I paused on the doorstep to look around at the city of Whiterun. I suppose I had expected it to be like Dawnstar and Morthal, only larger. It was not like Dawnstar or Morthal, nor was it like Amaranthine or Denerim. Whiterun was…remarkable. It looked strong. It looked old. It looked well-weathered.

"So this is Whiterun by day." Eryka announced, waving around at it. "What do you think?"

"I like it," I said, looking around.

Whiterun had more character than quite a few people I'd met in my life, and that doesn't even include Templars. It had—this may not be the right word, but I'll say it all the same—it had integrity.

There wasn't a section of hovels and another of mansions. Some of the houses were larger, some were quite small, but they were all built equally well from the same materials, with an eye toward making them handsome as well as sturdy. Each house had a plot of land in keeping with its size, and many people had garden patches,(Eryka's Breezehome had one against the south wall to take advantage of the sun.) or a pen for a milk-goat or pig. It was all of a piece, this city. Whoever planned it clearly believed that everyone had the right to live decently. Justice even approved of it, in his way. The only exception to this equality was the stately castle which guarded the city from the hilltop. That was grander, true, but in scale, not in concept.

I looked up, shading my eyes. Skies are never so blue as in the autumn, when they contrast against all the other rich colors the earth assumes for the season—the sere yellow of the grass, the orange-leaved bushes, the scrubby wild flowers. The city itself was part of it, the mellowed pale colors of the buildings set against both. What a wonderful place.

I shook myself mentally, and asked "The marketplace is..to the right?"

"Correct." Eryka led the way. The reason for the hammering was now clear; Breezehome was right next to a blacksmith, who waved a hello from her grindstone. It was not far to the market square, but it was slow going as it seemed as though everyone paused to say hello to my companion. I did not mind, as I was still taking it all in, in several sense of the phrase. She fed me little details about the people we passed. (he and his wife just had their second child and we're all glad it's a boy, she owns a share in the stables, if he'd only sober up there are any number of ways he could make a living, but instead he begs.)

My companion? My employer. Odd notion; I mean, yes, I'd belonged to the Circle and the Grey Wardens, but neither of them paid me anything or gave me any choice. This was the first time I'd had an actual job. (The Pearl didn't count; that was just a quick money-raising venture, and honestly, it couldn't be called work. Most of the time, anyhow.)

"Yoo-Hoo!" someone called. "Eryka, dear!" An elderly woman waved to us from a bench next to her cottage, next to Breezehome but set further back.

"Olava! No, don't try and get up. What do you need?" Eryka hurried over, putting a hand up to forstall the poor old thing from heaving herself up and probably toppling over in the effort.

Olava was as wrinkly as the last ancient apple in the bottom of the barrel, but her raisin-dark eyes twinkled at us. "Need? Why only to bid you a good morning, dear—and perhaps have a look at the young man the whole city is buzzing about. Oh, he is a pretty one!" She peered at me with the boldness of someone who knows her age means she can get away with saying anything. "I'm a bit of a fortune teller, dear boy. May I have a look at your hand?"

I smiled and held it out for her. "I'm Anders, by the way."

"That I know already…Oh, you've quite a life ahead of you and behind you, I can see it clear as day." She squinted at my palm myopically. "My, just look at that heart line—."

"Olava, this is hardly fair," Eryka protested teasingly. "You've been promising me a reading for months, yet you're looking at his as soon as you meet him."

"You don't have to be jealous, dear. I just wanted to hold a handsome lad's hand for a moment. It's been so long I've forgotten what it's like! Ohhh, he even blushes!" She gave my hand a squeeze and let it go. "Enjoy your day, dears."

"Well!" I declared as we left Olava enjoying the sunlight on her bench.

"Olava's old and lonely and has no family," Eryka explained. "She is very kind to the children—tells them stories and such for hours on end. Her hands are still good, so she knits things for sale. Don't ask her to make you socks, though, she's not much good at turning a heel. "

Casting a glance backward, she frowned at Olava's cottage thoughtfully. "That roof could use some help… Well, this is the market, once again. We're a little early, but Belethor should be unlocking his door about now. He runs the city's general goods store. Don't get any enchanted or magical items from him—if you want something with an enchantment, I know the most useful ones and I can do it later, and Farengar will have a better selection of everything else. Speaking of enchantments, here."

She took a pendant out of her belt pouch and handed it to me. "Put this on and tuck it out of sight, and your money will go further."

"What is it?" I asked, scrutinizing it. It was a steel-grey disc with the image of an anvil amid swirls of smoke picked out in silver.

"An amulet of Zenithar. He's the Divine of work, commerce and finance. You don't have to believe in him, don't worry. "

"Will it really work?"

"Did the cold-blocking enchantment on my tent work?" she shrugged. "Anyhow, I'm off to the bathhouse. That's it over there. I'll either still be in it when you're done, or waiting on the bench outside."

"Fair enough." I went into Belethor's and spent a candlemark, not to mention over two hundred septims. It was a illustrative lesson in the relative purchasing power of money, but I came away with clothes including a basic black robe, a pack, and other essential personal items. By playing around with the amulet, taking it off and putting it back on, I learned that it really did work and also that Belethor was a smarmy little git. (That last part had been rather obvious from the start.)

Leaving his shop, I went to the bathhouse, which also housed the town's laundry. That made sense: why waste all that fuel? Eryka was sitting on the bench, as promised, combing out her damp hair. "There you are," she said happily. "It's amazing what a good steam can do for your spirits. I was beginning to wonder. I've already paid for yours; go on in, and I'll make the rounds of the food stalls."

"Thank you," I said, and went in. An attendant showed me where to put my things, gave me a towel, a cloth bag full of soapwort, and a bundle of birch twigs, explaining that I was to scrub up with the soapbag and sluice down before I went into the sauna, which would ensure the room would stay clean. The twigs he did not explain, but I soon learned. Saunas are unknown in either the Anderfels or Fereldan, so I had a lot to learn, and, oh, did I learn. Heat. Steam. Naked people. All ages. Both sexes. More steam. More heat. Mild flagellation with birch twigs. (Nothing smutty or penitential about it; it promotes blood circulation.) Cool water to wet down your head, more cool water to drink so you didn't dry out like a draugr. Still more steam and more heat. Nobody talked much. I didn't mind.

I was saved from any embarrassing reaction to the lovely and naked young lady who I recognized as Olfina, our waitress of the night before, by two truths: the rest of the flesh on display was enough to put me off, and it was just too hot in there. I could see now that Eryka had managed things so we weren't in there at the same time, which was just as well given the arrangement as it stood between us.

I was too new to bathing that way to remain more than a quarter candle mark in the heat, and went into the cooling-room, where icy cold water was pumped over me. I shaved, since there was a polished bronze mirror handy, and dressed in my new clothes from the skin out. The attendant offered to give my robe to the laundry women, that they might clean and mend it, but I told him no, just throw it away. It was part of another life.

I left the bathhouse feeling very good indeed. My one indulgence had been a suit of fine clothes, blue with gold trim and a wide fur collar. Knowing that you are well dressed is always good for morale, but there was more to it than that. I was feeling much more like my old self, before—before I had begun to host Justice. He was being very quiet, but he was still quite present, curled up like a pillbug, in the back of my mind. He had kept me from getting drunk the night before, until the nightshade honey defeated even him. While it was amusing to think he might be suffering a hangover for both of us, the truth was, he was at a loss. He didn't know what to do, how to further our goal, so for the time being he was riding along as an observer. Another factor was that I simply wasn't angry right now.

As a result, my head was clearer than it had been for a long time, my thinking unmuddied. I had to remember that I functioned better this way. With luck, Justice would realize it too.

Eryka was at the greengrocer's stand when I rejoined her, The proprietress— Carla? No, Carlotta. We'd met in passing in the Bannered Mare the night before—was saying, "I'll have Mila leave the basket by your door. Thank you."

"No, thank you," Eryka turned and saw me. Her eyebrows went up and her mouth made a silent 'Oh'.

"Here I am," I said with a smile and shrugged. There I was, reading things into her reactions again.

"And you clean up very nicely," Carlotta said with a smile. "Good day to you both," she said as another customer claimed her attention.

"I shall start to get a swelled head if every woman keeps eyeing me like that," I said, glancing at the stallkeeper. "Present company excepted, of course."

"Some men may, too," Eryka commented with a sudden grin. "We grow tough people here in Skyrim, but most are rather more rough-hewn than you."

"You surely can't count yourself among them," I said. "because…there I go again. I know you did not hire me to flirt with you. I'm sorry."

Her expression was unreadable for a moment. "This is Arcadia's shop," she said. "I hope you brought those potions with you."

"I did."

"Then let's go in."

Inside the shop was a mix of pungent odors, a mother dancing a crying baby on her shoulder, both dark-skinned like Seren, and a very pleasant looking older woman who dabbed a finger in a jar of paste.

"Open your mouth, Baurus, there's a love," the older woman crooned to the little one, darting in to smear the paste on the infant's gums. "This will make that owie go away."

"So it's really just teething and not colic?" the mother asked. "Because when Braith had colic—well, in some ways it never ended." She sounded harassed.

"Just teething," the alchemist confirmed, and indeed, the child was already quieting down. "Now, you don't want to use too much at any one time, because the frost salts will leave blisters if it's laid on too thickly. No more than will fit on the end of your pinky."

"Thank you, Arcadia. Oh, hello, Eryka," the mother noticed us for the first time.

"Saffir," Eryka returned. "How's the most adorable little man in all Skyrim today?" she asked, reaching out to tickle the baby's toes.

"Well, he was fretful until Arcadia worked her magic. Excuse me, I want to go put him down for a nap while he's soothed. Good day to you." Juggling the baby, a satchel, a full market basket, and a jar of paste as only a mother can do, she left the shop.

"Eryka, I'm so glad to see you. I've got something I know you'll be interested in—just a moment." She disappeared into another room and came back with a clay pot. A thorny twig sprouted out of it, fringed with some autumn-yellowed leaves. "It's a rose bush, one that will grow where it's cold, and it's supposed to have white flowers and to be very fragrant."

"Ah, yes! I'll take it. Thank you. I've some more dragon scales, but I've another purpose than just bartering. This is Anders..." Eryka explained that I had some magicka potions that had unexpectedly gone bad and I wanted to know why.

Arcadia nodded, took one of the potions, shook it up, and poured it slowly through a square of white cloth, filtering it so she could examine the residue more easily. "This looks to me to be expended atronach salts."

"Atronach salts? Those Elemental Daedra are made of salt?" I asked. My bafflement baffled Arcadia in return, from the look on her face.

"He's from a place in Solstheim where conjuration is forbidden," Eryka explained. "He doesn't know. When an atronach is summoned and killed before its substance burns out naturally, the substance left is a kind of mineral salt."

"Yes, and they have a lot of alchemical uses," Arcadia agreed, and took a dish of orange powder from a shelf. "These are fire salts. Flame atronachs are the easiest to summon, so fire salts are the most common. After that are frost salts, from frost atronachs, and then there are void salts from storm atronachs. I've heard there are flesh atronachs too, but I've never seen flesh salts. When you use atronach salts, there's always residue left in the retort. I just used frost salts in that salve for Baurus's gums, so I have some here..." She went to an alchemy table in the corner and came back with the retort, which she wiped out with another cloth.

"Here," She held the rag out so I could compare it to the lyrium sludge. The texture and color were identical. I took a tiny bit of each on a fingertip to taste them gingerly. The same taste, the same smell…

"May I?" I gestured to the fire salts. Arcadia passed them to me after a glance at Eryka. "Thank you…" I took a pinch of the powder, rubbed it between my fingers. It could be red lyrium in some form I was not familiar with.

Atronachs were minor Daedra, and only entered this world when summoned from Oblivion, I recalled. When here, they were made up of magicka and a substance that might be lyrium. There was something in that, but all the pieces had yet to be gathered.

TBC, as always.

A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers, but especially Lisa!