A/N: Eek. I apologize for the long time between updates, but between the holidays and my having lost almost this whole chapter and having to rewrite it, well, meh. I suppose one can hope this version is better than the original would have been...
Chapter 18
Ghatha had set up her laboratory in the lowest level of the Citadel, a cavernous room near the foundation and well below ground level. In Oblivion this meant the room was also full of lava which had leaked in around the foundation. Daedric construction is able to work around this, however, and a number of slabs of something analogous to stone crossed what would otherwise be a shoulder-deep lake of liquid fire. It lent an orange light to the interior that was, if anything, a little brighter than the ordinary ambient illumination of Dagon's plane.
Her workbench sat against the wall furthest from the base of the spiral stairway, on a slab as large as a castle drawing room. A gantry with a great cage hung out over the lava. There was also a much smaller platform further out in the fiery pool, just big enough for a good summoner to target.
Ghatha was more than a good summoner, she thought with some complacency. She looked at the cage one more time. A few dips in the lava generally took care of any inconvenient remains, and it looked like her assistant had been careful to erase any trace of the last prisoner she'd brought down here. Dipping in lava probably would not be useful to her at the moment, but the special modifications she had made should do the trick.
"That is the last of the prisoners," she said to her current assistant, a kynval named Baioth. "Bring me the potion."
He turned to retrieve the relevant bottle from the workbench. Ghatha lowered the cage over the platform and locked the door carefully. The inside of the bars glittered pale violet, a coating which had taken considerable work to accomplish. Not Ghatha's work, of course, but she had made sure Baioth did an accurate job. Now she received the potion bottle from him, glancing sideways as she did so. He grinned briefly and retired back to the workbench. Part of the reason he was still her assistant was that she had quickly learned what it took to motivate him, and he was attractive enough that it was no chore. Hopefully, there would be time for that later.
Ghatha opened the container and sniffed, just in case, then downed it in one swallow. Magicka hissed down her throat and out to the tips of her fingers. She tossed the bottled into the lava, stared into the cage, and concentrated. "Atronach dacha," she said.
A yellow swirl of sparks coalesced inside the cage and became a daedra. Ghatha had calculated the dose of the magicka potion correctly; the details of its armor and its conspicuously female form said the creature was old enough and powerful enough to have a good command of its own shape. A peak that looked something like hair and something like a tongue of flame wavered behind its head. A dark mask over the face hid any shortcomings in fine detail, but Ghatha suspected that was more tradition than necessity. Though it was taller than Ghatha, the daedra's proportions were a little foreshortened, big hands and feet and head for the size of its body. A mortal might have said it looked almost childlike, but that was not a thought likely to occur to a kynaz.
"Atronach," she said. The creature made a noise like fat on a griddle and threw a fireball at her. It impacted harmlessly against the cage bars. "Yes, I am not strong enough to hold you solely by will. But you will obey me all the same." The atronach hissed and threw itself against the cage. It did not so much as rattle, and the daedra stumbled back. It stared at Ghatha for a moment, its whole posture redolent of disbelief. Behind the holes in the mask, fire raged.
"Ah, yes, your new home," said Ghatha. "Aside from its obvious resistance to fire, it is lined with crushed soul gem. It can contain what even daedric steel cannot. While you live, you belong to me, and when I choose to kill you, you will reincarnate exactly where you are now. From now on it is the cage or the Void for you. Am I understood?"
The elemental stood very still for a moment. Ghatha felt it inspect along the link between summoner and summoned, testing. She had chosen this particular variety of summoned specifically because it was not well-suited to telepathic communication. She could not bend it by will, but neither would it bend her. What she planned to try would have been much more dangerous with, for example, a Xivilai.
"At your age, you should be able to speak," said Ghatha. "You will call me Master, or I will cause you to suffer. Your kind have no names, so you will answer to Akhanad. Am I understood?"
The atronach looked at her, and at the gantry and the lava. It made a crackling noise which Ghatha took to be laughter. She shrugged and threw an ice spell at it. This had no trouble passing through the bars at all. There was a hiss of evaporating frost, and the atronach screamed with the voice of a high wind. Pain arced along the link between them, but Ghatha batted it aside with the ease of long practice.
Ghatha readied another spell, waiting. The atronach shook itself, then spat something like a coal toward the bars. Ghatha blasted it with frost again, and again after that, until it ran out of screams and crumpled back against the cage with its bracers over its masked face.
"Am I understood?" Ghatha repeated patiently.
"Khskyesssss,"said the atronach at last. The noise that served it for voice was much quieter now. "Hmmaster."
"Good," said the kynreeve. "And what is your name?"
"Akhhhanad," said the atronach.
"Now," said Ghatha, raising her hands. "It is time you learned to search the Void."
Akhanad's dying shriek was heard for three floors above them.
---
"You think this creature will come to us merely because we have set a large plant on fire?" said Ebel-Merodach. He looked skeptically at the flaming tree in front of them. The caitiff and Menien Goneld stood to one side of a medium-sized boulder. The Sleeper sat hunched up on top of it, hands in her lap and head bowed. Merodach was not sure whether this was because she had not the energy to raise it or merely to keep the brutal sun of Nirn out of her eyes. He had to squint until his eyes watered to see anything, now that they were out of the shade of the trees. The fire was a little reassuring, though the smell of burning wood was not yet entirely familiar.
"Sure," said Menien Goneld now. "If there's one within ten miles of us. They think the woods belong to them. They'll kill you just for being in amongst the trees, let alone this." He waved a hand at the fire.
"How far is ten miles?" said Ebel-Merodach. Goneld rendered the measurement in the Kyntongue. Merodach grunted. "We will have a long wait if it is that far off, Menien Goneld."
"Oh, I don't know," said Goneld. "Spriggans aren't exactly mortal. I'm not sure they can get tired, at least not while the sun is up - "
There was a high, thin scream from somewhere nearby. Goneld and Merodach had their backs to the boulder instantly, scanning the trees around them. Merodach gripped his mace. "Loathsome one," he said. "Do you see the creature?"
"Yes," said Sodrinye. "Move behind me, into the trees. I would rather she did not see you."
"She," said Ebel-Merodach as they edged backwards.
"They look female," said Menien Goneld. "More or less. But since nobody's ever seen a male one I don't know that there are any. Maybe they reproduce the way plants do."
Ebel-Merodach contemplated this. It was likely plants in Nirn did not have quite the same reproductive requirements as those in Oblivion, but it still seemed hard to picture. I suppose it does not matter. He had let himself be distracted by irrelevancies a little too often of late. Right this moment, for example, he ought to be there in front of his debtbond instead of hiding behind a tree next to an aging Imperial in poorly-fitted armor...
The next scream was much closer. Sodrinye had gauged its direction correctly; whatever it was seemed to be on the other side of the rock from them, out of sight. Merodach risked a look. He could not see the creature, but Sodrinye now sat with her head up, the line of her shoulders a degree straighter. He would not have been able to tell the difference four weeks ago or even, for that matter, known what weeks were.
There was a blunt whommm of spent magicka, and a red glow limned the Sleeper for a moment. She shook her head, then hitched herself off the rock and out of Merodach's view. There had been nothing accidental in the movement, though it came to him that he was not at all sure how much magicka the Sleeper could, in fact, absorb. He had known krynvelhat to be entirely without protection against magicka, or his own enchanted weapon would have been much less useful to him in the past.
The elemental creature screamed again. This one went on for some time. At the end it trailed down to a whimper, then silence. Merodach waited for a moment before he started forward. Menien Goneld ranged off to the right, around the other side of the boulder.
Then Ebel-Merodach heard another cry, a brief and weakly sound – not one that could come from any elemental throat. He drew his mace as he skidded around the edge of the rock, snarling.
Whatever the thing was that lay on the ground there, it was dead. Its skin had somewhat the aspect of wood, and its body sprouted leaves here and there, but the helpless gape of the eyes and mouth was unmistakable. Merodach turned to look down at the Sleeper. She sat back against the base of the boulder with her head on her knees. She was certainly breathing. Merodach rolled his eyes as he sheathed the mace. He heard the soft creak of an arrow being unnocked as Menien Goneld stepped forward.
"So it worked, then?" said the Imperial. Ebel-Merodach prodded the creature with a booted foot.
"Is this a spriggan?" he said.
"Un huh," said Menien Goneld. He looked thoughtfully down at the creature, which did indeed bear some resemblance to a mortal woman, albeit one made from branches and leaves.
"Then yes," said Ebel-Merodach. "I believe so." He sensed no taint of blood, and the air was heavy with spent magicka. He squatted in front of the Sleeper, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Get up. You will have to put out the fire."
"It'll give away our position more than a little come nightfall," agreed Goneld. He stared around them. "Spriggans are supposed to be pretty territorial, or I'd worry it might attract more of them, too."
Sodrinye did not respond. Merodach shifted to one knee as he leaned forward to shake one of her shoulders. "Come, little krynvelhat," he said in the Kyntongue. Sodrinye shook her head suddenly, then lifted her chin. Her eyes glowed bright violet even in the aching daylight.
"Step back," she said. "I will put it out."
Ebel-Merodach stood up and moved aside with alacrity. Menien Goneld was already behind the rock. Sodrinye pushed herself upright without difficulty, but she still leaned her legs against the stone as she raised her hand. White light burst from her fingertips. The burning tree crackled and hissed, and then the fire died down. Frost lay over the scorched branches.
"That was more moderate than I expected," said Menien Goneld.
"Even with a white soul I can do much," said Sodrinye. She looked at Ebel-Merodach. "Not enough to walk as far as we must go today."
"Of course not," said Merodach dryly. "And where are we to go now, debtbond? Have you vision again?"
"Oh, yes," said Sodrinye. For a moment something in her voice twanged, a harsh discord, but it was gone with her next words. "Though I am not sure for how long. Our path lies close beside the atronach's. North, and east."
"So we're going to keep on the way we've been going," said Menien Goneld. "And it takes a psychic to tell us this."
"You are surprised by this?" said Ebel-Merodach. "Come. We have far to go, and I do not wish to stand in the sun any longer than I must."