A/N: Holy crap, have I really been writing this for one whole year? How the time passes by.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, and recommending this hodgepodge of words in that time. Your critique is really giving me a nice little boost of morale, and your efforts are helping me work to become a progressively better writer.

Bit of a shorter chapter than usual this time around. School's been winding down, I've still got a couple exams left to take—and after that burst of productivity last month, I'm still feeling a little burnt-out. With summer near, I'm hoping to get back to my old self; I can see myself completing this by August, if not sooner.

Hope you enjoy! - K

XVI

Dagoth.

Vinye had heard that name before, in her studies as a child. She had come to remember how the mere mention of that Great House of old had always been followed by war and atrocity—and fear. Now, to hear it whispered in her ear today—by no less a person than what must surely be the last original "Changed Elf" on all of Nirn—felt like the return of an ancient ghost … a shade scarred by battle and evil.

"You shouldn't even exist." Unable to turn her head because of Solyn's—Dagoth Solyn, her mind corrected—paralysis spell, Vinye's gaze flitted to Malys, who had spoken just now. The vampire was quite literally torn between anger and terror at the golden elf before her: her bisected face bore either one emotion or the other.

"Nerevar wiped you out," spat the Dunmer. "He crushed your army thousands of years ago! Dagoth Ur himself was destroyed under the Red Mountain! And you expect us to believe the Sixth House isn't more than just a memory now?!"

"Of course not." Dagoth Solyn spoke more calmly than anyone who'd been exposed the way he had should have any right to. And yet, thought Vinye, the Chimer had not lost his composure once.

But then, "I do not expect you to believe—I expect you to watch the Sixth House become 'more than just a memory!'" Solyn cried out. "That is the duty my father, the great Dagoth Ur, entrusted me to complete!"

Vinye was thunderstruck—and so, she noticed, was Malys. Dagoth Ur had fathered a child?!

Solyn strode over to the Aetherium Forge, glancing at its construction with his burning eyes. "I was conceived in absolute secrecy," he told them. "Lord Voryn—who you call Dagoth Ur—saw in me the culmination of his greatest and most elaborate plan of all … but he knew that if knowledge of me ever spread, then his designs would be for naught. And so he slew my mother, at her own request, and used his magic on me—sealing me inside the Outer Realms, where no god and no daedra could ever find me. No one by the name Solyn ever existed on Nirn for four thousand years—not even Divayth Fyr, that accursed sorcerer, could ever have hoped to discover me.

"For those four thousand years, I raised myself in those remote Realms. And all the while, I learned, I amassed, and I refined power the likes of which Tamriel has never seen," Solyn went on. "You know the history of what happened in that time: the War of the First Council broke out in Morrowind. Indoril Nerevar was slain in battle. The entire multitude of the Dwemer disappeared from Mundus. My father, though more so the Tribunal, coveted Kagrenac's Tools, and stole them. My people were cursed by Azura for their treachery, and it came to pass that my father, and his House, was eradicated by the Nerevarine—leaving myself as the only survivor of both House Dagoth and the Chimer race."

He smiled. "All according to Lord Voryn's plan."

Vinye could not believe what she was hearing. Thousands of years and nearly three whole eras had passed over the course of these events. And now Solyn was telling them that they had been nothing but schemes—no, collateral—for a scheme larger and more complex than any of them could ever have envisioned? Was he mad?

Solyn, meanwhile, had laid a hand on the Forge, and was feeding the crest the mages had assembled into a receptacle inside. The fingers on his other hand twitched, and several ingots and precious stones floated off the nearby shelves and into his grasp. These, too, he fed into the great machine.

"When the portal to Mundus opened inside the Realms," Solyn said, resuming his tale, "I knew the spell had been broken, and my father was dead. I sat staring at that portal for two hundred years before I finally mustered up the courage to return home, and learned what had transpired in the time since.

"And how much I learned!" Solyn went on. "The Oblivion Crisis in Cyrodiil, and the decay of its Empire—the destruction of the land I once called home. But most important of all, I learned the true reason why my father did what he did in his last decades of his life—the construction of the golem Akulakhan."

Vinye finally found her voice. "And why was that?"

"You may know that Akulakhan, the Second Numidium, was intended to drive the outlanders of Morrowind to whence they came, and to conquer all of Tamriel. But," Solyn paused, turning a set of dials on the Forge, "I came to understand that Akulakhan's other purpose was to be nothing more than a placeholder—a puppet ruler, meant only to occupy the throne until the true heir of House Dagoth returned from his exile."

Solyn sighed as he worked the Forge. "I can only imagine what Lord Voryn was thinking when he saw the Nerevarine for the last time," he said. "Perhaps he felt confident—dare I say, joyful—as he stared death in the face? Or did he have some regrets that he would never live to see his own son become the ruler of all the world?"

Vinye could not turn her head far enough to look back at Solyn, but she wondered if the Chimer was crying.

But it did not last, and suddenly the golden elf was resolute once again. "It matters not," he said, activating a final switch. There was a whooshing noise from within the Forge, a great clattering of gears and pistons, and finally the sound of metal on metal as Solyn drew something out of the receptacle.

"I came to terms with my father's actions a long, long time ago," the Chimer's voice boomed over the din. "I know now that I was born to succeed him. I need no other purpose in life than to finish Dagoth Ur's grand plan—to unite Tamriel and the world beyond under the standard of the Sixth House reborn!"

"No!" Malys spat on the stone in desperate anger, and struggled against her ashy bonds with such strength that for a moment, Vinye wondered if the vampire might actually break free. "You were just a pawn, Solyn! Your own father used you—don't you see?! You were never a son to him!"

Dagoth Solyn raised an eyebrow. "If you have a point, young vampire," he said emotionlessly, cradling his new creation in his robes as though it was his own child, "I'm still waiting to hear it. And I think you'll find I'm far more valuable of a piece in this particular game. You and your College, on the other hand, have long since played your part. I no longer require your services."

He turned to face the mages, now, and revealed his creation at last—and Vinye, in spite of her own fear and anger at how Solyn had betrayed the College of Winterhold and cheated the mages of their prize, was taken aback to see a pickaxe, of all things, in his pale-gold hands. But a closer look revealed a number of Dwemer elements within the newly forged tool—and Vinye was quick to note how the tips of the pick sparkled with a familiar icy-blue color.

An Aetherium-tipped pickaxe, she thought. Already the Altmer could feel her trepidation returning as she analyzed the Chimer's invention. This was very serious. Aetherium could not be altered in any known way outside this Forge—nothing could even break it.

Except perhaps another, stronger, and more refined piece of Aetherium.

A moment of clarity suddenly filled Vinye's mind at this revelation: there must be more Aetherium out there, somewhere, and Solyn must know where it is. So long as he had access to the Forge, that single artifact could get him anything he wanted—a sword with an edge that could cut through anything, or access to magic that could destroy an entire Keep with the wave of a hand.

"By the way, Mistress Malys," Solyn said with dissonant cheer, "Arniel Gane may have lost his body and mind, but he was still useful to me—more so than while he was alive. Though his sojourn to the Outer Realms had cost him his mind, he did help me to discover the link between Nirn and the Realms. So the next time you see Master Gane, please give him my thanks, won't you? I'll even help send you on your way over—but I suggest you make haste."

What? "What are you talking ab—?!" But Solyn had already snapped his fingers before Vinye could finish her interrogation. For a moment, there was silence.

And then, there was nothing but bright purple fire.

For an instant, Vinye's world had been consumed by fire and sound. An instant after that, she briefly heard the sound of birdsong, and smelled the cool air of the Rift. She collapsed on the stone platform, realizing only for a moment that Solyn had deposited them outside the lift that led to the Forge. The better part of her brain was still trying to process what the Chimer had told them deep underground.

So absorbed were the mages in their own respective thoughts that it was a while before Vinye discovered that she could move her body again—the paralysis spell that Dagoth Solyn had placed upon them had worn off. She clambered to her feet with some difficulty, as her entire body was completely numb, but she was not concerned about that—they could move again.

"Finally!" Cosette's shout broke both elves out of their reverie—the Breton had not spoken since the spell had taken effect. "I'm going back down," she growled, as she stumbled towards the lift. "I'm going to slaughter that bastard!"

"Cozy, no!" Malys tried to intercept her, but the Forsworn Culler had already leveled one of her Forsworn blades at the vampire's throat.

"Malys, if you get in my way, I will kill you," spat Cosette through clenched teeth. "I don't think you understand just how angry I am right now. Taron Dreth just murdered my parents in cold blood. My family is gone! My clan is gone! I am the only Ionsaithe left in the whole—entire—world—and I am beyond furious!" She punctuated each word by bringing the point of her sword one inch closer to Malys' neck.

Vinye, meanwhile, felt a rush of sympathy among the dozens of emotions roiling inside her head. The Altmer wondered how long Cosette had been separated from her parents because of the duty she had been chosen to carry out—knowing full well that her parents could easily have been purged from the Forsworn as well.

"I was well within my right to paint the Forge with Taron's blood," Cosette raved on. "I wanted to spit him on a pike and roast him alive for what he did to my family. But Solyn cheated me—because of him, I can never kill Taron now. There's only one thing for it—I'm going back down there, and I'm going to destroy that damned wizard if it's the last thing I do!"

"You don't know House Dagoth like we do—like the dark elves do." Malys' voice was suddenly very cold. "That cursed House is the reason why we're dark elves in the first place! They have power, Cozy, more than you could ever imagine." Her expression suddenly softened, and she looked pleading. "If you go down there, and if you try to face him one-on-one, it really will be the last thing you'll ever do."

In spite of the Forsworn blade still hanging there, Malys moved herself closer, and a tiny drop of blood appeared on her gray neck as the tip of the sword just barely pierced the skin. "Cosette," she whispered, "don't do this."

"I don't often say this about vampires—but she's right." Everyone turned to see Katria reclining against the lift. Her ghostly face looked as sorrowful as she sounded—and Vinye couldn't blame her; Katria must be feeling just as cheated as they were after how long and how far she had gone to find the Aetherium Forge. "This Solyn you guys ran into is a nasty piece of work. I don't know much about these Dagoth types, but I know that going up against him right now is suicide. And you don't want that, do you?"

She was speaking to Cosette, whose sword-arm wavered more and more as Katria's question sank in. "Maybe you'll get your chance yet," Katria pressed on encouragingly, "but now isn't the right time or the right place."

Cosette said nothing for a long time, before finally spitting on the stone in annoyance. "I hate it when other people are right," she grumbled, lowering the blade away from Malys.

"I'm sorry, Katria," Vinye apologized. She did not dare to look at the ghost, who let out a long sigh.

"There was no way you could have known," said the Nord with a shrug. "Besides, there's a silver lining to all this—we finally found the Forge. We know that it works. That was all I lived for—and died for—and maybe it didn't turn out the way I wanted, but I've already done what I said out to do. I can finally rest in peace now."

She heaved herself off the wall, and looked the mages directly in the eye. "One last favor from me—I promise I won't bother you any more after that," she whispered. "When you feel you're ready, I want you to find Solyn. Find him, and kill him, and make sure our discovery will never fall into the wrong hands again. And when you do, tell the whole world about what you did—what we did, and what we discovered together."

Vinye nodded. "We will," she said thickly, internally wishing Katria could stick beside them for a while longer yet—the ghost had come to grow on her in the short time since they'd met.

But Katria was beginning to fade now, much quicker than in Arkngthamz. "Farewell," she echoed, bringing her right fist to her heart in what Vinye would later learn was a gesture of respect. "Kynareth be at your back, wherever your travels take you."

There was one final sigh, and then Katria was gone—leaving behind a very loud silence that no one dared to break for a very long time.

Vinye did not know if it was minutes, or whole hours, before she decided to break that silence, but a thought had come to her in the wake of Katria's departure.

"Cosette," she asked cautiously. "You said you were the last of your family just now—but back in Whiterun, you said you met them on the way to get Spellbreaker as well?"

The Breton huffed. "Depends on how you define 'met'. When I summoned Peryite, he had me clear out this Dwarven ruin that one of his worshippers was hiding out in—some wood elf that had betrayed him. But he never told me that most of my clan would be in there, too."

Cosette looked nothing like the rage-filled berserker she'd been beneath the surface of the earth as she sat down. "That absorbing magic you've seen me use before—the one I said was a trait of my family—it's a defense," she said, "the most perfect defense in all of Tamriel. Peryite wanted to find a way past that—create a disease so wasting that no magic could slow it down or stop it." She paused, and sniffed. "He found it."

Vinye tasted something sour in her mouth as she realized what had happened. Now she understood why Cosette had reacted the way she did in Whiterun—why she had taken offense to Vinye's comments on her family.

You don't get to talk about my family! You haven't earned the right!

And the high elf also remembered how Cosette, just before her drunken rage, had told her she'd "met the family."

A hundred apologies raced through the elf's mind, but all she could produce was a hesitant "I'm sorry."

"Don't." For a moment, Cosette's eyes had flared. "I can't believe I'm echoing a Nord, but there was no way I could have known they were down there. There's no sense in apologizing now, Vinye. I did what I needed to, and I made sure that Peryite suffered for it. He killed my clan, not me. So in return, I killed his priest, and I destroyed his shrine and everyone who worshipped there. As far as I'm concerned, I've evened the score—and that's all I'm going to say about that."

That was a funny way to look at evening the score, thought Vinye—the influence that the Aedra and the Daedra had over Nirn depended on how strongly they were worshipped. Perhaps there were other worshippers of Peryite in the world, but if there weren't, then Cosette had effectively "killed" a Daedric Prince—banishing him from Skyrim and preventing his influence from returning there until someone decided it would be a good idea to worship him again.

As the Breton sat back down, so did the two elves, and the vampire grunted as she shifted her pack. "Bal's blood, this is heavy," she groaned as she plonked her frame between Vinye and Cosette. "So what do we do now?"

"We can't just sit here forever," replied Vinye. "The High King needs to hear about this as soon as possible. A brand-new House Dagoth could mean the end of Tamriel as we know it. Skyrim just started to recover from a civil war—there's no way they're prepared enough for this."

She stood up abruptly. "We'll make for Ivarstead," Vinye told them resolutely. "From there, we can take passage to Windhelm, and tell High King Varulf of the threat we're all facing."

"You can meet him," huffed Cosette. "I wouldn't set foot in that city even if it meant the Forsworn would take the Reach for sure."

The high elf shook her head. Was Cosette still hell-bent on this Forsworn business? "Solyn thinks that he can conquer all of Tamriel," she told her. "He won't just stop at Skyrim. He'll drive anyone who resists as far as he can make them run—even into the sea if he has to. You of all people should know that the Forsworn aren't invincible."

Cosette growled. "Of course I know," groused the Breton. "I only said I wouldn't set foot in Windhelm—I didn't say I wasn't coming with you. I know when I'm in over my head, Vinye—I'm not that thickheaded."

Said the woman who nearly charged down a Chimer and a Dagoth to boot, Vinye thought dryly as she stretched her sore body. "If we're all in agreement, then we'd better make it to Ivarstead. It's almost midday—if we leave now, we could be in Eastmarch by this evening."

Malys cracked her neck as she got to her feet as well. "Can we stop for something to eat along the way? I feel like that Redguard down there wasn't filling enough for me." She didn't hear Cosette suppress a gag as she hoisted up her rucksack, and Vinye decided she would not dignify that question with a response as the three mages began their short journey north.

But they hadn't even gone ten paces before Malys suddenly stopped. "That's weird," muttered the vampire, patting the burlap with a free hand. "I could have sworn this thing weighed almost as much as me … what the—?!"

A faint rustling noise informed the mages why Malys' pack had become so lightweight: the Dunmer had apparently tried to pack in too much for the journey throughout Skyrim. Add that to a few odd trinkets over the course of their trek, and it was no wonder that the rucksack had burst.

What was a wonder, however, was what came spilling out of the pack—a glowing, grayish-brown powder, finer than even sand. Already a sizable pile of the substance had formed to one side of Malys, and the Dunmer groaned as she set the still-leaking mass of burlap on the ground.

"Solyn's ash," Malys seethed. "Unbelievable. Some of it must've gotten trapped in the pack when he put that paralysis spell on us. Damn it, damn it, damn it all—I'm going to have to replace Azura only knows how many of my potions, food's all contaminated—ugh, and it's all over my robes, too!" she cried out, patting the black cloth over her backside, sweeping off yet more of the filth. "It's all worthless now!"

Malys kicked aside the now-useless rucksack in her annoyance and her haste to dust herself off, and the bag of spoiled rations and potions landed on the earth with a dull whump, several feet from the largest luminescent ash pile.

The ash moved.

No one noticed it at first: all three women had Ivarstead and the journey to Windhelm on their minds, and the ambient noise around them—the wind, the birdsong, and the odd noise of fauna on the forest floor—was initially loud enough to mask its presence. Even when they heard a low, guttural growling noise behind them, the mages had assumed it might be a fox.

So when Vinye, who was bringing up the rear, turned around involuntarily to notice what was actually behind them, she therefore screamed loud enough to surely be heard all the way up to the summit of the Throat of the World.

It certainly resembled a human, but only in form and stance; from there, any similarities ended. Its naked skin was dry and cracked, as though it had been carved very crudely from rough sandstone—by an artisan who had merely the slightest clue what a human was supposed to look like. Soft orange light shone from its two blank, wide eyes and from somewhere within its chest, and radiated a haze of heat that distorted its form further still. A crude imitation of a mouth produced the growling she'd initially mistaken as a fox—but now sounded like a corpse who was trying to breathe through a layer of dirt.

Cosette and Malys whirled around at Vinye's scream, and instantly both had magic in their hands as the creature raised a nasty-looking stone dagger in its hand.

"BACK!" Vinye felt the Breton shove her aside right as the creature's jagged blade sailed through the space where her neck had once been. Cosette followed up her attack with gouts of flame from both hands, while Malys supported her with a constant stream of super-chilled air. The barrage of simultaneous heat and cold could break any defense over time—quite literally so: the sheer difference in temperature between the two elements would shatter it like glass.

Clouds of steam erupted from the contact of fire and ice on … whatever it was, and Vinye fired several bolts into the vapor. There was silence, but none of the mages dared to lower their guard.

Their caution was well warranted: barely a second later, a gust of wind—apparently coming from within the steam—had dispelled the mist, revealing the humanoid shape; the assault had not damaged it one bit.

"Not even a scratch on that thing!" Malys was incredulous.

"I don't think any magic is going to work on it," Vinye called out to them. She fired a third bolt just to be sure, hitting the monster in the left shoulder—just in case her first two might have missed the mark. It didn't matter—the creature stumbled once, but Vinye's lightning glanced off it without any apparent effect.

"Run!" Malys was already making her way north to Ivarstead. Vinye knew what she was trying to do, and immediately set off in her wake—the Ivarstead guards could perhaps deal with this thing, if it was to follow them.

Again, no such luck: the creature lifted its hand, and fired an orange bolt of light that didn't quite look like fire. But the effect was immediate; as the missile hit a fair-sized tree right in front of them, the entire trunk splintered on impact, throwing shards of smoking wood in every direction. The damaged tree crashed to the ground a few seconds later.

Apparently we're not leaving without a fight, Vinye thought. She unclipped Kinsbane, and brandished it in her right hand as she called out to the other two mages. "Cosette, swords! Melee's our only chance! Malys—support us both from the back with your healing spells! This could be a long fight!"

No sooner had she spoken, though, than Cosette had already unhooked both of her Forsworn blades and charged straight for the monster. The Breton was a miniature whirlwind of stabbing and slicing; as she drew level with the creature, that whirlwind suddenly lashed out. One moment and a war cry from Cosette later, one of the blades had hacked right through the humanoid's right arm. It tumbled to the ground with a whump.

But Cosette was not done. The momentum she'd gained during the charge had put her nearly directly behind the creature—right in its blind spot. Vinye saw an opportunity, and promptly hurled Kinsbane with a grunt. The elven dagger buried itself hilt-deep in the monster's throat—but it didn't even stumble.

Vinye might have been worried about this development in any other situation, but the dagger had been a ruse: by the time the creature had reached to pluck the offending object out of its windpipe, Cosette had already begun her coup de grace. The Breton swung wide with both her blades, slicing deep into the creature's torso. The monster let out a loud, gurgling roar—and disintegrated into dust before their eyes.

There was a long moment of stunned silence before Cosette finally spoke up. "That was exhausting," she panted, as Vinye slid Kinsbane into her belt once more. "I barely managed to make all that swordplay pay off, it was so heavy. Whatever he was made of was pretty densely packed—it was like trying to cut through wet sand."

Malys found her voice. "What was that thing?"

"One of Solyn's, I just know it," Cosette grunted. "He obviously didn't want to leave any witnesses. Didn't you hear what he told us before he snapped us out of the ruin?"

Vinye had. I suggest you make haste. "But that doesn't explain where in Magnus' name it came from!" she pressed on.

"I know where it came from." Malys was kneeling down, inspecting some of the residue left behind by the monster. She did not sound happy as she ran some of the fine powder through her fingers. "And you're right, Cozy. This is definitely Solyn's work—it's more ash. But it isn't the same ash that he used for that paralysis spell. The magic surrounding it is different—I'd guess a reanimation spell of some kind."

"If it isn't from that spell," Vinye wondered, "then where—?"

The vampire was already turning her pack inside out, tossing potions and various odds and ends all over the grass. "I'm afraid I might know that too," she muttered. "But I'm really, really hoping I'm wrong." She studied a piece of torn fabric. Vinye thought she caught the drawstring of a coin purse.

Apparently, this must have been very disturbing to Malys, because the vampire had just stumbled back with a number of oaths to all manner of the Daedra. Both halves of her cloven face were locked in an expression of horror.

"Oh, no," she whispered. "I was right—I know where that monster came from."

She drew her hand inside the ruined cloth, and withdrew a single septim from within. But Malys closed the coin inside her fist; when she opened it back up, there was yet more of that brown ash.

Cosette was looking back and forth from the Dunmer to the ash pile on the ground. "Malys." She spoke slowly and deliberately, and her round face was quickly losing the little color it had left with each passing second. "Where did you get that coin?"

"I got it—I got them from … " And now it was Malys' turn to stutter. "From … "

"From?" Cosette put her hands on her hips, and Vinye thought she would have looked intimidating if she weren't already scared half to death.

Malys swallowed. " … From those sacks in the Midden." Her face sank lower and lower with every word she spoke. "I … might've … swiped a handful of coins when no one was looking … "

Vinye was about to launch into an angry tirade about how Malys had been stealing what was, strictly speaking, College property—and point out how she had apparently not learned her lesson after the Arch-Mage had caught her red-handed with Keening in his own bedchamber.

But just as she was about to open her mouth, something clicked in her head.

And all of a sudden, everything made sense.

She didn't quite understand why, but Vinye now knew what Solyn was planning—there was a reason why he had paid them so handsomely when they'd only been able to find Keening—only one single artifact. Before, she had guessed it was because of the legends and infamy that surrounded it, of its role in past history—of the untold power it had possessed. But none of those were the reason for it at all.

Those sacks of septims weren't Solyn's reward—they were his revenge.

Vinye suddenly felt sick. "Change of plans," she whispered, her voice shaking more than the tonal lock had shaken Arkngthamz. "Forget Windhelm, forget the High King. We have to get to Winterhold, fast."

"What about Solyn?" Cosette protested. "At the very least, we need to find out where he's gone!"

"Never mind him—the College is more important right now," said Malys. The vampire had gone white in the face, and had obviously come to the same conclusion as Vinye. She put as much emphasis as she could into her next words to underscore just how deeply in trouble the mages were:

"Because Dagoth Solyn is about to wipe it off the face of the earth."

Rkund

The constant drone of machinery was the only sound that echoed within the Reliquary. The great doors to the sanctum had opened, and then closed again, and for the past three hours, there had been no other break from the constant, rumbling song. Darkness shrouded the chamber completely: the braziers and the gas lamps that normally illuminated it had been extinguished so as not to interfere with what was presently taking place.

Dagoth Solyn had not moved in the time since he had teleported here from the Aetherium Forge deep underground, and sat down in the midst of the three plinths that had been carved to house Kagrenac's tools. Right now, neither the Forge nor the tools were the foremost thoughts in his mind.

In spite of the Chimer's considerable power, the liminal barriers of the Outer Realms still took time and care to scrye. There were only two ways out of that space—and one had been forged by his father's magic. But that had deposited Solyn in the vast, smoking crater that had once been the Red Mountain—so great was the eruption of Vvardenfell that the Dwarven citadels under the mountain had been completely pulverized. Nothing remained of his father's legacy there save for ash, and the foul wind that carried it.

At first, Solyn had been distraught—the last of the Sixth House had wept there, inside the crater, with none left to witness but the gods themselves. He had allowed himself that one moment of mortality, of weakness—before he rose up from the cracked and lifeless ash. He knew, in time, that this ash would bear new life. Vvardenfell would be verdant and prosperous once more, and it would once more be the seat of House Dagoth, as it had in those days.

As for Rkund … Solyn knew now why it existed, why it was designed the way it was—and why he had been destined to enter its deepest reaches from the beginning. There was something below the Reliquary—something below the point where even the Dwemer could not dig. But they had dug there—and Solyn, just before his journey to the Forge, had discovered who had told them to do it.

Yes: the rebellion and desertion of those Dwemer clans had been a ruse, covered up perfectly by the passage of time—and countless tons of ash. Lord Voryn and the rest of House Dagoth had sown the seeds of dissent, and convinced a number of the Dwemer that their race was destined for destruction. Thus had Dagoth Ur turned them away from the designs of their Tonal Lord Kagrenac, and instructed them to construct the citadel of Rkund as their fortress—the perfect fortress for the legacy of House Dagoth—to ensure their protection from the apocalypse that was to come.

When he had discovered and deciphered the incriminating tomes inside what remained of Rkund's library, Solyn knew. He had felt a great rush of affection for his father, who had given his life and immortality, his power and designs, and passed on the proverbial torch to his only son.

The proof of this lay before him, suspended in midair by the magic in his hands: a rough, rocky sphere, slightly larger than a man's fist, scored with cracks that glowed from within with the light of Red Mountain. For that was where Solyn had first discovered them; the eruption had scattered them as far north as Solstheim, and even as far south as the northernmost reaches of Black Marsh. The dark elves had been quick to call them heart stones for many reasons; the common Dunmer believed they were the essence of the heart of their old home of Morrowind—while the mystics of House Telvanni had been quick to call them the essence of the Heart of Lorkhan instead.

But Solyn knew differently—they were the essence of something else entirely: the heart of his father. And so he had made use of them, and had learned how to tap into the ancient magic of the Sixth House that had fused with the blasted remains of Red Mountain.

Which was exactly what he was doing right now.

A sudden spike of that magic suddenly alerted Solyn: the other pathway from the Outer Realms to Nirn—had been bridged. He concentrated his magic into a metaphysical spike, driving it through, widening the gap between planes in the place where the boundary was at its weakest: the tortured shade of a certain Breton wizard.

Arniel would neither go quietly nor without a fight, but there was no wizard in Tamriel—perhaps in all of Mundus—that could best Solyn for sheer aptitude in the arcane arts. The art of transliminal mechanics was child's play to the Chimer, and before long the liminal barrier that separated the two realms had been diverted to his desire.

This task complete, Solyn now waited a few interminable moments more, allowing his magickal energies to naturally recharge. He would not have much time to waste, as the heart stones from the Red Mountain—while gifted with enough extraordinary magic to alter the nature of the barrier, were far from the hyperagonal media needed to construct a more permanent transliminal gateway. But they would serve their purpose here—because it just so happened that Solyn knew where in Mundus to find a perfect hyperagonal medium.

And so he reached outward with his magic, allowing it to fill every nook and cranny of the Reliquary around him. Within the shadows that veiled it, something responded—then a second, and finally a third. Beady yellow eyes pierced the blackness, and a cacophony of dry, gurgling growls filled the room.

This would do.

Only then did Solyn finally move. It was not a drastic movement—merely a slight twitch of the fingers of his left hand—but it was enough. The heart stone bobbled slightly, but continued to levitate before him as flames the color of amethyst began to erupt from behind him …

Winterhold

… Sand is nothing but the weathering of rocks, older by far than any of the living inhabitants who claim a land as "theirs." As each rock breaks further, more of its inner space is revealed, until it is practically naught but exposed surface in its aggregate self. This collective then scatters, intermingles, scatters, and repeats, in infinite combinations so long as Nirn continues to exist. If we believe, as I do, that the rocks themselves contain remnants of Magnus' gift, then this exposure and combinatorial explosion results in a breadth and diversity of magic energy as is unknown elsewhere in Tamriel …

Grimnir Torn-Skull set aside the tome with a groan. He had taken up reading for the better of these past few weeks as a means to order his thoughts. However, try as the Dragonborn might, the words of Afa-Saryat continued to elude him; his mind was focused on other things.

So far as he knew, Drevis, Phinis, and Tolfdir were still down in the Midden, looking through the tens of thousands of septims given to them by Solyn. Calcelmo had followed through on his promise, meanwhile, and was sending another dozen of his personal guard from Markarth to Winterhold. Grimnir estimated they would arrive sometime tomorrow morning.

Yet he could not help but wonder if they might be enough. For the first time in over two hundred years, all three of Kagrenac's tools had been reunited—artifacts that had been created specifically to tap into the heart of a dead god. And they were only a hundred feet below his boots.

He heaved himself up from the desk with a grunt, thinking it was time he brewed himself some tea.

As he made his way to the laboratory nearby, Grimnir allowed himself a taste of the world outside his sanctuary. He faintly heard the burning and sizzling sounds of magic below—that was Faralda and Colette, he knew, helping to further test yet another new swarm of hopeful initiates into the College—followed each time by a faint rumbling growl: Urag found it very difficult to concentrate with all this noise, and had more than once come to complain to Grimnir on the matter.

To be fair, Grimnir had tried to do his part, for entirely different reasons. The fact of the matter was that so many of these applicants had crossed over the bridge in the last week that the Arch-Mage had been forced to turn many of them away. It wasn't for lack of skill, either—but for all its newfound fame, the College simply did not have "the space or the resources necessary to house and educate so many novices at this time," he recalled from memory; he'd had to write the same unapologetic notice of rejection to the point where he had had to have Colette, bless her heart and skill, see to his aching hand.

Grimnir hoped that situation would change. Magic was still a deeply misunderstood force in Tamriel, especially in Skyrim, his home; even those who called him a hero and a legend knew precious little about the magic unique to those few who were born with the Dragon Blood.

Presently, he stopped at the laboratory, and proceeded to collect a few odds and ends for his tea—a pinch of bone meal, a bit of blood from a Dremora's heart, and some honey and lavender for taste. It had been a gift from Neloth during one of Grimnir's sojourns to Solstheim, when one of their conferences on the ins and outs of the arcane had devolved into an exchange of some of the more outlandish tea recipes that the Telvanni wizard had drunk in his day.

Grimnir had privately reflected that there might be some merit to Solstheim's claims of Neloth being a madman.

But to his surprise, the Arch-Mage had found that this tea quite suited him perfectly. Dragonborn Grimnir might be, but he was getting on in years—and one pot of the strange brew helped him to feel like a mage at the peak of his prime once more.

He prepared the ingredients, and heated the kettle, thinking he might see Drevis in the Midden after he'd had a cup or so, and check on the Dunmer's progress below. For now, though, he decided to resume his reading. The Arch-Mage strode back to his desk, where Wind and Sand still lay, and resumed where he'd left off:

Much as the sand learns from every grain around it, so too does the air, which conveys it from one combination to the other, absorb the sense-knowledge of its carried grains. In fact, it is plausible that the air itself is guiding the combinations to novelty and expression. Indeed, consider that in the Nordic tradition, Kyne is the widow of Shor (an aspect of Lorkhan), then her ministrations (via wind) to his physical legacy within Mundus could be seen as a form of celestial mourning, from which we mortals can benefit.

It would seem, indeed, that the next level of magical awakening may well be—

A sudden, loud noise caused Grimnir to leap to his feet, sending Wind and Sand tumbling to the floor. The Dragonborn watched in confusion as a bluish-white portal exploded into being before his eyes.

In any other situation, Grimnir would not be confused, nor would he even be worried. Those bluish flames were unique to only one summons he had ever encountered—and Grimnir could summon him simply by uttering his name.

Except he had done no such thing.

But regardless, what little remained of Arniel Gane was quickly materializing before his eye, and the insane shade of the Breton looked in dire straits indeed. "The devil wakes!" he cried out constantly, ghostly hands to his ears and stumbling wildly inside the shimmering portal. His otherworldly voice echoed off the rafters. "The devil wakes! The devil wakes! The devil wakes! The devil wa—"

There was a noise like a white-hot spear piercing a thick sheet of ice. Arniel Gane turned over his shoulder, showing Grimnir the sizzling dagger that had suddenly pierced his throat, and disappeared with a final moan.

But his portal did not—and now, Grimnir heard footsteps. Solid ones, too—not from a ghost—and belonging to more than one owner.

The portal now flared, and the Arch-Mage was forced to don Morokei—one of the eight masks in his collection, belonging to the dragon priest who had once ruled Labyrinthian with an iron fist—to shield his eyes from the light.

When it subsided, and the portal faded into nothingness, Grimnir lowered his hand from his mask—and his confusion augmented further still as he saw the beings that had emerged in Arniel's wake—tall, bipedal, with a hellish glow that lit their earthen bodies from within.

He knew what they were—he'd seen these creatures before. But that only raised further questions—what in the name of Akatosh were they doing here?!

Grimnir's hands instinctively erupted in magic—one with super-chilled air, another with lightning—and he sent a thunderbolt right into the chest of the lead monster, and a long spear of ice into the one on its left, the one that had stabbed Arniel. The creatures staggered back from the force of the spell, but otherwise appeared unhurt.

That vexed the Arch-Mage severely—the creatures he had faced years ago were nearly immune to fire magic, but not to ice or lightning. These were different than before; they were all but immune to conventional destruction spells now—and Grimnir wondered if they had learned since he had been to Solstheim, if perhaps they had adapted, gotten stronger and smarter.

This was a problem—he would need to use more unconventional magic against them.

He inhaled, and drew himself backward, concentrating every ounce of his unique magic into his throat.

"Fus … Ro DAH!"

It felt as if he was a young lad again. The first Words of the dragon language that Grimnir had ever learned echoed through the hall. Then there was a clap of thunder, and a blue wind that filled the hall in seconds and sent the monsters flying into the opposite wall. One of them hit a window, which shattered against its weight—but the creature carried on, propelled away from the College by the force of Grimnir's Voice.

It was a long way down to the Sea of Ghosts.

The other two, meanwhile, slowly stumbled to their feet. One of them fired a salvo of firebolts from its hands at Grimnir, which he easily deflected with a ward. The Arch-Mage was more worried about its companion, which had just brought its clawed hands together with a snarl, producing a jagged, glowing weapon from within its palms that resembled a very heavy spear. This it brandished at Grimnir with both hands, wielding it like a claymore.

The Arch-Mage responded by enveloping his hands in violet flames. He spread them out at arm's length, waiting a dangerous split second before releasing the spell. There was one amethyst-colored explosion, then another—and two spectral wyrms arose from the purple fire, circling their glowing serpentine bodies around Grimnir.

He flicked his wrists, and the wyrms were upon his opponents with a snarl, binding the monsters tightly and crushing them in their grip like a snake would its meal. It only took ten seconds for them to disintegrate into dust from the force of Grimnir's summons, weapons and all—but Grimnir knew that wasn't dust collecting on the floor.

Before the sounds of battle had dissipated, his fingers had already begun to glow with a warm amber color, and Grimnir directed his hand at the piles of ash, searching with his magic for anything larger than an apple. Within seconds he found it—a dark ball of rock, slightly smaller than his fist, that glowed with a deep red light. One in each pile of ash, one for each monster—including, he assumed, for the one he had shouted out of the window.

These rocks, too, he recognized—they were not uncommon in the desolation of Morrowind and Solstheim. Indeed, some of the more powerful wizards of the region had funded mining operations to extract them from the hardened ash, so they could—

The septim dropped.

And now, Grimnir was worried enough by the magnitude of what he'd just figured out that he didn't hear Faralda's footsteps until the Altmer was right beside him.

"We heard you shout from the lecture hall," gasped Faralda in her exhaustion from running. "What happened up here?"

Behind the mask of Morokei, Grimnir's face tensed. "Find Colette at once. Tell her to gather all the students and staff in the Hall of Attainment. Then sound the alarm and make haste to Winterhold!" he ordered. "Alert Jarl Korir that the College is under attack!"

Faralda dared not argue with him. She took one look at the piles of ash on the floor and ran out of the room. Grimnir followed close behind her, his eye set on the Midden, Tolfdir, and all the magickal might he could spare. He knew what he had just faced in his quarters was merely an advance guard—scouts for the larger, deadlier force.

But the Dragonborn did not know how near that force actually was—or that he was walking right into a trap.

In the silence of the Reliquary, Solyn heard a Voice.

Then, all at once, the Chimer's concentration was disturbed; a prickling sensation erupted on his palm, the one that had been holding the heart stone. There was a brief stab of cold, then a slight numbness.

His glowing golden eyes shot open as the foreign words invaded his ears, and he felt a brief wind pass over his face. The numbness in his hand had faded, and in the back of his mind he sensed that the heart stone had fallen from his hand, and rolled on the floor away from him. He paid it no heed—for only the second time in four thousand years, Solyn's mind was perturbed; this was a development he had not been expecting.

The advance guard he had sent to Winterhold had fallen, he instinctively knew. That was quicker than he had expected; the mages of that College were certainly adept, but these had been created specifically to combat their woefully limited magic. Still, the fact remained that they had been dispatched not even a minute after he had sent them there.

He had done so via a quick detour through the Outer Realms, of course—courtesy of Arniel Gane and his time there—to throw off any chance of tracing them back to him. Solyn was a cautious elf, both in his actions and his thoughts; he had known from the start that his subordinates were not completely invincible. And yet …

His eyes widened. Of course! There was one magic that he had not accounted for, simply because much like him, it was very rare, unseen in the world for hundreds of years.

A Dragonborn in Winterhold, Solyn thought—right under my nose. The Chimer almost laughed out loud at this: even now, after millennia of seclusion and study, he was still making discoveries that surprised him to no end. It was shameful, really, to pass on such a unique opportunity to study this incredible magic—this Voice.

But the will of his Lord Voryn could not be denied, Solyn knew. House Dagoth had come too far to be stopped now—he could not risk his father's hard work for a passing whim. This Dragonborn was fascinating, and worth a more in-depth study in the future—but at present, he was a danger; he could no longer be allowed to intervene.

It was time, Solyn knew. The Dragonborn, along with the three mages he'd encountered in the Forge, were the biggest threat to his plans. But the Dragonborn was still only one man, and the mages were still a day's trek from the College at the very least—more than enough time to accomplish the next step.

He reached into his robe, and produced a second heart stone from its folds. This one was bigger, and glowed far brighter than the mere sample he'd been using to observe the first wave. It would take more of his magic, certainly—and indeed, far more of his concentration as well. But all the pieces of the puzzle were in place; at this point in time, Dagoth Solyn just needed them here before him.

And while he was at it, he reflected, maybe he could use what he had learned thus far to plan further ahead. That Aetherium Forge was a fascinating contraption indeed, he mused. Perhaps it was time he had one of his own …

The Midden

Drevis Neloren felt the surge of magickal energy a fraction of an instant before his eyes, still under the influence of the scrying-smoke, detected a bright orange glow within each of the sacks. It was highly defined too—to the point where the Dunmer could not only tell that it was spherical, but that it was also an imperfect sphere, scored with vertical gashes around its axis.

Without thinking, Drevis lunged for the nearest sack—one that had not yet been searched by the others—and reached deep inside it.

Tolfdir's eyes snapped open at the noise, and peered in his direction, but the old Nord did not stir otherwise. "Drevis?" he asked, instantly concerned for his colleague. "What is it?"

Drevis merely grunted in response, still intent on finding whatever was inside. He felt the still-slightly dirty septims slide over his arm, and was taken aback by how warm they felt—not hot to the touch, but enough so that it felt like a pleasant summer's day inside. This magicka that the object inside was giving off must be incredible—to the point where it was altering the ambient temperature around it!

His palm suddenly brushed against something that was definitely not a septim—it was rough, and rocky, and instinctively Drevis knew that this was the object he had sensed just now. He moved to pull it out, and give it a closer examination.

"I've got something!" he yelled, and everyone, guards and all, sprang to their feet.

But something was wrong. The septims did not feel like septims anymore—they were losing their metallic touch, and, as Drevis discovered when he opened the sack wider, their golden luster. Indeed, the more he pulled the foreign object out, the more dirty they seemed to feel. By the time Drevis finally fished out the foreign object, the contents of the sack felt more like sand than any sort of money.

He had only a glimpse of the object—a blasted brown rock pockmarked with holes and gashes—and then the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He had been in Solstheim long enough to know what this was—and he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

He could only help save everyone else before it was too late.

"Get out!" he roared at the mages and the guards, who seemed anxious, but did not move to heed his orders. "Now, damn it all, no—!"

Many things happened then, and within a few seconds' time: something stirred within the sack, and Drevis felt a jerk as that something tried to wrest the heart stone from his grip.

Instinctively, he looked downward at whatever was grappling with him, and Drevis thought he saw the shape of a hand, crudely hewn as if from rock, for a split second. Then something lunged at him from within the bag; there was a snarl, and a flash of red light—and something hit Drevis' chest like a fist.

The Dunmer did not scream in pain—he could not. He only had time to stand up, turn around, and show a stunned Brelyna Maryon the smoldering crater where his heart and lungs had been just seconds ago.

For a moment, Drevis Neloren heard screaming, and felt the cold of Winterhold spreading through his body as he toppled backward.

The next, he felt nothing at all.

Next chapter: Grimnir's mastery of the Voice is put on full display—but such power comes with a very great risk.