A/N: Happy birthday to me. Not much to say here besides that; I'm just glad I finally updated this after such a long time. It feels physically, mentally, and emotionally awesome to have this chapter out of the way.
Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy! – K
VI
The College of Winterhold
22nd of Rain's Hand, 4E 204
Enthir did not immediately hear the noise.
It was near midnight; the elf was sound asleep and snoring loudly. But the sound—a tap-tap-tap on the stone threshold that supported the curtain of his tiny lodgings within the Hall of Attainment—pulled closed in the hopes of preventing anyone from disturbing him—persisted for several minutes until it finally roused him.
As the rapping noise finally registered, Enthir could not resist a prolonged groan. Like clockwork, he thought dourly as he went to pull back the curtain.
Standing behind it was a timid-looking Breton in golden-brown robes. Arniel Gane—bald, unshaven, and as usual looking as though he hadn't been sleeping for the better part of a week—was fidgeting about constantly, as though only half of him wanted to be here. That wasn't far from the truth, Enthir thought; the last time they'd spoken, he'd come close to physically booting him off the tower so as to dissuade his fellow scholar from any more interruptions.
"Err … excuse me, Enthir," Arniel managed to stutter out. "Might I have a moment?"
Enthir was just awake enough to humor him. "What is it?" he grunted, making it plain that he did not appreciate being woken up at this ungodly hour.
Thankfully, Arniel was just familiar enough with the social graces to get the message. "Yes, err, apologies for the intrusion," he swallowed. "I was wondering, err, if you could possibly, ah … procure a few select items for me?"
The elf leveled the flattest stare he could muster at him. "Really, Arniel?" Enthir said testily. "Because I seem to recall doing just that for you recently, at which point you assured me that you'd cover my expenses." Indeed, retrieving the powerful Staff of Tandil—back from the personage he'd just sold it to, no less—had just about exhausted both his pockets and his patience. "And that, my nervous little friend, has not happened. Would you care to comment on that, perhaps?" he added, tapping his foot in a way that demanded an answer.
It did feel good on some level to see the Breton squirm, some dark part of Enthir thought. "Ah … hmm … yes. I, err, I was unaware that I had forgotten that," Arniel stammered. "I will—err, I mean, I'll take care of that as soon as possible."
"See that you do." Arniel seemed to take that as a sign that the encounter was over, and turned away at last, heaving an audible sigh of relief.
But Enthir, though he shut his curtain once more, waited for the Breton's footsteps to reach the stairs before calling out, "By the way—how is that little project of yours coming along? Any progress worth mentioning?"
He'd said it partially out of a desire to keep on needling the dithering conjurer. But beneath the layer of vindictive pleasure, some level of Enthir genuinely was curious as to just what Arniel had been working on for the better part of the past two years—to the point that he'd thrown away his social prospects, business prospects, and just about everything else worth pursuing at a place like this.
Even though he couldn't see Arniel's face, Enthir could still hear the way he was nearly swallowing his tongue to get the words out—at least, the words he felt the elf deserved to hear. "Oh, that. Err, yes. It's … It's quite promising, I believe—definitely on the right track. Results, err, results should be soon."
Which means he's been able to do basically nothing. Enthir couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. " … Right," he eventually decided to say. "And … what did you say the point of this little venture was?"
"Oh, no. Err, wouldn't do to say at all. Not, err, not now—not at all. I have far too many things to do still."
Damn. "If you say so," Enthir shrugged—he'd spent enough time wheedling others for information that he knew he wouldn't be getting any more out of the tight-lipped Breton. So, deciding to change the subject, he decided to turn to another topic—one he found vastly more lucrative than whatever secretive project Arniel might be working on.
"You haven't heard any more about dragon sightings, have you?"
He could almost hear Arniel blanching at the sheer thought of it. "No—which is fine with me," said the Breton.
"A pity. You have any idea how much their fangs would be worth? Or even better—bottling their flame? The right buyer would pay an immense amount." Enthir already knew that the scales and bones of dragons could sell for quite a few septims if you could find the right buyer; lately, he'd even heard that some daring smiths had been figuring out ways to incorporate these scales and bones into armor—and, even more audaciously, into weapons.
Any other time, such trinkets would have been a royal gift—and even then, a very rare one indeed; dragons were so hard to kill that there was no point in scouring the countryside for any of them. But over the past few years, Enthir had been hearing enough of these tales that he could only assume that there was a growing market for the parts and paraphernalia of dragons—nor, he thought slyly, was it hard to guess the source of that growing market.
Arniel, it seemed, possessed neither the imagination nor the acumen of an aspiring entrepreneur. "Bottle … their flame?" he repeated slowly, shaking his head. "I can't … No, I don't think I've any interest in that sort of thing."
Enthir forced a smile. "Too bad," he said, half to himself. "You could stand to know a little about business yourself, Arniel. Imagine what you could do with the right proposal to the right person." Like bothering them instead of me, he thought only a little bit scathingly—the Breton, he conceded, could be surprisingly adequate at conversation when he wasn't talking about his life's work.
It was hard to tell if Arniel was giving the notion half as much thought as it deserved. Eventually, though, he shrugged. "Err, maybe some other time," he finally said. "Yes. Some other time."
Enthir heard his footsteps descend the stone staircase, then—followed by a pair of simultaneous grunts; it sounded like he'd collided with someone halfway down. This only made the elf shake his head—whatever project Arniel was working on had distracted him so thoroughly that it seemed he couldn't even focus on where he was going, and walked into a fellow mage in the process.
That fellow mage, as it happened, turned out to be Faralda—and Enthir knew this only because the Altmer had pulled back his curtain with such force that it was a wonder she didn't rip the whole thing off.
"What's this all abo—?!" Only two things kept Enthir's indignation at being denied his sleep once again in check: first, the knowledge that Faralda was one of the College's senior staff, and therefore superior in rank to him.
The second—and the stranger by far—was the sizable black patch of soot that currently adorned the front of Faralda's robes. It looked almost like they'd been singed with mage-fire.
Faralda, for her part, seemed not to care about the mess beyond brushing it off onto the floor, much to Enthir's annoyance. As she did this, she produced a small roll of parchment, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and extended it to the elf.
"This just came," she said briskly. "It's from Colette—addressed to you by name."
Enthir did a double take. "I thought Colette was in Dawnstar," he said.
"She still is," replied Faralda. "She had to send a messenger hawk—that's why her letter arrived so quickly."
That didn't answer Enthir's other question. "Why would she be writing to me, though?" The elf had heard from some of his sources—types the College might consider more … unsavory than others—of what was happening in Dawnstar before Tolfdir had confirmed it to the rest of the College earlier today. For obvious reasons, any mention of the word "flu" had been deemed verboten outside of College grounds—though there were other ways for private information to leak out to places you didn't want it to. Fortunately, though, it seemed Enthir's sources were also of the opinion this should be kept private—otherwise, all of Skyrim might be in a tizzy.
Faralda, in response to his query, merely shrugged—but it was a shrug Enthir had seen before: the Altmer knew more than she was letting on. Most likely because she'd read this letter already—there was no sign of a wax seal, after all—but it wasn't worth asking about. So the scholar, pushing the thought aside, merely unfolded the parchment to read the minute writing that had been inscribed within:
Enthir,
Our efforts in Dawnstar do not go well. The Arch-Mage was unable to neutralize the Crimson Ship that threatens the town, and so its people have been evacuated to a fortress on the nearby cliffs. To make matters worse, Grimnir and I have determined that this latest strain of Knahaten Flu is not entirely natural. There are traces of magicka that suggest the disease is being manipulated, presumably by someone on board that ship.
I do not know how this is possible, nor do I believe I have the time to find out for myself. Our most important efforts lie in curing these sickened people, but at present there is little we can do besides stopping anyone from becoming infected in the first place, and to halt the disease from further spreading for those who already are. Though it pains me to say it, we cannot stop the Knahaten Flu—for now, we can only hope to contain it.
Enthir sank into his bed, letting the implications of the letter crash around him. Both the Arch-Mage of Winterhold and the College's Master of Restoration had failed to keep the Flu from infecting the entire town? Nor could he believe the other thing Colette had mentioned—that someone or something could be magically controlling it.
While the elf had never claimed to come to Winterhold to unravel the deepest mysteries of Aetherius, that did not stop him from feeling at a loss as to how such a command of magic was possible. He decided to read on, hoping to take his mind off the pressing questions:
However, Madena, the court mage to Jarl Skald, has informed me of several possible answers that may lend some success to our efforts. At last report, one of these solutions, the Draconian Madstone, has been said to reside in a private collection within the Imperial city of Bruma. I need you to check and see if this is still the case; if so, I must ask you to petition for temporary ownership of the Madstone on behalf of the College. You are authorized to tell them that price is no object.
We know better than to say it out loud, Enthir, but the College is well aware that you have just as many eyes and ears elsewhere as the Arch-Mage; therefore, I can think of no better person to investigate this than you. Time is of the essence, and the future of Dawnstar—indeed, of all Skyrim—is resting on you.
Good luck,
– Colette Marence
Below that, Colette had added a postscript:
Burn the bird.
Enthir's gaze flicked to Faralda; what little soot remained on her robes was immediately explained. Evidently Colette—and Faralda by extension—did not want to run the risk of the Flu spreading under any circumstances.
Neither elf said anything for a long time. Both stood there, each sizing up the other, looking for a reaction.
Faralda broke the silence with a single word. "Well?"
Enthir could only swallow. Already he was calculating the time it would take to relay these events to some of his more trustworthy contacts in Riften—maybe Falkreath, too, he mused, since it was closer to Bruma, although farther away from Winterhold. From there, they would have to send more letters to their own contacts in Cyrodiil.
Then there was the expected time it would take to get a reply there and back again. Couriers were more reliable, but far too slow. Hawks, while many times quicker, were not as available in Winterhold as they were elsewhere. The closest rookery was the Palace of the Kings in Windhelm—and even those were for official letters, to be sent with dispatch when ordinary couriers would not suffice.
Something told him that his contacts wouldn't have much access to things like that. Cyrodiil was a different story, and with luck, that could work to their advantage—but Enthir's contacts within the province itself would have to do with couriers on foot.
Cyrodiil to Windhelm and back again would take almost half the week—and even that was if the roads and the sky were clear. Going by horse rather than on foot might shave off a day—he knew Windhelm had its own stable, and one better devoted to horses bred for long distances—but that was still a two-day journey at the very least.
In two days, for all Enthir knew, the letter in his hand might be all that remained of Dawnstar.
Yet he could see no other alternative, and so he nodded at Faralda. "I'll look into it," he replied to the high elf, who left without saying another word.
Now, all further thought of sleep forgotten, Enthir cleared off his desk, fetched some new sheaves of parchment, his best quills and several bottles of ink, and—thinking further of it—a bottle of alto wine.
Then, feeling the warmth of the drink fill his veins, the elf began to write—knowing full well that the fate of an entire province might be resting on his skinny shoulders.
Nightcaller Temple
The situation in Dawnstar had turned into a stalemate.
If an outsider, unfamiliar to the area, were to approach the deserted town at this very moment, they would have discovered the reason for that soon enough: a huge crimson dragon, perched atop a crumbling tower—the highest ground in the area—as dragons often did, so as to lord over its perceived domain. If said outsider was brave enough to linger after seeing this sight, they might also have followed the dragon's unmoving gaze, and beheld a ship as huge and crimson as the dragon that stared it down.
Neither had elected to attack the other—or perhaps neither could attack the other at all. There was no one to be seen aboard the scarlet-tinged vessel—and it was a dragon, after all—but if this was true, why was the dragon refusing to attack the ship? No one seemed to know—and even if the guards that continued to patrol the outskirts of the town had any theories of their own, they were not likely to tell; they were hardly even speaking to each other, let alone any curious outsiders, as they stood their vigilant watch around the curious scene.
Thus had been the state of affairs in Dawnstar for the past three days, ever since its residents—sickly or otherwise—had been herded into Nightcaller Temple like so much cattle by the efforts of Colette and Madena. Of Grimnir there had been no sign—although the two mages had gone to a great deal of effort to make sure his location was not discovered, whether accidentally or deliberately. They still did not wish to reveal that the Arch-Mage of Winterhold had contracted the same disease that was ravaging the townsfolk—though they were not confident the secret would remain as such for long.
To that end, they had moved Grimnir to the lower chambers of the fortress—not the lowest; in scouting out the fortress, both mages had discovered that multiple levels provided a vantage point of the keep's lowest level. Deciding that curious eyes might see him, and thus wonder why Grimnir was down there, they'd instead kept him in an antechamber between the lowest level and the winding corridors that led upwards to the outside world.
Even though both Colette and Madena knew there was nothing down here that had called the place home before them—both scryes and physical searches (mostly at Jarl Skald's request) had seen to that—they still knew most of the town's populace still had superstitions about going too far down into the bowels of Nightcaller Temple. Indeed, it creaked and groaned so loudly in places that several of the oldest citizens swore blind the place was still haunted, and they cared little for the words of mages, choosing to stay at the topmost parts of the keep for their own safety.
Once the townspeople had been assured the place was (relatively) safe, and Grimnir out of sight—Madena and Colette had spread the word that there was a well-stocked alchemist's laboratory and an equally full-to-bursting enchanting chamber, and that they and the Arch-Mage would be spending their time inside to continue working on thwarting the spread of this disease—attention then turned to supplies, and it was here that the mages had stumbled upon what was to be their first good news in the past twenty-four hours—though whether it completely mitigated the events of those past twenty-hour hours would be a matter of debate.
As Madena had described to Colette, the previous inhabitants of Nightcaller Temple had concocted large quantities of a potion of unknown composition, then released its miasmatic vapors throughout the fortress as a method of prolonging their lives. It did so, ostensibly, by sending them into a period of indefinite stasis—slowing their heart and brain functions, thus sending them into a sleep so deep that virtually nothing from the outside world could awaken them, short of the "miasma", as Madena referred to it, being dispersed or otherwise interfered with.
Prior to this, Colette had seen several instances of fresh food and drink—particularly apples, bread, and other perishables—and wondered how such a thing could be possible. If this place hadn't been touched for a month, as Madena had claimed—and then years ago before that—then how in Julianos' name had any of it been spoiled beyond recognition? How did this food still look as though it had just been cooked or plucked off the tree?
The answer, it transpired, turned out to be the miasma itself.
Such was the quantity of the gaseous fumes dispersed throughout the temple that they had managed to permeate every nook and cranny of the fortress. Everything—from the food to the overgrowth to the stones themselves—had been exposed to the miasma. Now even these, it seemed, were all but impervious to the ravages of time; where most food went bad over the course of a week, it would take much longer for any foodstuffs tainted by the gaseous potion.
"But surely that doesn't automatically mean it's safe to eat?" Colette had asked, when Madena had cut open a seemingly fresh apple to demonstrate her hypothesis. "We don't know what side effects this 'miasma' might have if it's ingested. It's not the same as simply breathing the stuff."
Madena had merely shrugged, biting into her half of the apple with a crunch that almost—almost—answered a shocked Colette's question. But the Breton need not have worried, for the court mage had offered the other half to Colette with no apparent ill effects; Colette herself had scryed Madena's body after that, just to be sure.
One minute (and half an apple) later, Colette was forced to agree that the food within Nightcaller Temple was still fresh enough to eat; with nothing to show for it—save for, perhaps, feeling a little more sleepy than usual. "Although I still don't see how this is possible," she'd said, shaking her head as if to ward off the ramifications of what this meant for them.
"If Nurelion writes back, I can always ask him then," Madena had dryly replied. "Until then, I'm sure there's a book in the library that might explain in better detail."
"No, thanks." They'd encountered the library earlier; whether by accident or design, just about every tome within its walls had been burnt beyond recognition. The Bretons had taken one look at the ravaged space and instantly agreed there was nothing worth salvaging inside—whether for answering their question on the unknown miasma, or of helping to combat the Knahaten Flu.
Once it became clear that the miasma-laced food posed no further threat to the townspeople's health, though, both mages had left the matter of rationing it out to Jod, under orders from Skald. Properly divided, Jod had claimed, there was enough food within the temple to last them a fortnight before they would have to rely on foraging or hunting parties.
The implication was clear: Colette and Madena had two weeks to completely cure the townspeople.
Maybe—likely—less.
So they'd immediately set to work. Madena and Frida had assumed command of the laboratory almost straightaway; as they had more knowledge of alchemy than Colette. She, therefore, took it upon herself to use the enchanting apparatus within the fortress as often as possible; Colette had further approached the blacksmith, Rustleif, to assist her in smelting any artifacts that would suit her needs. Grimnir would divide his duties between them when necessary—they couldn't have him staying out of sight for too long, lest the populace get suspicious—but for most of the day, the Arch-Mage was kept under lock, key, and the care of both Bretons, his iron mask of Hevnoraak being the only visible part of him under the blankets he constantly wore.
So began the stalemate.
Karl and Gjak, both formerly of Iron-Breaker Mine, had been the first casualties. Unbeknownst to Colette and Grimnir, Gjak had suffered a fall on the treacherous, snow-covered route to Nightcaller Temple, and broken his leg in the process. Karl, in helping Gjak to his feet, had used some of the strips of clothing covering his face to bind Gjak's injury, for nothing else was to hand. Though he'd replaced his strips soon after, the damage had been done; by the time Gjak learned that Karl had been diseased—and that the strips he'd been administered were thus infected as well—he'd already passed the point of no return.
By sunrise the next day he'd succumbed, despite Colette's and Madena's best efforts to heal him, and his body was swiftly cremated with little fanfare. Karl, blaming his negligence for what had been done, had been overcome with grief. Whether it was this or the Flu—or the prodigious amount of mead he'd ingested over the next three hours—that contributed to his death that afternoon, no one could be certain. Nor did anyone want to take chances; Karl's body was immolated before the ashes of Gjak were even cool enough to gather. The smell of mead about him had persisted long after his remains had also been reduced to ash.
These two deaths had underscored for everyone the magnitude of what they were dealing with; Jarl Skald wasted no time in appointing Jod and Bulfrek to make sure that everyone inside Nightcaller Temple followed a strict regimen of order and cleanliness in hopes of deterring the Flu's spread further still. Mead, and all manner of drink save for water, was rationed to one bottle a day except where needed as medicine. Jod soon found himself personally inspecting the food (mostly Skald's own) so as to make sure it was properly cooked or prepared, and thus impossible to harbor any more disease. Latrines were erected in several of the more isolated chambers, and were expected to be kept regularly clean as well. Bulfrek was heard to despise the chore on more than one occasion; evidently the servant had taken too much to his newfound authority that Skald had delegated the implementation of this inglorious task to him so as to bring his head back down to Nirn.
But even these new edicts did not fully halt their misfortunes: one day later, Fruki and Lond, who'd worked in the Quicksilver Mine, had ventured to the shoreline north of Dawnstar; they'd been overheard wanting to search for oysters and clams for additional food. That was the last time anyone saw them alive; rumors circulated that in their foraging, they'd trekked too close to the area where the Dark Brotherhood was said to have made their new stronghold. No one could say for sure if the disease had claimed them before the Brotherhood had—or if they'd claimed them at all—but again, as with Karl, it didn't matter: Jarl Skald, his face riven between anger and grief, had forbidden anyone to leave the temple's shadow without adequate means of defense—and by dawn the next day he'd posted two of his remaining guards at the entrance to the fortress to ensure that this particular decree was enforced.
Rustleif in particular had taken the loss of Fruki and Lond as a great blow indeed; they were regarded throughout the town as two of the finest smelters in either of the town's two mines. Indeed, they had been assisting him in his work to that end, smelting gold and silver into ingots that he would then melt in his forge, thereby allowing him to fashion the jewelry and trinkets Colette would later enchant. With them gone, however, Rustleif had little choice but to assume their duties on top of his own. This meant that his time with wife and child was greatly reduced, which caused him no less distress than before; his face was constantly drenched with sweat now, no matter how close or far he was to the forge in the fortress that he'd claimed for himself.
Yet even as the townsfolk continued to fall ill, or fall to illness, Colette and Madena could sense a feeling of resolve beginning to surface within the survivors of Dawnstar. They'd expected some rumblings of dissent upon hearing Skald's rules—which in any other time might have been decried as draconian—but instead, everyone took each decree in stride, and began adjusting to their new lives with gritted teeth and determined hearts. It was almost a wonder to watch, Colette thought; the spectacle of witnessing a town shattered by disease would make for a good read on stormy days—though she grudgingly conceded Skald, whose duties as Jarl often required confidence and public speaking, had a more emotional command of his words than she, a glorified doctor.
Nevertheless, as time went on, and hardships were endured one after the next, Colette continued to labor away at her duties. She and Rustleif together were producing roughly two enchanted amulets per day, and twice as many rings as well. Charms to resist the spread of disease were commonplace—but every so often, Colette would draw upon her knowledge of this particular strain of Flu, and its magickal properties, to create trinkets that could also resist magic in general. She was thankful that she and Madena, being Bretons, possessed an innate resistance to magic in their blood—perhaps this on its own might be enough for them to survive the Flu, if indeed the magic imbued within it was what made it so deadly. But she was less thankful for her substandard enchanting skills, which might otherwise have allowed her to imbue a single artifact with resistance to both disease and magic; Colette doubted that even Sergius Turrianus, the College's unofficial master of enchanting services, had the level of artistry required to fashion such powerful trinkets.
She was still less thankful for the quality of soul gems she'd found after scouring Nightcaller Temple of the pinkish- and bluish-colored crystals. These were of distinctly lower quality than she would have preferred, but in combining a lesser-enchanted ring with a lesser-enchanted amulet, the level of protection both offered was akin to a single commonly-enchanted artifact. This knowledge allowed her to use up the more numerous "inferior" soul gems so as to conserve the few greater and grand gems for when they were needed most—though it did mean a larger amount of work on Rustleif's part, so both he and Colette had had to manage their resources more carefully than usual, lest one of them cause more unnecessary labor for the other than they could handle.
Laboring, too, were Madena and Frida; they'd been hard at work making more cure-disease potions than Colette had ever seen in one place. Though she knew they wouldn't stop the Flu outright, Frida had shared her belief with Madena that simple curatives of charred skeever hide and mudcrab chitin might be enough to further slow the effects in tandem with the chicken broth Seren was continuing to mix. Hawk feathers, abundant by the dozen in the belfry where Skald was keeping his messenger birds—their only means of communication in and out of the temple—were also known to possess some measure of curative effect in a pinch. It became an unspoken fashion among the townspeople to carry a few feathers on their person for this reason—although Skald had had to curb this trend as well, citing his worry that the hawks themselves might be afflicted, or otherwise come into contact with the Flu. That did not stop everyone from boiling the feathers along with their water; however, as this was already a commonly practiced and historically reliable method of cleaning, the Jarl did not protest.
It was, Colette later thought, perhaps one of the most defining examples of Nordic kinship and solidarity she'd seen with her own eyes. The town of Dawnstar—faced with the loss of their own men and women by death, disease, and Divines only knew what else—had risen to the occasion magnificently. No one demanded more than what their fellow man received—not even Skald, who Colette had wondered might get the lion's share of preferential treatment, however justified the reasons might be—and neither did anyone take more than what they deserved.
In some ways, the Knahaten Flu had proven to be the greatest of equalizers—no one, however their status, could escape the clutches of Death for long. Seeing the townsfolk band together the way they had to combat what was, by all accounts, a sentence of death—more powerful than even the plague of a thousand years past—made Colette think that the College's intervention, along with the townsfolk's aid, might actually help Dawnstar survive this plague.
Then, shortly before dawn on the twenty-fifth of Rain's Hand—the third day of their self-imposed exile—Madena let Colette in on some disheartening news.
"Seren's condition is getting worse," the court mage had told her without preamble. The restoration master had been laying out the soul gems she would be using for enchanting today's batch of jewelry. Frida had busied herself with melting snow she'd gathered for more water to boil, and Madena's latest batch of curatives was stewing in the meantime—which had provided the two Bretons with a moment to talk in private.
Colette had blanched at this. "How bad is it?"
"Bad enough," replied Madena. "Rustleif's tried to shake her awake about ten times already—but she's not left her bedroll." Her tone was grave. "I think we have to assume she's too ill to fulfill her duties any longer."
Colette didn't need to see Madena's face under her wrappings to know what she was thinking: this was a serious blow. Without Seren to cook the broth that was to slow the symptoms of the Flu, the town would swiftly find themselves fighting a losing battle. And there was also Rustleif to be concerned about as well: with the knowledge that his wife's life was hanging in the balance—and his young daughter with it—it was going to throw him off his work for sure, which would quickly leave Colette in the lurch as well.
It was a classic chain reaction—before long, the remnants of the town as a whole would no longer be able to fight off the Flu.
She stopped to think. "Is there anyone else who could brew the broth in Seren's place?"
Madena considered this. "Only two people that I know of—and even then, I'm not optimistic; Seren wasn't especially close to either of them."
At Colette's invitation to continue, she explained: "Thoring's the owner of the Windpeak Inn in town. He took over from his late wife about five years ago—cooks, cleans, tends bar. Some of us had been worried he was working himself hard, that it took two people to do what he himself had chosen to take over."
She didn't sound too confident—and Colette felt much the same way: while this Thoring's work ethic was to be admired, working too hard could be a hazard to your health if you weren't careful.
"How bad is his condition?" asked the mage.
"Better than Seren's." Madena punctured her words with a sad sigh and a shrug. "But it's still bad enough that our only other option is his daughter, Karita. She's the town bard—sings about as well as Thoring can cook. But I've seen her worry about her father's health before—and I've also seen her sneaking looks at the inn's cooking pot every so often when she wasn't putting on a show for what little clientele our tiny little town used to get. It's not hard to guess that she's training herself to take over the inn—on the off chance that Thoring does end up working himself into an early grave."
"If the Flu doesn't beat him to it."
The mage could practically hear Madena biting her tongue. "I don't think we have much of a choice," sighed the court wizard in exasperation. "Everyone else in this town that can pull their own weight around here is pulling nearly double that as it is. We've already lost four people in three days, Colette—and while I'd like to say things could be much worse than that, Dawnstar's a small town. There aren't four more people to spare."
Colette, being part of a town that had one foot in the grave itself, knew she was right. "I'll talk to her," she assured her fellow mage. "After that, I can work on getting Seren healthy again—or barring that, cogent enough for her to pass on everything she knows to Karita. Although," she added, "like you said, Dawnstar is a small town. Everyone seems to know everyone in places like this—so it could be that Karita's heard all about Seren by now."
Madena shrugged again.
"What about Rustleif?" Colette pressed on. "He's got more of a stake in this than anyone else. I can't say I envy him right now—no father should have to have this happen to his wife and daughter."
"I can talk to him after Karita," said Madena. "I've known the man better than you, and for longer. That's not to say it won't be easy," she admitted with a sigh, "but Dawnstar's fate is in his hands now. I hope he comes to realize that soon enough."
On that ominous note, neither of the mages spoke beyond that. Madena excused herself a few minutes later; Frida was bound to be back by now, and wondering where she was. Colette didn't look back at her; her attention was focused solely on the soul gems and meager jewelry in front of her.
She now laid one of each onto the five-sided table to her right, placing her hands carefully on the faintly glowing runes imbued into the ancient wood. As she concentrated on her enchanting, Colette had time enough to send a quick prayer to the Divines, hoping against hope that this newest setback to the hopes of Dawnstar's people would be dealt with.
Though it pained her to even think of it, they needed a miracle now.
Nowhere had the stalemate that currently gripped Dawnstar become more manifest than inside Grimnir's own body.
Madena's footsteps had long since echoed into silence by the time Grimnir Torn-Skull snapped his single eye open. The simple action was hard work: a combination of Hevnoraak's heavy iron mask, the injuries he'd suffered the previous year—and the Flu that his body's defenses, both biological and magickal (along with Hevnoraak's own), were currently battling to a deadlock—had sapped him almost completely of his strength. It was all the Arch-Mage could do to merely roll over on the floor where he'd been sleeping so as to make himself more comfortable.
He had moved very little since Colette and Madena had—for want of a better term—incarcerated him inside what was little more than a disused cellar, bare but for the scant piles of hay and skins that he'd cobbled together to use as a bedroll. Everything that had occupied this space before had been taken out, partially to give Grimnir more space with which to live in, but mostly as a precaution. No one knew just how contained the Flu inside him really was—and none less than Grimnir himself.
He could not moan or even cough in his discomfort, for he had soon learned how the rock-hewn walls around him echoed with the slightest of rustles from his robes, and the last thing he wanted the people of Dawnstar to hear was the notion that he, too, was sick with the same Flu that had forced them to flee to this place. The straw and animal skins had helped to deaden some of this sound, but Grimnir was still weak in body—he could not betray this weakness to the townsfolk.
Weakness in the body, however, is far from the weakness of the spirit—and all the while he'd lain in this cellar, enfeebled to near-insensibility, Grimnir's spirit was still burning with an unquenchable flame. He'd had no choice, at first; Colette and Madena had put out the story that he was not to be disturbed—and who in their right mind, the people had thought, would disturb a dragon? The lie had burned his insides like acid—and the Arch-Mage had no doubt that both Bretons felt the same way—yet what choice did he have in the matter?
But as he'd lain there, drained of his body's strength, Grimnir's one remaining ear, scarred as it was, still managed to pick up the many noises the abandoned fortress made—all the groaning of the timber that supported the stone walls, and the moaning of the winds that came in from the north, thrashing at the walls and letting in drafts where the mortar that bound those stones together had crumbled from sea spray, ice, and time.
He'd listened to all these, and over time, as the people of Dawnstar had settled in to their progressively more permanent home-away-from-home, Grimnir's ear had started to discern more and more noises. Sometimes, when the winds were quiet, he could hear the voices of different people. That was mostly how he got his news, even before Colette and Madena spared a few moments of their time to keep him informed. He'd never yet told them how he managed to catch wind of the four that had died to the Flu ever since the town had been abandoned. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, they thought it was just the Dragonborn being the Dragonborn.
He'd listened to them, aye; Grimnir had listened to an entire town acclimating to the same situation he was in. This fortress had become a prison for the entirety of Dawnstar—and he wondered if he was the only person that knew it.
Now, as he continued to lay prone on the flattened pile of straw, Grimnir was still digesting the news he'd listened to just now—of Seren, the main force behind Dawnstar's resolve to fight the Knahaten Flu and win, becoming too sick with it herself to keep on fighting that fight. The constant trickle of news over the past few days had stoked his spirit and kept it burning—like a few puffs to bolster a fresh flame on kindling—but it now seemed as if that flame of hope was about to be snuffed out.
Could he stop this?
Could he save them?
Grimnir had been thinking on this—and thinking. He'd thought about it until he could no longer muster the energy to think. Because he'd been listening even before this, too; he'd listened to Colette and Madena talking about their plan to evacuate the town before it had even come into fruition. And he'd listened to the stories of the artifacts they'd swapped—the Draconian Madstone from the days of the Akavir, and the supposedly bottomless White Phial of Curalmil. Grimnir had read of those artifacts, too—how could he, the Arch-Mage, neglect to do so?—and also knew of the implications their abilities had for the people of Dawnstar … for him.
Yet one small problem still presented itself: the location of these artifacts. Grimnir knew where the Madstone was, and wasn't happy about it; Cyrodiil was too far away for him to leave without being noticed. And the White Phial's location was lost as well; it seemed the only person who might know was this Nurelion he'd overheard them talking about, who apparently had an obsession with the Phial.
But was it worth the effort to wheedle that out of him, too? Windhelm was much closer than Cyrodiil, to be sure, but even this option left him with only two choices—both of them bad. If Grimnir stole away, he'd run the risk of his absence being noticed. Odahviing could fly him there, aye, and shorten his trip considerably—but that would rob Nightcaller Temple, and all inside, of the sole defense it possessed against the Crimson Ship that held them hostage. Even if he was lucky enough to just walk in and be handed that amulet—the odds of which previous experience told Grimnir were hovering somewhere around zero—the risk of leaving a sick village undefended for even a few hours, against a foe that even he didn't understand, was not worth taking.
Yet the Arch-Mage knew that if he stayed in this room and did nothing but waste away in this cellar, while waiting—hoping, praying—for the stalemate inside him to resolve on its own, the stalemate outside this temple would continue—and Dawnstar would be doomed to die a slow death, no matter the result of that.
Which meant that they needed a fourth option, and they needed it fast.
So Grimnir Torn-Skull, sapped and stumped though he was, continued to think of one.
"Let me see if I've got this straight."
Karita's voice, muffled with cloth, still radiated skepticism five minutes after Madena had pulled her aside and told her everything—everything the court mage had decided she deserved to know, anyway. "Seren's sick with the Flu. That much I understand. But you want me to take her place?"
"You're the only one of us who's healthy enough to whip up something worth eating," Madena said, with a slightly apologetic look at Colette. "I know what you're going to say—that Thoring's the cook in the family. But he's been starting to show the first signs of infection himself, Karita. We can't trust him to work over a pot, either."
Karita took several deep breaths—in, then out. "Even so—what makes you think you can trust me over him?"
"And you're his daughter," Madena pressed on. "I can only imagine how much it meant to him, to teach you what your mother couldn't. I think, deep down, he thinks you can be more than just a bard—a glorified serving girl."
Karita drew back, and for a moment Madena wondered if she'd overstepped; it had been more than five years, after all, since the winter that had claimed her mother's life. Some hurts just never went away—and it had been Katria's mother, after all, who'd used the knowledge she'd gained in her time at the Bard's College of Solitude to teach her daughter to carry a tune and an instrument, just as she had in those happier times.
"I don't know if he's ever noticed," she finally said, her usually melodic voice now suddenly melancholic. "Sometimes he has to tend to business in the middle of cooking more food. He has me watch the pot, aye, if he needs to be at the counter. Maybe I stir it every few minutes or so. But I never let him catch me doing anything more than that."
"'Let him'?"
"When you work long enough at an inn, you start to notice things. A pinch of salt here, a dash of herbs there. The right amount of vegetables needed for a garnish, the right time to leave a side of meat over the fire. He never knew then that I was watching him when he worked. Maybe he knows now—there were enough mess-ups that he had to have figured something was off. But my father taught me more about running an inn than he realized."
Karita straightened up. "So about this broth. That's all Seren's been making, right—just regular chicken broth?"
Inwardly, Madena smiled—not that it would have mattered; her face was just as covered as Katria's own.
"It's a Redguard recipe," she explained, leading her out of the hallway they'd been conversing in. "I'll see if I can wake Seren up long enough to help you write it down … "
"There's no need to ask me how I'm feeling, Madena."
Rustleif's voice, bitter was it was, seemed to teeter on the brink of collapse. At least one of his eyes had been trained on Seren at all times ever since he'd learned the news of his wife's deteriorating condition. Even now, as he shoveled in fresh fuel for his smelter, he was watching the prone form of his wife, still clutching Makela as if the toddler was her only lifeline. Karita crouched beside her, listening to everything the Redguard was telling her—occasionally nodding, or asking a question that was unfortunately drowned out by the noise of Rustleif's forge.
"I'm sick," he sighed heavily, leaning on his shovel. "I'm tired. I haven't felt like this ever since we had those nightmares." He did not elaborate, but the anguish was visible even through his facial wrappings—dingy with soot and smoke, and half-soggy with his own sweat. The visceral image told the Breton what Rustleif could not: what he was going through right now felt worse than any nightmare—because it was more real than any nightmare, supernatural or otherwise, could ever hope to be.
"But I know that if I stop now, things will only get worse," he went on, wheeling over a cart half full with rocks that shimmered in the firelight with the telltale sign of silver ore. "If I lose Seren, who will take care of Makela? I can't be both her mother and her father, yet still have to provide for everyone in this Nine-forsaken fortress. But if Makela succumbs to this damnable Flu before she does … " He swallowed. "That little girl means more to Seren than all of Nirn. I lose my daughter … she loses her whole world."
"You can't let them consume your thoughts like this, Rustleif," Madena tried to soothe him. "You're a wonderful husband, and a wonderful father. But you're providing for more than just your family right now—"
"Damn it all, you think I don't know that?!" Rustleif nearly slammed the shovel to the floor in his anguish—but just as quickly, he'd doubled over, clutching his stomach, breathing heavily. Madena, alarmed, rushed to his side, fearing the worst—but the blacksmith immediately threw up an arm, halting the court mage in her tracks.
"I'm okay! … I'm okay," he managed to gasp out. "Just can't strain myself too much. Got enough to do around here as it is."
Madena bit her lip. "Do you need help?"
"Who's left to help me?" Rustleif shrugged helplessly. "Miners know their ore, and know how to get that ore—but that's all they know how to do. Borgny and Bodil—Talos bless them, they live and breathe in mines, but they can't smelt a pebble of iron worth a damn. And don't even get me started on Edith. Give her a pickaxe and any good-size vein, and she's practically a dwarf in hacking it out. But there's no vein of ore for her to mine in here, is there?"
He shook his head. "It's about all I can do to take them on as runners, Madena," he groused. "Can't risk leaving my forge long enough to bring your friend Colette what she needs to do her work. And I don't know what I'll do if we lose any more miners to this Flu, either. Only Seren knew enough about actually working ore and shaping metal to help me out at the forge. With her the way she is now … "
Madena understood—and decided to voice her next question then. "Could you train any of them?"
Rustleif drew back. "Train them?"
"Rustleif, this is no time to be humble." Madena crossed her arms. "Every blacksmith has their own trick of the trade to stay in business."
"Yeah, well, I never got a lot of business back in town," said the Nord. "Jarl Skald didn't just come to me for his sword because he trusts me to do a good job. He came to me because I'm the only one who can do the job. The only one he can bother to visit, anyway—man his age doesn't like to go far beyond his own doorstep."
He began to inspect some of the silver ore on the cart, tossing the shinier pieces onto a pile that Madena presumed would be melted down later on. It was evident he was doing this to give himself time to think.
Finally, five or six pieces later, he sighed. "Aye, I know a trick or three," he admitted. "But that's about all I know to set myself apart from anyone else. They're supposed to be family secrets—don't usually teach them to outsiders unless they've done enough right by me."
He hefted a piece of ore in each cloth-wrapped hand. "Only I won't have much of a family left if I don't pass this on, will I? Is that what you're going to tell me?"
Madena said nothing.
That seemed enough of an answer for Rustleif. "Find Borgny for me," he told her. "I don't want any old iron miner for what you're asking me to do, and Edith's better suited for a pick than a shovel anyway."
The court mage nodded. "Thank you."
Rustleif shook his head. "Don't thank me yet," he said shortly. "Thank me when we're all cured."
Madena noted the use of the word "when"—not "if"—and it was because of this, perhaps, that she left Rustleif's forge in higher spirits than before. She stole one last look at Karita as Seren continued to instruct her, and made for the main hall to find Colette and tell her the promising news.
But barely a minute later, Colette had found her instead; she was making her way towards the court mage at a half-run, half-walk. Madena didn't need to see her face to know that she was in a hurry—and even if she could, she was more interested in the curved slip of paper Colette was holding in her hand—a freshly opened scroll.
"A hawk just flew in from Winterhold," the restoration master muttered in an undertone. "There have been some recent developments in our little side project."
She paused only to hand Madena the scroll. "And I'm afraid the news isn't good."
Madena unrolled the parchment, inspecting the tiny writing within. She only needed to read the first few lines to know that Colette was right. The news in this letter was anything but good.
Instantly, her good mood had evaporated. "What do we do?"
Colette looked equally worried. "I don't know."
That night
Nightcaller Temple was much quieter after dark.
Sniffles and coughs punctuated the silence every now and again, and the stone halls still creaked in the incessant winds that buffeted the fortress from the north. But without the usual clinks and clangs and cacophonous clamor created by a community that seemed determined, at the very least, to cling to survival no matter what, the lack of noise seemed far more deafening in comparison.
Yet this silence was a welcome reprieve for all of Dawnstar's people, buoyed enough by the recent trend of good fortune that, for the first time in what felt like a long while, people were sleeping in their bedrolls without fear of succumbing to the sickness that seemed to lurk in the air like the shadow of Death. Inside this fortress—once a haven for the nightmares, and the Daedra that made them manifest—dreams of a far more benign nature flitted through the minds of all who slept within.
Save for one.
Grimnir Torn-Skull was, at this moment, nearly the exact opposite of everyone that slept on around him. He had spent the entire day all but immobile in the cellar where he stayed, while the others had busied and bustled on around him, doing their part to ensure their survival. Yet his mind had remained deep in thought, even as he lay in his hay pile, refusing to be extinguished by the onset of fatigue and the sweet embrace of dreamless sleep.
Sleep evaded him, even now—such was the intensity at which the Arch-Mage's brain continued to labor, in hopes of finding a quick fix to the conundrum that plagued the town. He had pored over all the knowledge he had perused in his time at the College—every tome he'd sampled in Urag's Arcanaeum, up to and including the restricted section, and all the tomes beyond that, locked away in his personal chambers. From that knowledge, a hundred possible solutions had been examined inside the mind within that rusting iron mask—and a hundred solutions had all been cast aside for, ultimately, the same reason: he could not leave the fortress, or he would be missed. People would fear the worst, causing morale to plummet, and running the risk of the Flu ensnaring them for good.
The prospect of that was enough to make any man lose sleep—and for a man many in Skyrim saw as a hero, if not a god, it was magnified a hundredfold, and a hundredfold again. Never had the weight of an entire city felt more crushing than it was right now.
And so Grimnir, unable to sleep, had roused himself with a grunt, leaving the cellar he'd come to call merely his cell, and set off into the creaking corridors of Nightcaller Temple.
That had been half an hour ago. In that time, Grimnir had slowly ambled through the hallways, without any set destination in mind. Nor did he have any sort of route; all he felt like doing was standing up and walking wherever his legs decided to take him.
He listened to the shuffling noise of his shoes against the stone, trying to focus his mind on something—anything—else besides his own helplessness. Occasionally, the sleeping figures of the townsfolk would catch his attention, if only for a few moments; he'd already walked past Colette and Madena, both of whom had looked and sounded thoroughly exhausted—neither of them had bothered to check up on his health before turning in for the night.
"Hail, Dragonborn."
Had the Arch-Mage been in better health and spirits, he might have jumped at the greeting. But surprised as he was, he was too deep in his thoughts to do more than turn in the direction of the voice.
The watch was sparser than usual tonight—Grimnir had only encountered half a dozen guards on his meandering walk through Nightcaller Temple. This was not simply because the Flu had decimated Dawnstar's guard so thoroughly, but also because the townsfolk were beginning to adapt to life inside the fortress, to the point that less and less guards were needed to restore order in the event of any unpleasant circumstances.
As of now, the only other guards on patrol tonight, besides the six Grimnir had already encountered, were the other six that guarded Nightcaller Temple from the outside: the two posted by the door at all times, and another four to keep vigil over the fortress grounds in case of an attack, or an animal wandering too close for comfort. Odahviing was there, too, but his attention was focused solely on the vessel anchored offshore, waiting for the ghostly presence commanding it to make its move.
"Hail," he eventually nodded back to the guard. "Sorry … trouble sleeping. Needed to clear my head."
"I know the feeling, aye." The Nord shook his helmed head. "Don't know how all these people can sleep at night, knowing they could die if one thing goes wrong."
"From what I hear, it's been going better over the past day." That wasn't entirely true; Grimnir knew full well of Seren's condition—but he'd also heard Colette speaking with Madena before they'd turned in about their plans to bring more people in to supplement her and Rustleif's efforts.
"It'll take more good news than that before I can sleep soundly again," the guard huffed. "They can make this place a paradise for all I care. Good fresh Skyrim air is what every Nord needs. You won't find that in here."
"Hear, hear," Grimnir muttered halfheartedly. "Anyhow … don't let me keep you from doing your rounds. I'm heading back down. Maybe I've walked enough that I'll be able to nod off for a time tonight."
"Best of luck." The guard nodded once at him, before turning back to resume his patrol. Feeling far from rested, Grimnir nonetheless began to proceed back the way he'd arrived, where his hay pile sat waiting for him.
Along the way, he passed the room where Colette and Madena had laid out their bedrolls. The door was ajar, and both women were snoring uproariously—yet another testament to how hard they'd been working over the past few days, Grimnir thought. He didn't think that someone as small as a Breton woman, let alone two, was capable of making such noise.
He turned away, making as if to shut the door, and by chance his single eye alighted upon the dresser that stood near the door. It was bare but for some writing implements, a handful of candles that were little more than melted stubs, and a single sheet of parchment that lay among them, face-down, exposing the wax that had bound it into a scroll.
Wax that Grimnir couldn't help but notice bore the seal of the College of Winterhold.
Frowning, he slowly reached for the letter—then, just as suddenly, lowered his hand. Colette—and possibly Madena—knew what was in this letter, yet they hadn't bothered to tell him one had arrived today. Perhaps it was meant to be a private matter, but Grimnir couldn't fathom what Colette would want to keep from him that he didn't already know. He'd heard their conversation a few nights back, right before the evacuation had taken place—he'd heard their talk of Curalmil and this "White Phial".
He felt his hand reaching out again. If they were searching for artifacts to help in their efforts to cure Dawnstar, then this letter might mean they'd brought the College into their search, and that they were using their own resources to confirm her suspicions. And that might mean—
The parchment was in his fingers almost before Grimnir knew what happened. He took in the writing, reading it line by line, letter by letter.
And all at once, any thought of sleep had deserted him once more.
Could it be?
The thought that had just entered his mind was one of many he'd entertained today—only to be discarded as too time-consuming. But all of those thoughts and plans had one thing in common … or to put it more accurately, lacked something in common.
The letter nestled in Grimnir's hand had just given him that something.
The question was … what to do with it?
The answer to that, he knew, was obvious—but was it the right thing to do?
Grimnir thought of everything that had happened since Dawnstar had been herded into this desolate fortress, forced into a home-away-from-home that no one was really sure would stay that way or not. He thought of Karl and Gjak, their bodies naught but ashes now because of a simple mistake on the part of one, and the grief of the other that had proved too much to bear. He thought of Fruki and Lond, whose fates would likely never be left resolved, and who had very likely died knowing they would never be rescued. He thought of Colette and Madena, who on top of working almost non-stop to save this city, had agreed to bear a dangerous lie on their shoulders. He thought of Rustleif and Seren, of the town blacksmith whose will must surely be made of the same steel he must shape every day, to keep soldiering on even as his wife and child laid on death's door.
And he thought of himself, shut away from the whole world out of fear—out of a risk that all would be lost if the secret he carried in his body was discovered.
It was a thought that sickened him more than the Knahaten Flu ever could.
The hell with this, he thought—and he grabbed a quill and ink from the dresser. He only needed to write a few short words, and then he was on his way. He was careful to leave the letter exactly as he'd found it before setting off.
Grimnir Torn-Skull had made his decision: he would be kept in this prison no longer.
Ten minutes later—five of which had been spent keeping out of sight of the night watch—the Arch-Mage found himself mere feet away from the single door that separated Dawnstar from the outside world.
This was the hard part of his plan—he knew two people were supposed to be either side of this door at all times, and he did not trust the night watch to stay away from this section for very long. Yet Grimnir felt strangely light-headed, despite the heavy mask he wore—feeling so close to freedom seemed to energize him.
He flexed his fingers, felt his robes flutter in the draft that slipped through the door. He carried nothing with him—neither in his hands nor his robes; he would worry about supplies later. All he needed were two things—and as he took a deep breath, he felt them rise up inside him.
In each hand, dark red energy swirled at his fingertips. He would apply this last, but the magic he was building up was not of a spell he was accustomed to using. In fact, of the five branches of magic at his disposal, this was very likely the one he excelled in the least. No—first, he would apply a different sort of magic … one that as a Nord, he had vastly more skill with using.
But he would only get one shot to use them both—and he would have to act quickly after that.
He could hear footsteps coming from behind him—the guard was on its way past here. The time was now.
His mind thus set, Grimnir took a deep breath …
"Zul … "
and exhaled.
" … mey gut."
The effect of the Shout was immediate. A small burst of blue wind expelled itself from Hevnoraak's iron lips, flaring into nothingness bare feet from where Grimnir stood.
Then, at the opposite end of the room he was in—directly across from the door he'd turned away from in order to Shout—there came a voice.
"Over here!"
It was not Grimnir's—in fact, it didn't belong to anyone. It wasn't supposed to, and that was the entire point of the Shout he'd just used; it was just loud enough, and plain enough, to make anyone who heard it think it could have come from anyone, anywhere.
Sure enough, Grimnir heard a commotion on the other side of the door—the guards outside had heard. But there was no time to celebrate; the magic he'd concentrated in his hands had been building up for long enough.
He released it—and instantly felt a sensation like warm egg yolks spreading across his body—starting at his hands, then enveloping his arms, his shoulders, and finally his entire body, clothes and all—he looked at his gloved hands, his ornate blue robes, for one last glimpse of his form—
The invisibility spell had barely settled over him when the door to the outside burst open. Two guards rushed in, joining the two who'd appeared at the other end of the hall.
"What is it?"
"What was what?"
"I thought I heard one of you just now!"
"We thought that was you! One of you said 'Over here', and—"
None of the four guards noticed a faint haze slip out into the night—and ten minutes later, none of them would think any further of the matter.
Scarcely had he taken his first step outside when Grimnir had instantly become grateful for three things. The first was the less-than-stellar weather he'd stepped into. The snow would have revealed his footprints to the guards once they'd returned to their posts—but so fierce was the wind, this close to the sea, that any trace of him had been obliterated in a matter of seconds.
So it was that—barely a minute after he'd stepped out of Nightcaller Temple—the invisibility spell had lifted, and Grimnir had popped out of thin air right next to the bowed, ice-encrusted neck of Odahviing.
The Dragonborn's loyal steed he might have been—but none of the guards had nearly enough courage to have their patrol paths cross with a red dragon, on the off chance he might be feeling hungry enough for a snack. They'd left him largely to himself, therefore—and it was this that gave the Arch-Mage his second stroke of good luck.
His third reason occurred to him the moment Odahviing opened his mouth. "Drem yol lok, thuri. Your Thu'um cannot deceive my ears."
So low was his muttered voice that the wind made it nearly impossible for Grimnir to hear him—and, he realized belatedly, even more so for the guards to hear anything, either.
"First time for everything, Odahviing." And in truth, he'd never seen a reason to employ the Shout the Greybeards had—somewhat unimaginatively—referred to as Throw Voice. "But it wasn't your ears I was looking to deceive."
The red dragon hummed pensively. "You would not come all this way for tinvaak with me. Not when you have gone to so much trouble to leave this hofkahsejun without being seen."
"You're right. There's no time for debate," Grimnir said. "I need you to listen carefully, Odahviing. There's work to be done, and little time to get it done. Here's what you need to do … "
The next morning
"Get up! Get—up!"
Madena was roused from her sleep with considerably more force—and noise—than she'd expected. Tiny hands that could only have belonged to Colette were shaking her so violently that her head slipped and bumped against the stone floor with a solid thunk.
The Breton swore floridly as she flailed in her bedroll—but Colette still continued to badger her. "Get up—we've got trouble!"
"Whuzzamadder?" she mumbled, cracking open an eye.
She saw the blurry form of Colette brandishing something bare inches from her face—a small sheaf of parchment that looked vaguely familiar to her.
Willing her eyes to open up to their fullest, Madena took the scroll, and began to read:
Colette,
I will not waste time in replying. My contacts have assured me the Draconian Madstone is no longer being kept in Bruma; less than a month ago, the private collection it was a part of was burglarized, and the Madstone was stolen. Nothing else appears to have been taken, but Narina Carvain, Countess of Bruma and the owner of the collection, was found dead—along with the men that guarded it.
The Imperial government is trying to downplay it as a bandit attack, but I've also been told that the guard patrols at Skyrim's southern border have been monitoring a group of spellswords, holed up in a nearby cave known locally as Southfringe Sanctum. It seems these spellswords were responsible for the burglary, for reasons my sources have not yet been able to determine. They were discovered by the countess, who they then murdered, and fled to Skyrim soon after to escape Imperial justice.
Colette, I don't know why simple spellswords would do this—nor do I know why the Empire, such as it is, would wish to deliberately mischaracterize the death of one of their own nobility. Perhaps, like us, it may be a simple matter of trying to avoid a panic. As for this Madstone, I wish it were a simple matter of retrieving it, but given the distance between you and this Sanctum, and the severity of the disease you are helping to contain, I strongly advise you to pursue other, quicker avenues of assisting the people of Dawnstar.
Send the Arch-Mage my best wishes. Phynaster be with you all.
Enthir
Madena looked up from the letter, frowning. "What about it? This is the same letter you showed me yesterday." Although, now she had a good look at her, Colette seemed in a right temper about something.
The mage of Winterhold did not blink. "Turn it over," she said flatly through clenched teeth.
Madena did—and swore under her breath when she saw it. It was only three words—but each of those three words might as well have been a kick in the gut for all they implied:
I'll come back.
There was no signature, but Madena was quite sure who'd written those words—and she wasn't happy about it at all. "Don't tell me he's—"
"Gone." Colette's face was blotchy with simultaneous fury and fear, making it look like an ill-fated, undercooked attempt at a snowberry crostata. "And so is Odahviing."
Madena felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. This was the worst possible news they could have received. "How many people know?"
"Right now it's just the two of us. But it won't stay that way for long," Colette said darkly. "People tend to notice when a red dragon isn't hanging around. I wouldn't be surprised if Skald's coming over to chew us out right now."
The court mage was utterly lost. "What on earth do we do now?"
Colette's face was stony. "The same thing we've been doing ever since we arrived at this temple. We help … we heal … we hope."
"Hope for what?" The very word seemed alien to Madena now.
"It's not hard to guess where Grimnir's gone," said Colette. "We can only hope that we're still alive by the time he gets back. Because if we're not," she growled, "I'm going to haunt that bastard until the day he dies."
She held out a hand. Her voice was resolute. "Let's go. We've got work to do."
The court mage allowed herself to be led away—but she could no longer see any point in doing anything anymore. Grimnir escaping the fortress was bad enough—but Odahviing, their chief defense against the Crimson Ship, gone with him?! Suddenly, there was nothing to defend the town against the unseen threat that ship possessed—and the town's chief source of morale had vanished, for all intents and purposes, into thin air!
The stalemate in Dawnstar had been broken, a terrified Madena now realized—and Dawnstar itself is next in line.
Next chapter: An unlikely foe—and a more unlikely friend—awaits Grimnir on the other side of Skyrim.
