guarded Whiterun outpost. While the guards had fired volleys of arrows from their secured positions within the towers, she and Lydia had practiced some hit-and-run tactics from the rear. Delphine did not have a bow, but she was impressed that the Nord woman was able to take down five bandits without them ever figuring out exactly where they were hiding among the hills. The hiding had been her own contribution, and Lydia had certainly needed the training. She'd had no concept of sneaking, before that, having been trained apparently from birth to fight duels and skirmishes, not raids. Delphine doubted the tall housecarl had ever even been hunting.
Since then, Delphine had only marveled at the constant inconsistency of Skyrim's landscape. The White Mountains, like every other mountain range in Skyrim, were really just a roundabout extension of the Jerralls. Throughout their journey, the White River was the only break in the eastern scenery of towering mountains - and that clove right through the Jerralls, really, in a deep canyon leading to Eastmarch. It was only name that separated the mountains north of the White River and called them the White Mountains. Those mountains wrapped up and east through northern Skyrim from Windhelm to Winterhold - though she'd heard the range referred to so far east as the Dragonhead Mountains - and west to form the southern border of Hjaalmarch.
They had passed through the narrow Dunstad Pass on the eighth day, and it was clear that war was coming soon. Stormcloak soldiers in blue-slashed leather armor lined the walls of Fort Dunstad, and an officer in a bear-clawed fur cape had detained them upon approach. Delphine's claim of friendship with Gerdur of Riverwood, who was the sister of one of Ulfric Stormcloak's bodyguards, backed up with personal information only a friend - or a spy - could know, gained them a more friendly reception and even lodging for the night.
From there, the road continued to bend northward to Dawnstar. They saw few travelers, though one Dark Elf had passed them, coming from Dawnstar, headed for the Shrine of Azura, a great hundred-foot statue of the Daedric Prince of Dawn and Dusk.
It was morning, now, the second out of Fort Dunstad, and the road was becoming bleaker by the moment. A cold wind whipped at Delphine's face, and blew the last of the snowdrifts from under the trees. She and Lydia had to keep their cloaks pulled tightly around them, all the while maintaining their holds on the horse's reigns. It was a very frustrating morning that somehow felt it would only get worse.
"Trouble ahead," she heard Lydia call over the wind.
Delphine left Ysmir in the road, disciplined horse that he was, and met her companion further ahead. She could see right away what the younger woman was talking about.
Two hundred yards or so ahead, a caravan of Khajiit traders was about to be attacked by a group of bandits. The traders among the cat-people had huddled around their pack animals, with the few warriors trying their bests to find a defensible formation before the fighting started.
"Defend," was all Delphine said, as she started trotting off toward the ensuing action.
Fifty yards away, she could hear one of the Khajiiti shouting for the others to mark the new arrivals. "Kharjo! Take those two!"
A massive Khajiit in a steel breastplate shouted a response that was lost in the wind, then started closing the distance between himself and the newcomers. He pulled a Khajiit saber from his belt and twirled it extravagantly. This one thought well of himself.
Delphine had not drawn her blade, and she was glad to see that neither had Lydia. "We're friends," she said, coming to a stop just out of reach of the Khajiit's curved, crossguard-less blade.
That was all she was able to say, as he slashed at her so quickly she only just freed her blade in time to parry. Lydia freed her weapon and un-slung her shield as Delphine entered a tenuous dual with the cat. This Khajiit was very good. Despite the weight of his armor, he was nearly as fast as she was, and much stronger. He did not use a shield, but neither did he use a two-handed grip, except to parry.
"Go help the others!" Delphine shouted to Lydia as she noticed that the bandits had finally made their move. To the Khajiit silently trying to kill her, she added, "We should do the same."
Lydia broke off to run to the other Khajiiti, but the big one before them danced back and threw a leg out to trip her. He caught her sword arm as she fell, and then slung her into Delphine. He glanced back at his companions.
"Swill!" he cursed in a thick Khajiit accent.
Delphine had to take another chance. They could take this cat down, but it would not be easy; and whoever won between the other group would then need to be dealt with. "We're friends, I said. Let's go!"
She did not wait for his answer, but sprinted past him toward the other skirmish. She was glad, though, to hear him curse again and start to follow her.
In the fight, she let her instincts take over. She danced through the battlefield slashing and stabbing as she moved to defend the traders. Her Akaviri katana practically sung with vibration as she cut a swath through five bandits. The first lost a hand, the second a few feet of intestine, and a third the top-left side of his head and most of that shoulder. The fourth bandit actually managed to strike at her, but it did him no good; she twirled around the swing of his axe, and as she parried a blow from the next bandit, she slid her dagger between his ribs. The last bandit she kept on his heels until a dropped guard cost him a thin Akaviri sword into his chest.
As she stopped, realizing that the battle was over, she saw stunned and frightened cat-like faces staring at her from behind a heavily laden packhorse. To her left, Lydia was holding a cloth to her face where a bandit had clearly drawn blood. She spit on one of the four bandits lying at her feet, then winced in pain. Delphine rushed to the younger woman, and looking under the cloth she could see that there would be a scar from her nose down across the left side of her cheek near her mouth.
"You fight well," she heard a thick-accented Khajiit voice say behind her. She turned to see the large Khajiit warrior she'd fought earlier, giving her an approving smile. "I am sorry I tried to kill you. It is good that I did not suc-"
A large Nord sprung up behind the cat, half-dead but still able to rise and swing his blade one last time. Delphine reacted without thought. She threw her sword into the bandit's chest, nicking the Khajiit in the exposed upper arm. The cat spun to see the bandit fall behind him, her blade forced through the thin leather armor, then turned, with a very serious look in his eyes, to Delphine.
Suddenly, the cat knelt before her in the bandit's blood. "I am Kharjo, mistress. And my life is yours. My debt to Ahkari will be finished when the caravan reaches Dawnstar. After that, I am yours."
Delphine stared at the young Kharjo, wondering and distrusting what sort of luck had brought this on. She had heard of Khajiit life-debts, but had assumed the practice now taboo among the desert cat-folk. Yet here she had found the best fighter she'd seen since Huzei, and without even knowing her name he had pledged himself to her as a servant. She knew nothing about the cat, but she needed all the help she could get. Never been one to refuse such a gift, she shrugged. With the Dragonborn here, now, perhaps she was rebuilding the Blades.
Erik hated Solstheim. He had known that from the first moment he stepped onto the filthy ashen soil. He'd been here three and a half days, and the feeling got worse the longer he stayed. It was not being surrounded by Dark Elves that bothered him - well, no more than it would bother any other Nord - it was the lack of color. Everything south of the mountains was coated in gray ash, and it stole the color from clothes and skin and anything else it landed on. He thought maybe the Dark Elves weren't cursed by Azura, as the legend went, but simply coated beyond saving with this horrible gray ash. He'd seen a few gray-skinned children running about, but no infants. He was sure that if he saw a baby it would be as pink as a pig.
They'd been caught in an ash storm the first day out from Raven Rock, and Teldryn had produced face coverings and strange goggles for the whole group. Erik had not thought the bizarre eye coverings necessary, but after a few minutes of trying to blink away stray bits of dust and ash picked up in the storm, he had finally accepted them. They itched, and he had to wipe them constantly; but it was better than losing his sight completely - which the elf repeatedly told him was possible with ash storms.
There had been no break between ash and snow, only a short span of gray slushy ash-snow soup that would try to swallow Erik's boots with every step. To his shock, there were still plenty of trees, covered in gray ash below the snow-line, and covered in white snow above. That was all of Sostheim that he saw to this point, a gray-and-white mockery of what land should look like. It was deathly cold, even now, in mid-spring, and apparently the snows never fully melted, even in summer. They'd been attacked by two spriggans the second day, and Erik never wanted to see one of those things again. Normally, a spriggan was a magically animated guardian spirit of the forest, made from fallen tree branches fashioned to look vaguely humanoid. These had fit that description, except that they were also on fire and shrieking like a child blowing on a flute. One had sent a swarm of bees at him, and still he felt the stingers, despite Aleron's salve. He was only a little ashamed that he had done nothing but complain since landing on this cursed island.
As they approached the Temple of Miraak, though, he found he had no words, of complaint or otherwise. It was not that he was so impressed - he was impressed, but not so much that it should leave him speechless - it was more that he had no words to describe the strangeness of the entire scene around the temple.
The path leading to the temple was littered with the bones of at least ten dragons. Most were covered here and there with snow, but at least two could not have been in this place longer than a couple of months. What could have killed ten dragons? The neck of one of the beasts was snapped backward. What in Talos' name could do that?
The building itself looked like what he imagined one of the old tombs from Skyrim would look like in better repair, a wide bowl dug into a mountain, with spires and arches along the edges of the bowl. But it was not finished, half-buried in the snow and earth, and surrounded by scaffoldings full of Dark Elves and Nords who were hard at work repairing and uncovering and building. All of the workers went about their business with a mindless sort of efficiency that was jarring even from afar. Up close, when he'd tried to speak to one of the Nords, a golden-haired beauty in fur and steel armor, she had simply chanted some litany at him, and Teldryn had covered his ears and moaned until she was finished.
They climbed the main scaffolding outside the stone-worked temple, and from the top Erik could see that other workers milled about inside the bowl, mostly surrounding a strange standing stone not wholly unlike those that were sometimes found in Skyrim. These workers seemed even more of one accord, as they were all dressed in similar bulky brown furs. All but one woman, anyway, a stern-looking Nord woman with yellow hair, in ornately carved steel armor, with two disparate war axes strapped to her hips. She moved from person to person, sometimes pleading and others screaming at the workers to stop.
"This looks bad," he heard Valdimar say as the group descended into the bowl. "These are the Skaal. Gods! There must be fifty of them. I doubt there are more than a hundred in the village."
Everyone, including the elf, looked at Valdimar with questioning expressions. The only thing anyone knew about the Skaal was that no one knew anything about the Skaal.
The woman was so focused on her pleading with the workers that she did not notice as the group approached.
"You must fight against what is controlling you!" she yelled at one of the women. "We must leave this place! Ysra, can you hear me?"
"Skaal," Valdimar called, and the woman jumped, putting her hands to her axes. Erik realized that the blade of one was of a strange material that looked almost like blue crystal, and yet also very much like glacial ice. It was the only thing he'd ever seen that resembled Valdimar's impressive mace.
"Who?" she started, staring wide-eyed at all of them. "You are not . . . who are you? What are you doing here?"
Aleron seemed content to let Valdimar do his talking, but Erik wanted some answers, first. "Why aren't you like these others?" he asked before anyone else could jump in.
The woman's hands did not leave her axes. "Answer my questions first. Are you minions of Miraak? Of Herma-Mora? What are you doing here?"
Valdimar gave Erik a look as if to ask Do you want to do this? before going on. "We are from Skyrim."
The woman looked him up and down with an exasperated look that showed her impatience at such an obvious statement.
Valdimar motioned to Aleron. "This is the Aleron, the Dragonborn."
The woman's axes came out of their loops, and she had eyes of hate only for the Breton. "Servant of Herma-Mora!" she spat.
Aleron put a hand out to forestall her. "No. I am simply here because whoever this Miraak is, he sent men to kill me. These are Valdimar, Mjoll, Erik, and Teldryn Sero. And Meeko. No one here has any affiliation with Hermaeus Mora."
Teldryn coughed enthusiastically behind the group, but none of the others seemed to notice. The woman put her axes back into their loops and crossed her arms.
"I am Frea, of the Skaal. It seems we both have reason to venture into the temple, then. These here are my kinsmen. My father Storn, the Shaman, says Miraak has returned to Solstheim, is enslaving people's minds, making them build these abominations that corrupt the stones. But I don't see how it could possibly be Miraak; he has been dead for many thousands of years. More likely it is his priests in this temple."
She had a very strange accent, Erik thought. Quite different from any he'd heard before among the Nords. It was strange to see a Nord and hear her speak with such an unfamiliar accent.
"What do you know of Miraak? And why are you not like these others?" Aleron asked, sounding hopeful - well, hopeful for Aleron, anyway.
The woman, Frea, shrugged, holding a pendant out from under her armor. "This alone protects me from Miraak's power. We Skaal are not without magics. As for Miraak, his story, or what I know of it, is as old as Solstheim itself. He served the dragons, before they fell from power, as most did. A priest in their order. But he turned against them. He made his own path, and his actions cost him dearly. It is said he sought to take Solstheim for himself, and the dragons destroyed him for it. It is said he was called Dragonborn."
Aleron looked confused. "So he is, or was, another Dragonborn. And people worshipped him?"
"His was a very evil reputation. It is said he was worse than the dragons."
Aleron turned to look at the stairs leading down the center of the bowl. "I have to go down there. I have to find out what this is all about."
His eyes grew hard, then, and Erik followed them to the temple entrance. A figure was standing in the doorway, robed in thick tan layers, with accents of bone on the shoulders and hands, and a grotesque mask carved of bone.
With a snarl, the masked monk charged the group, hands glowing with magical fire. "For the glory of Miraak!" he shouted as he came on. Meeko tackled him before he could get within ten feet of the rest of the group. The evil priest howled and then gurgled as the dog tore out his throat.
"A worthy beast!" Frea shouted in congratulations. "Come. There is nothing more I can do out here, for my people or the Tree Stone. Let us go below, and see what we will see."
.
Inside, the Temple of Miraak looked different from other underground barrows Erik had seen before. Both the tomb under Soljund's Sinkhole and Bleak Falls Barrow had been broken down, clearly ruins of a dead society. Knowing that this place was in use, Erik had thought it would be in better condition. Other than the intact walls, it was not. However long ago, there had clearly been a fire. In fact, the best comparison to the state of the walls that Erik could think of would be the inside of a very old furnace.
The walls were narrower than the other barrows he'd been in, and they seemed to have a slick yellowish grime on the stones where the light touched.
"We should check every room," the Skaal woman said, peeking inside the first ruined room to her left. "Nothing but bones."
Erik noticed that Valdimar leaned close to the woman to say something. He was not sure, but he thought the spellsword housecarl complimented one of her axes. She looked at the bald man's mace, and her brow furrowed. When she looked back up to meet his, her eyes asked a thousand questions. He only smiled at her and moved to the next room.
They continued down the narrow entry passage for two hundred yards or so, checking two more rooms. It was obvious they were also slowly descending into the mountain. Erik did not like the idea of fighting in these narrow spaces. His long-handled Lopper, with the teardrop pointing upwards away from the haft, was designed to be usable almost as a halberd, but Erik had never fought with any sort of stabbing weapon, and so he thought it best to stay behind the others with their swords and hand-axes.
The narrow hall finally ended in a left turn, then emptied into a wider room with a long rounded ceiling of carved stone. The walls looked slightly less charred here, but there was still a green tinge of mold along the cracks in the stone.
Aleron, who was leading, put a hand up for everyone to be quiet. After a moment, they all heard what had stopped him.
"He has been gone too long." It was a Dark Elf voice, but muffled as if coming from behind a mask, and so completely without inflection that it sounded almost like someone talking in their sleep. "Something is wrong up there."
"Lord Miraak will protect this place." The second was a Nord voice, a woman's.
From the opposite entrance to the room, two robed priests in masks appeared with daggers in hands. They moved mechanically, in complete lock-step with one another.
Aleron took a deep breath as they came into view, and Erik covered his ears. Even through his hands, he heard it like a thunderclap.
"FUS RO DAH!"
It seemed the mountain shook, and Erik could see dust and earth shaking loose from the walls and ceiling.
As for the priests, they never reached the interior of the room. In the opposite entry passage, one, the elf, looked as though every bone in his body had been twisted as he was pushed along the wall. The Nord woman had simply been flattened against it - flattened, quite literally, with skin split here and there under the tremendous pressure of Aleron's Force Shout.
Frea stared wide-eyed at the bodies. "By the All-Maker," she whispered.
Aleron walked ahead, down a short flight of stairs into another long stone hallway. He talked to Frea as he went.
"I've heard of the Skaal, that you believe there is only one god. That is this All-Maker?"
The Skaal woman visibly brightened at the question. "You call him a god, but to us he is simply the All-Maker. He is the creator of all things, and he calls us to live in balance with nature, not exploit it as other would. We do not deny the other spirits, but we deny what they claim to be. Such beings as Herma-Mora have deceived the other peoples. They have spun lies, making themselves heroes, or simply ignoring the All-Maker's place. We have not been deceived. We seek oneness with the All-Maker's creation, and so with him, as was always the purpose of mortals."
Aleron nodded. "An interesting theology."
It didn't sound so interesting to Erik. It sounded peaceful, and simple. But it also did not make much sense. It sounded a bit like those fools who claimed Shor had been the only real god, and that all the other gods were either those who carried on his legacy or those who had opposed him. There practical views were certainly less peaceful than those of the Skaal, but the same problems were there. To deny that Akatosh or Kyne were gods, all while time passed and the winds blew was like pretending that because your mother birthed you, she must also have built your house. Theology and priests made Erik's head hurt.
The next room they found was at first confusing, and then revolting. It was a large square cavern with a great stairway spiraling downward in the center of the room. At the north end of the cavern was a raised platform on which sat a gilded throne. And suspended above the stairway from the ceiling were three iron cages, containing the ancient remains of three charred and hardened bodies. Someone, thousands of years ago, had sat on that throne and watched as three people were somehow burned to death. Remembering Aleron's Fire Shout, and that this Miraak had been a Dragonborn, Erik thought it must have been the ancient Miraak's way of personally torturing his enemies, in his own throne room.
As they neared the stairway, from all around the room they heard stone cracking.
Everyone looked about, on alert. Meeko just growled low in his throat. The coffins lining the walls were opening, revealing draugar by the score. All among the group, weapons were drawn, shields un-slung. Erik smiled. He liked killing draugar, and he'd been so bored recently.
"Don't everybody crowd," he joked. "There's plenty for all of us."
There were. When the popping sound of breaking stones finally stopped, there were at least forty draugar in the room, probably fifty. That meant nearly nine for each of them - well, Meeko might get a couple, but they wouldn't be any of Erik's.
The Dark elf looked considerably annoyed, and he made a strange symbol with his hand, bringing a hazy purple light. "No offense," he said, "but sometimes I hate Nords."
With that, a large draugar with a horn-crested greathelm pointed to the intruders and shouted. "Krii joorre!"
Teldryn shot his hand forward, and suddenly among the draugar there was a fiery apparition, looking for all the world like every fire daedra Erik had imagined and been frightened by as a boy. "Burn them all, Sanuye!" the Dark Elf shouted.
And then the battle was truly begun. Erik waded into the fray beside Valdimar and the Skaal woman, the other two fighting together while he swung wildly, cleaving through rotting arms and heads and torsos. The first draugr had been a freakishly tall Nord before he died. He died again as he tried to swing one of those cruel black swords at Erik's head. The quicker man ducked the strike and spilled the monster's innards with a wide-gripped raking across the belly, then beheaded it as he came to stand again. The next, an archer aiming its arrow at Valdimar, lost the upper half of its body before it even knew Erik was on it.
He noticed that, across the room, Teldryn's conjured beast was picking up a draugr with a tendril of fire, its feminine body wreathed in flame as it gracefully spun and tossed the charred and ruined former Nord down the wide stairwell. Nearer to Erik, other draugar were aflame, crying out in guttural howls as they expired. Valdimar chuckled lightly as Frea complimented the useful flame spell. Aleron and Mjoll were like a pair of brutal dancers, spinning about with shields and weapons flashing. The Dragonborn used his father's sword, now, which made him somehow more terrifying to watch. All the brutality and anger was still there in him - those eyes still seemed like doorways into Oblivion - but it was more frightening in the speed and efficiency he now showed. His long slender blade slashed at the draugar and did not slow a bit as the undead shuddered and fell. Erik noticed between swinging Lopper through half of a draugr woman's chest and kicking another across the room to spill over the railing down the stairs that Aleron seemed to have no need to destroy the draugar's brains or hearts. One slash from his sword sent them into convulsions, and then their bright blue eyes went dark in the second death.
Erik clove one last draugr's head in two, laughing. The thing had tried to catch the haft of Lopper, and its arms had simply snapped back under the force of his mighty swing.
All across the room, draugar bodies were sprawled in pieces and mangled heaps. Only one last draugr remained, growling and walking toward Aleron. It was the big horn-crested leader who'd shouted the original attack order. Aleron brought up his shield and took a defensive stance as the beast swung its greatsword one-handed.
And then, Meeko charged the draugr, snarling and leaping up to take the monster's throat. A great black blade slashed the poor hound as Aleron crashed his kite shield into the draugr's face. The sound of the dog's loud yip! as the blade tore a deep gash into its chest seemed to echo through the cavern.
Aleron cut the beast down with a show of savage swordplay that Erik could barely follow, then dropped both shield and sword to rush toward his fallen animal.
"Valdimar!" he yelled as he stumbled toward Meeko. He'd always thought the dog's luck would last forever. "Bring your healing!"
Aleron shook the heavy steel gauntlets from his hands as he reached the animal. Meeko was breathing heavily, trying feebly to lick at the wide space of rent skin along its chest. The tough dog was not whimpering, just trying in its way to heal its wounds. Aleron un-slung his pack, but he already knew what he would find - he'd felt it when one of the draugar had crashed into his back from a shield-bash from Mjoll. The few potions they'd brought were all broken open, spilled through the burlap bag.
"Valdimar!" he shouted again, then noticed that the Nord battlemage was just behind him. "He's not dead yet. Heal him."
The bald man did not recoil at the order from his thane, though it was a rare thing. Neither did he move to heal the dog. "I've got nothing left, now. Used it all in killing." He sounded ashamed.
"Just do what you can." Aleron grew more frustrated as Meeko's licks and struggles grew less vigorous. "Hold on, friend," he pleaded with the great hound.
"You'll have to do it yourself, boy."
Aleron's head snapped back to stare at Valdimar. "I don't know how, yet."
Meeko pawed at him, struggling for a few more minutes of life, seeming to beg for help.
"If you want the dog to live, you'll have to try." Valdimar's face showed pain and regret.
Aleron could not heal the dog, he knew. The rest of his companions looked at him expectantly, but he would just kill the dog, and maybe himself, if he tried. Teldryn shook his head at Aleron's pleading glance. The Dark Elf had said before that his magical talents were all but wasted in healing - he could barely manage to heal himself of minor cuts and bruises after a battle, a far less taxing use of Aetherius' healing energies.
"The dog is dying," Valdimar reminded him, as if it were not eminent in Aleron's mind. "You've no time to think, just do it."
Suddenly, the Skaal woman pushed through the crowd. She held a red-tinged vial in her hand, and with the other she wiped a tear from her eye.
"Let me save him," she said as she knelt down beside Aleron to take Meeko's head into her hands.
Aleron watched the woman's tender handling of the hound. She whispered softly to Meeko as she positioned him to take the healing potion, whispered of the All-Maker's mercy for those good beasts that were in harmony with nature, of forestalling the All-Maker's call to reincarnation. He could not understand most of it, but through all of it she cried.
Valdimar put a comforting hand on her shoulder as she upended the potion into the dog's mouth and held the snout shut as Meeko swallowed and tried to cough it back up. His deep Nord voice was low as the dog's wounds began to mend.
"Your people must be desperate indeed for you to have been carrying that."
Frea looked around at the confused faces of the others, Aleron included. "My people do not often use such methods for healing. It is our belief that if one is meant to die, they should die, to be reborn in the All-Maker's will. But sometimes the needs of many outweigh the one. If I had needed to use the potion for myself, to stay alive a bit longer so that I might help save my people, I would have; upon my eventual death, though, the All-Maker would have to judge my heart in the matter to decide whether he would accept me into his embrace."
Meeko licked her hand, and she smiled at the now vibrant hound. "For this mighty beast, I think the herbs would say they were happy to have died to save him."
.
They followed the stairway down into the bowels of Miraak's temple. Aleron laughed aloud as Meeko rushed ahead to attack another one of Miraak's enchanted followers. The Dark Elf priest had no time to even scream before the hound ripped out his throat. There was no talk of trying to capture or question any of these followers. Clearly, they were under the same spell as the others above, only stronger. They spoke mechanically, as though forced into thought and speech by some greater power. Somewhere in this temple, though, must be the priest or group of priests responsible for the island's enslavement. Often mages of one sort or another, usually necromancers dedicated to some obscure figure, would try to resurrect a long-dead entity in hopes that gratitude would force the entity to grant them some power or another. Likely the priests here - the real, unenchanted priests - were of that ilk.
The further down the group went, though, the more this temple confused Aleron. Why would mages hide so far underground, so deep into the ruins? If they were trying to resurrect this Miraak, why rebuild the temple from the outside in? They found only one more priest, but the rooms became more and more decrepit, more and more often filled with draugar.
One room, which seemed a drainage cistern of some kind, contained nearly twenty of the undead monsters. Another room - the last containing a priest - was reached only after Aleron used the Whirlwind Sprint Thu'um to reach the end of a long hall that was filled with swinging blades on pendulums; he'd needed to find the lever that stopped the trap before the others could get through. Inside the room, the final priest was surrounded by ten draugar, all of whom seemed to take his orders. Aleron cut through them with even more ferocity than he normally felt, after what the first group had done to Meeko. But their presence at all bothered him. Priests might have once shared space with draugar, but mages rarely did. Draugar were not modern necromancers' toys, but remnants of a more ancient and forgotten necromancy. Newly-raised dead were called zombies, and they were far stupider even than draugar. Skeletons were actually more useful for necromancers, their lack of flesh making them more able to be controlled by the spirits placed within them. But no skeletons were down in these ruins.
He mentioned his concerns to Valdimar, who surprisingly knew less of necromancy than did he; but it was Teldryn who answered him.
"There are no necromancers here. Not one of the mages we've seen has had any skill with conjuration, and these draugar are more ancient. I'm starting to believe that whatever this place is, it is being controlled by something just as ancient. You're right. It makes little sense."
"Storn has never been wrong before, that I've known." Frea's voice was sober, her face pensive. "He said it was Miraak. I think I believe him."
.
Finally, after more dungeon crawling than Aleron had thought was possible under one mountain - hours must have passed by now - the group reached a room that had no exit. It did, though, have the bones of a dragon, long dead, suspended by wires from the ceiling, a clear and brazen insult to the dragon overlords the priests of this temple would once have worshipped. More shockingly, it had a Word Wall like the one in Bleak Falls Barrow. And like in Bleak Falls Barrow, Aleron heard it before he knew it was there.
Everything else was mist as the swirling colors, blue and grey, drew him into the words. The lines that seemed etched in stone by the finest pen glowed, and the words that covered the wall shimmered with blue light. The whispers that turned into deafening chants read the words for him as he approached.
"Pah werid morokei Miraak
Zok suleykaar do pah
Sonaak wen MUL los bolaav
Naal faal Fahluaan do Muz"
He spoke the words aloud, translated them to the air as he heard the cracking sounds of caskets breaking opening behind him. "All praise glorious Miraak. Most powerful of all. Priest whose STRENGTH is granted by the Gardener of Men."
"Aleron!" the cry behind him snapped him around, but his mind reeled. The Word, MUL, STRENGTH, was forcing its way into him, into his soul. He'd known the word, but now he was becoming the word in his soul.
He watched helplessly as the others fought off a score of draugar. One, larger than any he'd ever known and faster than any man, backed Erik and Teldryn both into a corner where they fought desperately for their lives. Meeko tackled a female draugr and savagely ripped its head from its body. Teldryn's Sanuye, the fire atronach he'd called on earlier, again torched as many of the draugr as it could. Valdimar and Frea burned and hacked apart a handful of draugar in the far corner of the room. Mjoll stood before him, protectively swinging her Grimsever and her shield to keep the draugar away.
Finally, the word burst from his mouth. "MUL!"
He felt more alive than ever he had before. He thought he could rip these draugar apart with his hands. He stood, drew his father's sword, and cut clean through the chest of the first draugar he met. Mjoll gasped beside him, but he had eyes only for the terrible undead monster that was close to breaking through Erik's defenses.
"Qethgaaf!" he bellowed, and the thing backed away to face him, Erik's arms still holding his Lopper in a defensive guard while Teldryn rolled away. "You're mine!" he said for the benefit of the others, who understood and saw to finishing off the remainders.
His shield seemed to move with blinding speed, and his arms seemed afire with strength. The shield connected with the beast's face, sending its horned helmet flying through the air. Aleron could see the inscription on the draugr's forehead, then, still visible in the rotting flesh, and likely on the bone beneath: Skuldeinmaar. It meant Gatekeeper.
The Gatekeeper managed to get its black greatsword up in time to connect with Aleron's, but the black steel just split like butter under the tremendous strength of the blacksmith's Shout-enhanced swing. Its head was cloven much more easily, just under the inscription.
At the Gatekeeper's death, a loud sound of stone crashing down on stone echoed from the wall where the beast's tomb had been. Aleron looked to see that the tomb had fallen open from the other side to reveal a hidden passageway.
Around him, his companions stared in awe; not at the passage, but at him. At his arms. He looked down to see that they were not his own. Translucent scales like those of a dragon formed a blue and gold mist around his forearms, and his hands were misty claws superseded over his gauntlets.
As the scales faded, Aleron fell to his knees, gasping for breath. It was some minutes before he could stand.
STRENGTH had a price.
.
Beyond the tomb gate, there was the true throne room of Miraak.
The throne room was a massive cavern, at least a hundred yards long and fifty wide, with a series of stone archways running up stairs, crowning a great dragon skeleton posed down the center of the room. It was inhabited by another priest, and like the others, the Nord wore tan robes. Unlike the others, though, this priest did not move as though under compulsion. Behind the priest, Aleron could feel another Word Wall calling to him, but he was not close enough to make out the words.
"Aaahh!"
The sound came from ten voices at least, all at once. Along the walls, draugar stepped forward, each with a broad-bladed battleaxe and full ancient armor, including horned helms. Each was barely decayed, simply green of skin and lacking the nose, with bright blue eyes and the lithe movements that Aleron had come to identify with the greater draugar. Twelve came forward from the sides of the long hall, and the sound of laughter could be heard from the priest.
The draugar shouted in unison:"Daar staad los ni fah hi, nivzah Dovahkiin!" This place is not for you, false Dragonborn.
"Do you control this temple?" Aleron shouted to the priest. "Did you send men to kill me?"
The Nord priest laughed again. "Miraak controls this entire island." He had the same accent as Frea. "Your soul, false Dragonborn, will bow before his greatness. You will tremble at his awesome power. And I will be rewarded for bringing you to him in death."
Aleron narrowed his focus. He summoned the Whirlwind Shout to his lips. A hundred yards to his target. He unsheathed his father's sword.
In unison, the gathered draugar began to Shout. Twelve Thu'ums rang out simultaneously with his own. The Force of twelve FUS RO DAH's crashed into where he'd been, the reverberations strong enough to knock his companions to their feet.
But his own "WULD NAH KEST!" brought him a hundred yards in a step, across the great hall in an instant. In slow motion, as the world caught up with his perceptions, he watched the severed upper body of the priest fly through the air from the force of its separation from the rest, just above the abdomen. The right arm, also detached mid-bicep, flew higher and farther.
The Word Wall was close enough now. He could hear it, see it. He was determined to weather it better this time, as he heard the chanting whispers.
"Het ont kriist Miraak wo ahtiir - Here once stood Miraak who wore
Ok sahvot ol QAH spaan naal - His faith as ARMOR shield by
Deyra fah ok unahzaal midrot" - Daedra for his unending loyalty
QAH. ARMOR. He steeled himself against the onslaught into his mind. It was simpler, this time. Understanding QAH was easy for him. He already understood armor in his heart.
As he reoriented, Aleron saw that his gamble had not worked as he'd hoped. His friends were gathering themselves to fight, but the Shouts of the draugr lords had shaken them. He ran down the center of the hall, up the massive dragon bones, his sword held out and his shield held forward.
"Meyz ahrk ken dii dwiin, qethgaaffe!" he shouted as he ran. Come and taste my steel, draugar!
The Whirlwind Thu'um was not a strong Shout, and by the time he leaped from the dragon's skull, he was ready to Shout again.
"MUL QAH!" he Shouted, and before he landed he could feel the scales return, this time along his whole body, only leaving his head without the misty blue-gold dragon armor. He landed hard, but he did not feel it. The ARMOR and the STRENGTH made him unstoppable.
He crashed into the first draugr lord, shoving it aside into another. He slashed the next across the chest in a line from the right shoulder to the left hip; and along that cut the thing fell into two pieces. The edge of his shield severed the head of the one that followed, its head and helmet separating in the air and falling with a wet thud and a loud clang. He felt steel scrape against his scales, and he howled in pain - but his armor went unscratched. He broke another draugr's knee with his boot, then ran his father's sword into the beast's heart. He pulled it free and decapitated another with the same motion. His shield caught the axe of another, before he cut off both the arms that held it; it fell in convulsive jerks, Aleron seeing the lightning coursing from the blade into the undead creature. Two more fell as he drove his shield through the chest of one and his father's sword through the legs of another. A final beast he foiled with an overhead block from his shield and a savage stab from his father's sword.
He stood, breathing hard, as he watched his companions finish off the two he'd knocked over, and two more who'd found themselves outnumbered by three and a war dog.
He felt his immortality, his invincibility fade from him, and he collapsed to all-fours, vomiting.
.
"I think I see a way back here," he heard Erik say, as he sat up from the floor where Mjoll was kneeling over him.
"What happened?"
Mjoll brushed a strand of red-gold hair from her brow and smiled at him - it was a look that reminded him oddly of his mother's when he'd done something stupid as a boy. "I think you pushed yourself a bit too hard. When that last Shout wore off, you passed out."
It came back to him, then; the fight, the STRENGTH and the ARMOR, the invincibility. He looked around, concerned. "Was anyone hurt?"
"No. We've been looking for anything else that gives some meaning to what's happening here."
Aleron looked to where Erik had called from. There was a large room beyond the throne, which looked from here to be a dining hall. He could see a stone table and ancient rotting chairs, with unused place-settings covering what must have once been a gold table cloth. He let Mjoll help him up, and walked inside. The others were excitedly moving a stone bookshelf away from a hidden passage. Meeko padded up beside him to nuzzle against his hand.
"There were no books, no alter? Nothing to tell us what is happening?"
Mjoll picked up a fallen piece of wall and threw it at a silver goblet, knocking it off the large stone table. "Nothing. Whatever records were kept of this place, long ago, there's nothing here now. For what it's worth, I think Frea is right. Someone resurrected a four-millennium-old Dragonborn, and now he's doing something terrible. We just need to find him and kill him."
The others finally toppled the heavy bookcase. Behind it, Erik was found to be right. There was a rocky passage leading upward.
They followed the path, mostly in silence. Only Frea spoke, grumbling about this being simply a back exit. She was clearly desperate to save her people, and it seemed they were no closer to doing so. The path wound around, up occasional stairs and through narrow passageways of stone. It did seem to be only a back exit, however hopeful they'd been before.
"I've seen this before," Frea told the group, pointing at a bizarre black statue of something that looked almost like a fish head, but also like some horrid crustacean. "Outside, etched into one of the columns the people are building. I don't know what it is, though."
Teldryn spoke up, a dark expression on his face. "I think you're right about Hermaeus Mora being involved, sera. That's a Lurker. They're from Apocrypha, where Mora makes his home. It's a giant library, though not like anything on Nirn. It's full of every type of knowledge, but it's also a dangerous place. Pools of poisonous water can melt your bones, and often tentacles as of some great squid will come seemingly out of nowhere and try to swat you into the black nothingness that surrounds the inhabited walkways. And then there's the Seekers and Lurkers. The Seekers are hideous beyond what I can explain, with mouths in their stomachs and heads like those masks the Miraak priests were wearin'. The Lurkers look like that statue, only twelve feet tall, with clawed arms and long shell-covered legs. They aren't pleasant creatures, even by daedra standards."
Frea glowered at the statue.
"Let's just keep moving," Aleron suggested.
Finally, they came to another cistern room, with stairs leading up to a tremendous draft. In the center of the room, though, was a black book thicker than any Aleron had ever seen. Looking at it, Aleron would have laughed if not for the strange dark feeling in his gut; the thing was more a stool than a book; it must be two feet thick. But he felt something . . . wrong . . . coming from the book.
"There is foul magic in this place," Frea said, speaking aloud what they must all have been feeling, even Meeko.
Aleron put his hand on the black cover of the tome. "Whatever it is, it's coming from this book."
"Perhaps it's what we need," Frea suggested. "But I'm not sure I want to touch that, far less read it."
Aleron picked up the book. It sounded as though he heard a low hum from the pages as he opened the cover. Whatever was written there, it was in no language that he could understand. Still, he thought he could make out a diagram that was etched into a corner of the first page.
Suddenly, black tentacles grabbed him, pulled at him. Mjoll screamed, and Frea started to shout something about fighting off the Trickster's assault on his mind. Everything went black.
.
He felt cold water splashing him, and then sight returned. What Aleron saw, however, was not within his realm of understanding.
He was on a slick stone floor, which had a thin layer of water covering it. He looked up to see that he was on a platform of some kind. This water shouldn't be here, he realized. There's nothing at the edges of the platform to hold it. Then he saw that he was wrong. All around the platform, there was water so black that it was almost invisible, like a shadow that seemed to drink the light, even from his eyes. He looked up, and he saw towers in the distance, great towers spanning into a yellow-green mist in the black sky.
Then he saw the man in deep green robes, with dragon bones armoring his shoulders and gauntlets, and a helmet like the masks the Miraak priests wore. Behind the man were two dragons unlike those Aleron had seen before; they had thin scales, and looked almost sleek. They looked more like worms with wings than serpents, except for the vicious gaping maw of jagged teeth. Flanking the man were four hulking creatures; seeing them, Aleron knew these must be the Seekers Teldryn had spoken of. They were hideous robed creatures with tentacled faces - and they did have mouths in their stomachs. They were nauseating to look at.
"Who are you, that you would dare set foot here?" The voice was deep, a Nord's voice, though of no accent Aleron could recognize. The man did not approach, but the Seekers loomed protectively over him. He studied Aleron with a tilting head.
Finally, after Aleron did not answer, the man spoke again, seeming to come to a realization of some kind. "Ahh . . . I see. You are Dragonborn. I can feel your soul. And yet you have done little beyond killing a few dragons. You have no idea of the true power a Dragonborn can wield!"
The man drew up to his full height throwing his shoulders back to Shout, "MUL QAH DIIV!"
The last word tugged at Aleron's mind, but it was slippery, like trying to catch an eel with your hands. At the command of the Thu'um, however, the man before him was transformed, much as Aleron had been, though with a great horned dragon's skull mistily covering his head.
Aleron tried to rise, but the man crossed the twenty feet to him in a moment, kicking him down.
"This realm is beyond you. You have no power here. I have carved out this place, even in the heart of Apocrypha, a place of power for myself. And it is only a matter of time before Solstheim is also mine. Soon, the people will finish my temple, and I will return home." He turned to the hideous Seekers. "Send him back where he came from. Let him await my arrival with the rest of Tamriel."
Aleron tried again to rise, but the four seekers sent lightning into him from four angles. He collapsed onto his stomach as the torrent of lightning did not relent.
Behind the Seekers, Aleron saw Miraak climb onto one of the dragons, below the skull. The thing let him climb atop it. It seemed almost like a pet. The dragons beat their wings, and in unison they took to the sky, one carrying the man Aleron realized now could only be Miraak.
The lightning from the Seekers never abated. The world went black again.
.
And Aleron woke of the floor of the cistern room, holding the book now closed.
"Aleron!" Mjoll cried, clearly overjoyed to see him back from wherever he'd gone.
Frea spoke, a somber, curious tone. "Where did you go? When you read the book, you started to fade away. You were here, but it was as if I could almost see through you. What happened?"
"I think I saw Miraak," he told the group after he'd worked moisture back into his mouth. He'd been so sure he was about to die. "He climbed atop a dragon and flew away; but I'm pretty sure it was him. He said he would return when the temple is rebuilt."
"We have to stop him!" Erik shouted, just as Valdimar put in, "There's more to this than we understand."
Teldryn sighed audibly. "This isn't over, yet, is it? Damned cursed Nords and your cursed gods." The group ignored his blasphemy.
Mjoll just looked at him, a hard surety in her eyes that gave Aleron strength.
Finally, Frea began to walk up the steps at the edge of the room. "Come on," she called down to him. "You need to speak to Storn, tell him what you saw."
"Where is this Storn?" he asked.
"You need to come to my village, to Skaal."
