Chapter VIII

Wrath of the Lich Priest

"I've always wanted to visit this place once," Veryn said as they stood on a hill overlooking the stone city. "But maybe under different circumstances. Still, it's great to be here. Labyrinthian is ancient and full of magic. Did you know that back in the Imperial Simulacrum a piece of the Staff of Chaos was hidden here? Everything must have been as abandoned as it is now. It's been that way since the second era at least. Before it fell to ruin, Shalidor built his famous labyrinth here and even earlier it was the greatest city in all of Skyrim. It was the crown on the work of the dragon cultists and now it's nothing."

"You seem to know a lot of history." Bricca said. She looked out over the crumbled buildings below, the many unfamiliar terms Veryn used going right over her head. She wondered why the city had been abandoned. Labyrinthian must once have been as large as Solitude, with snowed-under foundations reaching as far as the eye could see. The outskirts had been plucked empty throughout the years, stripped from their stone and timber. Still, numerous arches rose up in the sky, with majestic stone birds and dragons carved into them, but the statues were damaged, with missing tails and heads. The place breathed something desolate, with the only unscathed building set high in the mountainside, towering above everything else.

"There are a lot of books in Winterhold about Labyrinthian," Veryn said. "I've read some throughout the years. One day, I'd like to come back here to do some proper research with the College. Bring a team, some students to do the digging." He stared at the large building thoughtfully. "If I had to wager a guess, the Staff of Magnus is hidden either in there or in the labyrinth. Since I don't know where the labyrinth is we should head towards that temple." He turned to look at Bricca. "Are you still adamant about coming along?"

She smiled. "I wouldn't want you to die in there after all the trouble I went to keep you alive."

Veryn rolled his eye. "I'll be fine."

"You said that too when you kept nearly falling off your horse on the way to Volunruud."

The elf huffed in annoyance and rode down, Bricca following laughing.

The temple was surprisingly hard to reach. Slippery stones and broken stairs caused them to proceed on foot, until they reached a flat stone porch with an enormous round stone door. It was elaborately carved, with intricate swirling patterns set in relief, and it completely sealed off any access to the inside.

"This was done by magic." Veryn frowned at the door, moving his hand over it. "Someone warded the whole place. I'm not strong enough to -"

"Sh!" Bricca interrupted him and pointed to the porch where they came from, her right hand on a dagger. Six ghostly figures now stood there talking to each other, their voices too thin to hear what they were saying. The sunlight passed through their bodies as if they weren't there at all. She studied them from a distance, shielding her eyes from the bright light. One Argonian, two humans and three elves. She briefly looked at their faces, but lingered at one bearded male dark elf, nudging Veryn in the side.

"Is that the late Archmage?"

Veryn squinted, startled. "If it's him, he is awfully young, twenty-five if that. He's too pale to be a ghost, too incorporeal. They must be shades of a past event." He frowned. "Something happened here that was significant to the Archmage. A while ago, he handed me a stone ring, some magical artefact, to keep safe. I think we're about to find out what he has to do with this place. If that shade is him, he must have known the staff was here after all."

He knelt down, taking something from his pack, and then held up a large ring with both hands.

Bricca walked closer, inspecting the carvings on the torque.

"It looks like the door," she said. "I think it's a key. Do you see that head in the middle? I think it's supposed to fit in there."

The head was weathered with age and it was impossible to tell what it had once depicted, but on both sides of its snout were holes, large enough for the sides of the torque. It seemed impossible at first to get the torque to fit in, but the wards on the door took over once they held it near and snapped it in place. With a grinding sound, the large stone door split in half and allowed access to the dark hall beyond. Bricca looked back to the ruined city. Shadowmere had already found herself a rabbit to devour, while Veryn's mare trotted behind her docilely. When she looked at the place where the ghosts had been she saw that they were gone.

As she set foot into the entry hall it became clear where the ghosts had gone. They re-appeared for a few seconds in front of a large door, and their chatter sounded excited.

Everything about Labyrinthian breathed something old and ancient. Faces of dragons and other animal leered down at them, carved high into stone pillars or the vaulted ceiling. Some of the walls were covered in ruined banners and tapestries, depicting battles and kings from ages past. From the entry hall they ventured into an even greater hall, so high Bricca could not see the ceiling. A few skeletons shambled around, easily killed by a firebolt. In the middle of the room however, dust was whirling up from a large earthen tomb. With a low, rumbling sound the earth cracked open, revealing a magnificent horned skull. Bricca watched in fascination how the skull rose up and how two large, tattered wings dragged an enormous, skeletal dragon out of its grave. The beast was nothing but bones and rotted tissue, smelling of earth and decay. It let out a screech, trying to flap its wings and fly up, but they could no longer bear the dragon into the sky. Bricca backed off, dashing away when it snapped at her.

"So this is a dragon?" she asked, gaping at the size.

"It used to be. This... this is necromancy. A reanimated body, without a soul." Veryn shook his head in disgust. "I think I can undo the magic keeping him together, but you should try and keep it's attention." He threw himself to the left, barely dodging a blast of ice the dragon spat at them. Bricca danced away to the right, reaching out with her blades, only to see them scrape off the bone, doing no damage at all. She tried to hack at the dragons brittle joints, yelling at it to keep it's attention. The beast was surprisingly stupid, stumbling around blindly and spewing frost at whatever source of sound it could hear.

"Sithis," she muttered under her breath, trying to lure the dragon back into the pit, jabbing at its toes. She had managed to pry a few small bones loose, which now crawled listlessly through the dust on their own. She hoped Veryn knew what he was doing, she thought as she rolled away from the spiked tail the dragon swiped at her. To keep this thing busy was easier said than done. She kept yelling at the undead beast, rolling around through the dirt to stay out of its reach. Once it nearly pinned her with its claw, but Veryn Shouted at the dragon from the other side of the hall. As it staggered she drove the longest of her blades though the fragile membrane of its wing. The dragon screeched and trashed when she dragged the dagger on, tearing part of the wing in two. Dodging another large claw that threatened to pin her to the ground she leapt at the other wing, slamming a dagger into one of the joints before wrenching it as hard as she could. The dragon bucked, trying to throw her off. Bricca jumped back down, breaking her fall with a roll. She sneezed when she landed, and when she held up her hand a thin layer of fine dust settled on her glove. The dragon was crumbling, its bones turning to dust as Veryn had undone the enchantment that had revived it in the first place. With a loud crash, the skeleton collapsed under its own weight, breaking apart in the pit and showering her with bones and bone dust. Veryn stood at the edge of the pit, glowing with magic and breathing fast, a look of triumph on his marred face. Bricca shook her head in disbelief, dusting off her clothes and armour. The bone grit had managed to settle down everywhere, making her hair itch, her eyes burn and her nose feel clotted.

"You killed some of those things on your own, when they were alive?"

Veryn merely nodded, walking down. "They're usually larger. And smarter. Although with almost all of them I had others help me out." He rummaged though the bones. "This one must have been raised by a powerful necromancer or a lich. The dragon that destroyed Helgen, he raises the other dragons that are buried outside, but those have souls. This one doesn't have one anymore."

Bricca thought of Martin for a moment. Martin Septim, the Emperor's bastard kid who had ended the Oblivion Crisis by turning into a dragon of pure golden light. Compared to him, those new dragons were vile and ugly creatures.

When they moved on, deeper into the ruin, Bricca saw the ghosts again, gathered around an old stone tablet. Only five of them were left, with the sixth nowhere in sight. As she moved closer to the tablet she heard a strange voice coming out of nowhere, in a language she couldn't understand, and the magelight of Veryn who was scouting ahead disappeared. She heard the elf yell in sudden surprise, an edge of panic in his voice. She hurried down the stairs towards him, making sure to keep her torch alight. She felt like she had been drenched in ice water ever since the lights went out. Then a slight flickering below told he that Veryn had likely lit a torch as well.

"What just happened?" she yelled.

"Magic." Veryn looked pale and shaken, afraid even. "The lich spoke something in the dragon tongue and then took our magicka away. I can't cast any more so my magelight went out."

Bricca tried to reach in the distance with her mind to see if he was right. The small amount of magicka she had continuously used at the College was gone, filled with a faint hollow.

"To you, magic is a tool," Veryn said quietly. "To me, it is a sense."

They spent the night in a small side room. In a far past, it must have been used to prepare bodies, as evident from the chests with rolls of dried-out bandages, now so thin and brittle they crumbled at Bricca's touch. The rusted tools hanging from the wall had stained the stone a filthy brown, with water leaking from somewhere high up at the ceiling. Some of the chests and cracked chairs ended up in a rough pyramid, with Veryn kneeling down at it and trying to get a small fire started with flint and tinder. Bricca waited through the night listlessly. Labyrinthian had been shut off from the outside for so long that most vermin inside had died off. She plucked some spiders from a corner, nearly gagging on the taste when she bit on them. The few drops of blood in each weren't enough to satisfy her hunger. Not by far. Bricca kicked the dying fire, leaping back as a shower of embers flew up and then peered at the furs on which Veryn had finally fell asleep, still clutching his head in pain. Why couldn't she have just a taste? Would he even notice? Jumpy as the elf was, he would, and it would destroy the last bit of trust he had in her. She left him behind, heading to a deep chasm close by, criss-crossed by overgrown bridges. Some of them crumbled dangerously when she jumped towards them, sending handfuls of loose rocks and dirt down, crashing in the water with faint splashes. The water would have fish, hopefully. Perhaps there were even small beasts. As she dove down, ready to land on a large sunken staircase, the strange voice sounded again, now speaking in heavily accented Imperial.

"You do not answer... must I use this guttural language of yours?"

Bricca froze at the spot immediately when her boots made contact with the ground and started listening intently. There were some fish in the water all right, but she could not find any sign of the lich. He's not alive. It was easy to track the living, but not so much to find the dead. Carefully she moved down to the waters edge, still intently watching her surroundings. Her belly gnawed when she saw the pale fishes swim around, mangy and thin things. With a grab, fast as lightning, she plucked one out of the water, biting down hard and savouring the sweet taste of blood. She reached for another fish, draining it fully and then tossed the carcass back into the water. Within seconds a slaughterfish shot out from a crack between some rocks and devoured the remains.

The next day they travelled further along the underground river, until the point where they had to wade through. Before this part of the ruin had flooded there had been a tunnel, but now the water stood a few foot high and rushed through a broken door.

"Have you returned, Aren? My old friend?"

The lich again.

"So the Archmage had something to do with this for sure then."

Veryn shook his head. "I don't know what he has been up to in here, but I doubt it has been any good. I think he tried to get the staff... and failed."

The water split into narrow streams, most of them dying off after a while or meandering away through cracks in the wall. One of the streams ended at a bloodied pit, filled with bones, that turned out to be the nest of an emaciated troll. A small side way led to a high cavern with crumbling fortifications and more trolls, gnawing on the remains of a skeever. A pungent stench caused both Veryn and Bricca to quickly back off. The trolls had tangled and mouldy pelts, and their lairs were covered with rotting bits and pieces of flesh and meat. Clearly, this was where a large part of the vermin in Labyrinthian had ended up. They sneaked past, moving on towards an ancient city gate when the lich interfered with them again.

"You... you are not Aren, are you? Has he sent you in his place?"

The sudden sensation of being doused in freezing water returned. She saw Veryn nearly fall to his knees, suddenly turning pale. He tried to shake her off, insisting that everything was fine, but gladly accepted her offer to take a break an hour later. They climbed on top of some ruined battlements, looking out over a large graveyard. Small blue lights danced around the headstones, flickering on and off in the darkness.

"Wisps," Veryn said, nearly breathless, leaning back against a pillar. "We need to make sure we don't start to follow them."

The dancing lights proved to be almost mesmerizing. Bricca smiled when she saw Veryn drift off to sleep, head resting on his shoulder. She shifted uncomfortably. The faint hunger she had stilled with the fishes started to grow worse again. If the trolls had caught living food, she could do so too. She left Veryn behind again, taking just a torch as she walked down towards the graveyard. The wisps made high, chiming sounds as she passed them, like the small crystal bells and chimes the high elves used to make music. The ground bounded softly under her feet, covered with a thick layer of moss. The graves all around were ancient, too worn to read, but the carvings on the stone were those of dragons. She walked along them, ignoring the wisps as best as she could. In the far distance, she heard the soft beating of a heart. Bricca quickened her step, trying to haste herself to the source of the sound. Her torch made a sizzling sound when a wisp passed through it and then extinguished. She didn't notice. Her surroundings were lit by the wisps, giving off a soft blue light, and her ears would guide her to her prey. Maybe Veryn was mistaken about the wisps after all. They were harmless. She stretched out her hand and watched one land on her fingers, pulsing for a few seconds before drifting off. She walked and walked until she could almost feel the heartbeat pulsing with her fingers. Climbing a pair of wooden stairs led her to a stone platform, lit by a strange ethereal light. She headed for her prey, but when she was halfway she felt something icy wrap around her, like chains of frost. As she turned around on the spot she saw a woman floating towards her, prettier than she could have imagined someone to be. The woman smiled and opened her arms as if to embrace Bricca. She smiled back at the woman, convinced that the prey would be a gift, a reward for coming all the way here.

Then a lantern crashed onto the floor where the ghostly woman hovered, and the creature let out a shriek that seemed to turn Bricca's insides to ice. The lantern oil splashed up as it fell, leaving small burning puddles all over the floor. Bricca recoiled from them, the spell that had caught her broken. The woman, seeming so friendly only minutes ago, now looked as old and ugly as a hag, with hair spun of ice and mist wrapped around her body. The lantern had set her aflame, and she continued with that high, awful screech. On a ledge high above Bricca saw a dark figure, and then it jumped down, following the path of the lantern. She watched breathlessly how Veryn took on the monstrous woman, lashing out with his torch to keep her at bay. He set the wisps on fire too, and each time one of them was reduced to a charred husk the screaming intensified. The freezing grip fell away from Bricca and she rolled away from the fire, unsheathing her weapons now that she could move freely again. She ran towards the woman who had now unleashed her frost magic on Veryn and stabbed it with both weapons in the back. The screaming stopped abruptly, and one by one the wisps fell to the ground, gradually darkening the ruins around them. The mist-like wrappings curled up and fell to the ground too as the spirit within disappeared like smoke.

"That," Veryn said, "was a Wispmother. Quite different from the little will-o-the-wisps you find in Cyrodiil. The wisps enchanted us and lured you away." He kicked at the wrappings on the ground. "You all right?"

Bricca took a shuddering breath, remembering how much she had wanted the Wispmother to come to her. "Just a bit shaken. What do these things want with you?"

"They drain you. Your life, your energy, your magicka, everything. They feed on it, and when they are done they turn what is left into a wisp to serve them."

Only when they walked back Bricca saw the death and decay in the graveyard. Wooden scaffolding stood all along the graves, loaded with rotted coffins. A great part of the graves was opened, and the springy ground now crunched under her feet, covered in bones.

"Come. Face your end." The lich welcoming words echoed through a damp tunnel. They had just passed Aren's shades again, now only four left, looking and sounding very upset. It was as if every part of Labyrinthian did its utmost best to keep them away from unearthing what was within. The deeper they went, the more ghostly draugr, skeletons and hounds did the ruin send at them down the narrow halls. One corridor was trapped with rows of soul gems, firing spikes of frost at everyone that came close. Bricca resorted to knocking them off with stones, shattering the gems on the floor. They passed a wall, a skeleton hanging from it in rusted shackles, that depicted a detailed relief of a masked man with flaming swords, with other, hooded people bringing him tribute. The decorations continued, culminating in a large, half-round wall, not unlike that in the Sanctuary. This one was undamaged though, with a large carved dragon watching over the scratches carved in the stone. Veryn knelt down, running his fingers over them.

"These walls.. they contain Shouts in the dragon language. These scratches were made by the dragons long ago to preserve their history. I can read it, but not easily. But the Shouts, I can feel those." He closed his eyes and grinned. The wall glowed brightly for a second, and then the light spread around Veryns hand like thin tendrils, sinking into his skin and then disappearing. Bricca looked around alarmed, hoping the bright light hadn't alarmed anything near.

Then, finally, they reached another cavern, clearly the oldest part of the ruin thusfar. Trapped in a large ward floated the lich, clutching a staff, while two of the shades that had been with the Archmage kept the ward intact. Veryn shook his head.

"Gods, Savos. He must've bound their souls to this place, trapping them here forever to keep the lich at bay, and then sealed off Labyrinthian from the outside world. The only way to break through this ward and get the staff is to free the shades, which will unleash the lich on us."

Bricca stared at the ward. It was solid as thick glass and did not budge when she put her hand on it.

"I don't think this is a mere lich," she said slowly. "His clothes and mask are the same as the ones on the relief on the wall." She smiled nervously. "Just how badly do you need that staff?"

At that moment one of the two channellers fell forward, burning up into a pile of ash. The beam of his magic disappeared and Bricca's hand sunk into the ward, denting it slightly. Veryn stood near where the shade had stood, dagger drawn.

"Ready for the other one?"

No, she wanted to say. This is madness. Still, she nodded, shouting a yes back.

The second channeller died as fast as the first one, and the ward fell. Immediately, lightning arced across the sky, hitting Veryn and throwing him off the edge he stood on. The lich laughed and turned around, firing his staff at Bricca. She dodged the beam and kept moving in a circle, hoping to find an opening between the crackling beams. She stabbed him once, twice, but it barely seemed to hurt him. Veryn soon joined her, blood running down his face where some of his scars had cracked open again. He Shouted at the lich, throwing it back somewhat, and then leapt at it, trying to get a hold of the staff. He grabbed it for a few seconds before the lich threw him off with another surge of lightning.

"Move away!" Veryn yelled. "The staff, get his staff! It gives him magicka!" The elf was casting again, levitating a large piece of rock. Bricca jumped back, watching the boulder crash into the lich at full force, knocking it to the ground. She ran at it, diving down and wrenching her dagger between its elbow joint. With a harsh jerk she broke it off, pulling the staff away, skeleton hand still attached. Immediately the world became sharper. It was as if she was relying on her vampiric senses, but far more overwhelming. Her sight was too sharp, Veryns presence too strong. Feeling him cast nearly made her throw up at the spot. There was raw power within her grasp, a vast amount of magicka for her to use, but Bricca lacked the training and finesse to handle it. Instead, she did the only thing that seemed sensible to her, to ignore the magicka entirely and wield the staff in both hands, blocking the lich's attacks and smashing the ends of the staff into his bones. Step by step, the lich fell back, pelted by magic missiles, having lost both his staff and arm. She yelled for Veryn to come closer, and as he did she threw the staff at him, hurling herself to the ground to avoid the lich's lightning. For an instant it seemed to hit Veryn yet again and he backed off in terror, holding up the staff as if to protect himself. The crystal on top of it glowed, and then lightning flew the other way too, colliding in mid-air with that of the lich. The monster snarled, shouting wildly in his old, forgotten language, and then fell forward when Bricca jumped on its back, stabbing it wherever she could, tearing at muscle and jamming her knife into his spine. Lightning sizzled at her clothes and skin, stinging and tingling where it hit. She rolled away again to avoid the spells, and watched how the lich rose into the air, soundlessly shrieking as fire devoured its robes and licked at its skull. Veryn kept the staff pointed directly at the creature, channelling all elements at the same time. Lightning struck out of nowhere, a torrent of ice shards whirled around the lich and chipped at his body. His mask melted, the metal running down the charred bone of his face in thick globs, and then the bone melted too, the lich trashing around wildly as the fire consumed him. As sudden as the fight had begun, it ended, with a smouldering pile of ash and bones lying in the middle of the room.

Bricca climbed up, wincing at the bruises and scrapes that undoubtedly covered her from head to toe after being thrown around that often. Veryn stood breathless over the lich's remains, clenching the staff in his hands and staring down at it. The Staff of Magnus was longer than he was, made apparently of a delicately carved wood, but when Bricca had held it it felt almost like cold metal. Three long, sharp claws reached out on the top to hold an orb in place, made of a cloudy, very bright blue glass.

"You did it," Bricca said. "I didn't think you would make it this far."

Veryn laughed, wincing as he wiped the blood off his face. "We. I couldn't have killed him alone. And neither could Savos."

He pointed the staff towards a single, faint shade near a pair of doors, its head lowered and hands folded in prayer.

"I'm so sorry, my friends." The words floated around like a whisper. "It was the only choice I had. I needed to make sure that the monster never escaped. I promise you, I'll never let this happen again! I'll seal this whole place away..."

The shade of Savos Aren walked off and disappeared. Bricca shook her head.

"He messed up, didn't he? At least he gave you the key in the end. So, what do we do now?"

Veryn grinned again, admiring the staff between his hands.

"I am going to pay a visit to Ancano. You should head back to the Sanctuary. The people of the College won't take too kindly to seeing you around. Besides..." He narrowed his eyes, a dangerous glint appearing. "This one is mine."