ATTENTION, CITIZENS OF KIRKWALL:
A fraudulent and blasphemous document is known to be circulating around the city touting the advantages of emigrating to a mythical land called 'Skyrim'. This document is deliberately crafted to appeal to the vulnerable, the desperate, and the apostates amongst our midst.
IT IS NOT TRUE! THERE IS NO "SKYRIM"!
The Templar Order has investigated this document on behalf of the Chantry and has determined that is the work of Tevinter Slavers who prey upon those who believe in it and sell the credulous into slavery!
ONE SOVEREIGN OFFERED FOR EACH INTACT COPY OF THE DOCUMENT! FIFTY SOVEREIGNS OFFERED FOR THE LOCATION OF THE PRINTER! ONE HUNDRED SOVEREIGNS OFFERED FOR THE NAME OF THE WRITER AND FIVE HUNDRED FOR HIS WHEREABOUTS!
—Posted by order of Knight-Cmdr. Meredith Stannard.
"Hjaalmarch is the poorest of all the nine Holds," Eryka commented as the carriage journeyed through the deep woods. It had started to snow, and the wind had picked up. There was a stark beauty to the landscape, but it was something better appreciated through a window while sitting in a chair by a warm fireside. "Poorer even than Winterhold, but then Hjaalmarch hasn't got the Mages' College. It's small and it has only the one mine. The soil is sandy, it's mostly marsh and swampland, and the water is brackish everywhere you go, so not much can be grown here. It's great if you're an alchemist, though. Lots of valuable plants like to grow where their feet are wet all the time."
"I'm sorry—did you say 'Hjaalmarch', or 'Hjaalmarsh'?" I quipped. "Where are we in the year, by the way? I would think it was the depths of winter by what I've seen of Skyrim so far, but our driver said that Whiterun wouldn't get the deep snows for another month."
"It's Sun's Dusk."
"I don't know what that means," I shook my head.
"That's the next to last month of the year. It's late autumn. The year starts with Morning Star—." She recited the months for me. There were twelve, just as we had in Thedas. "—and then it ends with Evening Star. You…really don't come from anywhere in Tamriel, do you? "she asked. "Not even from Solstheim. I mean we all use the same names for the months, so since you're not faking it, you can't be from here."
"I don't think I come from anywhere on Nirn," I replied. "I don't know how I got here, but I think Thedas must be a different world entirely. I suppose it's possible it's a continent on the other side of the world, but—no. Skyrim is too much like home, and not enough alike, if that makes sense at all."
Apparently it made some sort of sense to Eryka, although her response made no sense to me. "I wonder if your Maker doesn't like playing conkers."
"Conkers?!" I asked.
"Yes. It's a game you play with dried horse chestnuts. You bore a hole through them and thread them on strings. Then you and somebody play by taking turns smashing them against each other, and the person whose conker doesn't break, wins. Y'see, our world, this world, wasn't the first one and it mightn't be the only one."
"And that has something to do with conkers?" I had to ask.
"It does the way I see it. I'm no priest or scholar, but between the reading I've done these past few months and what they've singled me out for, I've become better acquainted with the gods than most," Eryka said. Not as if she were honored at chosen, or full of herself and her own holiness, but more as if she were speaking of her aunts and uncles—like older family members who insist on hugging you and telling you how much you've grown every time they see you. "Ah, here's the turn-off for Morthal. It's another place that's called a city out of courtesy."
Morthal called for even more courtesy than Dawnstar; unbelievably, it was even smaller. It had this going for it, though. It was set down in a valley, far enough that it was actually warmer. There wasn't much snow on the ground, barely a dusting, and it looked as though it had only just had a severe frost rather than months of cold, harsh weather. Six or seven buildings clustered around the waterside, linked with raised wooden walkways, and like in Dawnstar, they were simple thatched houses, most only one story high. This place wasn't even big enough to boast a blacksmith; the only store I saw was an alchemist's.
"Here ye are. I can wait as long as ye care to have me wait, but every candlemark spent here is a candlemark later that ye'll be getting to Whiterun," our driver informed us.
"Then we'll be here no longer than it takes to use the privy and get a meal to take with us from the inn," Eryka said.
"Then I'll be doing the same," nodded the driver. He stepped down off the box as we slid off the back of the wagon.
"The men's privys will be around the back there," she pointed. "Meet you here?"
I said yes and went off in that direction. Again, I was done first and scuffing snow around a walkway and wondering why my ears were ringing. I was also having a bit of a think.
I did not for a moment believe Eryka truly had a dragon's soul, not literally. She believed it, I could read that on her as easily as I could read a book, but I—didn't know what I believed. Also, I took the bewildering array of gods this world had even less seriously. When it came to not believing in a god, the god I didn't believe in was the Maker, thank you very much.
Yet while I rejected Him, the Chantry and all its teachings, those things had nevertheless left their mark on my mind. I had had it pounded into me that there was only one god and anyone who believed in a pantheon was wrong. Pantheistic religions were no more than collections of nature myths originated by primitive peoples to explain why the sun rose and the seasons changed. Also, their gods tended to behave very badly—all that turning into stallions and eagles and what have you to carry off girls. Although if this religion was sophisticated enough to allow for other worlds... But what about Eryka's soul?
The water glooped at the wooden pilings as I stomped up and down the walkway. No. There was simply no way a human could have a dragon's soul. People did have souls, I was willing to concede that, and I would even go so far as to say that animals had souls. My cat Ser Pounce-a-lot certainly had a soul, I can tell you that. But he had a cat soul because he was a cat, just as I had a human soul because I was human.
If some other sort of soul had been put into a human body, either the soul would change to fit the body, or else the person would turn into an abomination. A human with a dragon's soul would be a monster, not a warm-hearted young woman who would go out of her way to get a present for a friend to give to his pregnant wife. Yes, I was aware of a certain hypocrisy inherent in my thinking, as I was currently hosting an extra spirit myself. Fortunately I was both wise enough and considerate enough not to argue with Eryka about it.
I/we need her, at least for the time being. There was Justice getting his two coppers in...
Was he somehow responsible for the ringing in my ears? I could almost swear as to the direction it was coming from. Sticking the tip of my little finger in my ear, I wriggled it as if I could dislodge the sound that way.
"Something wrong?" Eryka joined me on the walkway.
"My ears are ringing, and it's maddening."
"Wrong. It's maddening, right enough, but it's not your ears," Parting the reeds and grasses at the water's edge, here and there, she gave a little 'Ha!' of satisfaction. "Look at this pretty thing!" she said.
I looked at...a plant with toothy, greenish-white leaves. Sure enough, it was emitting that high-pitched ringing sound. "What is that, and how can a plant be making a noise?"
"It's called nirnroot, and nobody knows how it makes that sound. Look at this, too," She cupped her hands around it, blocking out the light, and I could see the plant itself glowing.
"Amazing." I commented. "I've never known a plant to do that. Fireflies, but not plants."
"It's one of those valuable plants I was telling you about," she said, reaching down to grasp it by the base of its stems and wrenching it from the ground with a practiced twist. "There's a rich girl in Riften who'll pay plenty of coin for this root. Luckily it stops making that sound once it's picked, because otherwise it would be fit to drive a body mad."
Eryka stowed the plant away in a small satchel, then looked to me. "I'm going to go and see about getting us something to eat. Where there's one nirnroot about, there's often more. Would you mind having a look around for them? Ooh, and that blue-violet flower there, that's deathbell. Pick all the flowers of those you can find, and you can have whatever she pays."
"That's a small enough favor to ask," I said, accepting the satchel.
"Oh," she called back as she headed to the inn, "Whatever you do, don't touch your eyes or put your fingers in your mouth after handling those, not until you've had a good wash-up first!"
"When a flower's got a name like deathbell, that doesn't surprise me!" That was another reason I was sure Eryka could not have a dragon's soul. She was sensible. Anyone so afflicted would surely be half off their head. Surely. I picked deathbells. They had a milky, sticky sap which oozed out when I broke the flowerheads off. That stirred a memory…someone once had told me that plants with milky sap were likely to be poisonous to some degree or other. It must have been my mother. The mind scabs over some memories, while others bleach out with time, like a banner faded by the sun.
I picked all the flowers I could conveniently reach, then squatted by the waterside to wash my hands, using a handful of rough grass to scour away any traces of sap. As I did, the hackles of my neck prickled. Someone was watching me…I raised my head to look directly into the eyes of a young boy.
"You're not from anywhere around here, are you?" he asked. By the look of his clothes, he came from a well-to-do family. I could hardly make out his face between the hat on his head and the thick scarf he wore wrapped around his neck.
"Ah—no. I'm from—Solstheim." I said.
"No, you're not. You're just saying that because otherwise you're afraid you'll sound mad," he told me. "It's okay. I know all about that. You got lost just like I get lost sometimes. When I get lost, I don't know where I go, but it's not here."
"That's—very interesting," I said, getting to my feet. "Who are you, exactly?"
"I'm Joric. The Jarl is my mother."
At that moment, a woman called "Joric? Joric, where are you?"
"Is that her?" I asked, not sure what to make of the boy or our encounter.
"No, that's my sister." he said.
She sprinted over to us and swooped down to wrap her arms around him. "How many times have I told you not to bother people like that? Particularly not strangers. I'm sorry. You mustn't mind Joric," she apologized to me. At close quarters, I still would have said she was more likely to be his mother than his sister, for she was about twenty years older than he was. A pretty woman, but brittle-looking.
"Stop smothering me!"Joric complained from the folds of her cloak. "He's here with the girl who's a dragon on the inside…"
"You mustn't say things like that about people!" she chided him. "Now come on in before you catch your death of cold."
She led him off, and I stood there looking after them until Eryka approached from the other direction holding a couple of cones of paper which steamed in the cold air. "Sorry I took so long. The inn is full of miners for whom the night before is just now turning into the morning after. Here you are. Chicken dumplings—did you wash first?"
"Yes, Mother, and cleaned out under my fingernails as well," I teased her, holding my hands up for her inspection.
"Very good. You've nice hands, you know. Most men in Skyrim might as well be wearing a pair of crusty old pair of gloves all the time, their hands are so hard and calloused."
"I wouldn't mind a pair of gloves, actually, crusty and old or not. It's still cold out here." I commented. With another woman, that comment of hers might have been the prelude to, 'Run them all over me right now, you madly sexy apostate, and don't forget that trick you do with electricity', but Eryka just seemed to be making an observation. Besides, she was wearing full armor.
"It's warmer in Whiterun and there are stores there. Oh, here." She passed me a paper cone filled with what we called 'pouchies' at home in Anderfels. In Fereldan they were 'pasties', and I never learned what they would have been called in Kirkwall. "There's a bottle of hard cider for you as well, but you'll have to get it out of the crook of my arm here. I just haven't got enough hands." She turned so I could work the drink out from between her arm and her body, and then we started back for the carriage.
"That boy Joric," I began as the driver clucked the horse into a walk and we headed up to the main road once more, "the Jarl's son…"
"Yes. What about him? He is harmless, if that's what's troubling you." Eryka took a 'dumpling' from her cone and bit into it.
"He saw that I wasn't from here. He even saw through my lie." I followed suit and tried a dumpling myself. Not bad—chopped chicken, onion, carrots, and some gravy in a pastry shell.
"The family has certain gifts," Eryka said. "Visions, visits from spirits. It's just another form of Magicka. There's no necromancy or blood magic involved. The boy—he was a late-life child. You know what that can mean."
I did. Sometimes they were born naturally Tranquil, lacking in wits or with oddly similar, distorted faces. But the boy had looked normal enough, and spoke clearly. He had also said Eryka was a dragon on the inside. I couldn't start quizzing her on the state of her soul, though. That would just be too…too..Templar-like. But I could ask about something else.
"About these gods of yours..."
"Yes?" She broke the seal on her bottle of cider and took a swig.
"How do they work?" I asked, taking a glance around the landscape and sky to make sure I wasn't about to be smited. More snow, more rocks, more trees, no angry gods. Good.
"How do they work?" she snorted. "They can't touch the world directly, not anymore, so they pick somebody and make their life difficult until that somebody gets up and makes everything turn out the way they want. That's how they work."
I took a swig of my own cider. It was just alcoholic enough to keep it from going bad, and slightly tart. Tasty. "I was thinking more about how they put the world together. Where does conkers enter into it?"
TBC…
Thanks to all my reviewers, especially Lisa and Ceg. Ceg, I didn't know all that about the Skaal, and thanks. I think I will chalk it up to my Dragonborn's ignorance. (rather than mine!)