I suppose everyone has had the fantasy about being caught somewhere with an attractive stranger on a night so cold you have to huddle together for warmth, and one thing leads to another so by morning you are no longer strangers even though you might not have exchanged names. It is not a fantasy I will ever have again. Ever. I was trying to tell her I was fine, thank you, but I wanted to wake up now even as she was breaking the seal on a pint bottle of healing potion. Then I caught sight of my hand as I reached for the bottle, and it was dark purple with patches of yellow-white and spots of red where the capillaries had burst and frozen. If my face looked anything like that, no wonder she was horrified. Also, I still couldn't move or feel my fingers and toes, so I admitted, " A healing potion might go down well about now, after all."
"Here, sit up a little," she instructed, and held the bottle so I could gulp from it. Then I gagged, because it tasted like fish oil mixed with rotten eggs and slimy mushrooms, not like nice normal soothing elfroot, but I got it down, all of it, and kept it down.
"Gah! What was in that?" I asked as she took the empty vial from my lips. Whatever reply she might have made was lost on me, because the potion started to work, and by the Maker, freezing had hurt and so did healing up from it. Itching, burning, flares of pain all through me, my digits, my limbs, my face especially. She had to hold on to me lest I bring the tent down with my thrashing. I nearly vomited, and the only thing that kept me from doing so was the knowledge that I would have to taste that potion all over again. Finally the storm in my body subsided, and all that was left was violent shivering, bone deep, almost convulsions.
"Are you going to be all right?" she asked, her lips so close to my ear I could feel her breath.
"Ye—yes. I'm just so c-cold now." And my teeth were chattering so hard I was afraid they would chip and shatter.
"Think you could manage some warmed spiced wine?" she said, letting me go very carefully.
"Yes. P-p-please. Th-thank you, too, bu-by the way. My name is An-nders."
"I'm Eryka Breton-blood." She replied, turning away to hunt through her pack. I heard the sounds of clinking, a cork coming out of a bottle and the splash of liquid being poured, and a 'foosh' noise that didn't immediately register. I was still shivering as though I would never stop, but now enough of my brain had unfrozen so I could notice a few things as she turned back with a tankard in her hands. Yes, she was youngish, as her voice had promised. She had dark wavy hair drawn back in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and greenish-hazel eyes. Was she beautiful?
Beauty is vastly overrated. The most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life was Queen Anora of Fereldan, and it was common knowledge that she lay in bed until noon every day gathering the strength to challenge the ravages of time before submitting to the ministrations of four maids for three hours being bathed, painted, trussed up, dressed, and otherwise tended to before she set foot outside her bedchamber. I don't like to speak ill of a lady but she…was not a nice person, and I would not have wanted to bed her even between silk sheets after a peck of oysters and a bottle of fizzy Orlesian wine.
By contrast, Elissa Cousland, Hero of Fereldan and the Warden-Commander who had saved me from the Templars, will always rank in my mind as one of the most attractive women I've ever met. She regularly whacked off her hair any which way so her helmet fit better and her beauty routine involved sticking her head in a bucket of cold water every morning and bellowing "Arrgh!" before dragging a comb through her hair and throwing on her armor to go out and fight darkspawn. In addition to which, her nose had once been broken when an ogre hit her in the face. But her smile—if she had wanted me—I had been half in love with her, but that was long ago and far away.
So—no. Eryka Breton-blood was not what most would call beautiful. She had a nose that was a little too long, a mouth that was too wide and eyebrows like thick dashes of ink. Although believe me, anyone who is willing to pour healing potions down the throat of a half-dead, shivering stranger and hang on to them while they shudder and suffer and cry out in agony, is, to my mind at least, very beautiful indeed. Under those circumstances, I'd even call a broodmother beautiful.
I took the tankard from her hand very carefully. "There's more," she told me. "I didn't make it too full so it wouldn't spill."
"I ap-ppreciate it," I said, sipping it and letting the warmth seep through me. "It's a shame h-healing potions don't taste this g-good." And the wine was good. I could taste familiar hints in it, nutmeg and cinnamon and clove, as well as some I didn't know. Whether that was the wine or the spice I couldn't tell.
It was beginning to occur to me that I might not be dreaming at all, and as more bits of my brain defrosted, I realized that this tent had no right to be so nice and warm. There was no fire to warm it, and it was just a short tube of skins, open to the cold and freezing winds at either end, Even though the hides had been tanned with the fur on, surely that wasn't enough—.
"What possessed you to go out into the Pale on a night like this in these flimsy things?" Eryka scolded maternally, plucking at my sleeve. "Or—oh, I'm sorry." She apologized. "For all I know, you didn't have any choice. Did something happen?"
"Something—yes, something happened," I said, wrapping my hands around the tankard, absorbing the warmth. "I was on a ship heading for Kirkwall…" I explained about finding myself alone, about the rocky, icy beach with the blubbery things ("Horkers," she nodded) and the bear, and walking and walking, then sitting down and being found by M'aiq. Looking back, I realize I garbled things so it sounded like I started out on the beach, which made the whole business sound saner than it was.
"I've never heard of Kirkwall," Eryka said, pouring me more wine and splashing some in a tankard for herself. " But whether you fell overboard or were shipwrecked, tomorrow you can go to Dawnstar and talk to one of the captains of the ships there. They go everywhere along the coast."
"Thanks, but if it comes to it, I would as soon be here as in Kirkwall. It wasn't where I was going to so much as what I was leaving behind…where is here, anyhow?" I was not wholly convinced I was not dreaming, not yet.
"The Pale. It's the Hold of Jarl Skald the Elder."
"'Jarl?'" I asked. "Not 'Arl'?"
"Jarl, that's right," she nodded. "We don't have a High King at the moment, which is a longer story than deserves telling right now.
The title was similar enough that we might be somewhere near Fereldan after all. "What about the name of the country, what's that?"
"Skyrim." she replied. "To the east of us is Morrowind, to the south is Cyrodill with Black Marsh in between them, to the west are Hammerfell and High Rock. More or less, anyway. " She smiled. "Mind you, I can only vouch for High Rock, because that's the only one I've actually been to. The rest could be hearsay."
"Fair enough—but I've never heard of any of them." I sipped more wine.
Then the brilliant white light illuminating the tent began to fade. Eryka made a little gesture with her left hand, there was a little sound like 'Paf!', and a bright mote of light burst from her fingers.
For a moment I just gaped. "Are you…are you a mage?"
"Me?" She shook her head. "I just do a little magic, that's all. I only know about a dozen spells. Someday, when things have quieted down and I've made up my mind which school to specialize in, I'll go to Winterhold and study seriously. Right now, life is rather too complicated. I'm quite good at enchanting, however."
My brain seemed to have frozen solid again. "If I understand you aright," I began carefully, "and I am a stranger here, so forgive my ignorance—you can do magic, but you don't call yourself a mage. That's strange to me, because where I am from, just being able to do any magic means you're considered a mage."
"Really? A real mage would sneer at me if I claimed that. I know one that does anyway, Farengar Secret-Fire. But he sneers at everybody so I don't take it personally." She sipped her wine, and I studied the light that shone on us, and the unworried expression on her face.
"What—ah—where do mages and people like you, people who can just do magic, live, here?" I asked, probing.
She didn't call herself a mage because she only knew how to do about a dozen spells. How many spells did they have here? I had never seen a spell that produced anything like that useful little mote of light. It spoke of a casual use of magic I could hardly comprehend. Think of it—a world where you could simply use magic.
"Well, I live in Whiterun when I'm not on the road, I have a house there. Nearly every Jarl has a court wizard. Siddgeir of Falkreath doesn't; I think his last one quit because he kept demanding she do magic to entertain him. If he wants entertainment he ought to hire a Bard… Then most priests are also healers, and very powerful ones, too. Their bond with their god allows them to draw on the Divine. Who else…?" She shifted so she was facing me cross legged. "I don't mind talking, but let's have your boots off while I do." She snapped her fingers, pointing at my feet.
"What? Why?" I asked, startled.
"Because I want to be sure your toes aren't going to fall off or something."
"All right. I'm sure they're fine, though." I tossed the rest of the wine back in one gulp, put the tankard aside, and went to work on my bootlaces. She went back to talking.
"Most alchemists do some magic, to bring out all the virtue of the potions and preserve them. Then there's the College of Winterhold. The Arch-mage and the masters of each school live there, along with the novices and apprentices. Once a student reaches Adept level, they kick them out to get some real-world experience. The Jarl of Winterhold hates mages, by the way. Foot, foot." She gestured at my naked left foot and began probing the toes. "Do you feel that?"
"Yes—ow! I felt that, too." She had jabbed the big toe hard with her thumbnail. "What happens because the Jarl hates mages?"
"Not much. He complains a lot, or so I hear, but Winterhold's an impoverished place and he needs the taxes they pay." She finished inspecting that foot and went on to the right one.
"So—," I tried to put my thoughts in order, but they were eluding me and my heart was racing in my chest. It was as though I were walking while carrying a large spoon brimming with water and trying my best not to spill a drop, only I was also the spoon and the water at the same time. "What would happen if you were to do magic out where everyone could see, on the streets of Whiterun or, or—anywhere else."
She shrugged, and her inky eyebrows quirked. "Provided I wasn't hurting anyone or damaging anything, a guard might say something like, 'Hey there! Watch the magic!'" She tested all the toes on that foot and decided my feet would be all right.
As a healer, I knew Eryka was doing exactly what should be done in a case of frostbite, checking the extremities for lingering damage, and I ought to have been grateful this woman was willing to make sure my toes weren't going to rot and poison me. Instead, I looked at her, and suspicion began to bloom in my heart. I was beginning to hope, and hope is a perilous trap. I was determined not to be caught.
"What if someone were to turn to blood magic or traffic with demons?" I asked. "Or doesn't that happen here?" She had pretty hair. The crisp ripples in it were like the grain of some rare wood polished to a shine, and her mouth, although wide, was generous and sweet-looking. I wanted her to be real; I wanted that very much.
"Oh, it happens," she said, sounding exasperated. "Necromancy is a bigger problem than vampirism. Trafficking with demons—almost any mage can conjure minor Daedra for at least a little while, but the evil Daedric Princes really don't find most mortals that interesting. If their worshippers bore them…well, then worship is its own punishment. If not, then they'd best hope the Vigilants of Stendarr don't find them. It's funny how people who worship the Divine of Mercy and Justice (At his name, Justice flared up in the back of my mind) can be so humorless and cruel. I never yet met a Vigilant I'd want to stand a drink for in a tavern. Perishing grand battlemages, most of them, though."
"So the people who police mages are mages themselves?" I asked, feeling disappointment sluice through me like ice water. "That goes beyond what I can swallow. It's a pity, really. You are the most subtle Desire Demon I ever encountered, you truly are."
Her jaw dropped open. "I'm what?"
I ignored her, because Justice—or Vengeance, rather, was heating up, surging forward. "Even to the point where you made yourself look humanly imperfect… This is just a wish-fulfillment dream you plucked out of my heart, and that is—unforgiveable!"
It was Vengeance who said the last words, and I could not control him as he swept over me. I do not know what he might have done, because Eryka uttered, no, shouted two words which sent me flying like a torn scrap of paper, and I knew no more.