XIV
"There's one thing I still don't get," Malys mused out loud as they made their way down the corridor. The seemingly endless hallway had finally ended in front of a small cliff; a huge column had collapsed, however, forming a rudimentary bridge over the chasm. "Why attack those Thalmor at all? Isn't that the exact opposite of trying to hide yourself?"
"It didn't always start out that way," said Vinye, as they negotiated their descent. "When I came to Skyrim, I learned the Thalmor had more of a presence here than in Cyrodiil. At first, I was terrified. I thought they might be looking for me—that somehow they knew what had happened in Valenwood. One day, I ran into a Dominion patrol on my way through the Rift—and I felt that feeling again, same as in Falinesti. Before I knew it, they were all dead, and I could smell my lightning in the air.
"After that, I was never afraid again," the Altmer went on. "But the threat of retaliation was still very real. So from that moment on, I made every effort to erase myself from the Dominion's memory. As far as the Thalmor are aware, there is no Vinye. Vinye never existed to them—and if any more Thalmor patrols ever saw her, then they wouldn't exist anymore, either. By now, I'd wager the Dominion is just chasing a ghost right now."
" … Turn back … "
Cosette, who had been leading the group over the crumbled pillar, nearly tumbled over the bridge and into the stream below in surprise at the sound of the unexpected voice. It was next to silent compared with the constant hum of Dwarven machinery, but was incongruous enough to stand out from all the other sounds of the ruined place.
With some difficulty, the Breton clambered to her feet. "No one else heard that, right?" she asked the two elves tentatively.
Malys looked her confusion. "I heard it," confirmed the vampire. "But I still don't know what … "
Vinye, meanwhile, looked deeply concerned. "Did someone beat us here?"
"No," said Malys after a while. "There's no one else nearby but us." Vinye and Cosette looked at her skeptically. "Trust the vampire," she added, a little irritably. "If anyone else was in here, I'd have already smelled them."
"I've heard that before." Vinye had crossed her arms. "Before I came to Winterhold, I passed through Ivarstead for a day or so. There's a barrow right on the doorstep of the settlement, and up until a few years ago, a lot of people swore blind that it was haunted—strange noises, ghostly apparitions, everything. Then someone actually had the nerve to go inside—and it all turned out to be a hoax. The elf behind the whole thing had created a potion that gave him a ghostly look. A little bit of acting on his part, and he had free rein to loot the tomb of whatever he wanted."
Cosette was not convinced. "That was just one time and place, though," she told Vinye. "Maybe you're not wrong, but something tells me this ought to be checked out at the very least. Let's move on."
And so they did. Past the destroyed column, the corridor looked much the worse for wear. The walls and floor were cracked and uneven; several places were even overgrown with ferns and other vegetation. The remains of several automatons were strewn about the hallway as they moved on. Malys pointed out a dwarven sphere that appeared to have been crushed by a loose rock; a glance upward revealed that this rock was actually a piece of the ceiling.
What happened here? Cosette thought in awe as they walked past the sphere. Taron had mentioned something about earthquakes in this area—but to wreck something as sturdy as a Dwarven ruin must have been the doing of an earthquake like no other. The strength wasn't just unthinkable—it was impossible.
A tremor this strong would have left its mark on the surrounding landscape, Cosette knew, and nowhere nearby would have been safe. Reachwind Eyrie would have toppled from the quakes—and Dushnikh Yal would have been leveled. Even Markarth, as strongly built as it was, would have sustained some measure of damage.
What in the Old Gods' name happened here?!
"Please, turn back … before it's too late … "
"There it is again," Malys said. "It's louder now. Do you think we're getting close to something?"
Vinye looked wary. "I'm more worried that that something is getting closer to us." A few sparks snaked over her fingers, and she indicated that the others ought to be on alert as well.
The hallway was ending now, opening up into a gigantic space. Cosette could hear the sound of rushing water. A waterfall? Here?
Vinye stopped in her tracks at the sight of what lay before them. "By the Eight … " she gasped.
It was absolute, unparalleled devastation. In its day, the space would have made for a truly massive great hall—perhaps even more so than the great hall of Rkund. But now, a huge cleft in the earth had split it in two, and foamy white water churned in the gap it had left. Above this, the sky was still visible, and the sun still shone—and birds could be heard faintly chirping in the cliffs. Automatons littered the entire space—Cosette thought she could even see the massive arm of a centurion buried under a large pile of debris. She sensed this must have been the epicenter of one of those earthquakes—there was no other way the earth could have been so thoroughly destroyed.
Even as they looked on, there was a rumble from below—stronger than any they'd yet experienced, and enough to send the mages off balance and onto the cracked floor. Malys was able to drag Cosette from her perch on the brink before the Breton might have fallen into the chasm. An enormous pillar, already half-broken, was not so lucky; the entire mass of stone and golden metal was dislodged, and the roiling waters below swallowed it up completely.
Cosette swallowed. "Wow." There was simply nothing else for her to say; the display of the power of nature had left her dumbstruck. "How are we going to get past that?"
"We should have brought some rope," Vinye thought out loud. "I'm not sure if there is a safe way to cross this."
"There might be." Malys was pointing down and to their left. Another pillar had collapsed, and Cosette thought she saw a body crushed between it and a small outcropping of rock. It might work as another bridge, the Breton mused, but the whole thing looked like it could topple into the rapids at any moment.
"What are you still doing here?"
The voice had come from right behind Cosette—and in the space of a second, she'd unhooked one of her Forsworn blades, spun around in a circle, and neatly sliced through the neck of the spectral figure that had appeared directly behind her. There was a hint of something female, then a final moan, and the apparition disappeared.
There was silence for a few moments, broken only by the roar of the water below, before Vinye finally spoke up. "What was that?"
Cosette did not lower her blade. "I don't know," she answered her. "But I think we can rule out that 'ghost potion' idea. I guess this place really was haunted."
"Did that make you feel better?"
All three mages whirled around at the sound of the voice. The ghostly figure was there again—Cosette's Forsworn blade had not dispelled her at all, although she seemed sensible enough not to stand so closely to someone willing to decapitate a human being without a moment's hesitation.
Now that they could see her more clearly, the ghost was indeed female—a Nord, too, still clad in her steel armor as well, and a solid-looking bow was slung over her shoulder. If Cosette looked closely at her, the ghost had the same sorrowful appearance that most ghosts did—but there was a hint of irritability as well, one that the Breton suspected might not be entirely her own fault.
Nonetheless, she answered the ghost's question. "I was kind of hoping it would," she said, attempting a jaunty smile before turning back to Vinye. "Well, there you have it—this place is haunted to the rafters."
"I wouldn't say that," said the ghost. "Everything and everyone that used to live in here—well, they don't even have this." She indicated her spectral form. "But I can tell you that Arkngthamz isn't dead yet."
"You know about Arkngthamz, too?" Vinye was curious. "Who are you?"
"The name's Katria," said the ghost. "I'm … well, I was an adventurer. Dwarven ruins were my forte for nigh on twenty years. I was on the trail of something big. It led me here, and … I didn't make it." She glanced toward the fallen pillar momentarily. Cosette thought her eyes lingered on the body beneath it for just a little while, and a sudden thought sprang into her mind.
Vinye had the same expression—though not for a different reason. "Katria … I know that name," she realized.
"Oh, so you read the book, didn't you?" Katria said scornfully. "The Aetherium Wars"? Well, let me just set the record straight for you: Every word written in that book is a lie."
"Excuse me?" Vinye bristled at Katria's sudden abrasive demeanor. Cosette tensed up.
"That was my theory, you know," the dead Nord raved on. "My research, my life's work—all of it, lost! Stolen by my own damned apprentice!"
The earth rumbled again at this last, and for a very, very brief moment, Cosette wondered if Katria's rage could somehow be capable of causing all these earthquakes. The thought was nonsensical, but it still made her shudder.
And that was nothing compared to Katria's revelation. Cosette had always known there was something … off about that Dunmer wizard from the moment she'd first set eyes on him. Like he was hiding something beneath all that enthusiasm … but this was completely unexpected.
Vinye, meanwhile, was eyeing Katria with interest in spite of her own shock. "Taron Dreth was your apprentice?" she mused out loud. "He failed to mention that."
Katria rounded upon her. "Taron's still alive?" she hissed. "Damn it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised—but the thought of him peddling knowledge that was never his just turns my stomach. I wanted him dead for it, too; I sold everything I'd ever looted from my adventuring, and I used the money to send hired killers after him. I even promised them extra if they showed me a body. I even went as far as … "
And suddenly Katria became silent, and her anger ebbed. "It doesn't matter. It's hopeless now. I died here, just like everyone else—just like all the others who've had nothing but Aetherium on their minds. So I'm not going to ask you again—turn back. Leave this place while you still can … before it claims you, too."
"No."
Cosette and Malys turned to look at Vinye. The high elf had set her jaw, and there was a grim look to her face that she'd never seen before. Sparks were dancing in Vinye's green eyes, and even over her fingers as well.
Cosette felt apprehensive. Is Vinye … angry?
No, she immediately thought. That wasn't anger at all; this feeling Cosette was getting from Vinye was like their ride back from Rkund—right before she had methodically slaughtered an entire patrol of Thalmor.
Vinye wasn't angry. She was furious.
"We've come too far to turn back now," growled the Altmer. "I'm not going to let something like this stand in my way—I'm not going to let it stand at all."
Cosette had a feeling Vinye was not talking about the Aetherium.
Katria, for her part, merely heaved a sigh. "I'm not going to talk you out of it, am I?" she said. "You remind me of when I was younger—still alive, excited … before all that nonsense over revenge and restoring my good name.
"But that isn't the same thing as surviving," Katria added warningly, before stepping towards the pillar that bridged the rapids below. "The treasury's located at the summit of the ruin. It was where I was headed before … well. Anyway, if you want to make it there in one piece, you're going to need my help. Are you really sure you want to do this?"
Vinye grit her teeth. "Yes, we are."
No one raised any objections, and so all four women followed her down the pillar, and deeper into Arkngthamz.
Almost immediately, Cosette's intuition about the body under the pillar turned out to be right. And Katria was not happy about it.
"This was where I fell," she'd commented only seconds ago, almost as offhand as if she was discussing the matter over a pint. "Feels like a long time ago."
Now, though, as they reached the crushed remains of her body, some of Katria's anger had returned. "Damn it—this pillar must have fallen after I did," she cursed. "Poor Zephyr didn't stand a chance."
"Zephyr?"
"My bow," Katria explained, patting the spectral dwarven weapon slung across her back. "It was well-named, too—even the gods would be hard-pressed to make a faster bow than Zephyr. I loved that bow like it was my own son, and maybe that's why I'm lucky enough to carry a shade of it with me. But that's the least of our worries; I had a journal, and I wrote down everything I could on it … but the fall ruined that, too. We'd have needed that just to reach the summit, never mind the climb back down!"
She sighed. "Looks like we'll have to wing this one," she groaned. "I can tell you what I know about this place, but it's skin and bones compared to what was in my journal. First, though," she added, turning to the mages, "who are you, and why are you here? You don't look like ordinary mages to me."
Cosette spoke up before Vinye had a chance. "We're with the College of Winterhold," she explained. "Initially, we were in talks with an elf called Solyn—he wanted to seal up all these Dwarven relics because he thought they were too dangerous, and in return, he'd pay the College well. But then, our Arch-Mage canceled the deal, and now we're giving all this stuff to him instead—Aetherium and all."
"Solyn … " Katria mused. "I don't know who that is—Taron never mentioned anything about a 'Solyn.'"
"No one knows who he is," Vinye was heard to say, but Katria had already begun talking over her.
"So how did a runaway, a vampire, and a Forsworn manage to get themselves into this mess?" asked the ghost.
Cosette was stunned. What? How could she possibly know this?!
"Don't look so shocked," Katria went on, catching Cosette's stricken expression—along with those of Vinye and Malys as well. "You three argue loud enough to wake the dead—literally, as it turns out." She laughed a little at her own joke. "Just because the dwarves have been gone for four thousand years doesn't mean no one's watching you in here."
Now everyone was staring at Cosette now. "I think that's your cue, Cozy," Malys said to her. "You promised you'd tell us everything about yourself before we left this ruin."
Cosette growled under her breath, but deep down, she knew Malys was right. She took a deep breath through her nose before launching into her story.
"I'm what's called a Forsworn Culler," she explained as the women made their way across the remainder of the pillar, leaving Katria's body behind. "We're a secret order of the Forsworn; we answer to no one, not even each other. We were created specifically to make the Forsworn unstoppable—by killing as many of them as we could."
The elves' eyes widened. "Why?" Vinye was confused. "That doesn't make sense to me—wouldn't that drive you extinct—either these Cullers or the Forsworn?"
"As long as there are Nords still living in the Reach, there will always be Forsworn," Cosette said, setting her jaw. "Even if a Culler infiltrates and kills an entire camp of Forsworn, that camp will still rebuild—and the Forsworn who live inside it will adapt, and they will be prepared for another Culler to attack them. As the Cullers kill more of our own kind, the Forsworn grow stronger, and so do we. It's an endless cycle—and I wanted to break it."
They entered a long, cylindrical tunnel. Pipes lined the length of the corridor, and the floor was a grating made of more of that Dwemer metal. "Watch your step here," Katria cautioned them. "This place has been pretty unstable since the quake."
Malys shook her head. "I still don't understand how this Culler idea works—I can understand where you got the name 'Culler'—getting rid of the weak to maintain your strength, after all—but surely that has to have some kind of drawback!"
"My family name, Ionsaithe, means 'invincible,'" Cosette reminded her. "I told you once that I wanted to be invincible, Malys—but that I didn't want to be, either. Cullers have free rein to go where they will to do their duty, whenever they please. I wanted to be stronger than any of them—the Nords, the Forsworn, the Cullers—everyone. But what they taught me just wasn't enough. So I posed as a novice, and I made my way to Winterhold to learn as much as I could. With that knowledge, I'd be deadlier than all the Forsworn's forces combined."
"Watch out!" Katria's sudden shout broke Cosette's train of thought again, and for good reason: two of the pipes had burst open, revealing themselves to be charging ports for a pair of dwarven spiders. These spiders now skittered along the grating towards the four adventurers.
Vinye was ready for them—but so was Katria. Zephyr was indeed a very fast bow, Cosette thought in grudging admiration; in the time it took for Vinye to target one of the spiders with a lightning bolt, Katria had drawn an arrow, nocked it on Zephyr, pulled back its cord, and let fly at the second spider. Both constructs were disabled almost simultaneously, earning Vinye an impressed look from the ghost.
"You're pretty fast," Katria commented.
Cosette scoffed as Vinye blushed, failing to cover up her own pride. "I have to be," said the elf. "When you've been running from the Dominion as long as I have, you have to learn to make the first move, and fast. That's why I use lightning all the time—there's no faster magic out there."
"There's a place you can catch your breath up ahead," Katria offered, pointing to the end of the corridor. "We'll need every bit of it we can spare to keep going."
Now that the distraction of the two animunculi had passed, the topic inevitably drifted back to Cosette's relationship with the Forsworn. Cosette saw the elves trade glances, obviously worried.
When they sat down in a corner of the hallway, Malys finally spoke up, and the vampire's tone suggested she was choosing her words carefully. " … What happens when a Culler is killed?" she asked.
"Then whatever camp that killed them is ready to drive out the Nords," Cosette said. She tasted the familiar tone of fanatical zeal in her words. "They'll be ready to fight, and they'll be ready to win—all the Cullers have to do is die for them."
She saw their disbelieving faces, and felt a twinge of anger. "I don't think you understand just how much I want that moment to happen. I would see my own blood spilled if it meant purging the Reach of the Nords—of the false blood," Cosette said through clenched teeth. "I would gladly give my life for the good of the Forsworn—I've wanted to for years."
"But why?" Vinye looked pleading. "Why would you join these Cullers? Didn't you know what that meant for you when you did?"
Cosette smiled back at her. "Hasn't there been one thing in your life you'd give your life for, Vinye? Just one?"
She resisted the urge to smirk at the wide-eyed, slack-jawed Altmer as she paused; Cosette wagered Vinye looked just like she had when the elf had deduced both the Breton's parentage and affiliation.
"How did you join them?" Katria wanted to know, finally speaking up before Vinye could recover. "What do you have to do to get noticed by a 'secret order' like this?"
Cosette had to think for a moment and collect her thoughts before she could answer the question—it would take a while to recollect all the details of that particular history. "After the War of the Bend'r-mahk, most of the Ionsaithe Clan fled into Skyrim," she said. "We lived in the Reach in peace, and my clan didn't like that one bit—the only peace we can accept is war. So we rebelled—and we persuaded all the other Reachmen to rebel as well. We rose up against the Nords, and we drove them out of the Reach.
"That was thirty years ago," she sighed, her voice sullen. "Then, Ulfric came along, and he butchered so many of us that Markarth ran red with their blood. The few of us that didn't get shouted to shreds got thrown in Cidhna Mine, left to rot to death in there. The Ionsaithe clan has been part of the Forsworn ever since.
"The Reachmen saw our clan as an asset—they believed our vicious nature should be a paragon of the Forsworn. So they rounded us up, and isolated us from all the other camps so thoroughly that over the next ten years, the Ionsaithe name became a myth, a fairy tale that would come true in the worst possible way. My clan became the first Cullers—and they raised me to be a Culler from birth as well. They taught me how to shoot a bow, and to wield both blade and spell like a master ever since I could walk. And a few years ago, I finally got the chance to join them. All I had to do was break Cidhna Mine wide open … and unleash the king of the Forsworn."
"The … king?" Malys' question was more out of skepticism than uneasiness.
"That's what we all called him," said Cosette. "Madanach, the King of Rags. Thonar Silver-Blood—the Jarl's brother—had Madanach imprisoned within the mine in secret, and as a result, Thonar had complete control over the Forsworn. The little piss-stain reduced us to thugs—we were nothing more than animals meant to intimidate and kill anyone that kept Thonar from getting his slimy hands on more silver. The Cullers told me to change all that, and help Madanach escape—with the promise of me being a Culler myself if I survived."
Vinye narrowed her eyes. "So that story you told us about a false assault charge … ?"
"That, I can tell you was true—every word of it," Cosette said. "It's easier to break out of a prison than into it—especially if that prison is Cidhna Mine—and for a while, I didn't know how I would find my way in there. But the Stormcloaks acted like such racist idiots that they ended up solving that problem for me. They threw me in there, with no promise I'd ever get out again, and I finally got to see Madanach with my own eyes."
Cosette sighed wistfully as she recollected the story. "All those stories I'd heard … all the people he'd had killed—all that time, I'd expected the King of Rags to be wearing a little more than … well, rags," she said. "Prison hadn't been kind to him or his band. Most of them were half-dead because the guards had been working them so hard—but not Madanach. When I saw him for the first time, he was a corpse—nothing but skin, bone, and dirty hair that was still as silver as the stuff we were being forced to mine. But I saw past all that, and I saw that glare in his eye instead … and I knew then that his dream hadn't died with his body … "
It was the only time in her life she could remember crying.
"Losing your little girl and your future—just for talking to the most hated man in the Reach," said the skeletal old man in front of her, sitting in his prison, still attending to his writing as if it was all a formality compared to the hell he had suffered here. "Imagine hearing a story like Braig's again. Then again, and again—each time a different family, each time a different injustice. You remind me of how … removed I've been from this struggle. I shouldn't be here—my brethren and I should be in the hills, fighting for our cause."
He put down his quill, and pushed aside the parchment full of his indecipherable writing. The sigh that Madanach heaved was that of a man who'd been tied up, put on display, and beaten—body, mind and soul—for as long as he could remember …
"I had Markarth, you know," spoke the King of Rags. "My men and I drove the Nords out. We had won … or so we thought. Their retribution was swift. I was captured, quickly tried, and sentenced to death by a pathetic mockery of a court … but my execution never came. Thonar Silver-Blood stopped it. He wanted the Forsworn at his beck and call, that I would point their rage at his enemies and spare his allies.
"Like puppets," she realized. That in and of itself was distasteful enough, but … "Controlled by a Nord, of all the dishonorable … How could you live this way?" She was quieter now, more sympathetic—no longer the sharp, lethal blade she liked to think of herself. Braig had merely blunted her, but Madanach had broken her.
"It wasn't easy," he said. "But I did, and I obeyed him. It was humiliating at first, I'll grant you that, but I knew Thonar would let his guard down eventually—so I played the part of his loyal lapdog, and all the while, I hoped and waited for the moment when he could trust that I was finally under his control—under Nord control."
She looked in his eyes, deep-set in a face that seemed half-ready to tear right off his skull, and the eyes blazed with the promise of swift and most terrible vengeance …
And she knew.
"What can I do?" she heard herself asking, as though from very far away. "Tell me what I can do, and I promise … I will promise that the stones of Markarth will be stained with their blood for all time."
Madanach's wrinkled skin cracked and peeled as he curled his lips in a rare smile. "Very well."
" … I'd always sympathized with the Forsworn," Cosette told them, "but Madanach was the final tipping point. Later that day, I broke him out of Cidhna Mine, along with everyone loyal to him—and we made sure that Thonar paid dearly for turning the Forsworn into his pets. Madanach killed him personally—he beheaded him in front of his own wife." Just like they'd beheaded Braig's daughter in front of him, she thought.
She felt her eyes mist over at the memory. Cosette hadn't been there herself to see Thonar's demise, but Madanach had told her the details with such gleeful gusto that even she had been more than a little unnerved.
"And that was that," she finished. "The Forsworn got their leader back, and I became what I'd trained to be since I could walk. I came to Winterhold so that the Forsworn could be stronger than ever before.
"Because they will be coming back," she added, steeling her nerves and raising her voice a little to drive her point home. "One day, we will retake the Reach for ourselves—and nothing is going to change that."
Before, Vinye had listened to Cosette's tale with only a minor amount of interest. The knowledge of a secret order within perhaps the strongest dissident faction in Skyrim—and more to the point, its aims and desires—were almost as incredible as they were inconceivable. But at the same time, though, the novelty of the concept soon wore off; a secret order that killed its own people to become stronger, Vinye knew, wasn't liable to last for very long, and neither were any of its goals. However, Cosette's speech about Cidhna Mine and this Madanach person had changed the Altmer's view on her completely.
Here was a woman who showed complete and total devotion to a cause, who would give her all—her body, her mind, and even her life—to see that cause come to fruition. And though the cause might have been less than admirable, this alone still made Cosette no different from Vinye. For the Breton had somehow known how intent the Altmer was on the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and truth, and in this, perhaps, she had found someone that approximated a kindred spirit in her.
As for Taron … any respect Vinye had had for the Dunmer had been crushed to sand once Katria had called him out as a fraud. She had dealt with plenty of people like him during her time in Cyrodiil—and had harbored a great resentment for lies because of them. No matter how disguised as the truth a lie could be, it was still a lie at the core. That was why Vinye was determined to set this right, and quickly—before Taron could peddle anymore of his lies.
"I've got no hold in this Forsworn business, Cosette," she told the Breton, "but right now, I think recovering this Aetherium ought to take precedence. You did say you wanted to become stronger, after all. Maybe when this business is said and done, you can petition the Arch-Mage to give you one of those artifacts, hmm?" She smiled. "I can see a piece like Sunder fitting quite well with you."
Cosette's expression was unreadable. "We'll see," she eventually said. "And I'd pick a side if I were you, Vinye—while you still can. There's no such thing as innocence when it comes to the Forsworn—and there's no such thing as a bystander either. To Markarth, you're either guilty—or you're dead."
On that grim note, the Breton stood up and stretched, popping several of her joints in the process. "Are we all set, then?" she asked the rest of the group.
A murmur of general assent answered her. "All right," said the Breton. "Let's move on."
Progress was slow; the room they were resting in had been almost completely submerged because of a ruptured water pipe. It was Katria who provided a way out: another thick pipe wound its way up and along the wall, and ended on a balcony that led to another long corridor. The four women had to climb along this pipe with some difficulty—the smooth metal made finding a foothold treacherous.
"What exactly happened to this place?" Malys asked her.
Katria didn't answer for a moment. "It wasn't always like this," she replied. "When I first came here, Arkngthamz was the best-preserved Dwemer city I'd ever laid eyes on. Until, well … the earthquake. Now, we'd be lucky if there's a single room intact … never mind the treasury."
Vinye still felt apprehensive. The way that Katria had been hesitating in her speech led her to believe that there was something she wasn't telling her. "Is there anything we ought to be aware of in here?"
"It's a dwarven city—pick your poison," said the ghost. "No, but really, it'd be easier to list what isn't a danger in this place now. The earthquake that wrecked this place was a big one—every now and again, there are still major aftershocks. And that's not getting into the deadly rapids and unstable ground, the massive chasms and lethal falls—oh, and guess what moved in and called the place home, too?"
It was only for a moment, but the memory of the odor of a very familiar egg flitted through Vinye's mind, and instantly she felt as though her stomach had dissolved. Oh no. "Tell me it isn't the Falmer," she groaned.
Malys nearly fell off the pipe. "What?!" she exclaimed.
"Fair enough," Katria shrugged. "I won't tell you."
"I thought the Falmer were gone," Cosette said. "The Nords didn't treat them any differently than they did the Forsworn. Drove them near to extinction, so I was told."
"You were told a lot less than you ought to know," Katria said disapprovingly. "And for your sake, I hope we don't run into any along the way—because the real danger here isn't the Falmer."
The … real danger? Vinye thought. "And what is it, then?"
Again, Katria didn't immediately say anything, and that was a major tell to Vinye. "We'll talk about that when the time comes … if it comes," she said cryptically.
Finally the pipe ended, and the women leapt down from its length. The debris below them was soft enough to where they could use it as a decent cushion from that height, and they continued on at length.
"What's that noise?" Malys spoke up—there was indeed a strange sound coming from ahead of them—a metallic hiss-thunk noise that sounded like some kind of piston. It was intermittent, only once every handful of seconds, but it was accompanied by the sounds of a gate constantly opening and closing.
The gate in question now loomed before them. The distance beyond was obscured by steam, but every so often, Vinye could make out a strange shape in the pipes beyond—a fanlike contraption that joined two pipes. Every so often, that odd little device would jump—hiss-thunk—along the length of the pipe and stay at its apex, and until it made its return trip downward—hiss-thunk—the gate would either stay open or closed. It reminded Vinye of the valves inside a heart.
"The dwarves called it a kinetic resonator," Katria explained. "They're a pretty rare find in the ruins throughout Skyrim—you see them a little more often with the clans that settled down in Solstheim. This resonator's just a big, fancy lever—just give them enough force, and they'll do … whatever the Dwemer designed them to do."
She demonstrated this by walking through the gate as soon as it opened up again, and firing an arrow right at one of the propeller-like blades. This time, when the resonator jumped upward—hiss-thunk—the door did not close with it, and Katria bade the others follow her inside.
The room within was small, and dominated by a single massive gear that was thicker than Vinye was tall. The steam inside was so thick that it was impossible to see any further than a few feet in front of them. However, it was just enough to see a second "kinetic resonator" across from the first one. Cosette activated it with a simple burst of flame—hiss-thunk—and an adjacent gate yawned open, allowing both the steam and the adventurers a way out.
Unfortunately, it also allowed the air from outside in with them, and this air smelled horribly familiar to Vinye—like those nasty egg sacs in Raldbthar.
Katria confirmed the Altmer's grim hypothesis. "Falmer up ahead," she said tersely, and quietly enough that the words were nearly indistinguishable from the hiss of steam. Silently, she drew out Zephyr and nocked an arrow, and the three mages brought their magic to bear.
True to Katria's warning, two Falmer were indeed perched on the staircase around the next corner. Cosette swore under her breath in disgust as she finally saw the twisted results of the Dwemer's meddling with the snow elves for the first time. Malys, at Katria's insistence, clapped a hand over the Breton's mouth to silence her.
But as Vinye had learned in Raldbthar, the ears and noses of the Falmer had compensated quite well for their blindness, unfortunately. Both guards had definitely heard something out of the ordinary with Cosette's muted outburst, and they instantly became alert, drawing out their crude, insectoid weapons.
Katria wasted no time in downing the first lookout—Zephyr's arrow was straight, true, and inside the Falmer's toothy maw before he knew what had happened. Cosette, who had apparently still yet to recover from the shock and revulsion of the encounter, wiped out the second with a fireball so intensely hot that the cave-elf was little more than ash when the smoke had cleared. The noise and force of the explosion drew the attention of a third Falmer from the room beyond; this one was tougher, and it took a half-dozen or so ice spikes from Malys to finally bring him down.
Cosette shuddered again as she saw the eyeless face of the Falmer Malys had killed. "Ugh—that is disgusting."
"You'll be getting to know them real well before long," Katria said ominously. "Damn things are like flies. No matter how many Falmer you kill, there always seems to be more of them."
They climbed the stairs to reach the other side of the split chamber where they had originally located Katria. The magnitude of the destruction that this pace had undergone was even more unbelievable from this angle.
"Quite a sight, huh?" Katria commented on the view. "It was even more impressive before it all fell to pieces."
They continued moving along the fissure that divided Arkngthamz, which was wider, longer and deeper than the mages had anticipated. Past here, there were very little ruins, if any at all, and for a very good reason; Katria had been right about the unstable ground being a danger in this place. A piece of the ceiling broke off as they traversed the edge of the chasm, smashing much too close to Malys for her comfort. And to top it all off, the cliffs were still infested with Falmer.
Once, two of them squeezed out from cracks that Vinye swore blind were too small to have fit a child inside. One bombarded them with a constant stream of ice, while the other got up close and personal with an axe that looked like it had been made from the pincer of some giant insect. Both met their end by Cosette's hands—the mage was dispatched with another fireball that left nothing of the Falmer from the waist up, and the axe-wielder was drawn and quartered by the Forsworn blade in her other hand within a matter of seconds. The Breton stepped over his severed arms—one still holding onto the clawed axe for dear life—and kicked the decapitated head into the rapids, where it was swallowed up in an instant.
"What the hell are those things?" the Breton finally asked. "You say they're called the Falmer?"
"That's right," Katria answered. "Back in the Merethic Era, the snow elves razed the ancient Nord city of Saarthal, the first human settlement in ancient Skyrim. Nobody's quite agreed on why—some scholars suggest there was an artifact of immense power within the city, but most agree that the Falmer were afraid of the Nords, and what they might become. At any rate, the Night of Tears was a great loss of life—but it was the catalyst for something far more terrible.
"Ysgramor—who went on to become the first High King of Skyrim—took his Five Hundred Companions, and sailed south from Atmora to Skyrim, and he drove the snow elves out of the province for good. It was assumed by many that the Falmer were driven extinct as a result. But the Falmer survived—they went underground, and sought refuge with the dwarves … however, the dwarves betrayed them. The Falmer were … changed, somehow, and got mutated into their slaves. No one's ever been sure how, but thousands of years on, this is the result. They're nothing more than animals now—completely feral, left to breed like roaches in the wake of the Dwemer."
Cosette looked sick, and her voice was soft as she digested Katria's words. "So they're just like me … just like the Forsworn … "
Katria gave her a strange look. "I know a thing or two about the Forsworn, young miss," she said, "and you ought to count your blessings while you still have fingers to count. I'm not going to make any apologies for what my ancestors did—the past is in the past. But the way I see it, you're right—they both have something in common."
"A short stick up their arse?" Cosette grumbled.
"More than that," replied Katria. "They survived."
The revelation left Cosette in thoughtful, though not entirely comfortable, silence for some time.
The chasm took them past another set of crumbling ruins, as well as a massive golden bust of a dwarven face submerged in the rapids—almost as large as the single gear they'd passed earlier. A rather large chest was inside these ruins, and tantalizingly—tortuously—close as well, but there appeared to be no other way inside the corridor; collapsed pillars blocked every way in, and so the four of them had no choice but to move on.
More Falmer awaited them as they progressed deeper along the chasm's edge. Cosette was no longer eradicating them out of sheer disgust, to Vinye's surprise—whatever Katria had said to her must have impacted her more severely than she'd thought. It was left to the others, then, to clean up this new infestation.
Vinye burned a hole through one of the Falmer, who had been hanging back at a safe distance to snipe them with a bow and arrow—but not safe enough from Vinye's lightning. Katria picked off a second on the other side of the ledge; he overbalanced, and toppled over the cliff, where his shrieking was lost in the raging rapids. Malys was much less clean and precise—she was not even bothering with a one-shot-one-kill approach to these Falmer. Nevertheless, Vinye had to appreciate how she flitted about like a shadow towards her target—a mage firing frost and lightning at anything that so much as moved—wrapped her vampiric body around her, hissing like a snake, before slicing the Falmer to pieces with the icy blades that formed on her fingers.
"I thought vampires were supposed to be more … cultured," Cosette remarked, having finally broken out of her lapse in concentration by Malys' brutal assault.
"I spent the last two hundred years trying to stave off madness," Malys shot back. "I didn't have time to learn about the table manners of a bloodsucker. I don't think either the Quarra or the Volkihar are known for their culture, anyway," she added with a shrug.
"Wait," Vinye cut in, holding up a hand. "I hear something up ahead—some kind of … clicking noise. Listen."
Everyone listened. True to Vinye's suspicion, there was indeed a rapid series of clicks coming from a part of the chasm they'd yet to explore. Malys' already pale face lost all color, and Katria looked apprehensive. Vinye couldn't blame them—she'd heard those exact same clicking noises in Raldbthar.
"Chaurus," Katria groaned, and Vinye took that to be their name. "Of course there'd be a nest here. Where there's Falmer, there's chaurus not far behind. We need to be very careful—the Falmer use them as sentries, to sense anything their ears and noses can't."
"Chaurus?" Cosette didn't look too happy.
"Big damn bugs," Malys spat. "I had to fight one on my way out of this cave in the Rift—the same one where I found out I was a vampire. It was about the size of a horse—killed and ate my guide, and nearly did the same to me. Katria's not messing around here, are you?"
Katria shook her head silently. She strung an arrow on Zephyr, and the ghost bade them follow her very slowly, and very quietly.
The clicking noises were growing louder, but so was the water; they were passing a very deep pool fed by upwards of half a dozen waterfalls. This was the origin of the rapids, Vinye noticed offhandedly; the giant crack in the earth that they'd been climbing seemed to end here.
But now, Katria was directing them towards a small fissure in the rock—Vinye had to bend over to squeeze inside. The clicking here was louder than ever.
"Anything moves," Katria whispered, "kill it on sight. Better adventurers than me have been chomped on by a chaurus in the past. And their venom's three times worse than a frostbite spider's, too—I've seen that black stuff they spit eat right through plate armor."
Almost too soon, the fissure ended, and the women were greeted with a rush of damp, musty air. Bioluminescent egg sacs dotted the cave beyond, and their sickly blue-green light framed a single Falmer tent. The Falmer himself was standing guard at one end of the cave. A small chaurus—small only by the standards of the specimens Vinye had seen in Raldbthar; this chaurus was roughly the size of a large dog—stood to his left, clawing at the ground with its spiny dark legs, occasionally snapping its mandibles at thin air, as though the oppressive humidity could be ensnared in its ugly maw. Vinye noticed them for only a moment, because her attention was suddenly glued on the holding pen opposite her—where rested a truly hideous sight.
Other chaurus were there, yes—young ones, not yet the killing machines she'd seen ripping the arm off a dwarven centurion—but there was also a pair of cocoons within the pen, just barely her height. Vinye guessed the result of this metamorphosis was hovering several feet above the ground in front of her—two spindly mantis-like creatures, each with a pair of huge, jagged pincers for arms. From her distance, Vinye could see something of the chaurus in its appearance and hardened carapace, but very little else. It wasn't unlike the resemblance between a caterpillar and a butterfly.
She chanced a look back at Cosette. The Breton's doughy face had lost all color to it at the sight of the repulsive bugs. A cold sweat had broken on her skin, and the way she was twitching told Vinye that she was either fighting every impulse to turn and run—or to fill every nook and cranny of this cave with mage-fire.
If this was the matured form of a chaurus, Vinye honestly couldn't blame her for looking disgusted—that thing needed to be her first priority. So it was that she raised her hands, brought them together, and blasted a huge lightning bolt at the nearest insect. It hit the monster full in the thorax, flash-burning one wing into iridescent ribbons and sending the insect into a screeching tizzy. The shocks rebounded through its body, and into most of the young chaurus, turning them into piles of yellow-white mush, which were promptly scattered every which way by the flying chaurus' death throes.
There was no way this didn't attract attention, and sure enough, Vinye noticed the Falmer lunge for her from above, while his pet chaurus came at her from the side. The former was an easy enough target; she dodged the cave elf's attack with inches to spare, and his snarl of primal rage turned into a scream of pain as Vinye unhooked Kinsbane from her belt, and used the elven dagger to cut into the Falmer's ribcage from shoulder to hip. The Falmer fell to the ground, and was quickly finished off by Katria and a well-aimed arrow to the neck.
The surviving chaurus, meanwhile, were giving Malys and Cosette a tough time. Concentrating on one meant ignoring the other—and each presented their own challenge. The adult chaurus crossed the distance between them faster than the average man could run; Malys' ice magic was too slow. By comparison, its younger counterpart was somewhat stealthier; its coloration, combined with the mists that blanketed the cave floor, made it nearly invisible to Cosette, who was still attempting to overcome the shock of seeing her first chaurus.
Both chaurus lunged at the two mages—but apparently Malys had seen this coming; with a hasty cry of "Switch!" she'd pushed Cosette into the path of the flying insect. The Breton instinctively reached out with her hands and bathed the horror in a steady torrent of flames. Both of its wings dried up under the barrage in a matter of seconds, and the chaurus tumbled to the ground, lashing out at whatever it could reach—at least, until a fireball from Cosette propelled it against the opposite cave wall with a hard, wet, and definitively fatal smack.
Meanwhile, Malys—in a feat of strength that Vinye suspected only a vampire was capable of—had grasped her chaurus by the pincers either side of its ugly head, and flung it against the wall as well, with similar results. A final ice spike from the Dunmer skewered it on the rocks, and the chaurus emitted a horrible, chittering shriek as it died.
The battle was won, but Cosette was livid at Malys as the vampire threw aside the chaurus' poisonous pincers, which Malys had forcibly wrenched off in the process of her struggle. "Don't ever do that to me again!" raged the Breton, trying her best—and failing—to calm her heart back to normal. "I hate these bugs more than I hate Nords!"
Katria raised an eyebrow, and Cosette quickly backtracked on her words at the ghost's expression. "Erm … no offense," she hastily amended.
"None taken," Katria smiled, with all the cheer of a cat cornering a mouse. Vinye noticed her arm straining slightly for Zephyr, as if the Nord wanted nothing more than to raise a few lumps on the Breton's head with it. "At least we made it out in one piece. Chaurus nests are best dealt with in numbers—and a single chaurus isn't usually something you can take down one-on-one. Whatever they teach you at Winterhold is something else."
She moved on, and the mages followed behind. "We should be getting close to the summit," Katria told them. "If we're lucky, the way to the treasury should be clear already."
Vinye decided it wouldn't be best to ask what would happen if they were unlucky. The uneasy feeling in her chest told her they might be discovering the answer to that soon enough.
They emerged from the dank cave into a fair-sized clearing. It was very green, the mages noted—there was vegetation everywhere; moss, grass, even several trees in the middle of the space. The glade was quite unlike the rest of Arkngthamz they'd already encountered, and Vinye suspected that this entire clearing might in fact have collapsed during the earthquake, judging from the large hole above them. It was already nighttime, which surprised her—just how long have we been in here? Vinye wondered.
Katria pointed past one of the trees to a felled log thicker than they were tall. "Here's where I fell," she said again, her voice sorrowful. "Feels like ages ago, and yet I can still remember how the ground just … opened up. You know the funny thing, though?" she added with another little laugh. "I almost made it down alive—another foot or two to the side, and the water would've broken my fall. But … nothing I could do."
Vinye felt another pang of sympathy for Katria; so many times, this Nord had come so close to success, only to have it snatched away from her. The Synod and the College of Whispers had treated her no better.
The ground gradually sloped upward as the four women trekked onward. Any signs of tectonic activity were growing less and less conspicuous, and there were less and less signs of dwarven ruins as well.
Is this really the way we're supposed to go? Vinye thought. It was more logical for the dwarves—if they were to conceal something from the rest of the world—to do so deeper underground. But they were getting closer to the so-called summit of Arkngthamz now, and Vinye was beginning to doubt her intuition. This treasury Katria had been going on about sounded as though it stuck out like a sore thumb—but there was no way they were heading to the top of the mountain. Even before the earthquakes, someone would surely have seen—
Ah.
Never mind.
The quartet had just stepped into a massive clearing—long enough to fit three Colleges, crumbling bridge and all. Dwarven arches were scattered hither and thither—some were submerged in a fairly large pool—and a small set of ruins and pipes were visible on the opposite cliff. But what held everyone's attention was at the far end of the clearing, towering as high as the edge of the cliff, and perhaps even higher: a massive carved wall, laid with pipes, golden filigree, more of those kinetic resonators staggered within alcoves in the wall—all capped by the biggest Dwarven face Vinye had yet seen, even counting the one they'd passed earlier.
This has to be the treasury, Vinye thought. Something that big had to have an equally monumental purpose.
"What a sight for sore eyes," Cosette groaned in relief. Malys nodded in agreement, transfixed at the sight.
But as they descended into the clearing, Vinye noticed that Katria was acting very strangely. Her eyes had not left the enormous structure for even a moment—and her expression was not one of appreciation, but of apprehension. Once, Vinye thought she could hear her swear under her breath, and the Altmer thought it might be for a good reason—especially when they came closer to the monolithic conglomeration.
It was a scene of mass carnage. Arrows, skeletons, and dozens of broken animunculi littered the ground between them and the treasury. Vinye saw several large ballista bolts buried in the dirt—one, gruesomely enough, had even pinned a skeleton to one of the arches. Looking back to the cliff structure, she noticed the ballistae where the bolts had been fired, and below them, three gates—and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the silhouette of a massive centurion behind it. No pressure, she thought.
This was definitely where they needed to be—but was it where they wanted to be, more to the point?
"Hold on," Katria spoke up all of a sudden. "We need to talk."
"What is it?" frowned Malys.
The ghost sighed. "I'll be honest—I didn't think we'd make it this far, never mind in one piece," she said. "I'd been holding off telling you until now. Remember when I mentioned that there was one more danger in Arkngthamz? Well, you're looking at it." She gestured to the massive monolith of stone and metal.
The real danger, Vinye remembered. "What is it?" she asked.
"It's a lock," explained Katria. "But it isn't just any lock—it's a tonal lock. It's very simple—but very, very deadly. Those five resonators up there"—she pointed each one out to them—"control the mechanism that locks the gate. If we hit them in the right order, the gates either side should open, and let us into the treasury—no mess, no fuss."
"And what happens if we don't?" Cosette asked. "Knowing the Dwemer, they probably won't give us a second try."
"Oh, they do," said Katria. "They just don't leave anyone alive long enough to have another go. That's what I found out when I tried to unlock this thing. I got as far as the first resonator before … well, if you fail, you've already seen the results." She swept her arm around the entire space, indicating the devastation before them.
But something struck Vinye as odd. Katria had plummeted to her untimely death a far distance from this tonal lock—and her body had nary an arrow inside it. How, therefore, had she survived all these traps, only to die—
And then realization hit Vinye like a ton of bricks. Katria hadn't survived the trap at all.
"The earthquake," she said softly, slowly turning to look at Katria. The ghost was actively trying to avoid meeting her gaze. "It wasn't a natural occurrence, wasn't it? You triggered it, didn't you—the first time you tried picking this lock?"
Katria nodded. " … Yeah," she said simply. "I thought I was prepared for anything—but how can you prepare for a damned earthquake? And that was just one trap!" she exclaimed, brandishing Zephyr at the tonal lock. "I mean—just look around! Who knows what else this thing is capable of?"
"So what should we do, then?" Cosette had backed away from the tonal lock as soon as Vinye had mentioned the earthquake, having put two and two together herself. "You say you only got one resonator right?"
"Yep," affirmed the specter. "I know for a fact it was the one on the lower left." She pointed to the resonator in question. "After that, I don't know what we'll do. Most of the traps may already have been sprung, judging by all this—but with the Dwemer you never know." Katria groaned. "My journal had more notes about this setup—if only we had it, maybe we'd be through the lock already."
A thought came to Vinye. "Maybe you weren't alone," she mused aloud. "Maybe someone else had the same idea you did—tested the lock first, and recorded the results. Plenty of people have already tried." She looked left and right at all the skeletons around them, and then to Malys and Cosette. "Spread out, all of you," she told them. "Look around for anything that might give us a clue to getting through. I'll take care of the lock."
And without further ado, Vinye launched a bolt straight for the lower left resonator. There was a hiss-thunk as the bolt impacted, and the fanlike contraption spun upward—and then a deep, bell-like tone. A gas lamp flared, and there was a hiss of steam from the enormous bust above them, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest she had triggered the lock.
Vinye clenched a fist in triumph. One down.
She looked back at her two classmates, who were still standing there. "Well, go on!" the Altmer groused at them. "I won't be able to do this alone, you know!"
"Well, maybe we want to try our hand at this thing," Cosette said defiantly. "You're not the only one who can reach that far with magic."
Vinye couldn't fault her for that. However … "This is going to take precision," she told Cosette. "Your fire's good and all, but there's also a chance this trap could be pressure-sensitive. Too much force on it—or too little—and this entire venture could blow up in our face. No, fire's too strong—and Malys, your ice is no good on all this machinery. It won't have the stopping power to make these resonators budge enough. I've got to do this part myself."
Cosette groaned. "Fine." She stalked off toward the nearest skeleton, and began sifting through the bones with her Forsworn blade. Malys went in the other direction, and—being undead—had no aversion to searching the skeletons with her bare hands.
It was several minutes before Cosette finally found something. She abruptly stood up with a cry of triumph, and held aloft a torn scrap of parchment. Vinye took it from her before the paltry shred could flutter away in the wind, and was somewhat crestfallen to see that all that was legible was only two simple numbers scrawled on the paper:
3
2
Vinye frowned. "Well, this should at least get us halfway," she shrugged. "Anything on your side, Malys?"
The only response was a long groan, followed by Malys kicking a skull into the nearby pool. "Not so much as an empty inkwell," seethed the vampire.
"Then this is all we've got," Vinye said. She took a closer look at the parchment. The numbers were strangely positioned, and Vinye had a hunch from this that they were stand-ins for the resonators. Sure enough, when she held the scrap up alongside the tonal lock, the resonators were staggered in almost the same position—two above, three below. Number two was on the lower right; the third, on the top left. She fired a bolt at the former—hiss-thunk—and the second resonator slid up to join its lower left counterpart. Another lamp lit up, and another bell rang in response to this—slightly higher in pitch than the first, and Vinye knew this one had succeeded too.
Two down.
"That's it … " Katria coaxed her on.
Now the top left. A third bolt, and this resonator, too, jumped upward—hiss-thunk—with a whoosh of steam, followed by an even higher tone of incipient success.
That makes three …
"Keep going," breathed Katria. In spite of their progress, the ghost was beginning to sound nervous, and Vinye couldn't blame her. There were still two resonators left—and the mages didn't have a single clue as to which one they should strike next. Vinye felt her neck begin to sweat as the scenario took shape in her mind: if they succeeded, they'd be through to the treasury. If they didn't … they might not get a chance to try again.
Vinye stared back at the centurion. No pressure, she thought again.
"Chance might be all we have," Cosette said, hands on her hips as she studied their progress so far. "We'll have to wing it and see what happens now." She raised a finger, pointing back and forth between the two remaining resonators—first the top right, and then the one in the middle.
"Eeny, meeny, miney, mo," she sang as she did so, "catch a fat Nord by his toe. If he cries out, 'Let me go'—oh, what the hell, just pick one!" she shouted at Vinye, bringing fiery magic to her fingertips. "I'm ready for anything!"
Vinye had subconsciously been following Cosette as she'd sung her little tune, and now—throwing all caution to the winds—decided she'd go for the top right resonator. It made sense to her—the one in the middle, whether in front or in back, was always the most important of its kind. She took aim, then, and fired. The bolt flew straight and true, and hit the resonator dead center in one of the blades—
And bounced off—to exactly the one place where Vinye didn't want it.
As she looked on in shock, the bolt ricocheted downward, impacting the central resonator. Both contraptions spun upwards at the same time, with the same hiss-thunk noise. There was another bell-tone, just like before—but this one was much more discordant; whether both were triggered at the same time, or if this unforeseen action triggered an entirely new reaction, Vinye did not know.
What she did know was that somehow—in the most improbable way imaginable—she had failed.
And now the earth was beginning to rumble, louder and more violently than before. Steam was billowing from all the pipes that ran through the tonal lock, and the shrieking noise of metal against metal grated against their ears.
Here we go, thought Vinye. "Form up!" she hollered.
"Look out!"
Katria's warning—and Cosette's quick tug on her robe—were the only things that saved her. Before Vinye had time to blink, a ballista bolt had impacted exactly where she'd been standing a split second ago. The tip of the bolt exploded, sending the mages flying every which way. And the tonal lock wasn't done yet, Vinye noticed—automata of just about every type imaginable were streaming from the pipes—spheres, spiders—and her heart sank as the middle gate slid open, revealing the centurion beyond in all its gleaming, terrible fury.
The spiders came first—Katria wielded Zephyr like a blade, disabling one and hooking another onto a limb of the bow, whereupon the ghost tossed it into the lake beyond like a fisherman casting a reel. Two more blasted away at Malys with spurts of lightning, but the vampire's ward held long enough for Vinye and Cosette to down one each.
Katria wasted no time nocking an arrow and shooting yet another construct right in the gem on its crown, forcing it out of its receptacle. There was a spurt of steam, and the spider blew apart with a burst of lightning that disabled another spider. The last of the spiders leapt straight for Malys, but the vampire was ready. A split second before the animunculus' six pincers—spread out for maximum damage—found a target in her flesh, Malys reached out with a fist, and connected with the automaton square in its central hub. Her free hand created a brief ward to deflect any errant components—and as it turned out, a second explosion of lightning. The vampire huffed, and shook the mechanical spider off her arm, which was now covered in dark brown oil.
But no one had time to celebrate—as soon as the last spider had fallen, the artificial sphere-men behind them fired a volley of bolts from their crossbows. These could not be so easily stopped by wards, as Cosette found out when she tried to deflect one that came too close to her. The bolt ripped right into her elbow, and the Breton screamed in pain.
"They're enchanted!" Cosette yowled. "Those bolts have some kind of fire magic in them!"
Malys hurried for her, preparing some healing magic. "Sit tight, Cozy!" she cried, just barely missing a second bolt that took a few black hairs off the Dunmer's head. "I'll patch you up!"
"I'm fine!" Cosette hurled a fireball at one of the spheres with her wounded arm to prove that she was, indeed, fine. The blast of flames blew apart the automaton's crossbow, but the automaton itself was not out yet. "I've got some armor on under this—I'll be good for a few more rounds yet!"
"Don't test us, Cosette!" Vinye called out, disabling an animunculus with three quick lightning bolts—one to each shoulder, and another to the chest—and toppling it backward. Within moments, she'd ducked for cover behind the remains of an arch, sniping away at anything within range. "Put on the pressure—we can beat them!"
The next few minutes were the longest in the mages' lives yet; the air was thick with steam, magic, and crossbow bolts aplenty. Both sides aimed to strafe the other, never sitting still, never daring to turn their own selves into a target, and so both sides were fighting to a near standstill. But Vinye and Katria were causing devastation—Katria, as she no longer possessed a corporeal form, could make the shots she needed without worrying about retaliation. Her aim with Zephyr was swift and precise, and four of her arrows found their mark in four different sphere-men, and thus summarily disabled, they clattered to the ground one after the other.
Vinye, who had tapped into her innate Altmer abilities again, felt the magicka blaze around her as lightning poured from her hands. She deliberately overcharged her bolts—as she had unintentionally done with those resonators—and aimed for an adjacent arch, bouncing her lightning off the stone and into an animunculus. A full minute of this left the remaining sphere-men either disabled or disassembled, and Vinye had expended so much lightning in the process that the air smelled horribly of ozone.
Malys gagged at the scent. "Very efficient," the Dunmer noted sardonically. "Did you really have to go that far to wipe out all those machines?"
Vinye huffed. "Try bouncing fire and ice off the ground," she challenged Malys. "See how far you get. It was the only way I could take them all out without having to risk my neck."
A shriek of gears distracted them, and everyone looked back at the tonal lock—or more accurately, the dwarven centurion that had just now begun to plod towards them. It blasted a wall of steam at them—and only a ward from each of the mages was able to completely dispel it.
As the centurion advanced, so—to Vinye's surprise—did Malys. "Stay behind me," said the vampire. "I'll handle this. I know how these constructs work better than you."
The Altmer was flabbergasted. Malys had only been seen using ice magic—which was worse than useless against an automaton this size! How could she—?
Wait. No, she had another weapon—Vinye had seen it used before, on Ugluk in that grove. Vampire magic, she knew—it had absorbed something from the Orc, Ugluk, but was it life essence, or something else? This only added to her confusion. Dwemer golems were neither living nor dead—how then, would vampire magic work on them?!
As the centurion pulled its head back for another blast of steam, Malys raised both of her hands, and they erupted in the same blood-red energy that had ensnared Ugluk. It bubbled like boiling water, and lashed out at the air like some angry beast—as though it was somehow alive. Then, Malys tensed up, and the crimson substance reached out towards the construct, engulfing it within a matter of seconds.
For a moment, nothing happened, and Vinye was anticipating the torrent of steam to come at any moment. But suddenly, she heard a sound like screaming—and it seemed to be coming from the centurion. Then the scarlet-colored energy receded from the golem, and back into Malys' hands—and the centurion toppled to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
The vampire was breathing heavily, but there was still a smile on her face as she stood up straight. "That was … exhausting," she panted. "I'm going to need a nap after all this, I think."
"What did you do?!" Katria was eyeing the fallen animunculus with amazement. "What kind of magic was that?"
"Vampire magic," Malys answered her, with a hint of disgust. "Dwemer automatons are powered by soul gems. That's what ended up happening to most of the Falmer—they got used as fuel to power the toys of the dwarves. This spell I used targets souls specifically—and it rips them out of whatever earthly body they possess, whether it's a living being, a suit of armor, an automaton, or even a soul gem—but the smaller the vessel, the less time it takes. It's also a nice alternative to feeding on blood every so often," she added, looking at each of the mages pointedly.
Neither Cosette nor Vinye could repress a shudder at the explanation—such a spell had far-reaching implications, the Altmer knew, and it could be used in any number of frightening ways. She hoped fervently that this spell was unique to Malys alone, and not something that any vampire or necromancer could use to terrorize Tamriel.
Katria, meanwhile, had torn her eyes from the centurion, and was now looking at the tonal lock with some trepidation. "I think we've survived … for now," she said. "We should try again while we still have the chance."
Vinye silently agreed, and got to her feet after a minute to let her magicka replenish itself. She noted with slight annoyance that the resonators had reset themselves—she'd have to start over from the beginning. And so—once, twice, thrice—she fired off one bolt each at the lower left, lower right, and top left resonators. All three swung upwards, as they had before, and Vinye now took aim at the next resonator.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Cosette wondered out loud.
For only a moment, Vinye broke her concentration to look back at the Breton. "Do you trust me?" she replied back.
Cosette spent the next minute or so deep in thought, before—finally—she nodded.
Vinye smiled back. "Then you've got nothing to worry about," she said, and fired.
The bolt struck the top right resonator, and this time it did not bounce off. With a hiss-thunk that carried more suspense than Valenwood ever had, the contraption shot up—and this time the note that rang out was clear.
"Got it!" Katria whooped, raising Zephyr up high as Vinye took aim and blasted at the final resonator. All the pressure had gone from her, and before the high elf knew it, the resonator had already activated with a hiss-thunk she didn't even hear, and the sound of the gates scraping open felt like heaven.
All four adventurers rushed in, eager to gaze upon the treasure of Arkngthamz—and what a treasure it turned out to be, Vinye thought in elation. There were enough Dwemer trinkets and ingots of their metal in here to make everyone in the Synod and the College of whispers set for life. And that was to say nothing of the gold in the chest that Cosette was scooping into her rucksack, or the pristine black robe Malys fished out of a smaller container to wear for herself.
But right now, there was only one object that commanded her attention.
"So, it is real," Katria breathed reverently, as Vinye gently took the shard of Aetherium in her hands to show to everyone else.
"Wait," the ghost said suddenly, "That shape … those edges. This has been cut—precisely cut! If you had another piece, around the same size, I bet you it would snap right in!"
"Cut Aetherium?" Vinye was incredulous. "That's impossible—nothing can do that to something this solid!"
"There's one thing that can," Katria corrected her, "and we have the key to finding it—literally. I've seen drawings of these shapes before—this shard here is part of a key made of pure, refined Aetherium … the key to the Forge!"
"No kidding," breathed Malys. Cosette was too shocked to even speak.
"Now we just have to find the other pieces." Katria was pacing now, muttering nonstop under her breath. "Each city that was involved with the Aetherium process produced its own shard of the stuff. "Arkngthamz studied it, Raldbthar mined it out, Mzulft stored it raw, Bthar-zel refined it … oh, but that place has been lost completely!" she moaned. "There's no way to get in there now!"
"We don't need to," said Vinye. "There were … three other pieces, I'm guessing?" She nodded at Cosette and Malys, and all three elves presented their own Aetherium shards. Wordlessly, the mages brought them all together, and with a small series of snaps, the shards of Aetherium now formed one perfectly circular crest that shimmered with blue energy.
The ghost was awestruck, and was forced to sit down on a nearby dais to collect her thoughts. "Unbelievable," she finally managed to say. "This makes things so much easier …
"We still have to find the Forge itself, though," she amended, "and I had a lead on that in my journal, too—but right now, I could care less about that; there's still so much to do. I'm going to see what I can track down—don't worry, I know we'll meet again."
Katria was fading now, and her voice was more and more echoing. "For the first time in a long, long while," she thought, "I think I—erm, we," she corrected, looking at the mages, "might actually be able to do this! And I owe it all to you three. So … thank you. For everything."
"Wait," Cosette jumped in. "What about this lead? Where did it take you?"
Before she disappeared from the summit of Arkngthamz, Katria told them.
A/N: No teaser this time, I'm afraid. Things will be heating up next chapter, and it should be tons shorter than this mess—that's all I can say about that.
Thanks for reading! - K