XXII

Grimnir could not believe it.

One moment, Dagoth Solyn had been right in front of him, consumed by bluish-white flames and infinite darkness. The three novices had stood in between the two, wards at the ready to fend off the expanding wave of magic. And then ... everything had simply vanished. The fire, Solyn, the mages—they were all gone. Only the artifacts he had created yet remained, sitting innocently in the exact spot of the pavilion where the Chimer had vanished.

But they couldn't be gone.

Grimnir stood there, refusing to believe it. His eyes roved over the smooth stone platform, taking in the flawlessness of the stone. It was almost too flawless, he thought, considering what had just happened, only the constant ash falls generated from the molten lake around them prevented it from becoming totally smooth. There was absolutely no trace that anyone else besides Grimnir had ever existed in this space.

They couldn't be gone.

No—Grimnir was sure of this. There would have to be some trace of their disappearance—some kind of debris, no matter how big or small. But there wasn't anything—not even a trace of dust. He ran his finger along the platform, just to be sure: nothing.

There were laws against this, the Arch-Mage knew—nothing could ever be completely created or destroyed, but only converted from one form to another. Water did not disappear when it was boiled beneath the flame, only turned into steam. In the same manner, atronachs did not suddenly appear out of thin air—they were transported through the liminal barrier between Mundus and Oblivion—

Grimnir stopped in his tracks. Could it really be that simple?

Immediately, he stiffened, and was alert—this was not the time to grieve, nor the time to lick wounds and recover. The Dragonborn raised his hands, and reached out with his magicka, preparing the best scrying spell he was capable of. If he was right … if he was lucky, very lucky … there would have to be some kind of sign …

Cosette's entire world was pain.

But pain meant she was still alive—if only for the moment. She gave a long, low grunt of pain; with great effort, she willed herself to move a muscle—any muscle—and her eyes forced themselves open as if they weighed a ton.

She was lying on what looked like—and felt like—a dried riverbed. The ground beneath the Breton was cracked from untold years of drought, and just looking at it made Cosette thirsty.

The land around them was entirely barren—no trees, no shrubs, not even grass. The sky seemed to hang inches over their heads—or perhaps it was whole miles; no one could be sure, as there didn't seem to be either clouds or stars in the violet-colored sky.

It was not completely bare, however; the land in the immediate area looked just as scarred as any battlefield—although, Cosette noticed, several of those scars appeared to be full of molten lava. As if this was not strange enough, others had bits of Dwarven metal scattered here and there. The entire scene was enough to give Cosette strength enough to sit up and ask the foremost question on her mind.

"Where the hell are we?" she croaked, to no one in particular. For this looked like no place she had ever seen before in her life or her imagination. Her first thought had been the sands of the Alik'r desert in Hammerfell, but even those, surely, were not so inhospitable as … wherever they were right now.

Malys was lost for words completely as she took in the sights—Cosette couldn't blame her; she still couldn't comprehend why or how the vampire had suddenly Shouted just like the Dragonborn. She would have to ask later, however—right now, the mages had much bigger problems to deal with right now.

Vinye, meanwhile, looked just as scared as she was puzzled as she took in her surroundings, and when she finally answered Cosette, it didn't sound as though she wanted to believe what she herself was saying.

" … I-I think we're in the Outer Realms," the Altmer stammered after a while.

"What?!" Cosette whirled around at her. "How can you be sure of that?!"

"Think back." Vinye pointed around them. "Solyn wanted to make Grimnir spend four thousand years in the Outer Realms, just like him. All that fire he was throwing at the Arch-Mage—I don't think it was fire. I think it was a way to get here."

Malys looked her confusion. Cosette imagined her expression was much the same.

"Look around us," Vinye told them, pointing to the scars in the land around them, and the lava inside several of them. "Some of that fire Solyn conjured got blasted back into the lava all around the Forge. I'd wager my last septim that all that lava ended up here."

"Just like that portal," said Malys. "But if that's the case … where's Solyn?"

The three mages looked around, but there was no sign of the Chimer—there were not even footprints leading out from there they'd woken up.

"Maybe he appeared someplace different," Vinye thought out loud.

Malys shook her head. "I think if he had, he'd have found us already—and we'd already be dead." Her split face suddenly fell. "You don't think—!"

Cosette was certainly thinking—but she wasn't happy. She felt that familiar rage inside her returning—she had wanted to kill Solyn, to exact her revenge for the way he had cheated her out of killing Taron—but the consuming storm felt more distant this time. Compared to her current predicament, it was a mere rumble on the horizon.

She felt powerless.

"You saw that, right?" Vinye was asking in the meantime. "Those two Daedra?"

"Is that what they were?" Malys was incredulous. "I thought I recognized one of their voices, but—"

"I recognized them both," said Cosette—it was only fair she come clean for this. "We all know the big one was Malacath, but I'm almost certain the other one was Peryite—I had words with him after I recovered the Spellbreaker."

The trio sat there in silence for a long while, thinking about the implications of what might have happened to bring two Daedric Princes onto Mundus in such a way, and in such a temper. And there was still the looming question.

Where was Dagoth Solyn?

Cosette didn't want to accept that he might be dead—but the magnitude of what had happened was finally beginning to sink in. The fact that those two Princes had shown up, and the way they had spoken to Solyn, made the odds that he had survived unscathed less than zero.

But if so, where was his body? The Chimer had caused whatever had brought the three mages here, as far as Cosette was concerned—that fire and the portal to … wherever this place was … had come from him.

Suddenly, something caught her eye, far off in the distance. It was hard to tell, but against the uniform sky—

"Lights!" Suddenly the Breton was pointing in the direction of where she'd seen them. "Behind that hill—look!"

Both elves turned to follow her finger, and Cosette's mind was buzzing as she stared at the mysterious illumination—the lights did not flicker and fade, as they would with a fire. "Let's check it out," the Breton offered, "but stay alert; I'm getting a bad feeling about all this."

And indeed, Cosette wasn't the only one. As the trio proceeded towards the source of the lights, none of them were entirely sure what they would find on the other side of the ridge—or whether that discovery would prove to be more dangerous than even Solyn.

As they drew closer and closer to the hillside, all five soon began to feel a rumbling under their feet—not that of an earthquake: it was more of a vibrating sensation, as if great engines the size of entire keeps were churning beneath the earth. Vinye was quick to equate the noises to the rumbling noises that constantly dominated the Dwemer ruins.

For a moment, this had left the mages in shock. "You don't think this is another part of Rkund, do you?" Cosette asked, her round face fearful. "Or maybe one more of those claudi-whatever spells Solyn set up around the ruins?"

Claudication, Vinye thought with the faintest trace of annoyance. Even so, if it hadn't been for past evidence, she might be inclined to believe Cosette. It was entirely possible that Solyn had meant to transport them here, with no way of getting back—none that they could see, anyway. He would then finish them off here, without Grimnir to assist them in their battle.

However, Vinye knew her memory could not be denied. She knew the truth of what she'd seen and heard. They were within the Outer Realms, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And if Solyn had intented to bring them to this place, they would almost certainly have found him—

"Wait," Malys suddenly spoke up. "Someone's up ahead."

Vinye did a double take. Not at the fact that Malys had noticed this first—her vampiric eyesight was far more acute than hers—but that there was someone else inside the Realms, and so near to them, too! Something was telling her this was not mere coincidence.

She immediately tensed, ready to flood this entire hillside with lightning if need be. "Is it Solyn?" she asked Malys.

The dark elf narrowed her glowing eyes. "I don't think so," she said, puzzled. "It looks like a ghost … no, it couldn't be … "

She mumbled indistinctly to herself for a while longer, occasionally nodding or shaking her head—and suddenly she tensed.

One second later, Malys was racing past Vinye and Cosette. "It is him!" she was shouting over and over again as Vinye hurried behind her. "It's him—it's really him!"

"Slow down, Malys," Cosette soothed, hurrying up to her and throwing out a hand before the Dunmer could get any more excited. "What are you talking about?"

They approached the figure Vinye presumed she had seen—or at least, the shade of one; its wide, translucent eyes glowed in fear, and it shied away from them all.

And then it saw Malys.

Vinye could not be sure why, but once the shade had seen the vampire, it had changed almost immediately. No longer was back away, frightened of them, and no longer did it seem to question why they were here; instead, it drew itself up to its full height—almost as tall as Malys—and its eyes were now so bright that the Altmer felt laid bare before them.

"Malys," she asked, "who is this? Do you know him?"

"I do," Malys replied, her voice suddenly quiet. "It's Arniel Gane."

Arniel Gane … Vinye thought there was something familiar about that name. Where had she—

" … may have lost his body and mind, but he was still useful to me—more so than while he was alive … he did help me to discover the link between Nirn and the Realms … "

And Vinye understood. Solyn had used Arniel as an anchor to return to Mundus from the Realms.

"How do you know him?" Cosette asked, sizing up the new arrival with an expression Vinye had never seen before. "What's he doing here?"

"The Arch-Mage said he used to be with the College at one time," Malys replied. Her glowing eyes were not breaking contact with Arniel's own, not even to blink. "Even helped him out with a project about the Dwemer. Somehow, they got their hands on Keening, and did some kind of experiment with it. That experiment must have sent Arniel here, and made him like this." She swept an arm in the shade's direction. "He's completely mindless now—I think."

"Deep … drums … deep, it runs," Arniel suddenly spoke. His voice was like the death rattle of a lich, and Vinye felt her insides freezing up at the unearthly, echoing sounds. There was power behind this voice—untold amounts of power, but not a single ounce of control, and Vinye was unsure which of these scared her more.

Arniel's translucent head suddenly snapped in Malys' direction. "The devil?" he whispered.

Vinye and Cosette traded looks of confusion, and again when Malys—who apparently seemed to understand what the shade was saying—gave her reply. "We don't know," she said hesitantly, as if she herself didn't believe it. "He didn't come with us."

She turned to Vinye and Cosette. "I think 'the devil' is his way of asking about Solyn," she explained. "There were a lot of people in those days who called his father, Dagoth Ur, the devil himself. And after what Dagoth's son did to him to return to Tamriel … " Malys raised a hand here, as if to lay it on Arniel's shoulder, but her hand passed right through him as if it was nothing.

"Not … devil … " rasped Arniel suddenly. Vinye thought the shade might have been struggling, as if something was holding him back from saying what he wanted to say. "Devil … pain … deep … drums … body … "

And then there was a flash of light, and Arniel lurched backward with a terrible, earsplitting scream. His translucent form crackled with lightning, and the shade thrashed about, shrieking incoherently. Vinye leapt backward in horror as bolts rained down around them, and held up a ward to deflect those nearest to burning a hole through her body.

At length, Arniel eventually stopped writhing about, and was silent again. All eyes were on Malys as the mages silently begged her for an answer.

It took some time for Malys to snap out of it, and notice that Vinye and Cosette were expecting a reply. She gulped uneasily. "Whatever that was," she eventually said, "Dagoth Solyn wasn't responsible for it—and somehow I don't think the trip here gave him that kind of power."

She turned back to Arniel. "Who did this to you?" she asked gently. "Who else knows you're here?"

Slowly, wordlessly—almost carefully—Arniel Gane pointed up the hillside they were traversing, where the lights they had been pursuing were coming from.

In less than a minute, they crested the hill—and Vinye was floored by what they saw.

Dwemer towers: dozens of them, more than they'd yet seen in one place, had been erected before them in the valley beyond, miles away from where they were standing. The smallest of these were still dozens of feet high, and became progressively larger further inward—almost like a giant pyramid, Vinye thought. The tallest spires were lost to sight among the violet-gray clouds, but from what she could tell, that still meant these towers were hundreds of feet high—perhaps even as tall as the Numidium!

Between them and the massive complex of stone and golden metal was a long, thin thread of road, impossibly flat and straight. Massive slabs of stone, high and wide as any house, were some distance away on either side of this road. As Arniel led then further along this road, it struck Vinye how meticulously these house-size stones had been placed—they were evenly spaced, and perfectly parallel with this straight path. In fact, it almost looked as though they were the exact same size and shape as one another.

The rumbling noises were getting louder.

Then Vinye drew closer, and gasped as she stones became more detailed, allowing her to see what they truly were—not merely house-like, these rocks actually were houses! Arniel did not pause in his step, but Vinye lingered behind for only a moment to let her green eyes rove over the intricate stonework of the dwelling. It certainly looked Dwemer, that much was clear—but if there was any metal to be found in its construction, Vinye wasn't seeing any.

But there was one thing she noticed: the more houses they passed, the bigger they were becoming.

As she continued on, and caught up with Arniel and the others, a very strange thought was taking form in her mind. Malys' current observation wasn't helping to dispel it in the slightest.

"Have you had a look at this road?" the Dunmer was saying to her. "It's smooth. Not from time, mind. There's no wear and tear to be found here at all—not even so much as a crumble of rock out of place. This is recent."

Vinye stopped briefly enough to brush her hand over the surface, and was surprised—it was indeed smooth, almost like rough ice.

Cosette, meanwhile, looked uneasy as she leveled with Arniel. "Who else is here?" she asked the shade.

Arniel did not answer. Maybe because he wouldn't—or maybe, Vinye thought, as memories of the unexpected lightning from earlier resurfaced in her mind's eye, because he couldn't; he didn't want to risk the same thing happening again, in the midst of this unexpected civilization.

But they need not have worried; presently, Arniel stopped in front of the biggest dwelling they had yet encountered. It was easily twice as large as any mansion in Solitude—but it was clearly no mansion. The sounds that Vinye was hearing from inside it were more akin to the average town blacksmith: the monotonous thunder of hammer on anvil, the hiss and shriek of hot metal on water, and the whoosh of air from the bellows that stoked the fires—all on a scale a hundred times larger than any blacksmith in Skyrim was capable of.

Between them and this building was a great round pavilion that Vinye thought might be a marketplace of some description: a circular pavilion, almost as wide as that of the lowest levels of Rkund, with an eight-sided fountain in the center. There was enough space here for dozens of merchants, she imagined, each one plying a cart full of wares to passersby all around. It struck her how such an active place could be so deserted right now, she thought.

Only it wasn't deserted—five figures had suddenly emerged from the enormous forge beyond, all of them tall and thin enough to pass for high elves. But Vinye could see several things off about their appearance in that regard: where an Altmer's skin could be anywhere from golden to olive green, theirs were much more pale—so much so that Vinye wondered how long it had been since they'd seen the sun, or even if this place had a sun. Most of this near-colorless flesh was concealed by robes of a flowing golden brown, decorated with golden and silver patterns of lines and right angles.

Their faces, however, were not so concealed—and this also allowed Vinye to notice another oddity of these "elves": their almond-shaped eyes were a uniform jet-black, much like those of the thief Rolega instead of the green- and amber-colored eyes favored by the high elves. These eyes were completely emotionless, and Vinye could not tell whether or not they were staring at her. These elves did not speak, but the message in their gaze was clear.

You can go no further.

But even as she took a step back from the group, Vinye was especially struck by the beards of these elves—the overwhelming majority of them were jet black in color, though others were brown or rust-colored. The eldest of the five had either steel-gray whiskers, and a select few even had beards as white as snow. And then there were the fullness of these beards; the shortest of them still reached down to their chests—

And that was when the truth of the discovery hit Vinye like the punch of a steam centurion. She could not believe what she was seeing.

These weren't just elves—they were Dwemer.

Real, living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Dwemer.

She could not speak—her mind was racing, trying its utmost to find something—anything to say to bridge the gap between the three mages and the fabled Lost Race of Tamriel.

I am honored to be in your presence—no, no, much too deferential; it bordered on boot-kissing—

Do you know what we went through to get this far? Truthful, but no, that was too accusing—

"You're taller than I thought you'd be."

Time, space, and the entire world around them froze as mage and dwarf alike stared at Malys. The vampire's glowing eyes were wide as coins, and she had a blank look on her face, as if it was only now apparent that she had been the first person to start a conversation with a Dwemer in centuries—if not entire millennia—and that this was how she had chosen to start it.

And then, something even more unthinkable happened: Cosette laughed. And suddenly Malys was laughing, and Vinye found herself joining in against all better judgment. The five Dwemer stood there, their pale faces furrowed in confusion, and for some reason that just made the three mages laugh even more.

It was a needed moment, Vinye would think later. They—three novices and a Dragonborn, wherever Grimnir might be—had just taken down one of the most powerful sorcerers that the world had ever seen. There was no greater reward to be had after making a moment like that possible—save for each other's companionship.

Although, Vinye conceded, the discovery they'd helped to make certainly came close: after nearly four thousand years of mystery, confusion, and debate, the lost race of the Dwemer had finally been discovered and contacted.

The Altmer smiled inwardly. She was looking forward to writing a book on this.

Fortunately, the humor of the situation helped to break the ice after the awkward introduction, and soon the mages and the Dwemer were chatting away at each other, telling of how they had come to this point in time, and learning things they had not dared give even the slightest dream. Of course, neither could apparently speak the language of the other—especially so for the mages. As a result, they were forced to use Arniel as a translator, as he alone seemed to have at least a cursory understanding of the Dwemer language. The shade of the mad Breton could only talk in fragments, however, meaning that much of whatever the dwarves had to say was forever lost in translation.

It was almost ironic, Vinye thought; Arniel Gane had given up everything he had—body, mind, and perhaps even his soul—just to figure out what had happened to the Dwemer. He had succeeded, even though he had been irreversibly altered as a result. But now, it seemed likely that he was the only one who knew the dwarves were still alive and well, after nearly four thousand years gone from Mundus without a trace.

Well, her mind quickly amended, not anymore, anyway.

Then Malys asked, "Will you be coming back?"

There was silence from the Dwemer, before they muttered to and amongst themselves. Everyone turned to Arniel for a translation, and the shade of the wizard heaved an otherworldly sigh.

"Cannot … say," he spoke. "Cannot … speak … geas … "

"Geas?" Malys wondered out loud. Vinye found herself confused as well—she'd not heard that word before.

"It's an ancient form of dark magic," Cosette spoke up just then. Her voice was unusually soft. "Over in High Rock, it was big in the First and Second Eras, but these days you only see it in covens that practice hedge-magic, like what the Forsworn use. Geasa are like curses, they're placed on people. They're used to … keep them in line."

"Meaning?" Malys pressed on, but Vinye thought she understood.

"Imagine you have your own Argonian slave," Cosette told the vampire. "Only you don't want him blabbing your secret to the whole wide world. Chains and gags can only take you so far, but a geas takes you one step further. One incantation is all it takes for it to take effect—and whoever or whatever the curse is placed on can never speak of a certain event again. Your secret is safe with the rest of the world, for as long as the geas is in effect."

Malys looked from her to Arniel and back again. "Can it be broken?" she asked.

"It can," Cosette replied, "but one of two things has to happen. First is that most geasa are absolute—they can only be broken by the person who cast them in the first place. I say most, because magic like that is very specific—you have to know precisely what you want to say."

Malys furrowed her split brow. "And the other thing?"

"It's … not that geasa are unbreakable by their nature," said Cosette. "Although they're pretty damn close. It's only that most people who try to force their way out of a geas end up dead."

She smiled thinly. "Usually in a very messy way."

Vinye winced, imagining a glowing rune encircling a man's mouth and face before detonating in a shower of blood and gore. She debated asking what good a geas did when placed on someone who was—for all intents and purposes—no longer a living being.

Then she remembered that she was standing among the most intelligent race of beings that Nirn had ever produced. If there was a way around it, then the chances were that the Dwemer had found a way to bind Arniel's shade to their will. Part of her wondered if this was the reason he always talked in such a broken manner—this geas must have tortured Arniel past the breaking point.

He was completely mindless now—just another puppet of the Dwemer.

Suddenly, the dwarves stopped talking in murmurs, and one of their number stood up from his table. Vinye guessed from his long, stiff, snow-white beard, and how straightly he carried himself, that this must be one of their leaders—if not the leader. The elf's black, almond-shaped eyes sparkled, even in the dim torchlight. It was both mystifying and unsettling, and Vinye was not sure which one might be more applicable.

"I am Tonographer Nchubthngth," he introduced himself in a low, stilted voice. He did not extend a hand—or indeed, any gesture of welcome. "I was among the lowest ranks of Tonal Architects who followed Lord Kagrenac."

Some part of Vinye was not surprised in the slightest that this Dwemer could speak fluent Cyrodiilic all this time. Malys, however, certainly looked shocked—and Cosette looked indignant. But Vinye, for the most part, was intrigued—a Dwemer who knew Kagrenac personally?

"When we first arrived here," Nchubthngth began, "we had no method of recorporating into the Mundus. The liminal barriers that separate these Outer Realms from the majority of the Aurbic Planes cannot ordinarily be circumpenetrated in a transpontine manner. Even the use of most hyperagonal media, as with the Sigil Stones of Oblivion, would have discorporated their user before the conclusion of the appropriate incantation. Indeed, the only medium capable of producing the requisite energies to make possible this circumpenetration is an Aedric Stone, or some other artifact of Aedric nature—such as the Heart of Lorkhan."

"I understood them better when Arniel was the one speaking for them," Cosette whispered in an undertone. Vinye hushed her with a wave of her hand as Nchubthngth continued his dissertation, without regard for his audience.

"Kagrenac captured the transfinite energies of the Heart of Lorkhan with his own enchantments," said the dwarf. "It was his intention to transfer that Aedric energy to the others of our race, that we might be consubstantial with the Numidium, the Walk-Brass Tower, whose Stone was to be consubstantial with our combined essence."

In essence, becoming gods, Vinye thought. In truth, she couldn't understand a single word that Nchubthngth was saying—underscoring further still the divide between the Dwemer and the rest of the world. But there were many scholarly texts on the matter of the dwarves' quest for apotheosis, and more learned minds than she were aware of the ploys of the Dwemer. The Heart of Lorkhan had been their tool to godhood—perhaps even the "Stone", as they put it, which powered the golem Numidium.

"However," said Nchubthngth, sucking air through his teeth, "there is no way to properly misinterpret what happened next: something went wrong.

"I watched Kagrenac as he lifted his Tools to the Heart, preparing to transfer himself to the Numidium, whereupon we would all follow in kind," the dwarf explained. He had dispensed with what had, up to this point, been a rather erudite demeanor, and now his speech was beginning to sound strangely poetic.

"The shockwave came, and encompassed us all in its wake," Nchubthngth went on. "But the light never came—there was only darkness, and then there was the beyond, and finally beyond even that. We were scattered to the furthest reaches of Aetherius. Only a few of us ended up here; the others you see around me are the progenies of those few. Where the others were sent to cannot be currently ascertained; as far as my … not inconsiderable knowledge informs me, I am the only survivor of that regrettable incident."

"You keep talking as though this is just a setback," Malys challenged them. "But you haven't answered my question. Will you be coming back?!"

Again the dwarves talked among themselves in mutters and murmurs. "Until he inadvertently circumpenetrated the barrier with Keening," Nchubthngth explained, indicating Arniel with a dispassionate flicker of his dark eyes, "we did not possess the resources necessary to repeat the process here, and this plane is vast enough—perhaps infinitely so—that we had no knowledge this Solyn was in the same space until after your companion disclosed as much to us.

"That having been said, however," Nchubthngth went on, "now that the liminal barrier has been demonstrably breached in a manner suitable for transport of living flesh and blood, it is theoretically possible for the Dwemer to return—with the assistance of your colleague, of course. Whether he is willing or not shall be ascertained in—"

He paused, hmph-ing to himself. "Well, I do not believe we are willing to disclose that particular achievement," he continued. "But the Dwemer may return to Tamriel one day, perhaps in the distant future, long after the time-threads of your lives have unraveled. In the meantime, we will resume our efforts to apotheosize our people."

He leveled a dark stare at the three mages; his eyes were no longer twinkling. "And this time around, we will be successful."

Vinye felt a shiver creep down her spine. This Dwemer spoke with absolute surety; he knew they would eventually return. And if Vinye was honest, the prospect of an entire race of xenophobic slave drivers with god-like power and intelligence—and near-zero regard for life around them—was nothing short of terrifying.

There was already one of those living on Nirn right now.

"And Dagoth Solyn?" Cosette asked; Vinye could hear the hesitation in her voice. "Arniel told us he isn't here. So where else could he have gone?"

"Dagoth?" Nchubthngth's brow furrowed only the tiniest perceptible amount. "That would make sense, yes. The tools of the Dwemer were never meant to be consubstantial with those of the Daedra. To make it so would precipitate a contradiction of the highest possible order."

The way he said "contradiction" made Vinye uneasy. "What happened to Solyn, then?"

"In the event that his Tools might fall into the wrong hands," Nchubthngth replied, "Lord Kagrenac designed a fail-safe: he constructed and enchanted the Tools such that they could only handle a certain amount of power at one time. Partly, this was to prevent the Tools from overloading with the energies of the Heart, and disintegrating in the process of siphoning them—which would no doubt have set back his designs immeasurably, and possibly discorporated the entire of our people past the point of no return.

"However," coughed the Dwemer, "Lord Kagrenac was also wary that his Tools, if recovered in the future, might be used in a manner contrary to his designs. In that event, the Tools would form a metaphysical circuit with their wielder, allowing the energy absorbed to course through its wielder directly—unrefined by the Tools."

Nchubthngth blinked. "To appropriate a phrase from your world, this Dagoth Solyn was damned if he did, yet damned if he did not."

Vinye swallowed; she was getting the feeling of pieces falling into place. "What does that mean?"

"You mentioned that several artifacts of the Daedra had been combined with the Tools?" Nchubthngth asked. When Vinye nodded, he went on, "Then their respective masters undoubtedly took offense to what Solyn was doing as well, and intended to punish him for it as only they could. It is indicative of the Daedra's powers, I believe, that they were able to discorporate Solyn before the circuit was completed, and thence before he would have suffered the same fate by Lord Kagrenac's methods."

He sniffed. "I do not begrudge them for this," he said with the barest of shrugs, "but a part of me, however insignificant in comparison to the rest of my being, had a wish to see Lord Kagrenac's genius prove itself superior to the host of Dagoth for the final time. Yet again, the Daedra continue to make a mockery of themselves in the face of our advances."

Vinye swallowed again. "Then Solyn is … dead?" she asked, hearing the others edge slightly closer to her, as anxious as she was to hear the final verdict.

Nchubthngth paused for an instant that might well have been an eternity. "Yes," he said. "That ancient House is ended now—and by no more fitting a method than by its own folly."

And just like that, Vinye felt her shoulders slump. They'd done it. They'd destroyed the last remaining member of House Dagoth—the Sixth House of Morrowind—and the last Chimer in all of existence.

Behind her, she heard Cosette swear under her breath, and Malys' face looked divided between happiness and uneasiness. Vinye could not blame her—the battle was won, and perhaps the war.

But the fact still remained: where did they go from here? As far as Vinye could tell, there was no way out of this place. She felt that cold fear returning; would the mages have to stay here, then, for the rest of their natural lives—just as the Dwemer had been forced to do? Or—

Suddenly, several of the Dwemer nearby froze in what they were doing, and cocked their heads as one in the same direction—behind and off to the mages' left, towards the hillside from whence they had come.

Nchubthngth rounded on the mages. "Did you come here alone?" he asked them. His voice and face were completely unreadable.

"We did," Vinye answered him. "But we left someone else behind on Mundus."

"Is that right?" Nchubthngth looked vaguely annoyed—and that worried Vinye. "Because it would appear that whoever you left behind is attempting to break through the liminal barrier with brute force."

He leveled his cold stare at the Altmer. "That is not possible."

Vinye was about to ask how he could tell something like this was happening—and then the sky exploded with greenish-golden light. The purple sky-cloud was dispelled by the shockwave, and Arniel spoke, loudly and more clearly than he ever had before.

"Where are you?"

Vinye's heart soared into her throat—she knew that voice well, and knew it did not belong to Arniel. "Dragonborn," she whispered.

The dwarves heard her, unfortunately—and they did not look pleased at all. Nchubthngth in particular was looking from the sky and to the mages, then back to the shade of the Breton, where Grimnir's voice had emerged.

"You are with a Dragonborn?" he said, his voice low and calculating. "This was not anticipated. This would explain why he is able to circumpenetrate the liminal barrier so directly."

Now Nchubthngth was pacing, muttering to himself. Vinye only heard snippets of what he was saying, but none of it made any sense to her: "temple … essence of an Aedra … manifest in flesh … superior being … "

Vinye frowned at this. Was Grimnir really all that? She thought back to what Nchubthngth had called the Aedric Stone, an infinite wellspring of energy that he had used to describe the Heart of Lorkhan. Did Grimnir indeed harbor some aspect of one of these Aedric Stones?

Or was he—no, he couldn't be, her mind quickly dismissed. Vinye's head was spinning now; her encounter with the Dwemer had raised many more questions than it had answered.

"We're here!" Cosette suddenly called out at the top of her lungs, as if to a passing ship while stranded on a remote island. "We're here, Arch-Mage!"

As if in reply, the skies brightened further still, and the rumbling beneath their feet was growing louder, like thunder.

But the dwarves, for their part, had straightened up as one. There was no rumble or murmur amongst themselves; each Dwemer possessed the same steely-eyed gaze, and none more so than Tonographer Nchubthngth.

"We cannot allow him here," he said coldly. "That is not an outcome we would prefer come to pass. But we will not begrudge you your return. The entity you call Arniel will remain here, else the portal to the Mundane be abused once again. And as for the three of you," he added, looming over the three mages with stone-cold austerity, "I believe you have all seen and heard too much. And if that knowledge were to be abused … well, I am sure you would agree that one Solyn was enough."

Nchubthngth's palm suddenly glowed with sickly green light. "I say this for you, mages of the Mundane. Until the appointed hour, you are never to speak of what you saw here for as long as your mortal life allows."

Cosette eyed the strange magic warily. "And if we refuse?"

Nchubthngth raised his hand. "You won't."

For an instant, Vinye thought she saw a twinkle in the ancient Dwemer's eye, and then the light from his hand reached its peak intensity. Bright green light consumed them, and at the same time, the elf felt a great tugging sensation from somewhere behind her. It felt as though thousands upon thousands of tiny hooks had latched onto her flesh, and were pulling her back like a fish on the line.

And then, it was as if entire of Aetherius burst forth in countless millions of stars, rushing past Vinye with the noise of a great maelstrom. For an instant, her world was nothing but light, sound, and those hooks that continued to reel her backward—

And finally, the light shrank to a point. The maelstrom died in her ears. She closed her eyes, opened them again—

And she knew she was back—they were all back, in a place that they knew was absolutely, unquestionably real.

Vinye felt her knees sink to the blasted stone of the deepest depths of Rkund, not even hearing the shouts of Arch-Mage Grimnir as she lost her balance, and was sick upon the ash-crusted rock and metal. But she did not care for any of this—she was grateful that they were all here, now. Worse for wear, perhaps—but they were here regardless.

We're all here, Vinye repeated to herself as she coughed out the last dribbles of bile in her throat. It's all over …

It was a long time before anyone dared to speak up; the magnitude of everything that had happened was just now beginning to sink in. There was no cheering, no other kind of celebration—that might come later, but a high price had been paid for the mages to make it this far.

"How did you find us?" Cosette eventually asked breathlessly.

"Just barely," answered Grimnir, as he replaced his staff over his shoulder. "When I discovered the residual energy left by Solyn's portal, I knew that you had to be alive. It took a very long time to pierce the barrier between the two planes—by the time I finally did, this staff was almost entirely drained of its power."

His fingers caressed the ornately carved wood of the staff in question—and true to his word, Mistress Malys saw that the normally glowing sphere that topped the artifact had gone dark. "Wherever that portal led to," Grimnir said, "must have been very remote indeed."

"It was," Vinye said, her tone excited despite her ashen face. "You wouldn't believe what we found in there! We were in—"

And suddenly she stopped. Her eyes went wide, and she made a noise that almost sounded like she'd tried to swallow her own tongue.

Grimnir leaned closer. "Sorry?"

Vinye opened her mouth, intent on speaking again—but no words were coming out. Her eyes were wider than ever—clearly she was trying to say something—and now Malys was beginning to suspect something was wrong with the Altmer.

Mercifully, Cosette stepped forward to speak up in her place. "We found someone on the other side, Arch-Mage—one of your old friends," she said. "He was—"

And again, no sound came out: Malys could clearly see Cosette's lips mouth out "Arniel Gane", but the wideness of the Breton's eyes suggested that the same thing that had just struck Vinye had now affected her as well.

She frowned. Something was wrong here—it was time to test a theory.

She took a deep gulp of air, and said, "We found the Dwemer"—

And then it happened: Malys' own throat suddenly closed up, almost of its own accord, before She had even started to say "Dwemer", turning the word into nothing more than a hacking cough. A buzzing noise sounded off in the vampire's ears, and an odd tingling sensation coursed through Her head—almost like lightning.

What had just happened here?! She thought wildly. But even as she questioned this, she felt her heart sinking—something was telling Her that She already knew the answer.

And sure enough, She felt Herself flashing back to their final moments in the Outer Realms, when Nchubthngth had shot an unknown spell at themragments of Cosette's words from only minutes ago floated back into Her mind: "they're like curses … absolute … unbreakable … can never speak of a certain event again … "

And She understood. The geas—the same one that bound Arniel Gane—now bound the three mages, forever and irreversibly. Nchubthngth and his Dwemer had been very thorough; they were intent on remaining hidden until the very last possible second of their exile.

Malys cursed the dwarves under Her breath for a good five minutes then; she cursed them for what they had done to the Falmer simply because the snow elves of old had refused to simply become extinct. She cursed their technology and prowess in engineering for making a fortress the likes of Rkund possible. But most of all, Malys cursed the Tonographer, Nchubthngth, for applying this damned curse to them—as long as this geas remained in effect, there was no way they could ever share their discovery with the outside world.

No way. Not one.

It took a very long while before the vampire was able to clear Her mind of all that hate and ill will. But eventually, after She had worked all the invective out of her system, Malys finally swallowed, and spoke Her mind.

"Dagoth Solyn," She began slowly, choosing Her words carefully so as not to activate the geas again. "He mentioned something about a prophecy, Arch-Mage?"

Grimnir heaved a sigh, but said nothing else for a few long moments.

Then, "Yes," he said simply. "I'd honestly forgotten about it until now, though—and I certainly wasn't aware of just how deeply that prophecy could be read. In hindsight, though, I should have known better—that prophecy came from an Elder Scroll, and those are not straightforward by any stretch of our imagination."

Malys listened with growing interest. An Elder Scroll, huh?

"At the time, I was told that I was the one prophesied to defeat Alduin, the god of destruction in dragon form," Grimnir continued, "from no less than the master of the Greybeards of High Hrothgar. I believed them, and I proved that I was able to defeat him. I fulfilled my destiny as Dragonborn when Alduin fell in Sovngarde."

Malys sensed a "but" coming.

"For a while, I thought that was the end of it," Grimnir said. "I came to Winterhold, much the way you did, and became what you see today. Thane of Whiterun, the Arch-Mage of Winterhold … I was on old man, even then, and I was content to live out the rest of my years by that point. Two years ago, however … things changed.

"It was just after I had become the Arch-Mage," he went on. "I encountered a necromancer of great power, one of the most dangerous sorcerers I've ever seen. I dare not speak his name; I do not wish to think more of him today, nor do I wish to meet him again. However, he … let slip that there might have been more to that prophecy of Alduin and the Last Dragonborn."

He put his hand up to his mask. "Right before he did this to me."

Malys was close enough to see his fingers clench over the rusted iron of the mask, and for a moment Her breath caught in her throat. Was Grimnir going to show his face to them—show them what had been behind the mask all this time?

Behind him, She saw Vinye looking unusually pale, and the Altmer was looking at Grimnir with even more trepidation than She was now. Malys frowned—had Vinye already been clued in about what had happened to Grimnir, to make him the man he was now?

But then, Grimnir's grip slackened, and his hand slid from his mask—and Malys found Herself breathing a sigh of relief. She wasn't sure She was ready to see what lay beneath just yet. If Vinye's reaction was any indication, then the chances were it wasn't good.

"And you think it was the same prophecy that Solyn had talked about?" Malys asked. "The one where you and Alduin … " She did not finish her sentence, instead looking to Grimnir for another explanation.

The Arch-Mage sighed again. "I'll be honest with you," he said. "The first time I heard Solyn tell me about this prophecy, I was very confused—myself and Alduin are two different entities, are we not? But in hindsight, it would make sense that we were truly one and the same."

The mages' eyes went wide. "How can you be so sure?" Cosette asked from behind Malys' left.

"'Alduin komeyt tiid,'" Grimnir said simply. "That was what the Greybeards told me—that when Alduin returned, the Dragonborn would return with him. That was how it was supposed to be. I slew Alduin—I slew a god. But that's just it—can a god be completely destroyed?"

He failed to notice Cosette shrinking slightly behind him.

"Alduin was unique, even among his own kind," said Grimnir. "The Greybeards believed that all I did was perpetuate the cycle. And I'm inclined to agree with them. One way or another, Alduin would return—but even if he did, he would not be able to for a very long time."

He lowered his head. "And then he came," he murmured. "Miraak—a dragon priest from ancient times, who was himself Dragonborn as well. He tried to have me killed not long after my encounter with that necromancer. He was, and is to this day, one of the hardest victories I've ever earned."

Malys noted the bitterness in his voice—and so did Vinye. "You don't sound very happy about it," ventured the high elf.

"I don't," said Grimnir. "Not anymore. The battle was very taxing on me—body, mind, and soul—and I found myself asking a lot of questions afterward. Who was I, to turn on my own kind the way I did? Was I more of a man—or a dragon—for wanting to destroy Miraak forever? Or did I become something else in the process?"

He spat. "And then I returned to Skyrim—to Winterhold—and it was back to business as usual. The land was in a crisis, and naturally they had to look to me to solve their problem for them. All thought of the necromancer's prophecy was driven from my mind—I had thought very little of it until Solyn brought it back up."

Vinye's eyes narrowed, and she drew herself up to her full height. "I thought the Dragonborn was supposed to be a hero to his people," she said, a little hotly.

She had touched a nerve. Grimnir, too, drew his own self up to his full height—Malys had never before appreciated how intimidating the Arch-Mage's figure could be.

"You weren't there when Solyn attacked the College," the Arch-Mage said, in one of the coldest tones of voice She had ever heard. "You don't know how far I was pushed that day. And you didn't see the Shout I had to use in order to win that battle—and for your sake, I hope you never do."

He rounded on Vinye. "I am the Arch-Mage of Winterhold. But I do not see myself as the Dragonborn—as far as I'm concerned, that's merely another side of me. But it's the only side of me these people want to see. They think I'm a mere tool—some magickal be-all, end-all of all the problems in their little world." He spat again. "If they knew what the Dragonborn was really like, they'd do well to leave me in peace."

Vinye sighed. "Are you still letting what Solyn said get to your head, Arch-Mage?" she asked in resignation.

"No," replied Grimnir, "merely thinking about what he told me before. Because whether he knew it or not, Solyn was right about me. At least, I certainly thought so. He told me I was only capable of conquest and destruction—but not of creation; he claimed I was unwilling to test the limits of the world we live in."

The sigh he heaved sounded more like a snort. "I have done enough of that in my time," he huffed.

Vinye looked as if she was about to make another rebuttal, but she eventually thought better of it, and the Altmer lapsed into silence.

Malys considered Grimnir's words. " … Then you think it's true?" She asked carefully. "Do you really think you're Alduin reborn?"

Grimnir did not answer—and if it was possible, Malys now felt more scared about asking her next question than ever before. She briefly debated letting it slide, but as is so often the case, the natural curiosity of mortalkind eventually won out.

"How did I Shout, then?" She asked. "I'm not Dragonborn—and I certainly didn't study with the Greybeards, or else you'd have seen me long before today."

Grimnir stared back at her, his iron mask completely unreadable. "Well, there's no hiding it any longer, I suppose," he said. "I had my suspicions about who and what you were, Miss Malys—although unlike our mutual friend, I suspect I was much less … impulsive in voicing them."

Malys saw Vinye and Cosette trade looks with one another. She thought of the blank white eyes of Lucius, and grimaced.

"That said," Grimnir continued, "vampires differ from one area to another—no clan is the same throughout all of Tamriel. The Whet-Fangs of Black Marsh, the Order of Cyrodiil—there are over a hundred different kinds of vampires throughout the continent, and probably more beyond, if the tales about the Tsaesci of Akavir are true. But you, Malys, are especially unique. I've not seen your abilities in any other vampire."

The Dunmer felt both prideful and worried. Hearing this from no less than the Dragonborn was certainly a compliment. And yet …

Grimnir coughed. "Unless I'm much mistaken, you were able to Shout because of the blood I gave to revive you inside that cave—my blood. As soon as you ingested those few drops, you were able to mimic my ability to Shout as the dragons can, even to the point of learning individual Words."

Malys' glowing eyes went wide. All that just from drinking the Dragonborn's blood?! She remembered how She had felt after regaining consciousness in that cave—that burning feeling, as if a feral beast was tearing at Her insides, ready for release.

Ready for more.

She shivered. "How can you handle it?" She asked, trembling.

Grimnir was silent for a moment, thinking. "If I could tell you, I would," he said. "But there are days when I wonder why it hasn't destroyed me yet. The blood of a dragon is a dangerous thing, young Malys. I will not deny you the opportunity to learn more about it. However … "

Malys thought She knew what he was thinking. "I don't think that'll be necessary," She replied, smiling a little. "As far as I can tell, what happened back there was just a one-off—you didn't give Me enough blood for it to be permanent."

Grimnir did not speak.

"And if I'm honest, I wouldn't have it any other way," Malys said, crossing Her arms defiantly. "If that's how it feels to be a Dragonborn, I'd much rather stay a vampire."

She turned away from Grimnir at that point, and only then did She notice Solyn's creations resting on the pavilion, next to the disabled Forge. An idea came to Her, then—an unspeakable idea, one that would no doubt prevent the civilized world from advancing thousands of years in only a few bounds. But the risks were too great, and they had all seen those risks for themselves—and Malys knew that this could not be allowed to happen again.

Nchubthngth had been right, if only in this, She thought—one Dagoth Solyn was indeed enough for this world.

The vampire felt Her body stiffen in resolve; the more She thought of this, the more She felt it had to be done. She took one step forward, then another, and in a few moments she was scant feet from the fused Spellbreaker-and-Keening.

Malys breathed in slowly, and concentrated on the three words She had heard in her mind in the last minutes of Solyn's life—the Words She had Shouted into being. She breathed again.

Force.

Breathe.

Balance.

Breathe.

Push.

Breathe.

"Fus … Ro DAH!"

The thunderous roaring noise echoed around the cave, and for the second time today, the blue mist burst from Her lips, carrying away everything in its path. The amalgamations Solyn had created—Sunder-and-Volendrung, Spellbreaker-and-Keening, Wraithguard and all his Aetherial accouterments—were carried high aloft by the force of the Shout, and into the lake of lava around them. The artifacts glowed and sizzled, then bobbed in the magma, before they finally sank beneath the molten surface without a trace. The duplicated Aetherium Forge, caught in the shockwave of Malys' final Shout, toppled into the lake almost in slow motion with surprisingly less clamor than She had imagined, and the vast machine disappeared into the magma with hardly a ripple.

Malys sighed as the last of the Forge and the artifacts was lost to sight. It felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from Her shoulders. The fire inside Her had finally been extinguished, expended in that last breath of Her Shout, never to be relit again.

The beast was no more.

"That's it, then—it's done," Malys said, so softly that She had to strain to hear Her own words. "It's all gone … "

How long it took them to leave Rkund, they did not know, and neither did they care. After everything the mages had been through, after everything they had achieved, the journey back seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. Perhaps, if the circumstances had been different, they would have spent their return in celebration—but the reality could not be further than the truth.

Vinye had the look of a man in irons surrounded by rich food and drink, but unable to reach any of it to partake for himself. Malys could not blame her. The most momentous discovery of the last three eras—and what did she have to show for it? Nothing but their own experience, the word of a tortured shade who'd been tortured further still—and the damned geasa the dwarves had placed on them. Without more than this, Malys knew the Altmer dared not claim the Dwemer were alive, well, and preparing to return. Even discussing the possibility would leave any chance of a favorable reputation as a scholar in complete tatters.

On Her other side, Cosette's round, pallid face radiated frustration. Malys could not look her in the eye—She could still feel something simmering inside the Breton. Much like the beast inside the blood Malys had ingested from Grimnir, that something festered with a hot, burning anger. But there was nowhere else to turn—there were no other outlets for the Forsworn to direct her fury and fire. All that Cosette could do was to let it burn out over time.

Opportunity had slipped away from them all—even Grimnir, Malys suspected from the way the Arch-Mage carried himself, was not immune in this regard. As one of the most famous mages in Skyrim, perhaps even the entire of Tamriel, the Arch-Mage would have salivated at the chance to further study the results of the ingenuity She had destroyed and cast into that molten sea—even if those artifacts were indeed too dangerous to let survive. And even She had wasted an opportunity to learn more about the dragon blood She had briefly borne inside Her out of fear.

And yet … none of it seemed to bother Her too much. Because even after all they'd been through—after weeks of adventure, and of luck and loss alike—they were still alive.

And it was for this reason that, when the final door was flung open, and the world of Skyrim awaited them, Malys just stood there, letting the rays of the sun wash over Her face. She did not even care that She was undead, that the rays of the sun were anathema to Her now.

No matter who or what She was, it felt good to see daylight again.

Next chapter: As life at the College returns back to normal, Arch-Mage Grimnir receives an unexpected visitor.

A/N: I'm not dead—surprisingly enough—but wow, do I feel drained.

This chapter was probably the hardest one I've had to write yet, simply because of having to make so much stuff up—canon and lore can only take one so far, unfortunately, and I really do wish I had more of it to rely on, considering everything that happened within this chapter. Classwork and other pursuits haven't helped give me much free time, either. I really wish I could say I was satisfied with what I've written here, but it just doesn't seem to have the flow that I felt earlier chapters did. I can only hope you found it enjoyable.

And with regards to the "necromancer" Grimnir mentioned, he'll be appearing elsewhere in several other stories I have planned out. Got to keep a lid on it for now, but I think you'll like where it leads.

Again, so sorry for keeping everyone on tenterhooks for all this time, but on the bright side, there's only two more chapters to go, now. Thanks for reading! - K